Arcadia Discussion Zone

Rain, ya seem to be quite knowledgeable of this black magic stuff, what, if any is the difference in oriental black magic as contrasted to what passes for occidental black magic?

A song by Louis Prima + Keeley Smith comes to mind, now I have to find it again. It takes up this black magic karma 'thang'.

For rain.It sounds to me as if you are talking about voodoo?i sadly,have met people who practise black majic and on more than one occaision,have had some experiences of it.But i still dont know what a TULPA is?Is it some kind of ritual or curse?

Tulpa

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Tulpa (Wylie: sprul-pa; Sanskrit: निर्मित nirmita[1] and निर्माण nirmāṇa[2]; "to build" or "to construct") is a Vajrayana, Bonpo and Tibetan Buddhist upaya concept, discipline and teaching tool. The term was first rendered into English as 'Thoughtform' by Evans-Wentz (1954: p. 29):

Inasmuch as the mind creates the world of appearances, it can create any particular object desired. The process consists of giving palpable being to a visualization, in very much the same manner as an architect gives concrete expression in three dimensions to his abstract concepts after first having given them expression in the two-dimensions of his blue-print. The Tibetans call the One Mind's concretized visualization the Khorva (Hkhorva), equivalent to the Sanskrit Sangsara; that of an incarnate deity, like the Dalai or Tashi Lama, they call a Tul-ku (Sprul-sku), and that of a magician a Tul-pa (Sprul-pa), meaning a magically produced illusion or creation. A master of yoga can dissolve a Tul-pa as readily as he can create it; and his own illusory human body, or Tul-ku, he can likewise dissolve, and thus outwit Death. Sometimes, by means of this magic, one human form can be amalgamated with another, as in the instance of the wife of Marpa, guru of Milarepa, who ended her life by incorporating herself in the body of Marpa."[3]

In this quotation, "Sangsara" is an alternate English orthographic representation of "Saṃsāra", where ṃ denotes a nasalisation in the pronunciation, and therefore rendered "ng". Khorva, Tulku, Milarepa, Marpa and the illusory body are mentioned. In Buddhist phenomenology, "appearances" and "phenomena" are English renderings of "dharmas" (Sanskrit). The mindstream communion affected by the wife of Marpa in the abovementioned quotation, is an ancient mode of 'mind transmission' (Tibetan: dgongs brgyud) or 'empowerment' (Tibetan: dbang bskur) in the Himalayan traditions, documented in the folklore and anthropological studies of Himalayan and Siberian Shamanism. The Russian Psychiatrist Olga Kharitidi published her direct experience of this phenomenon in the Altay Mountains, where a shaman merged a stream of his consciousness continuum or 'spirit' with hers.[4] This phenomenon is a variation of the spiritual discipline of 'Phowa' (Tibetetan: 'pho ba) and is often rendered as 'spirit possession' within English anthropological discourse.[5]

In mysticism a tulpa is the concept of a being or object which is created through sheer willpower alone. It is a materialized thought that has taken physical form and is usually regarded as synonymous to a thoughtform.[6]

The term comes from the works of Alexandra David-Neel, who claimed to have created a tulpa in the image of a jolly, Friar Tuck-like monk which later developed a life of its own and had to be destroyed.[7]

The tulpa phenomenon is vindicated through the Consciousness-only Doctrine first propounded within the Yogacara School and is part of the Mahayoga discipline of the 'Generation Stage' (Wylie:kye rim; Sanskrit:utpatti-krama) , Anuyoga discipline of the 'Completion Stage' (Wylie:dzog rim; Sanskrit:saṃpanna-krama) and the Atiyoga perfection of effortless 'unification of the Generation and Completion stages' (Wylie: bskyed rdzogs zung 'jug).[8]

Contents [hide]
1 Nomenclature, etymology and orthography
2 Introduction
3 History
3.1 Tulpa
3.2 Three aspects of energy
3.3 Spiritual lineage
3.4 Scientific lineage
3.5 Phenomenal world as thoughtform
3.5.1 Varṇamālā (Garland of Phonemes)
3.6 What the!
4 Notes
5 Tulpa in popular culture
5.1 Music
5.2 Television
5.3 Literature
5.4 Games
6 See also
7 References
8 Further reading

[edit] Nomenclature, etymology and orthography
A similar orthographic and phonemic construction in Tibetan is 'phrul which has the various meanings: magic, miracle, black art, emanation, jugglery, trick, magical illusion, conjuring, manifestation.
Another term that may be rendered "thoughtform" is 'yilu' (Tibetan: yid lus). 'Yidam' (Tibetan: yi dam) are tulpa.
[edit] Introduction
Vajranatha (1996: p. 350) in a note to his English translation of the life story of Garab Dorje defines a Nirmita thus:

A Nirmita (sprul-pa) is an emanation or a manifestation. A Buddha or other realized being is able to project many such Nirmitas simultaneously in an infinite variety of forms.[1]

Thoughtform may be understood as a 'psychospiritual' complex of mind, energy or consciousness manifested either consciously or unconsciously, by a sentient being or in concert. In the Dzogchen view, accomplished thoughtform of the kye-rim (Tibetan) mode are sentient beings as they have a consciousness field or mindstream confluence in a dynamic of entrainment-secession and organization-entropy of emergent factors or from the mindstream intentionality of progenitor(s). Thoughtform may be benevolent, malevolent or of complex alignment and may be understood as a 'spontaneous or intentional manifestation' or 'emergence'[9] (Tibetan: rang byung) of the 'Five Pure Lights' (Tibetan: 'od lnga). The Five Pure Lights may be understood as the 'radiance' (Tibetan: 'od) or Clear Light (Tibetan: 'od gsal) substrate[10] of 'mindstream' (Tibetan: sems rgyud) and the base or root 'dimensionality of all dharmas' (Sanskrit: dharmadhatu) of Nirvana and Samsara. The mindstream is an entwining or confluence of the 'Eight Consciousnesses' (Tibetan: rnam shes tshogs brgyad). Therefore, the Five Pure Lights are the 'root' (Tibetan: gzhi) of the Western scientific conceptions of matter and energy. From the Dzogchen perspective energy is nondual to 'spiritual energy' or 'vital force' (Tibetan: rlung). For the human species, defined in Traditional Tibetan medicine as the class of entities which holds a human 'la'[11] (Tibetan: bla), the Five Lung are direct homologues of the Five Pure Lights.

Professor H. H. Price, an Oxford philosopher and parapsychologist, held that once an idea has been formed, it "is no longer wholly under the control of the consciousness which gave it birth" but may operate independently on the minds of other people or on physical objects.[citation needed] It is contended that a meme is not a thoughtform, unless it is sentient. Though, memetic theory may be deemed an informative correlation to thoughtform phenomena.

[edit] History
[edit] Tulpa
Tulpa (Tibetan: sprul ba; Tibetan: sprul pa where "sprul" holds the semantic field: "emanate", "manifest" and "pa" is a functional postposition employed to build nouns from verbs) is Tibetan for what has been rendered as "thoughtform" in English. Another similar orthographic and phonemic construction in Tibetan is 'phrul which holds the semantic field: magic, miracle, black art, emanation, jugglery, trick, magical illusion, conjuring, manifestation.

Another term that may be rendered "thoughtform" is 'yilu' (Tibetan: yid lus). 'Yidam' (Tibetan: yi dam) are tulpa. The concept of "tulpa" is vindicated in the Consciousness-only Doctrine first propounded within the Yogacara School. The doctrine is entwined with the doctrine and lineage of the Mindstream and may even have ancient roots and antecedents in Bonpo traditions, Himalayan and Asian shamanism evident in Tibet, Bhutan, India, Nepal, Tuva, Mongolia, Russia and China.

A tulpa is, in Tibetan mysticism, a being or object which is created through willpower, visualisation, attention and focus, concerted intentionality and ritual. In other words, it is a materialized thought that has taken physical form.[12]

There are... apparitions that make public appearances. Some of these are said to be the perceptible double—the etheric counterpart—of a living person who is undergoing an out-of-body experience. Even more mysterious are the externalized perceptible manifestations of something whose existence originated in the mind of its creator by virtue of that person's incredible powers of concentration, visualization, and other, more occult, efforts of the mind. In Tibet, where such things are practiced, a ghost of this kind is called a tulpa. A tulpa is usually produced by a skilled magician or yogi, although in some cases it is said to arise from the collective imagination of superstitious villagers, say, or of travelers passing through some sinister tract of country.
— Mysteries of the Unexplained, 1990, Reader's Digest Association Inc. page 176
The tulpa concept was brought to the West in the 19th century by Alexandra David-Néel, who claimed to have created a tulpa in the image of a jolly, Friar Tuck-like monk which later developed a life of its own and had to be destroyed.[13] There is a teaching story inherent in Néel's experience as it is evocative of the English rendering of the famous instruction of Zen Master Lin Chi: "If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him." Just as the 'mandala' (Tibetan: dkyil 'khor) is created and also destroyed. The 'destroying' or "blowing out" of the kye-rim stage is the completion of the dzog-rim; yielding an integration, an iteration of the mindstream, a communion.

