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Tulpas

A

Anonymous

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being created from imagination

I remember reading that eastern holy men, either yogis or fakhirs, are supposedly able to create beings from their imagination, eg. you imagine a man wearing a blue suit, and after concentrating and meditating, he will bexcome real and solid, blue suit included.

Does anyone know the term for this power and/or the name for these type of beings?

[Emp edit: I've re-titled this to make this a general tulpa thread. See also:

MIBs/Bogus Social Workers = tulpa folk devils?
www.forteantimes.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4567

Seeing Santa For Real
www.forteantimes.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=12100

Alvin Schwartz: Superheroes, tulpas and beyond
www.forteantimes.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=25123 ]
 
The term for such a thought-form is 'Tulpa'.
 
Indeed.
And it certainly sounds like fun when you're young and full of hormones ;)
 
I read a book about a Western woman travelling round the Himalayas and studying with lamas.

She created a tulpa of benign fat little monk

Unfortunately he turned nasty and started hanging around too much so she had to unimagine him!

I could tell you the name of the woman and book but someone at university borrowed it and never returned it

Incidentally it was a travelogue and not a fortean type book
 
Yupyup, they tend to get out of hand very quickly. Kind of like in the Sorceror's Apprentice, only much more malevolent.
 
The Tulpa Lady was Alexandra David-Neel, who had been an opera-
singer. The book would have been Magic & Mystery in Tibet or Initiations
and Initiates in Tibet, commonly quoted in articles on this kind of
phenomenon. :eek:
 
I remember Keel talking about this in the Mothman Prophecies (book, not movie). He told the story of a man named Walter Gibson who created a super hero-type character called "The Shadow" in the 1930's (I think I remember there being a Shadow movie as well). Apparently, after Gibson's death the house in which he wrote was haunted by a ghost whose description matched the Shadow... Weird, eh?
 
Sertile said:
He told the story of a man named Walter Gibson who created a super hero-type character called "The Shadow" in the 1930's (I think I remember there being a Shadow movie as well).

Yeah; now The Shadow is my kind of superhero.
 
I've often wonderd...

OK I don't meen to ofend anyone by this post but...

As tulpas are created by forms of meditation ect. then could it be posible that if God didn't exist they may have been brought into existance as a tulpa? Think of all the meditation directed at the god head and pause for thought.

May we have, as Hegel claimed, made God?
 
Hello there TVQ, a very well made point.

Do gods exist if no-one believes in them? How can we be sure? If everyone follows their own "flavour" of religeon and there is more and more cross-fertilisation of belief then will the god not then become more representative of those who created it.

Did god create mankind in his own image? It may well be the other way around which would explain the way so many different cultures percieve deities differently.

Here opens a can of worms...

thanks

Uncle Bulgaria
 
UncleBulgaria said:
Here opens a can of worms...

cans of worms are fun.

God/ Gods as tulpas. It's an interesting idea and if anyone wants to elaborate on it i'll start a thread in the Religion section.

;)
 
chanubi said:
Indeed.
And it certainly sounds like fun when you're young and full of hormones ;)
Speaking as someone who is young and full of hormones, I never thought of that. You dirty b-.
 
God the tulpa

As I recently posted on anohter thread it may be posible that God, if they did not exist, has been brought into existance as a tulpa.

Tulpas are created through a form of meditation and given the amount of thought given over to God (or gods for that matter) then may they exist as a result of our own belief?
 
In Terry Prachett's 'Small Gods' the gods come into existence through belief and also dwindle away when people stop believing in them.

Seems reasonable.
 
Timble said:
In Terry Prachett's 'Small Gods' the gods come into existence through belief and also dwindle away when people stop believing in them.

Seems reasonable.

so man has made God?

We then have the answer to the old chicken and egg questions.

Man came first then came God.

Would any belevers like to coment?
 
It reminds me of an encounter I read of of someone meeting pan (as in the god) who said that people don't often see him anymore because no one believes in him. :) which was sweet.

Every time a little child says "I don't believe in fairies", a fairy falls down dead, you know.

:eek: save teh fairies.
 
Faggus said:
It reminds me of an encounter I read of of someone meeting pan (as in the god) who said that people don't often see him anymore because no one believes in him. :) which was sweet.

Every time a little child says "I don't believe in fairies", a fairy falls down dead, you know.

:eek: save teh fairies.

And give an angel their wings...ring a bell.
 
Tulpas are all very well but if I remember correctly, the benign fat monk
soon became an evil presence which needed to be exorcised! :eek:
 
James Whitehead said:
Tulpas are all very well but if I remember correctly, the benign fat monk
soon became an evil presence which needed to be exorcised! :eek:

Well God has become problamatic for meny believers.
 
I'm intregued by the possibilities if many people believe in variations of the same deity. Some may believe God ( for arguements sake ) to be a harsh but loving master while others may believe God to be a bit of a chilled out, loving and forgiving kind of being.

What happens with the resulting tulpa? Does it become schitsophrenic (sp?)? Do we create a multitude of deities or does the resulting dety become an amalgam of all the concepts to become a real committee decision of a God.

This could also lead to problems if people belive in the bogeyman or the monster under the bed - if they are given substance by belief then given the nature of people in general, we are on a one way trip to a hell of a world ( in the brimstone and fire sense ).

I'm all for believing in an afterlife like those Arabs - paradise with thousands of virgins to entertain them. :)

Concentrate..... concentrate...

thanks

Uncle Bulgaria
 
Perhaps the tulpa would be all things and rather than be schotzophrenic (actualy saying schotzophrenic in this way is incorect as...well that's the subject of another thread) well anyway rather than being schitzophrenic it would be multiangled?

I mean difrent depending on who experenced it.

Intresting thoughts Unkle. By the way your making good use of the things other folk leave behind :D
 
The Virgin Queen said:
By the way your making good use of the things other folk leave behind :D

I certainly am. It is amazing the stuff people leave behind on Wimbledon Common these days - assorted garments, 486 laptops, reels of film from alien autopsies, sacrificial goats, dreamcatchers and even the odd murder victim.

All is put to good use in the burrow. ;)

You see, if it was not for children in believing in us, we wouldn't even exist.

You think, therefore I am - sort of thing.

thanks

Uncle Bulgaria
 
How exactly do you clean out a dreamcatcher? ;)

And why do they look like flycatchers? (Spider webs.)
 
Philo T said:
How exactly do you clean out a dreamcatcher? ;)

With a vacuum cleaner. The contents are then taken to the air conditioning units in the Houses of Parliment and emptied to make sure the politicians never have a peaceful nights sleep.

That will make up for all the snuffling and grunting that they get up to at night on the common. Bloody animals ;)

thanks

Uncle Bulgaria
 
Pah, it doen't work. I've been working on a green eyed oriental tupla-ess for years, with little success.

Maybe I should get out more :blush:
 
Just as a note of balance - the Western Magical Tradition has similar beings born of thought called servitors and egregors.
 
Her maj' has asked for further elucidation so I respectfully direct enquiring mids to the following; a very lllllooooonnnnnggggg article on servitors, egregors and gods here and two shorter pieces from Phil Hine's site here and here.
 
Do the beings created, while exhibiting some degree of intelligence and sentience, have souls? If this is the case then it could be that we are the Tulpas of some older being which escaped their control and grew in number.

Should this indeed be possible then what is to stop the Tulpas having their own Tulpas? You could end up with an army of them before long.

I think I will stop thinking about this now before it hurts my head.

thanks

Uncle Bulgaria
 
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