Tulpa
Tulpa is a concept originally from
Origins
The concept of tulpas has origins in the Buddhist nirmāṇakāya, translated in Tibetan as sprul-pa (སྤྲུལ་པ་): the earthly bodies that a buddha manifests in order to teach those who have not attained nirvana. The western understanding of tulpas was developed by twentieth-century European mystical explorers, who interpreted the idea independently of buddhahood.[8]
Theosophy and thought-forms
20th-century
Occultist William Walker Atkinson in his book The Human Aura described thoughtforms as simple ethereal objects emanating from the auras surrounding people, generating from their thoughts and feelings.[14] He further elaborated in Clairvoyance and Occult Powers how experienced practitioners of the occult can produce thoughtforms from their auras that serve as astral projections which may or may not look like the person who is projecting them, or as illusions that can only be seen by those with "awakened astral senses".[15]
Alexandra David-Néel
Spiritualist Alexandra David-Néel stated that she had observed Buddhist tulpa creation practices in 20th-century Tibet.[8][1] She described tulpas as "magic formations generated by a powerful concentration of thought."[16]: 331 David-Néel believed that a tulpa could develop a mind of its own: "Once the tulpa is endowed with enough vitality to be capable of playing the part of a real being, it tends to free itself from its maker's control. According to David-Néel, this happens nearly mechanically, just as the child, when her body is completed and able to live apart, leaves its mother's womb."[16]: 283 She said she had created such a tulpa in the image of a jolly Friar Tuck-like monk, which she claimed had later developed independent thought and had to be destroyed.[17][3] David-Néel raised the possibility that her experience was illusory: "I may have created my own hallucination", though she said others could see the thoughtforms that she created.[16]: 176
Tulpamancers
Influenced by depictions in television and cinema from the 1990s and 2000s, the term tulpa started to be used to refer to a type of willed
Practitioners believe tulpas are able to communicate with their host in ways they sense do not originate from their own thoughts. Some practitioners report experiencing hallucinations of their tulpas. Practitioners that have hallucinations report being able to see, hear and touch their tulpas.[5]
Veissière's survey of 141 respondents found that the rates of
Somer et al. (2021) described the Internet tulpamancer subculture as being used to "overcome loneliness and mental suffering", and noted the close association with reality shifting (RS), a way of deliberately inducing a form of self-hypnosis in order to escape from current reality into a pre-planned desired reality or "wonderland" of chosen fantasy characters.[19]
See also
References
- ^ ISBN 080483010X.
- ^ Rojcewicz, P.M., 1987. The "men in black" experience and tradition: analogues with the traditional devil hypothesis. Journal of American Folklore, pp.148-160
- ^ a b Westerhoff, J. (2010). Twelve Examples of Illusion. Oxford University Press.
- ^ a b c Thompson, Nathan (2014-09-03). "The Internet's Newest Subculture Is All About Creating Imaginary Friends". Vice. Retrieved 2020-01-25.
- ^ a b c d e f g h Veissière, Samuel (2016), Amir Raz; Michael Lifshitz (eds.), "Varieties of Tulpa Experiences: The Hypnotic Nature of Human Sociality, Personhood, and Interphenomenality", Hypnosis and meditation: Toward an integrative science of conscious planes, Oxford University Press
- ^ "Personality Characteristics of Tulpamancers and Their Tulpas". Bethel University.
- PMID 31417448.
- ^ .
- ^ .
- ^ Besant, Annie; Leadbeater, C. W. (1901). "Three classes of thought-forms". Thought-Forms. The Theosophical Publishing House. Archived from the original on 10 December 2016. Retrieved 26 April 2017.
- ISBN 0198030517.
- ISBN 9781932517446.
- ^ Chess, S., & Newsom, E. (2014). Folklore, Horror Stories, and the Slender Man: The Development of an Internet Mythology. Springer. pp. 132
- ^ Panchadsi, Swami (1912). "Thought Form". The Human Aura: Astral Colors and Thought Forms. Yoga Publication Society. pp. 47–54. Archived from the original on 3 October 2016. Retrieved 26 April 2017.
- ^ Panchadsi, Swami (1916). "Strange astral phenomena". Clairvoyance and Occult Powers. Archived from the original on 26 June 2009. Retrieved 26 April 2017.
- ^ ISBN 1585090972.
- ISBN 0895771462.
- ^ T. M. Luhrmann (2013-10-14). "Conjuring Up Our Own Gods". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 2017-08-12. Retrieved 2017-04-22.
- ^ a b Somer, E., Cardeña, E., Catelan, R.F. et al. Reality shifting: psychological features of an emergent online daydreaming culture. Curr Psychol (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-021-02439-3
- S2CID 240130491.
External links
- The dictionary definition of tulpa at Wiktionary
- The dictionary definition of thoughtform at Wiktionary