Freeman (c2007: unpaginated) in his musings on dragons and Fortean [disambiguation needed] phenomena, tentatively explores tulpas and thoughtforms in relation to worship and fear; energetic reciprocity and lifecycle; and 'spirits of place' (Latin: genius loci):

Areas of intense Fortean phenomena are called window areas. Many of them were places of former religious importance that have now waned or fallen from use. Could the worship or occult use of an area over hundreds of years create a sort of artificial life form? Something that fed on the worship. When the worship is taken away the "thing" still needs to feed. It now feeds by creating fear with paranormal manifestations. Another idea is that they are a massive, collective, sub-conscious, thought form. The thought form or tulpa is said to be a 3-D semi solid image created by the power of the mind. Buddhist llamas [sic] in Tibet are said to be able to summon up tulpas during intense meditation. Western explorer Dame Alexandra [David-Néel] was said to have created a tulpa of a monk whilst studying in Tibet. Polish medium Franek Klusk was said to have summoned up huge cats, birds, and even ape-men during séances. Perhaps, considering the types of beast he called up, he was creating tulpas. If individuals can create tulpas imagine what the collective, gestalt mind of humanity as a species could do. Perhaps dragons are a giant worldwide thought form emanating from our innermost fears.[14]

[edit] Three aspects of energy
In the Dzogchen tradition, there are three indivisible modes of energy that govern manifestation, and therefore thoughtform phenomena and the energy of sentient beings:

1.'dang' (Wylie: gDangs)
2.'rolpa' (Wylie: Rol-pa)
3.'tsal' (Wylie: rTsal)
According to the Dzogchen tradition, there is nothing which is non-sentient, or stated differently, everything is sentient technically Panpsychism and this is the view of Dzogchen Semde or "mind series" the principal text of which is the Kulayarāja Tantra. Moreover, two of the English scholars that opened the discourse of the Bardo literature of the Nyingma Dzogchen tradition, Evans-Wentz & Jung (1954, 2000: p. 10) specifically with their partial translation and commentary of the Bardo Thodol into the English language write of the "One Mind" (Tibetan: sems nyid gcig; Sanskrit: *ekacittatva; *ekacittata; where * denotes a possible Sanskrit back-formation) thus:

"The One Mind, as Reality, is the Heart which pulsates for ever, sending forth purified the blood-streams of existence, and taking them back again; the Great Breath, the Inscrutable Brahman, the Eternally Unveiled Mystery of the Mysteries of Antiquity, the Goal of all Pilgrimages, the End of all Existence."[15]

This "One Mind" is none other than the "sphere of the great circle" (Tibetan: thig le chen po'i klong) of "self-awareness" (Tibetan: rang rig) of the Samten Migdron a text like the Kulayaraja Tantra that is also of the Semde class of Dzogchen literature and an important historical source of Dzogchen as it was recovered from the Dunhuang manuscripts.[16][17]

Van Schaik (2004: p. 33) explains the Dzogchen doctrine of the triunic complex of the manifesation of energy further:

In terms of energy – there are three characteristic ways in which the energy manifests – Dang, Rolpa, and rTsal (gDang, rol pa, and rTsal). Dang is the energy in which ‘internal’ and ‘external’ are not divided from that which manifests. It is symbolised by the crystal sphere which becomes the colour of whatever it is placed upon. Rolpa is the energy which manifests internally as vision. It is symbolised by the mirror. The image of the reflection always appears as if it is inside the mirror. rTsal is externally manifested energy which radiates. It is symbolised by the refractive capacity of the faceted crystal. For a realised being, this energy is inseparable in its manifestation from the dimension of manifest reality. Dang, Rolpa, and rTsal are not divided.

Dang, Rolpa and rTsal are not divided and neither are the ku-sum (sKu gSum – the trikaya) the three spheres of being. Chö-ku (chos sKu – Dharmakaya), the sphere of unconditioned potentiality, is the creative space from which the essence of the elements arises as long-ku (longs sKu - Sambhogakaya) the sphere of intangible appearances – light and rays, non material forms only perceivable by those with visionary clarity. Trülku (sPrul sKu – Nirmanakaya), the sphere of realised manifestation, is the level of matter in apparently solid material forms. The primordial base manifests these three distinct yet indivisible modes.[18][19]

The triunic modality of the energy of manifestation and the Trikaya are indivisible, though particular aspects, qualities or properties of these may be foregrounded and backgrounded according to time, place, circumstance and intention. The dang energy of a sentient being is essentially a mystery, infinite, spacious and formless, it relates to the Dharmakaya. Rolpa energy is that of an interior vision, or the 'eye of the mind' of visualization; it relates to the Sambhogakaya. Tsal is the energetic manifestation of what is generally considered 'corporeal' phenomena and it relates to the Nirmanakaya. The interplay of these energies and the profundity and elegance of this doctrine provides a hypothesis of thoughtform phenomenon, emergence, poltergeist activity, Will-o'-the-wisp, psychokinesis, levitation and other siddhi' (Sanskrit; Tibetan: bsgrub), spiritual healing, intercessory prayer, and the logistics of the doctrine of Pratītyasamutpāda amongst innumerable other 'mysteries'.

[edit] Spiritual lineage
Jansen (1990: p. 7–8) in her treatise on singing bowls relates the experience that David-Néel narrated in her book Tibet, Bandits, Priests and Demons:

When she entered the temple of the Bön monastery of Tesmon, the service that was being conducted was rudely interrupted. While a lama was busy with a kyilkhor, a magic diagram, and sacred cakes, called tormas, one of her bearers entered the temple, clearly indicating that he was not very impressed by the sacred rituals. He was ordered away by the monks. Objecting and cursing violently he insulted the lamas by shouting out that the tormas were only made of momo dough (bread dough).

'(...)Then, as the man came forward, the bonpo[20] grasped a chang,[21] which was standing next to him, and swung it around. Strange, savage sounds filled the room with a tidal wave of vibrations that pierced my ears. The disrespectful peasant screamed and staggered back with his arms held up as though he was warding off something threatening. 'Get out', the lama repeated again. The other bearers grabbed their friend and rushed out of the temple, greatly disturbed. Bong! Bong! continued the drum. The accompanying bonpo returned unpurturbed, sat in front of the kyilkhor, and continued the muffled singing and chanting. What had happened? I hadn't noticed anything, except for that extraordinary sound. I went outside and asked my bearers. The troublemaker who had disturbed the sacred ritual had lost his bravado. 'It was a snake. I tell you', he said, nodding to the others who sat around him. 'A snake of fire came out of the chang.' 'What? Did you really see a snake of fire?' I asked. 'Is that why you recoiled?' 'Didn't you see it?' they replied. 'It came out of the chang when the lama beat upon it.' 'You must have dreamt it,' I said. 'I didn't see anything.' 'We didn't see the snake, but we did see flashes of light shoot out of the chang,' the other bearers interjected. In fact, they had all been witnesses to a miracle. (...)[22]
Later David-Néel questions the bonpo that emanated the thoughtform, and the bonpo affirmed:

'That it was the power of the zoung[23] that I cast,' declared the lama emphatically. Speaking more softly he said: 'The sound creates shapes and beings..[.]the sound inspires them.[24]

Thoughtform are evident in Vajrayana Buddhism, Bönpo traditions, indigenous cultural traditions throughout the world such as Cherokee of North America and Indigenous Australians (who understand the waking, created world to be a thoughtform subset of The Dreaming[25]), shamanic traditions, echoes are evident in ghosts or supernatural agency, folk religion, esoteric philosophies such as Theosophy and what is construed as the New Age.

Though Alice Bailey may have been inspired (and comparable to a tertön), her collaborative work with Djwal Khul, A Treatise on Cosmic Fire, that evocatively described the process for working with thoughtforms, is not formally recognised by the Himalayan dharmic traditions. Thoughtform are not only the energetic phantasmagoria of our consciousness and mindstream, either intentional or unconscious, but may also constitute an emotional filter (refer trance, NLP) or lens that shapes the play of our phenomenal experience; as per the incisive quotation of Bailey et al.(1951: p. 489) in A Treatise on White Magic:

"A thought-form can also act as a poisoning agent, and poison all the springs of life....A violent dislike, a gnawing worry, a jealousy, a constant anxiety, and a longing for something or someone, may act so potently as an irritant or poison that the entire life is spoilt, and service is rendered futile. The entire life is embittered and devitalized by the embodied worry, hatred and desire....and is held back by the poison in his [sic.[26]] mental system. His vision becomes distorted, his nature corroded, and all his relationships impeded by the wearing, nagging thoughts which he himself embodies in form and which have a life so powerful that they can poison him."

