Thoughts About Thoughtforms

Some of you might know or have heard about tulpas/tulpae. I have some thoughts I'd really like to get down, and I hope my perspective might be of some use or interest to folks regarding the use of thoughtforms, including tulpas, as well as mysticism and magic in general.

First, read this, so I don't have to explain as much.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulpa

The Wikipedia article mentions a book called Magical Use of Thoughtforms, which I own and from which I've drawn a more full understanding of thoughtforms (along with a bit of online research) than what the Wikipedia article describes, so let me correct something. A thoughtform is not a tulpa, but a tulpa is a thoughtform. Thoughtforms, as I understand them at least, may exist in a much wider variety than tulpas which, unless I'm mistaken, are meant to take a physical form superimposed over the reality of the "tulpamancer" (a non-traditional term, btw), the person creating the tulpa. While tulpa may exist in many stages, the term excludes casual imaginary friends, cultural contrived entities, the vast majority of "waifus," and (though modern use of the term may sometimes contradict me here) any non-deliberate, unintentional hallucination (even if it's wanted). A thoughtform, whether or not its creator recognizes it as such, may include any of these things and more--a vivid daydream, a vision of something an artist wishes to make a reality, a fictional entity, object, or universe of any kind, or the psychological/magical part of a homunculus (as defined in the book I mentioned above). With any amount of sustained focus, a thoughtform may be defined into existence. It's as the term implies: a thought has been formed, or, more specifically, a form has been thought of, along with almost any set of properties it may possess that you could possibly imagine, even sapience (if you devote a part of your mind to gift it that).

I make the distinction about hallucinations because I've known and read about people (including a friend) suddenly finding themselves accompanied by an entity invisible and unable to interact with others, but very real to all their bodily senses. I'd call that a very advanced thoughtform, but not a tulpa, since only mastery over certain parts of one's mind and emotions can properly form a tulpa. People in situations such as these, where their entity appears (and sometimes disappears) without their understanding of how, cannot claim to have that mastery, at least not regarding the entity that appeared without their understanding. I imagine such entities might become tulpas in some cases, however, if the owner diligently hones their self-awareness and discoveres exactly how said hallucinations work and how to control them. You may find examples of this type of thing and of fully fledged tulpas and other thoughtforms at the MLW forums. (Note that thoughtform is a word that's less used, so people in communities like that one may not understand what you mean if you use it. Ignorance about thoughtforms, I believe, is what has led to the misuse of the word tulpa.)

As for my perspective, I find thoughtforms are extremely useful and, with the right training and direction, extremely powerful. Naturally, they draw on the power of the human mind (possibly even the collective human consciousness, though I haven't explored that much yet). Psychology's grasp of the human mind is practical, but, compared to magic and mysticism, it's more the armchair scholar compared to the field scholar. Of course psychology does have many field applications and mysticism often (not always) lacks scholarly objectivity, but magic and mysticism have potentially more applications, especially in light of their spiritual practicality, whereas psychology makes itself generally more reliable and far more limited by favoring the empirical side of things.

As a convinced Christian, I know red flags go up among brothers and sisters in the faith when words like magic are spoken. I'm far from being an expert on the topic, mind you, but, if what I've gleaned is correct, magic and mysticism are the use of the mind and senses, often in combination with spiritual beliefs, to alter one's perception of reality for various purposes. Some practitioners of magic believe that it goes beyond perception into actual conjuring and augmenting of the world around us. I believe, for my part, that magic, just like Christian faith, has exactly that power thanks to unseen powers, autonomous etherial beings, and our own unknown mental and spiritual capacity. I believe that magic and Christianity are unfairly pitted against each other in many cases. The primary safety hazard I see in any set of beliefs--Paganism, Hinduism, the Abrahamic faiths, even magic or devout empiricism--is pride, that we think we have enough understanding and truth and that we cannot gain from an understanding of others' beliefs. Some of our beliefs may collide. Not all of them can be objectively true, even if your concept of reality is extremely flexible, but I feel there's certainly always something still to be learned if we're open to learning. From mysticism, for example, I've learned somewhat about the border between the power of suggestion, the effect of fiction on our minds and surroundings, and the power of non-fictitious, unseen influences on the same. I now better understand the prevalence of both within Christian culture (not two words I like to use together, but there you go).

In the end, I suppose the the basic rules of spirituality never change. If you want to be happy, live selflessly. If you want to be powerful, live wisely, and so forth.

Have a magical pony.

Comments

[dekutree64]

Interesting stuff Reminds me of this autobiography of the inventor Nikola Tesla, where he describes a strange ability of his brain, first getting images "stuck" over his vision, and then gradually refining it to where he can visualize anything he wants, and uses it to mentally prototype his inventions. Skip to about half way down if you want to get right to it http://www.teslauniverse.com/nikola-tesla-article-my-inventions-i-my-early-life
... or if you want to read the whole thing, here are the other two parts:
http://www.teslauniverse.com/nikola-tesla-article-my-inventions-2-my-first-efforts-in-invention
http://www.teslauniverse.com/nikola-tesla-article-my-inventions-iii-my-later-endeavors

[Flutterpony]

I'm honestly not surprised a genius like Tesla would have this kind of gift. That's really fantastic to read about. Thanks a lot for the links.