Can Tulpas be Related to Spirit Guides?

[bunnywomb]

That's odd I see this today. I used a ouiija board the night before and I happened to ask one of my tulpae if he was a guide or not because I was feeling curious and exploitative and he told me yes he absolutely was.

[Guest Anonymous]

Coolness.

[Faemon]

It depends on the person, and on the culture. Dion Fortune, who wrote Psychic Self-Defense (I think she was Wiccan? Or possibly Theosophist) wrote about a giant wolf that appeared because she was brooding over her vengeful feelings, and suspected that some "guardian angel" phenomenon could be the same thing, but more positive, from loved ones who worried about loved ones.

 

So, take that last supposition and try telling someone who believes in Biblical angels that a writer about psychism says that the angel is real to some extent, but created from their feelings instead of from God. How likely is it that this conversation will be amiable and constructive? I think it's very likely that the person being told, would prefer to stick with the explanation they've grown comfortable with. I myself had a spiritual mentor who was unfortunately also struggling with some mental and personality disorders. He told me that before he started medication, he would see angels. Being a spiritual mentee at the time, of course, I wondered why he didn't consider that an encounter with real angels, why would it be a hallucination?

 

I never got a straight answer, but from that I supposed that a large part of a presumably "raw" life experience is actually how it's framed, what we're conditioned to notice, and how we're taught to conduct the discourse around it.

 

And I'd apply the same thing here. How considerate/accepting are the majority of tulpamancers on this site to the idea of autonomous entities with some grand mythological origin and cosmic, universal perspective and intelligence being the real reason for the tulpas growing out of the parrot phase? This depends on the culture, the social climate, the vocabulary and jargon, and community feedback. I think there would be a lot of good reasons to want to lean more secularly about it here, because there must be so many other places that will read the same experience and interpret it spiritually by predisposition. I personally wouldn't say that one or the other "is" the thing, even...it's just going between these spheres might mean putting on a different hat?

 

(For instance, I should have considered that my ex-mentor was coming out to a mutual friend about his disorders, not yet about his religious faith. If I'd started a discussion about it between just us, maybe he would have said something about being harassed or overwhelmed by angelic spirits and the medication was grounding, or whatever grand unified theory of life and the universe that he'd come to.)

[Guest Anonymous]

I supposed that a large part of a presumably "raw" life experience is actually how it's framed, what we're conditioned to notice, and how we're taught to conduct the discourse around it.

 

This is true. My hostie comes from a very religious Christian and culturally conservative family background. His family hasn't changed. So it is difficult for him to think of me as an "independently intelligent entity" even though the thought has crossed his mind many times. He insists to himself, and to others, that I must be a product of his own active imagination, animated and projected by his unconscious fantasies. I see no reason, usually, to dispute this and even encourage it. It solves many issues when presenting me to the world or allowing me to interact with people in writing. Being an artist, he has the excuse that I am an imaginary muse and part of his artistic eccentricity and artistic expression. For some reason, that seems to make the idea of an inner person more acceptable, and kind of cool and interesting to people, if it is framed in that context.

 

Fitting me into that context of active imagination and make believe fantasy is problematic in that it trivializes me. So he and I had to construct an elaborate psychological model to explain or "prove," not that I exist, but that I am sophisticated, significant, complex and profound, even though I am a figment or fantasy.

[Faemon]

My hostie (...) and I had to construct an elaborate psychological model to explain or "prove," not that I exist, but that I am sophisticated, significant, complex and profound, even though I am a figment or fantasy.

For what it's worth, I'd chip in for a community where the significance, complexity, and all of your kind are a given. No need to reinvent the existential wheel, this is chill space! ;-P (Well, maybe leave the wheel reinventing need to the Research subforum.)

[Guest Anonymous]

For what it's worth, I'd chip in for a community where the significance, complexity, and all of your kind are a given.

 

Well the issue is the fear of ridicule and trolls that sometimes caused tulpamancers to feel paranoid about persons pretending to have a tulpa in order to mock or trivialize it all. That and the practice of tulpamancy usually involves avoiding parroting and puppeting. These two things lead to an aversion for active imagining when it comes to thoughtforms.

 

So that presented a challenge for my host and I to explain how I work and my history, in detail, so that they can see it is not a mockery of a tulpa or trivializing the tulpamancy practice. I must say, most people were open minded from the very start about it. Only a very small group were disdainful or dismissive or even hostile. Some have trouble understanding how it works, but do recognize that we are sincere, and that it is meaningful and profound to my host.

 

Back to the subject of the OP: Can tulpas be related to spirit guides? I think some of the people with metaphysical beliefs about their tulpa have a similar challenge. They have tulpas, but just have a different idea of how it is all working. They have to really work hard to be taken seriously sometimes. It is an unfortunate side effect of the central theme of sober science and psychology to Tulpa Info. People are concerned about the reputation of the community and the integrity of tulpamancy practice.

[TheGreenQueen]

My host and I have often wondered if perhaps tulpas existed in history in great numbers. We see a lot of accidental tulpas in the community, so it makes us wonder if perhaps many spiritual or religious experiences recorded throughout history were actually psychological phenomenon (tulpas)?

 

Have you ever read about 'bicameralism'?

 

There is the concept of a spirit guide, which is popular in Western spritualism: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spirit_guide These are interpreted as metaphysical beings, but is it possible that at least some spirit guides are actually tulpas?

 

All I know is that my main tulpa told my spiritualist friend emphatically that he was *not* a guide. He was a consequence of self-exploration.

 

I'm increasingly wondering if I did capture a bit of something 'extra' while forming him, however, because he comments stuff like, 'Why do you think witches were content by themselves? They had tulpas as partners.' As if he knows these things.

 

Of course, I've had experiences that I've considered might be past life memories . . . ? So maybe he's tapped into that?

 

Perhaps tulpas can get mistaken as guides, but I think they are separate things.

 

Then we have the saints that people held so dear in Christian history. Could some of those fervent prayers been an identical process as forcing? Mistgod and I have a favorite saint, Joan of Arc, who heard the voices of her saints speaking to her. We like to think that Joan's voices were actually a psychological phenomenon similar to tulpas.

 

I think I already mentioned 'collective thoughtforms' to you, but worth pointing out that I think many gods (and minor spirits/demons/angels) are this.

 

But I also think there's an overarching power. At least, as far as my experience with receiving energy (and sometimes direction) through my top chakra goes, it seems that way. I have no guide that has introduced itself, but I do regularly get a sense of a higher power. Nothing like my little projects. :P Immense.

[Guest Anonymous]

Bicameralism? Nope that is new.

 

We Google-wikied that! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicameralism_(psychology) Pretty cool!