It may be valuable to extend the water metaphor of "the springs of life" aforementioned to include the mindstream. We[who?] now know from emergent disciplines that thoughts and emotions are chemical as well as electrical processes, refer neuropeptides, and may be potentially toxic. So we may indeed be driven, railroaded and possessed by our thought forms and emotions: called in popular currency 'our demons'. These 'demons' or 'poisons' in Hindu and Buddhist traditions are known as kleśa (Sanskrit). Moreover, kleśa is often rendered into English as "poison", "obscuration" and "demon". This understanding is not to diminish the reality of adverse as well as benevolent possession and trance-forms but to establish a complex of views.

In the Vajrayana Buddhist view promulgated by Padmasambhava and Jamgön Kongtrül (1999: p. 84), the thought form of the six lokas or "six classes of beings" of 'dependent co-arising' and the obscurations forded by the samsaric view is held to be a dream:

Due to the great demon [27] of coemergent and conceptual ignorance,
From the solidified habitual patterns of grasping and fixation,
And the different perceptions of worlds and inhabitants,
The six classes of beings appeared as a dream.[28] (NB: original text not meta-enhanced.)


...evocative of Edgar Allan Poe's: “All that we see or seem, is but a dream within a dream”.

[edit] Scientific lineage
Thoughtforms, in the sense of being homunculi of awareness with the attribute of self-will and self-determination – also figure in various cognitive and psychological theories. Marvin Minsky's "agents" are amongst the best known of these. Lester (1995: p. 123) in framing Minsky's "agents" and the logistics of their contingency states:

Minsky (1986), cofounder of the artificial intelligence laboratory at MIT, proposes that there are agencies of the mind, by which he means any and all psychological processes. Although he grants that a view of the mind as made up of many selves may be valid, he suggests that this may be a myth that we construct.
However, when introducing the concept of agencies (a broad term that includes selves as one type of agency), Minsky (1986) does suggest several important questions to ask about agencies: How do agents work? What are they made of? How do they communicate? Where do the first agents come from? Are we born with the same agents? How to make new agents and change old ones? What are the most important kinds of agents? What happens when agents disagree? How could networks of agents want or wish? How can groups of agents do what separate agents cannot do? What gives them unity or responsibility? How could they understand anything? How could they have feelings and emotions? How could they be conscious or self-aware? Not all of these questions, of course, apply to subselves. But the questions of origins, heredity, learning, character, authority, and competence are pertinent to subselves.[29]

Andras Angyal's work and the Dzogchen triunic modality of the manifestation of energy deserve a dialogic analysis. Carl Jung's technique of Active imagination involves interacting with thoughtforms of the subconscious mind. Jung identified certain universal thoughtform archetypes such as Anima and Animus and which are characteristic of all humans. Psychological Archetypes are thoughtforms.

The chief difference between these scientific formulations and magickal / spiritual definitions of thoughtforms is that the former are created unconsciously whereas the latter are created deliberately.

Thoughtform phenomena, by any other name, are worked with variously in Imaginal Psychology and Process Oriented Psychology and is evident in the work of Gregory Bateson. Jean Houston, a disciple of Campbell and Mead (and in the direct lineage of Jung), was a modern pioneer of engaging thoughtform in what she termed the 'imaginal realm', and in the associated discipline of aspecting or 'carrying' deity, dæmon or other somesuch (Houston, 1996).

[edit] Phenomenal world as thoughtform
Tenzin Namdak (2002: p. 37) translates the 'fruit' (Tibetan: 'bras) of the 'Khorde Rushen' (Tibetan: 'khor-'das ru-shan) 'preparatory practice' (Tibetan: ngondro) of the Bön Dzogchen lineage thus:

All things are created by your thought and mind - and if you look back to the source of your thought and mind you find that it disappears. It dissolves and goes back to its nature. That is the limit; every individual thing is dependent on the mind. All worldly life, all the beings in the six realms are in the same situation. The purpose of this practice is to stop all desire for worldly life - to see that it is all created by our mind. The world is like a common mind.[30]

Towards the end of his life, the visionary biologist Gregory Bateson intuited the manifested realm to be a thoughtform of the unmanifested. Lawlor (1991: p. 43) cites Bateson from Lovelock (1995: p. 218):

The individual mind is imminent but not only in the body. It is imminent also in pathways and messages outside the body, and there is a larger mind of which the individual mind is only a sub-system. This larger mind is comparable to God and is perhaps what some people mean by God, but it is still imminent in the total interconnected social systems and planetary ecology.

Buddha Shakyamuni employed ten traditional similes in explanation of 'phenomena' (Sanskrit: dharmas) these are known as the "Ten Similes of Illusory Phenomena" (Wylie: shes-bya sgyu-ma'i dpe-bcu):

The ten similes which illustrate the illusory nature of all things are: illusion (sgyu-ma), mirage (smig-rgyu), dream (rmi-lam), reflected image (gzugz-brnyan), a celestial city (dzi-za'i grong-khyer), echo (brag-ca), reflection of the moon in water (chu-zla), bubble of water (chu-bur), optical illusion (mig-yor), and an intangible emanation (sprul-pa).[31]

[edit] Varṇamālā (Garland of Phonemes)
Varṇa (Sanskrit) holds the semantic field "colour", "class", "phoneme", "syllable", "letter"; mālā (Sanskrit) holds the semantic field "garland", "ley", "wreath", "prayer beads", "rosary". Varṇamālā denotes the alphabet of Devanagari, that has come to be common for Sanskrit post-medieval India. Indeed, Varṇamālā not only denotes the set of phonemes of Sanskrit and languages evolved from it, but denotes the glyphs in the abugida scripts for such languages. Rongzompa realised the 'thirteenth bhumi of Mantrayana' which may also be rendered in English as "Chakra of Letters" (Sanskrit: Varṇamālā; Wylie: yi ge 'khor lo tshogs chen gyi sa). It should be noted that the term Deva+Naga+ri is constructed from a conjunction of deva "divinity" and nāga "serpent",[citation needed] and that snakes often form a "circular" garland-like shape, refer Ourorboros, and are evident throughout Dharmic iconography as girdles, malas, garlands, torques, armbands, etc., as investiture of adornment are 'symbolic attributes' (Tibetan: phyag mtshan). Devanagari seceded from Brāhmī script which is even more visually serpentine.

Conze (1980: p. 12) states:

For the last two thousand years Buddhism has mainly flourished in rice-growing countries and little elsewhere. In addition, and that is much harder to explain, it has spread only in those countries which had previously had a cult of Serpents or Dragons, and never made headway in those parts of the world which view the killing of dragons as a meritorious deed or blame serpents for mankind's ills.[32]

In addition to the circular formation of snakes (and dragons), their boon as holders and givers of wisdom as well as their bane as bringers of deception and illusion, is evident throughout folklore of the human condition and reveals the fundamental qualitative dichotomy of language and code as both conduits of information and noise. The inherent flexibility and elongation of the snake-form, lends itself to making rudimentrary shapes and forms, and for the ancient Vedic tradition and its cultural tributaries of the Indo-european language family, is the font of archetypal signification. It should also be stated that nāga as concealers and revealers of 'treasures' (Tibetan: Terma) are endemic in Terma literature, as are Dakini. Nagarjuna received the Prajnaparamita from the Nāga. In discussing the thoughtform Varṇamālā, it should be noted that particular 'energetic signatory glyphs' (Tibetan: gter ston gter btags) are inseparable from the tradition of Tertöns.[33]

Khanna (2003: p. 21) links mantras and yantras to thoughtforms:

Mantras, the Sanskrit syllables inscribed on yantras, are essentially 'thought forms' representing divinities or cosmic powers, which exert their influence by means of sound-vibrations.[34]

In the Dharmic traditions, all phenomena are essentially the 'formation of vibration and resonance' (Sanskrit: namarupa). Mookerjee and Khanna (1977: p. 33) state how all form arises from the the Aum:

The Primal Sound as the monosyllabic mantra Oṃ is the basis of cosmic evolution. All the elemental sound-forms of mantras emanate from this eternal sound. Sound and form are interdependent, and every form is a vibration of a certain density; conversely, every sound has a visual equivalent. Sound is the reflex of form and form is the product of sound. All that is animate and inanimate are vibrations of a particular frequency. All the mantras have their colour forms, and when a mantra is pronounced properly its visual correlates begin to manifest. The dynamic power-pattern rooted in sound by which it is revealed is called a yantra.[35]

Hence, all phenomena are constituted by Bīja, known in Tibetan as sprul pa cho 'phrul gyi yi ge, "spontaneously emergent magical phonemes/letters/symbols", which is another way of perceiving the all-pervasive buddha-nature, the 'Thirteenth Bhumi' or the 'Third Bhumi of Enlightenment' (Tibetan: yi ge 'khor lo tshogs chen; "the bhumi where the Universe is present as a rotating procession of spell-letters").[36]

[edit] What the!
A principal tenet in the film What the Bleep Do We Know!? is that the Universe is envisioned as constructed from thought (or ideas) rather than from substance. The movie is a vehicle exploring the views of JZ Knight/Ramtha. This idea is also explored by Fred Alan Wolf (1994) and Amit Goswami. Goswami, a proponent of lucid dreaming, has affirmed that "during a dream that felt like an admonition...[that he heard]...so clearly: 'The Tibetan Book of the Dead[37] is correct. It's your job to prove it!' The Bardo Thodol is a Dzogchen cycle of teaching. Dream Yoga is a senior sadhana of Dzogchen. Dzogchen, a confluence and complex of practices, philosophies and worldviews of the mystical shamanic Bönpo and tantric Vajrayana Buddhism that yields the view that phenomena is a thoughtform or a dreamform. Chögyal Namkhai Norbu Rinpoche (2002), a Dzogchen Master, expounds this view (refer Dzogchen#Reality vs dreams).


