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Tulpas in New York Times


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Guest Anonymous

Thank you Gamma for originally sharing this.

 

An article showed up on the New York Times and had a few murmurs of tulpas in it. The article will be circulated in print as well, for those wondering.

 

Full read:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/15/opinion/luhrmann-conjuring-up-our-own-gods.html?_r=0

 

Consider how some people attempt to make what can only be imagined feel real. They do this by trying to create thought-forms, or imagined creatures, called tulpas. Their human creators are trying to imagine so vividly that the tulpas start to seem as if they can speak and act on their own. The term entered Western literature in 1929, through the explorer Alexandra David-Néel’s “Magic and Mystery in Tibet.” She wrote that Tibetan monks created tulpas as a spiritual discipline during intense meditation. The Internet has been a boon for tulpa practice, with dozens of sites with instructions on creating one.

 

Jack, a young man I interviewed, decided to make a tulpa when he was in college. He set aside an hour and a half each day for this. He’d spend the first 40 minutes or so relaxing and clearing his mind. Then he visualized a fox (he liked foxes). After four weeks, he started to feel the fox’s presence, and to have feelings he thought were the fox’s.

 

Finally, after a chemistry exam, he felt that she spoke to him. “I heard, clear as day, ‘Well, how did you do?’ ” he recalled. For a while he was intensely involved with her, and said it felt more wonderful than falling in love with a girl.

 

Then he stopped spending all that time meditating — and the fox went away. It turned out she was fragile. He says she comes back, sometimes unexpectedly, when he practices. She calms him down.

 

The mere fact that people like Jack find it intuitively possible to have invisible companions who talk back to them supports the claim that the idea of an invisible agent is basic to our psyche. But Jack’s story also makes it clear that experiencing an invisible companion as truly present — especially as an adult — takes work: constant concentration, a state that resembles prayer.

 

Apparently, that's Biotech.

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They don't have anything better to write about, huh? I thought things are actually happening in da murka now. Journalism.

The THE SUBCONCIOUS ochinchin occultists frt.sys (except Roswell because he doesn't want to be a part of it)

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If you take 10 average Americans with tulpas and see how many are furries, how many do you think you'd get? I'm guessing 2 in 10. Americans love "in 10"s.

 

EDIT: Yeah, the article is fine and all. Reads similarly to that other one that was around ages ago; same deity thing except this time tulpas are explicitly mentioned. Still confined to obscure opinion pieces but it looks like the writer didn't write enough about tulpas to get something horribly wrong. Having said that, they got 150 words and both furries and tulpa-fuckingsexing managed to find their way in there, so maybe that's not so good.

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The instant I saw Gamma's post, I checked Wikipedia. The Times article is already being used as a reference. It doesn't actually say that this community exists (and I don't think it should until the community gets mentioned in an article) but it does present a modern perspective of tulpa as sentient hallucinations, which makes me very happy.

"'Real isn't how you are made,' said the Skin Horse. 'It's a thing that happens to you.'"

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Wonder if we're going to see some new people because of this piece. Even a tiny fraction of NY Times readers who might see it is quite a bit more people than post regularly here.

 

They don't have anything better to write about, huh? I thought things are actually happening in da murka now. Journalism.

Note that it's an op-ed piece, probably appearing on the "opinions" page or a "arts/living" section rather than in with the actual news stories.

 

furries

What, just because he made a fox tulpa? Liking animals and relating well to them does not equal furry. It's like a spirit animal or whatever.

 

tulpa-fuckingsexing

Only bit I see that's potentially related to that this:

For a while he was intensely involved with her' date=' and said it felt more wonderful than falling in love with a girl.[/quote']

"Intensely involved" doesn't always mean "in a sexual relationship with". It could just as easily be an almost-spiritual emotional bond type thing. Having experienced it myself, the comparison I'd use to explain it to someone who probably hasn't experienced something of the sort, is something like "emotionally intense, like falling in love but better".

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Guest Anonymous

I seriously hope that this won't become a worldwide phenomena.

The community / concept in itself it's already so fucked up already as it is.

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As a novice with limited experience, I must say it's kind of nice to see the idea being more-or-less fairly presented in mainstream media, as long as it doesn't get too much spotlight. Too much attention being shined on a niche doesn't always have a positive impact. I'd hate the idea of a load of people starting tulpas out of curiosity and then bailing out because it seems like too much work; it wouldn't be good for either party involved...

 

Having said that, they got 150 words and both furries and tulpa-fuckingsexing managed to find their way in there, so maybe that's not so good.

 

Now I'm no expert in American journalism (what with not reading any of it and all), but based on what the papers can be like over here in the UK, I imagine if the guy had actually mentioned tulpa-sexing in any way then the article would probably have had a more negative tone. I can just picture how the British tabloids would paint the guy as some kind of hilarious freak to be laughed and pointed at in the street ¬_¬

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"Intensely involved" doesn't always mean "in a sexual relationship with". It could just as easily be an almost-spiritual emotional bond type thing. Having experienced it myself, the comparison I'd use to explain it to someone who probably hasn't experienced something of the sort, is something like "emotionally intense, like falling in love but better".

 

Right, and we should know better anyways, having more information than just that news article. Still, it was phrased rather badly and is easy to take out of context.

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Well, I can't argue with that I suppose. Should have done my homework.

 

Still with the furry image though. If I'm the average reader then that's what you'll get.

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