Tulpa

This article is about the Theosophical term. For the Tibetan term Sprul pa (སྤྲུལ་པ་), see Nirmāṇakāya. For the film, see Tulpa (film).

In Tibetan Buddhism and later traditions of mysticism and the paranormal, a tulpa is a materialized being or thought-form, typically in human form, that is created through spiritual practice and intense concentration.[1][2][3] Modern practitioners, who call themselves "tulpamancers", use the term to refer to a type of willed imaginary friend which practitioners consider to be sentient and relatively independent. Modern practitioners predominantly consider tulpas to be a psychological rather than a paranormal concept.[4][5][6][7] The idea became an important belief in Theosophy.

  1. ^ Campbell, Eileen; Brennan, J. H.; Holt-Underwood, Fran (1994). "Thoughtform". Body, Mind & Spirit: A Dictionary of New Age Ideas, People, Places, and Terms (Revised ed.). Boston: C. E. Tuttle Company. ISBN 080483010X.
  2. ^ Rojcewicz, P.M., 1987. The "men in black" experience and tradition: analogues with the traditional devil hypothesis. Journal of American Folklore, pp.148-160
  3. ^ Westerhoff, J. (2010). Twelve Examples of Illusion. Oxford University Press.
  4. ^ Thompson, Nathan (2014-09-03). "The Internet's Newest Subculture Is All About Creating Imaginary Friends". Vice. Retrieved 2020-01-25.
  5. ^ 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
  6. ^ "Personality Characteristics of Tulpamancers and Their Tulpas". Bethel University.
  7. ^ Fernyhough, C.; Watson, A.; Bernini, M.; Moseley, P.; Alderson-Day, B. (2019). "Imaginary Companions, Inner Speech, and Auditory Verbal Hallucinations: What Are the Relations?". Front Psychol. 10: 1665. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2019.01665. PMC 6682647. PMID 31417448.