Thought-form of the music of Charles Gounod, according to Annie Besant and C.W. Leadbeater in Thought Forms (1901)[edit] Notes
1.^ a b Reynolds, John Myrdhin (1996). The Golden Letters: The Three Statements of Garab Dorje, the first teacher of Dzogchen, together with a commentary by Dza Patrul Rinpoche entitled "The Special Teaching of the Wise and Glorious King". With Foreward by Namkhai Norbu Rinpoche. New York, USA: Snow Lion Publications. ISBN 1-55939-050-6. p.350
2.^ Rinbochay, Lati; Rinbochay, Denma Lochö; Zahler, Leah (translator); & Hopkins, Jeffrey (translator) (1983, 1997). Meditative States in Tibetan Buddhism. Somerville, Massachusetts, USA: Wisdom Publications. ISBN 0-86171-119-X. p.188
3.^ The Tibetan book of the great liberation; or, The method of realizing nirvana through knowing the mind, preceded by an epitome of Padma-Sambhava’s biography and followed by Guru Phadampa Sangay’s teachings According to English renderings by Sardar Bahädur S. W. Laden La and by the Lāmas Karma Sumdhon Paul, Lobzang Mingyur Dorje, and Kazi Dawa-Samdup. Introductions, annotations, and editing by W. Y. Evans-Wentz. With psychological commentary by C. G. Jung. London, New York, Oxford University Press, 1954. (In the quotation, Sangsara is an alternate English representation of the termSamsara.)
4.^ Kharitidi, Olga (c1996). Entering the circle : the secrets of ancient Siberian wisdom discovered by a Russian psychiatrist . 1st ed. [San Francisco] : HarperSanFrancisco, c1996. 224 p. ; 22 cm. ISBN 0-06-251415-6 (cloth), ISBN 0-06-251417-2 (pbk.)
5.^ Müller-Ebeling, Claudia, Christian Rätsch, Surendra Bahadur Shahi (2002). Shamanism and Tantra in the Himalayas. Trans. by Annabel Lee. Rochester, Vermont: Inner Traditions.
6.^ Eileen Campbell, J.H. Brennan and Fran Holt-Underwood, Body Mind & Spirit: A Dictionary of New Age Ideas, People, Places, and Terms, Tuttle Pub, ISBN 0-8048-3010-X
7.^ Reader's digest ; (1990). Mysteries of the Unexplained. Readers Digest Association. ISBN 0-89577-146-2. Page 176 describes Alexandra David-Néel's experience, as recalled in her 1929 published book Magic and Mystery in Tibet.
8.^ Lingpa, Jigme (author); Rinpoche, Patrul (author); Mahapandita, Getse (author); Dharmachakra Translation Committee (translators) (2006). Deity, Mantra, and Wisdom: Development Stage Meditation in Tibetan Buddhist Tantra (Hardcover). Ithaca, NY, USA: Snow Lion Publications. ISBN 978-1-55939-300-3 p.25
9.^ For a sound introduction to "emergence" refer: Corning, Peter A. (2002). The Re-emergence of "Emergence": A Venerable Concept in Search of a Theory. Institute For the Study of Complex Systems. NB: initially published in and © by Complexity (2002) 7(6): pp.18-30. Source: [1] (accessed: February 5, 2008)
10.^ The aforecited "substrate" of the mindstream in the doctrinal development of the Eight Consciousnesses of Nichiren Daishonin is the "ninth consciousness" (Chinese: Nam Myōhō Renge Kyō). There is no difference between this ninth consciousness (of which all others are tributaries) and the 'absolute' view of the Eighth Consciousness, which is sugata-garbha, the mindstream substrate.
11.^ Wangyal (2002: p.36-37) states:

La is usually translated as "soul" but, more accurately, the la is the depth of who we are. On the deepest level, it is the balance of the five pure lights, the pure elemental energies. On the level of ordinary life, the la is the capacity to experience the five elemental qualities: groundedness, comfort, inspiration, flexibility, and accommodation. The la is associated with the karmic traces that make us human rather than something else, such as a turtle or a god. Our la is a human la. The la of a tiger is a tiger la. The la determines which kind of being we will be as well as much of our individual identity and capacity. The la underlies our vitality, our inner strength as an individual. It can be damaged or enhanced, stolen and retrieved. If we are humiliated, it is weakened. If we succeed in what is important to us, it is strengthened. If we act with integrity it is made stronger. If we betray ourselves, it loses vigor...In Tibetan Astrology it is said that la is the mother of the life-force; if the la is damaged, the life-force is diminished. Damage to the la can occur slowly, over a long period of time, or all at once. After an accident, for example, there can be long-lasting damage; fear that won't subside, a negative change in perspective, and so on. We call this kind of damage or disturbance..."soul loss."
Cited from: Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche (2002). Healing with Form, Energy, and Light. Ithaca, New York: Snow Lion Publications. ISBN 1559391766

12.^ Campbell, Eileen; Brennan, J.H.; Holt-Underwood, Fran (February 1994), Body Mind & Spirit: A Dictionary of New Age Ideas, People, Places, and Terms, Tuttle Pub, ISBN 080483010X
13.^ Reader's digest ; (1990). Mysteries of the Unexplained. Readers Digest Association. ISBN 0-89577-146-2. Page 176 describes Alexandra David-Néel's experience, as recalled in her 1929 published book Magic and Mystery in Tibet.
14.^ Freeman, Richard (c2007). In Search of British Dragons. Source: [2] (accessed: February 2, 2008)
15.^ Walter Yeeling Evans-Wentz, Carl Gustav Jung (1954, 2000). The Tibetan book of the great liberation, or, The method of realizing nirvāṇa through knowing the mind. Oxford University Press US, 2000. ISBN 0195133153, 9780195133158. Source: [3] (accessed: Sunday March 7, 2010)
16.^ Karmay, Samten Gyaltsen (2007). The Great Perfection (rDzogs chen): A Philosophical and Meditative Teaching of Tibetan Buddhism. Second Edition. Volume II. Boston: Brill's Tibetan Studies Library. ISBN 9789004151420, pp.107-108
17.^ theg pa'i mchog rnal 'byor gyi phul yang tog/ rgyal ba ril gyi yum a ti yo ga'i don btsan pa ni/ mtshan rdzogs pa (p.291) chen po zhes bya ste/ ci'i phyir zhe na/ bsam gyis mi khyab pa'i chos thams cad ma brtsal lhun rdzogs pa'i don/ gcer grol go bar bya ba'i phyir zhib tu bstan te/ de lta bu'i theg pa thams cad kyi yang mdzod spyi mes chen po 'di'i ngo bo lhun gyis grub pa'i ngang nyid kyi don/ rang rig pas mngon sum khong du chud nas blor bzhag par byar yang med pa'i don chen po rang gi rig pa la gsal bar bya ba yang/ ji ltar shes par bya zhe na/ shin tu rnal 'byor gyi theg pa 'di la/ rgyud lung man ngag gi gzhung ltar/ dang po gzhal bya'i chos gcig la/ rang gi so sor rtogs pa'i shes rab kyis gzhal bar byar yang med pa ste/ de ci'i phyir zhe na/ chos so cog tu grags pa thams cad/ ye gdod ma nyid nas spu ma brjes mdog ma bsgur bar rang byung gi ye shes thig le chen po'i klong du sangs rgyas pa'i rang bzhin la/ dngos po gzhal byar su yis mthong/ gtan tshigs su (p.292) yis bstan/ grub pa'i mtha' ci zhig chol/ 'jal byed gang gis byas te/ de dag gi ngo bo so so ba med pa'i phyir ma dmigs so/
18.^ Van Schaik, Sam (2004). Approaching the Great Perfection: Simultaneous and Gradual Methods of Dzogchen Practice in the Longchen Nyingtig. Wisdom Publications. ISBN 0-86171-370-2. Source: [4] (accessed: February 2, 2008)
19.^ Déchen, Khandro & Ngak’chang Rinpoche (undated). "Dzogchen transmission of the non-dual state." Aro Encyclopædia. Source: [5] (accessed: February 1, 2008)
20.^ A follower of the Bön religion.
21.^ The chang (written as 'gchang') is a musical instrument that is especially used by bonpos. It is roughly the same shape as a cymbal, with the edges bent inward and it has a clapper. It is played with the clapper pointing upwards like an upturned bell. NB: The chang may also be orthographically rendered into English as Shang.
22.^ Jansen, Eva Rudy (1990). Singing bowls: a practical handbook of instruction and use. Holland: Binkey Kok Publications. ISBN 9074597017. p.7-8
23.^ Written as 'gzungs': something that grips, holds onto. A magic formula. The Sanskrit equivalent is dharani mantra.
24.^ Jansen, Eva Rudy (1990). Singing bowls: a practical handbook of instruction and use. Holland: Binkey Kok Publications. ISBN 9074597017. p.9
25.^ As Lawlor (1991: p.36) evocatively codifies:
The great ancestral beings were vast, unbounded, intangible, vibratory bodies, similar to fields of energy. They created by drawing vibratory energy out of themselves and stabilizing this energy and by specifying or naming - the inner name is the potency of the form or creature. The comparable image is the creation of sounds, words, or songs from the vibration of breath. Aborigines refer to the Dreamtime creation as the world being "sung" into existence. Lawlor, Robert (1991). Voices Of The First Day: Awakening in the Aboriginal dreamtime. Rochester, Vermont: Inner Traditions International, Ltd. ISBN 0-89281-355-5

26.^ No endorsement or perpetuation unchecked of gendered language herein.
27.^ The ' geat demon' mentioned herein is cognate with Mahamaya. Essentially, Mahamaya (great illusion) both blinds perception to the realm of samsara and liberates the view in the realisation of non-duality.
28.^ Padmasambhava & Kongtrül, Jamgön (transl. Erik Pema Kunsang) (1999). The Light of Wisdom (Vol. 1). Boudhanath: Rangjung Yeshe Publications. (A translation of the Lamrim Yeshe Nyingpo)
29.^ Lester, David (1995). Theories of Personality: A Systems Approach. Taylor & Francis. ISBN 1560323507. Source: [6] (accessed: February 2, 2008)
30.^ Lopön Tenzin Namdak and Dixey, Richard (2002). Heart Drops of Dharmakaya: Dzogchen Practice of the Bön Tradition. Snow Lion Publications. ISBN : 1559391723
31.^ Graham Coleman with Thupten Jinpa (editors). The Tibetan Book of the Dead [English Title]. The Great Liberation by Hearing in the Intermediate States [Tibetan Title]. Composed by Padma Sambhava. Revealed by Karma Lingpa. Translated by Gyurme Dorje. Penguin Books. 2005. (The first complete translation). ISBN 978-0-140-45529-8. p.516
32.^ Conze, Edward (1980). A Short History of Buddhism. Museum Street, London, U.K.: George Allen & Unwin (Publishers) Ltd. ISBN 0 04 294109 1
33.^ Duff, Tony (2000). Tibetan and Bhutanese Marks and Signs for Inclusion into Tibetan Unicode 3.0.. Source: [7] (accessed: February 17, 2008) pp.6-8
34.^ Khanna, Madhu (2003). Yantra: The Tantric Symbol of Cosmic Unity. Inner Traditions. ISBN 0892811323 & ISBN 978-0892811328. p.21
35.^ Mookerjee, Ajit & Khanna, Madhu (1977; reprinted 2003). The Tantric Way: Art, Science, Ritual. High Holborn, London, U.K.: Thames and Hudson Ltd. ISBN 0 500 27088 0
36.^ Guenther, Herbert V. (1972). Buddhist Philosophy in Theory and Practice. Viking Press. ISBN 0140213929 & ISBN 978-0140213928
37.^ The Bardo Thodol, Liberation through Hearing in the Intermediate State is erroneously attributed the title The Tibetan Book of the Dead) describes the experiences of bardo.
[edit] Tulpa in popular culture
Lists of miscellaneous information should be avoided. Please relocate any relevant information into appropriate sections or articles. (February 2008)

Many authors and artists have since used tulpas in their works, both in the context of fiction and in writing about mysticism. Horror author Clive Barker, for example, envisioned his famous "Candy Man" killer to be nothing more than a myth gone terribly awry in his original story.

[edit] Music
"Tulpa" is a series of atmospheric tunes by Swedish dark ambient composer Peter Andersson.
"My Tulpa"is a song title by the Manchester post-punk band Magazine on their album titled, "Real Life". It was written by Howard Devoto, the lead singer/songwriter.
"The Tulpa" is a series of black metal tunes by Swedish multi-style composer Chaan.
Tulpa is a psychedelic rock band from Toronto, Canada that started performing together in 1981. Eventually releasing a single "Apologize to your Mother", an LP "Mosaic Fish" and "Live From CBGB".
[edit] Television
In the X-Files episode Arcadia (6X13), the president of the homeowners' association for an exclusive gated community uses a tulpa to enforce the neighborhood rules; those who repeatedly violate the guidelines meet a grisly fate at its hands.
The Supernatural episode Hell House (1.17) features a haunted house in which the resident malevolent spirit turns out to be a tulpa, created when the beliefs of thousands of website visitors are focused through a Tibetan sigil painted on one wall of the house.
In the So Weird episode PK (or Tulpa). Fi meets a little boy who is troublesome and it is caused because of a Tulpa he creates. He thinks it is an imaginary friend but Fi tells him it's some type of energy he created and helps him solve it.
In Tears of Kali by Andreas Marschall, an entity becomes an evil murderer that can't be controlled.
In Paranoia Agent, the character Lil' Slugger (Shonen Bat) is revealed to have materialized thanks to the growing hysteria caused when Tsukiko Sagi claimed he attacked her.
The Tulpa is a Canadian short film.
[edit] Literature
Authors Loren Coleman and Jerome Clark, in their writings for Fate Magazine in the early 1970s and their first two books, "The Unidentified" (Warner Books, 1975) and "Creatures of the Outer Edge" (Warner Books, 1978), modernized and popularized tulpas for a new generation of ufologists and cryptozoologists. The surviving "zooform" movement in the United Kingdom can be traced to Clark's and Coleman's reworking of the tulpa concepts. Coleman and Clark have since rejected the tulpa theories as the foundation to unexplained phenomena, and have written a new introduction to the combined republishing of these two works by Anomalist Books in 2006: The Unidentified & Creatures of the Outer Edge: The Early Works of Jerome Clark and Loren Coleman (NY: Anomalist Books, 2006, ISBN 1-933665-11-4).
In Vicki Pettersson's Signs of the Zodiac series, a tupla is the main antagonist.
In Nightingale's Lament by Simon Green, a tulpa in the image of John Taylor's client is sent after him at one point, tracking him by a hair the client left on his jacket; it disappears when the hair is destroyed.
In Count Zero by William Gibson, tulpa are mentioned.
In Every Which Way But Dead by Kim Harrison, 'Tulpa' is the focus word used to create a three-dimensional circle in the main character, Rachel Morgan's imagination, and is used to hold an overflow of power.
In American Gods by Neil Gaiman, various deity-like beings are created through cultural belief, a certain society's perception of, say, Odin, creating a form of that god particular to that society.
In It by Stephen King, the eponymous entity's various manifestations are given form and power by the belief of the townspeople.
In Outcast by Lynne Ewing, the main character, Kyle, is confronted and pestered by a tulpa of his own creation, that convinces him that he is his lost twin brother.
In Grant Morrison’s Marvel graphic novel ‘Fantastic Four 1234’ (2002) Reed Richards muses on a fictitious journey to Tibet where, with the help of Bön priest, he creates a Tulpa, a “thoughtform”. After Richards names it ‘Victor’ the Tulpa takes on a life of its own, becoming Richards’ opposite number. This was an alternative, fantastical, origin for Richards’ arch enemy Dr Doom (aka Victor Von Doom).
According to the book The Teachings of Don Juan Matus, a Mexican shaman by the name of Don Juan Matus, who had taught his student Carlos Castaneda, the books author, about the true nature of the physical universe and how intense concentration can summon, apport, and even materialize objects out of thin air. It was said that Carlos Castaneda was able to materialize a living squirrel on the palm of Don Juan's hand based on the latter's instruction. Many of his claims have been disputed by members of the anthropological profession.
In Secrets & Mysteries of the World by Sylvia Browne, chapter 7: Tulpas, explains brief story of old Tulpas and new Tulpas from England.
In The Mothman Prophecies by John A. Keel, the author alludes to several ghost and UFO sightings as likely being tulpas.
In Las Ruinas Circulares by Jorge Luis Borges, the hole tale is about the creation of a tulpa that become evil and dangerous.
Smith, Russell James (2003). Tulpa. Writers Advantage. ISBN 0595274900 / ISBN 978-0595274901 (a work of fiction)
In The Wheel of Darkness by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child, a tulpa is created.
Alvin Schwartz, writer of Superman comics during the '40s and '50s, writes in his book, An Unlikely Prophet about a tulpa he meets, named Thongden. The tulpa educates Schwartz about his own tulpa, Superman. ISBN 0965952126 and ISBN 978-0965952125
Starting in July 1989, Alan Grant (writer) wrote a story arc for Batman in Detective Comics (601-602-603)entitled "Tulpa", in which a Tibetian man creates entities to steal for him in order to repay a mob boss.
The concept of tulpas is discussed (and may figure prominently) in the comic book series Doktor Sleepless by Warren Ellis.
A tulpa that created by Niccolo Machiavelli who makes its body from wax fights the main characters in Michael Scott's "The Magician: The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel".
[edit] Games
In the RPG (Role-Playing Game) Over the Edge, Tulpas are used as background characters (NPC's). They also have natural enemies, sociopathic individuals called Sandmen, who prey on them to create either "Nightmare" (a drug) or "Dreamweb" (gossamer webs that can capture dreams from people). Dreamweb are typically used to capture the nightmares of neurotic individuals, which are also sold as something like a drug.
Although the word "Tulpa" is never used in the Changeling: the Dreaming RPG, creatures known as "Chimera" fulfill a role very similar to Tulpa. Chimera may be sentient or non-sentient entities made manifest in the mental alternate reality of "The Dreaming". They typically arise spontaneously due to the force of human thought and emotion, sometimes from the dreams of individuals but potentially as amalgams of all human thought. These beings are typically weakened by exposure to human doubt, but nevertheless some have the necessary strength and abilities to manifest as tangible entities in the mundane world of humans, at least for a time.
In the ARG (Alternate Reality Gaming), The Hunt for Sammex83, it is said that the Sammex83 is a tulpa that lives both in the Internet and the real world.
[edit] See also
Bardo
Dream yoga
Egregore
Golem
Imaginary friend
String theory
Dialogue
Egregore
Thought Forms
Alexandra David-Néel
[edit] References
Bailey, Alice (1951). A Treatise on White Magic or The Way of the Disciple (Hardcover). Lucis Pub. ISBN 0853300232 & ISBN 978-0853300236 Source: http://home.thirdage.com/Spirituality/r ... forms.html (Accessed: Friday January 19, 2007)
Beer, Robert (1999). The Encyclopedia of Tibetan Symbols and Motifs (Hardcover). Shambhala. ISBN 157062416X, ISBN 978-1570624162
Clark, Jerome and Coleman, Loren (2006) The Unidentified & Creatures of the Outer Edge: The Early Works of Jerome Clark and Loren Coleman (NY: Anomalist Books, ISBN 1-933665-11-4)
Eileen Campbell, J.H. Brennan and Fran Holt-Underwood, Body Mind & Spirit: A Dictionary of New Age Ideas, People, Places, and Terms, Tuttle Pub, ISBN 0-8048-3010-X
Gold, Peter (1994). Navajo and Tibetan Sacred Wisdom: The Circle of the Spirit (Paperback). Inner Traditions. ISBN 089281411X, ISBN 978-0892814114
Haselhoff, Eltjo H.(). The Deepening Complexity of Crop Circles: Scientific Research and Urban Legends ISBN 0-285-63625-1. Full text version on Google Books [8]
Houston, Jean (1982). The Possible Human: A Course in Extending Your Physical, Mental, and Creative Abilities.
Houston, Jean (1987). The Search for the Beloved: Journeys in Mythology and Sacred Psychology.
Houston, Jean (1996). A Mythic Life: Learning to Live Our Greater Story.
Houston, Jean (2000). Jump Time: Shaping Your Future in a World of Radical Change.
Lawlor, Robert (1991). Voices Of The First Day: Awakening in the Aboriginal dreamtime. Rochester, Vermont: Inner Traditions International, Ltd. ISBN 0-89281-355-5
Lovelock, James (1995). The Ages of Gaia: A Biography of Our Living Earth ISBN 0-393-31239-9
Norbu, Namkhai (2002, revised). Dream Yoga and the Practice of Natural Light. Snow Lion Publications. ISBN 1-55939-007-7
Padmasambhava & Kongtrül, Jamgön (transl. Erik Pema Kunsang) (1999). The Light of Wisdom (Vol. 1). Boudhanath: Rangjung Yeshe Publications. (A translation of the Lamrim Yeshe Nyingpo)
Perkins, John (1994). The World Is As You Dream It: Shamanic Teachings from the Amazon and Andes. Rochester, Vt.: Park Street. ISBN 0-89281-459-4 [4]
Schmidt, Marcia Binder (Ed.) (2002). The Dzogchen Primer: Embracing The Spiritual Path According To The Great Perfection. London, Great Britain: Shambhala Publications, Inc. ISBN 1-57062-829-7 (alk. paper)
Thomas, Andy (2001). Scientific Studies “Confirm Crop Circles Are Made By Balls Of Light” - 31/07/2001. Andy Thomas is a principal part of Swirled News
Unknown Compiler (Undated). Quotes from the Tibetan Master Djwhal Khul on Thought-forms (the title of website. Source: http://home.thirdage.com/Spirituality/r ... forms.html (accessed: Friday January 19, 2007)
Wolf, Fred Alan (1994). The Dreaming Universe: a mind-expanding journey into the realm where psyche and physics meet. New York, New York: Simon & Schuster. ISBN 0-671-74946-3
[edit] Further reading
Annie Besant and Leadbeater: Thought forms
Makransky, Bob (2000). Thought Forms. Dear Brutus. ISBN 0-9677315-3-4
Smith, Russell James (2003). Tulpa. Writers Advantage. ISBN 0595274900 / ISBN 978-0595274901 (a work of fiction)

For Rain.ive been doing a lot of thinking about this thought form stuff,and its all really interesting.But very puzzled how these things do take on a life of their own.Dion Fortune claimed she created one accidentally, and had to reabsorb it,as the longer it was there,the more dangerous it became.But its still hard to see how anything that comes from us could develop a life of its own.How do we know that these things are not in us to start with ,like Dion Fortunes wolf was maybe ,inside her and simply used her conciousness to free itself.Maybe weve all got strange animals and things within or forces that use our conciousness to appear,and you think you created it,when you didnt really at all ,it manifested through you .i am not suggesting these are spirits of the dead.i dont know what they are.Forces that use our conciousness.that are moving through us all the time.

1.) I believe Dion Fortune had a breakdown, which doesn't negate what happened just you need to aware maybe she had a hyperreaction to events.

2.) How do things take on a life of their own is a difficult question. First remember you can't just create thoughtforms easily, I've heard it takes up to 20 years of training. If everybody's thoughts actually came true we'd be in a lot trouble. You've got to also ask yourself is it a psychological problem.

3.) Nobody is seperate we're all joined and energy surrounds us. When you put on the kettle or start the car this gross motor action stemming from a use of psysiological conditions that expend energy. At a sub-atomic level we are intergreted by a theoritical unified field. From the greatest stars to invisible dark matter we are connected by again a hypothetical theory of infinitely small strings. This is where string theory come from. There is an interconnection on all levels. So saying something is seperate from us that is created by an action from us is sound is wrong.
We own and we are responsible on all levels for our actions. By creating especially a thought form who is theoritically joined by thought makes us constantly responsible for it until such times as it is reintergrated. There is no seperation from a thoughtform and it's creator AFAIK so no doubt Dion had no idea of the ramifications of what she doing. This is where the danger lies with untrained people indulging in these types of practice even a curious by-product of a hobby.

4.) As for time, it's exists all at the sametime we only perceive it as moving forward, as yet there is no knowledge of why we passage forward into time not backwards or diagonally.
The holographic universe is one of the best theories of time that I am aware of and it describes time/space as a holographic. So each peice contains the whole even though it can split from the whole. So our perception is of an inferior quality but we still can maintain the overall information of time/space (Past - Present - future) simply by perceiving it.

So saying something is seperate from us that is created by an action from us is sound is wrong.

Hi Rain,
Thats a lot of hypothesis and theories there. I happen to believe that your point 4.) is quite probable, however to state

Is just equally as probable. Unfortunately, science has not proven the theories linking time / space and consciousness yet and is filling in the blanks with such theories as dark matter and strings etc. Until such a time comes when we advance as a species to be able to understand totally the mysteries of the universe we can only speculate. It was only last week that I found out the earth isn't flat! Regards
Nic

For RAIN.Thanks for your post and all the info youve sent me! i really do appreciate it.In reply to you 1] do you really think Dion Fortune was hyper-reacting when she talked about the wolf?2]You made a very good point about if everyones thoughts came true,wed be in trouble.And i suppose you would think it was maybe your headstate ,not actually real.Content removedAt the time iwas very impressed with the film,but now looking back ,it seems a bit of a loony plot.i wonder if the person who wrote it had any knowledge on thoughtforms?3]Nobody is seperate,we are all joined all energy surrounds us.i agree with you there.But im puzzled. why did Dions wolf give her the impression that the longer she left it,it would grow stronger?And why did she sense that it would sever connections with her if she didnt absorb it?How could it have?4]i am trying to see time as a hologram,and i find that easy to understand.All it means to me is that i have been on the earth,longer or shorter, than other people have.

1] do you really think Dion Fortune was hyper-reacting when she talked about the wolf?

But im puzzled. why did Dions wolf give her the impression that the longer she left it,it would grow stronger?And why did she sense that it would sever connections with her if she didnt absorb it?

The Holographic Universe


The Holographic Universe

Author Michael Talbot
Language English
Subject(s) Science, Physics
Publisher HarperCollins
Publication date April 1991 (1st ed)
Pages 338
ISBN 006016381X
OCLC Number 23218578
Dewey Decimal 530 20
LC Classification QC449 .T35 1991

The holographic universe is an idea presented in the book "The Holographic Universe" by Michael Talbot that explores the metaphysic implications that underline quantum mechanics supersymmetry and suggests the idea that the universe is a hologram. After examining the work of physicist David Bohm and neurophysiologist Karl Pribram, both of whom independently arrived at holographic theories or models of the universe, the book argues that a holographic model could possibly explain supersymmetry and also various paranormal and anomalous phenomena, and provide a basis for mystical experience.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Universe as a Hologram
by Michael Talbot
Does Objective Reality Exist, or is the Universe a Phantasm?

In 1982 a remarkable event took place. At the University of Paris a research team led by physicist Alain Aspect performed what may turn out to be one of the most important experiments of the 20th century. You did not hear about it on the evening news. In fact, unless you are in the habit of reading scientific journals you probably have never even heard Aspect's name, though there are some who believe his discovery may change the face of science.
Aspect and his team discovered that under certain circumstances subatomic particles such as electrons are able to instantaneously communicate with each other regardless of the distance separating them. It doesn't matter whether they are 10 feet or 10 billion miles apart. Somehow each particle always seems to know what the other is doing. The problem with this feat is that it violates Einstein's long-held tenet that no communication can travel faster than the speed of light. Since traveling faster than the speed of light is tantamount to breaking the time barrier, this daunting prospect has caused some physicists to try to come up with elaborate ways to explain away Aspect's findings. But it has inspired others to offer even more radical explanations.


University of London physicist David Bohm, for example, believes Aspect's findings imply that objective reality does not exist, that despite its apparent solidity the universe is at heart a phantasm, a gigantic and splendidly detailed hologram.
To understand why Bohm makes this startling assertion, one must first understand a little about holograms. A hologram is a three- dimensional photograph made with the aid of a laser. To make a hologram, the object to be photographed is first bathed in the light of a laser beam. Then a second laser beam is bounced off the reflected light of the first and the resulting interference pattern (the area where the two laser beams commingle) is captured on film. When the film is developed, it looks like a meaningless swirl of light and dark lines. But as soon as the developed film is illuminated by another laser beam, a three-dimensional image of the original object appears.
The three-dimensionality of such images is not the only remarkable characteristic of holograms. If a hologram of a rose is cut in half and then illuminated by a laser, each half will still be found to contain the entire image of the rose. Indeed, even if the halves are divided again, each snippet of film will always be found to contain a smaller but intact version of the original image. Unlike normal photographs, every part of a hologram contains all the information possessed by the whole.
The "whole in every part" nature of a hologram provides us with an entirely new way of understanding organization and order. For most of its history, Western science has labored under the bias that the best way to understand a physical phenomenon, whether a frog or an atom, is to dissect it and study its respective parts. A hologram teaches us that some things in the universe may not lend themselves to this approach. If we try to take apart something constructed holographically, we will not get the pieces of which it is made, we will only get smaller wholes.
This insight suggested to Bohm another way of understanding Aspect's discovery. Bohm believes the reason subatomic particles are able to remain in contact with one another regardless of the distance separating them is not because they are sending some sort of mysterious signal back and forth, but because their separateness is an illusion. He argues that at some deeper level of reality such particles are not individual entities, but are actually extensions of the same fundamental something.
To enable people to better visualize what he means, Bohm offers the following illustration. Imagine an aquarium containing a fish. Imagine also that you are unable to see the aquarium directly and your knowledge about it and what it contains comes from two television cameras, one directed at the aquarium's front and the other directed at its side. As you stare at the two television monitors, you might assume that the fish on each of the screens are separate entities. After all, because the cameras are set at different angles, each of the images will be slightly different. But as you continue to watch the two fish, you will eventually become aware that there is a certain relationship between them. When one turns, the other also makes a slightly different but corresponding turn; when one faces the front, the other always faces toward the side. If you remain unaware of the full scope of the situation, you might even conclude that the fish must be instantaneously communicating with one another, but this is clearly not the case.
This, says Bohm, is precisely what is going on between the subatomic particles in Aspect's experiment. According to Bohm, the apparent faster-than-light connection between subatomic particles is really telling us that there is a deeper level of reality we are not privy to, a more complex dimension beyond our own that is analogous to the aquarium. And, he adds, we view objects such as subatomic particles as separate from one another because we are seeing only a portion of their reality. Such particles are not separate "parts", but facets of a deeper and more underlying unity that is ultimately as holographic and indivisible as the previously mentioned rose. And since everything in physical reality is comprised of these "eidolons", the universe is itself a projection, a hologram.
In addition to its phantomlike nature, such a universe would possess other rather startling features. If the apparent separateness of subatomic particles is illusory, it means that at a deeper level of reality all things in the universe are infinitely interconnected.The electrons in a carbon atom in the human brain are connected to the subatomic particles that comprise every salmon that swims, every heart that beats, and every star that shimmers in the sky. Everything interpenetrates everything, and although human nature may seek to categorize and pigeonhole and subdivide, the various phenomena of the universe, all apportionments are of necessity artificial and all of nature is ultimately a seamless web.
In a holographic universe, even time and space could no longer be viewed as fundamentals. Because concepts such as location break down in a universe in which nothing is truly separate from anything else, time and three-dimensional space, like the images of the fish on the TV monitors, would also have to be viewed as projections of this deeper order. At its deeper level reality is a sort of superhologram in which the past, present, and future all exist simultaneously. This suggests that given the proper tools it might even be possible to someday reach into the superholographic level of reality and pluck out scenes from the long-forgotten past.
What else the superhologram contains is an open-ended question. Allowing, for the sake of argument, that the superhologram is the matrix that has given birth to everything in our universe, at the very least it contains every subatomic particle that has been or will be -- every configuration of matter and energy that is possible, from snowflakes to quasars, from blue whales to gamma rays. It must be seen as a sort of cosmic storehouse of "All That Is."
Although Bohm concedes that we have no way of knowing what else might lie hidden in the superhologram, he does venture to say that we have no reason to assume it does not contain more. Or as he puts it, perhaps the superholographic level of reality is a "mere stage" beyond which lies "an infinity of further development".

Bohm is not the only researcher who has found evidence that the universe is a hologram. Working independently in the field of brain research, Standford neurophysiologist Karl Pribram has also become persuaded of the holographic nature of reality. Pribram was drawn to the holographic model by the puzzle of how and where memories are stored in the brain. For decades numerous studies have shown that rather than being confined to a specific location, memories are dispersed throughout the brain.
In a series of landmark experiments in the 1920s, brain scientist Karl Lashley found that no matter what portion of a rat's brain he removed he was unable to eradicate its memory of how to perform complex tasks it had learned prior to surgery. The only problem was that no one was able to come up with a mechanism that might explain this curious "whole in every part" nature of memory storage.
Then in the 1960s Pribram encountered the concept of holography and realized he had found the explanation brain scientists had been looking for. Pribram believes memories are encoded not in neurons, or small groupings of neurons, but in patterns of nerve impulses that crisscross the entire brain in the same way that patterns of laser light interference crisscross the entire area of a piece of film containing a holographic image. In other words, Pribram believes the brain is itself a hologram.
Pribram's theory also explains how the human brain can store so many memories in so little space. It has been estimated that the human brain has the capacity to memorize something on the order of 10 billion bits of information during the average human lifetime (or roughly the same amount of information contained in five sets of the Encyclopaedia Britannica).
Similarly, it has been discovered that in addition to their other capabilities, holograms possess an astounding capacity for information storage--simply by changing the angle at which the two lasers strike a piece of photographic film, it is possible to record many different images on the same surface. It has been demonstrated that one cubic centimeter of film can hold as many as 10 billion bits of information.
Our uncanny ability to quickly retrieve whatever information we need from the enormous store of our memories becomes more understandable if the brain functions according to holographic principles. If a friend asks you to tell him what comes to mind when he says the word "zebra", you do not have to clumsily sort back through some gigantic and cerebral alphabetic file to arrive at an answer. Instead, associations like "striped", "horselike", and "animal native to Africa" all pop into your head instantly. Indeed, one of the most amazing things about the human thinking process is that every piece of information seems instantly cross- correlated with every other piece of information--another feature intrinsic to the hologram. Because every portion of a hologram is infinitely interconnected with every other portion, it is perhaps nature's supreme example of a cross-correlated system.
The storage of memory is not the only neurophysiological puzzle that becomes more tractable in light of Pribram's holographic model of the brain. Another is how the brain is able to translate the avalanche of frequencies it receives via the senses (light frequencies, sound frequencies, and so on) into the concrete world of our perceptions.
Encoding and decoding frequencies is precisely what a hologram does best. Just as a hologram functions as a sort of lens, a translating device able to convert an apparently meaningless blur of frequencies into a coherent image, Pribram believes the brain also comprises a lens and uses holographic principles to mathematically convert the frequencies it receives through the senses into the inner world of our perceptions.

An impressive body of evidence suggests that the brain uses holographic principles to perform its operations. Pribram's theory, in fact, has gained increasing support among neurophysiologists.
Argentinian-Italian researcher Hugo Zucarelli recently extended the holographic model into the world of acoustic phenomena. Puzzled by the fact that humans can locate the source of sounds without moving their heads, even if they only possess hearing in one ear, Zucarelli discovered that holographic principles can explain this ability. Zucarelli has also developed the technology of holophonic sound, a recording technique able to reproduce acoustic situations with an almost uncanny realism.
Pribram's belief that our brains mathematically construct "hard" reality by relying on input from a frequency domain has also received a good deal of experimental support. It has been found that each of our senses is sensitive to a much broader range of frequencies than was previously suspected. Researchers have discovered, for instance, that our visual systems are sensitive to sound frequencies, that our sense of smellisin part dependent on what are now called "osmic frequencies", and that even the cells in our bodies are sensitive to a broad range of frequencies. Such findings suggest that it is only in the holographic domain of consciousness that such frequencies are sorted out and divided up into conventional perceptions.

But the most mind-boggling aspect of Pribram's holographic model of the brain is what happens when it is put together with Bohm's theory. For if the concreteness of the world is but a secondary reality and what is "there" is actually a holographic blur of frequencies, and if the brain is also a hologram and only selects some of the frequencies out of this blur and mathematically transforms them into sensory perceptions, what becomes of objective reality? Put quite simply, it ceases to exist. As the religions of the East have long upheld, the material world is Maya, an illusion, and although we may think we are physical beings moving through a physical world, this too is an illusion.
We are really "receivers" floating through a kaleidoscopic sea of frequency, and what we extract from this sea and transmogrify into physical reality is but one channel from many extracted out of the superhologram.


This striking new picture of reality, the synthesis of Bohm and Pribram's views, has come to be called the-holographic paradigm, and although many scientists have greeted it with skepticism, it has galvanized others. A small but growing group of researchers believe it may be the most accurate model of reality science has arrived at thus far. More than that, some believe it may solve some mysteries that have never before been explainable by science and even establish the paranormal as a part of nature. Numerous researchers, including Bohm and Pribram, have noted that many para-psychological phenomena become much more understandable in terms of the holographic paradigm.
In a universe in which individual brains are actually indivisible portions of the greater hologram and everything is infinitely interconnected, telepathy may merely be the accessing of the holographic level.
It is obviously much easier to understand how information can travel from the mind of individual 'A' to that of individual 'B' at a far distance point and helps to understand a number of unsolvedpuzzles in psychology.
In particular, Stanislav Grof feels the holographic paradigm offers a model for understanding many of the baffling phenomena experienced by individuals during altered states of consciousness. In the 1950s, while conducting research into the beliefs of LSD as a psychotherapeutic tool, Grof had one female patient who suddenly became convinced she had assumed the identity of a female of a species of prehistoric reptile. During the course of her hallucination, she not only gave a richly detailed description of what it felt like to be encapsuled in such a form, but noted that the portion of the male of the species's anatomy was a patch of colored scales on the side of its head. What was startling to Grof was that although the woman had no prior knowledge about such things, a conversation with a zoologist later confirmed that in certain species of reptiles colored areas on the head do indeed play an important role as triggers of sexual arousal. The woman's experience was not unique. During the course of his research, Grof encountered examples of patients regressing and identifying with virtually every species on the evolutionary tree (research findings which helped influence the man-into-ape scene in the movie Altered States). Moreover, he found that such experiences frequently contained obscure zoological details which turned out to be accurate.
Regressions into the animal kingdom were not the only puzzling psychological phenomena Grof encountered. He also had patients who appeared to tap into some sort of collective or racial unconscious. Individuals with little or no education suddenly gave detailed descriptions of Zoroastrian funerary practices and scenes from Hindu mythology. In other categories of experience, individuals gave persuasive accounts of out-of-body journeys, of precognitive glimpses of the future, of regressions into apparent past-life incarnations.
In later research, Grof found the same range of phenomena manifested in therapy sessions which did not involve the use of drugs. Because the common element in such experiences appeared to be the transcending of an individual's consciousness beyond the usual boundaries of ego and/or limitations of space and time, Grof called such manifestations "transpersonal experiences", and in the late '60s he helped found a branch of psychology called "transpersonal psychology" devoted entirely to their study.
Although Grof's newly founded Association of Transpersonal Psychology garnered a rapidly growing group of like-minded professionals and has become a respected branch of psychology, for years neither Grof or any of his colleagues were able to offer a mechanism for explaining the bizarre psychological phenomena they were witnessing. But that has changed with the advent of the holographic paradigm.
As Grof recently noted, if the mind is actually part of a continuum, a labyrinth that is connected not only to every other mind that exists or has existed, but to every atom, organism, and region in the vastness of space and time itself, the fact that it is able to occasionally make forays into the labyrinth and have transpersonal experiences no longer seems so strange.


The holographic paradigm also has implications for so-called hard sciences like biology. Keith Floyd, a psychologist at Virginia Intermont College, has pointed out that if the concreteness of reality is but a holographic illusion, it would no longer be true to say the brain produces consciousness. Rather, it is consciousness that creates the appearance of the brain -- as well as the body and everything else around us we interpret as physical.
Such a turnabout in the way we view biological structures has caused researchers to point out that medicine and our understanding of the healing process could also be transformed by the holographic paradigm. If the apparent physical structure of the body is but a holographic projection of consciousness, it becomes clear that each of us is much more responsible for our health than current medical wisdom allows. What we now view as miraculous remissions of disease may actually be due to changes in consciousness which in turn effect changes in the hologram of the body.
Similarly, controversial new healing techniques such as visualization may work so well because, in the holographic domain of thought, images are ultimately as real as "reality".

Even visions and experiences involving "non-ordinary" reality become explainable under the holographic paradigm. In his book "Gifts of Unknown Things," biologist Lyall Watson describes his encounter with an Indonesian shaman woman who, by performing a ritual dance, was able to make an entire grove of trees instantly vanish into thin air. Watson relates that as he and another astonished onlooker continued to watch the woman, she caused the trees to reappear, then "click" off again and on again several times in succession.
Although current scientific understanding is incapable of explaining such events, experiences like this become more tenable if "hard" reality is only a holographic projection. Perhaps we agree on what is "there" or "not there" because what we call consensus reality is formulated and ratified at the level of the human unconscious at which all minds are infinitely interconnected. If this is true, it is the most profound implication of the holographic paradigm of all, for it means that experiences such as Watson's are not commonplace only because we have not programmed our minds with the beliefs that would make them so. In a holographic universe there are no limits to the extent to which we can alter the fabric of reality.

What we perceive as reality is only a canvas waiting for us to draw upon it any picture we want. Anything is possible, from bending spoons with the power of the mind to the phantasmagoric events experienced by Castaneda during his encounters with the Yaqui brujo don Juan, for magic is our birthright, no more or less miraculous than our ability to compute the reality we want when we are in our dreams.
Indeed, even our most fundamental notions about reality become suspect, for in a holographic universe, as Pribram has pointed out, even random events would have to be seen as based on holographic principles and therefore determined. Synchronicities or meaningful coincidences suddenly makes sense, and everything in reality would have to be seen as a metaphor, for even the most haphazard events would express some underlying symmetry.

Whether Bohm and Pribram's holographic paradigm becomes accepted in science or dies an ignoble death remains to be seen, but it is safe to say that it has already had an influence on the thinking of many scientists. And even if it is found that the holographic model does not provide the best explanation for the instantaneous communications that seem to be passing back and forth between subatomic particles, at the very least, as noted by Basil Hiley, a physicist at Birbeck College in London, Aspect's findings "indicate that we must be prepared to consider radically new views of reality".