Creatures of the Mind – Part Five

The idea that physical objects, and even enigmatic creatures like lake monsters and hairy anthropoids could be created by human thought seems to defy all rational analysis. However, the mystics of old insisted that this was actually possible, and they demonstrated the truth of their words by their actions.

Many instances of this are recorded in Paramahansa Yogananda’s Autobiography of a Yogi, in which he describes such extravaganzas as Babaji’s materialisation of an entire palace in the Himalayas.

He also quotes examples of such saints as Lahiri Mahasaya, Yukteswar Giri and Swami Pranabananda, who were able to materialise physical doubles of themselves in other places, even though their bodies remained in full view of their devotees.

Other mystics, such as Ganda Baba, were able to materialise food and other delicacies. More recently, the South Indian saint Sathya Sai Baba was renowned for his ability to materialise at will such things as sweets, watches, jewellery and other trinkets.

As Yogananda explains, “The actual form of the projection (whatever it be: a tree, a medicine, a human body) is determined by the yogi’s wish and by his power of will and of visualization.” 1

Yogis are not only able to create projections of any form they desire, but they are also able to animate objects which are normally considered to be inert. Yogananda recalls occasions when the great sage of Dakshineswar, Sri Ramakrishna, would converse with a stone idol, which was observed to come to life and communicate with him.  2

In a similar fashion, St Theresa talked to a statue of the Madonna, which came to life through the power of her devotion. Commenting on this ability, Ramana Maharshi remarked: “The animated figure indicates depth of meditation. There is a process of concentration of mind on one’s own shadow which in due course becomes animated and answers questions put to it. That is due to strength of mind or depth of meditation.”  3

While Westerners seldom create thought forms consciously, largely because they have never taken the trouble to develop their minds in this way, they often create doppelgangers unconsciously, in times of great emotional trauma.

As we have seen, the emotions are able to provide a powerful animating force for any particular form of thought. This is particularly so at times of violent death.

Activated by a momentary burst of intense emotion, a phantom is created which reflects the nature of its creator. The doppelganger which is then formed is what we commonly call a ghost. This phantom image varies in clarity according to the strength of energy that created it.

This image tends to become associated with the physical environs at the scene of death, leading to what we normally think of as “haunting”. The ghost is merely a shell of thought. It is not a source of being, but a reflection of that source.

Yet it takes on the character of that person, and acts in a manner that is appropriate to that person. If the phantom is sufficiently energised, it may even talk to others, in a voice which is identical to that of the deceased person.

When a Lockheed Tristar operated by Eastern Airlines crashed tragically in the Florida Everglades on December 29,1972, the captain Bob Loft and Second Officer Don Repo were among those who died of injuries sustained in the crash.

Shortly after this event, rumours began to circulate that the ghosts of these two men were being seen aboard other Eastern aircraft. It was the persistence of these rumours which attracted the interest of John Fuller, and led to an investigation which culminated in the publication of his popular book The Ghost of Flight 401.

With the aid of other airline personnel, Fuller was able to record many of the accounts of these witnesses.

On one particular flight from New York to Miami, an Eastern Airlines Flight Attendant pulled back the compartment door to an overhead bin during a pre-flight check of the first class cabin, and found herself looking directly into the face of Captain Loft, a man she had known and flown with on numerous occasions in the past.

Bob Loft was seen again in the first class cabin by a Flight Captain and two Flight Attendants during a pre-flight check at Kennedy Airport in New York. These three people saw and talked to Loft, who suddenly disappeared from their sight.

During a Miami turnaround on a flight to New York, a Vice-President of Eastern Airlines boarded the plane, a Lockheed Tristar, prior to embarkation by the regular passengers. As he entered the first class cabin, he saw that it was empty except for a man occupying one of the seats, who was dressed in the uniform of an Eastern Airlines Captain.

The Vice-President stopped to speak to the man, and recognised him as Captain Loft, who then disappeared in front of his eyes. An immediate search of the plane revealed no sign of any other person.

When a crew of Marriott Caterers were placing food-trays aboard another Tristar of the Eastern Fleet, several of them confessed that they had seen the figure of a Flight Engineer standing in the galley. As they looked at the man he simply disappeared.

On another occasion, an Eastern Airlines Flight Engineer who was performing his usual pre-flight inspection aboard a Tristar, was surprised to see a man dressed in the uniform of a Second Officer sitting in his seat at the instrument panel. The Engineer immediately recognised him as Don Repo. Repo turned to him and told him not to bother with the pre-inspection as he had already done it. With that, the three-dimensional image of Repo abruptly vanished.  4

The apparitions that were witnessed in these cases looked completely real and, on occasions, even spoke to the witnesses before disappearing from their sight. These phantoms behaved in characteristic fashion, and looked, acted and spoke exactly as the real persons would have done had they still been alive.

These phantoms were, however, tulpas of their makers, who did not survive the crash. They were created out of the emotional psychic force which accompanied the trauma of the crash. Similar phantoms have been created by numerous other victims of violent death.

Again, these images often appear to be perfectly real to those who see them. If the creative force which generates them is strong enough, phantoms may even appear to have animate existence, talking to others and acting in life-like ways.

Although some tulpas or phantoms may appear to be fully-fledged three-dimensional beings, interacting with their environment exactly as real persons would have done, it is more common for them to be less substantial.

Ghosts are frequently described as transparent wraiths, apparent in outline, yet lacking the solid features of three-dimensional form. In these cases the energy which generated them was significantly less.

In other cases phantoms may appear outwardly real at the time they are seen, only to be revealed later as incorporeal because they failed to leave physical evidence such as footprints. We have already noted the incident of the bigfoot that left no footprints even though the ground was soft and muddy.

Another example of phantom beings occurred in the Hall valley region of Colorado in the western United States. Earl Mortimeyer, Dale Howes and Dave Dallas had arranged to hike into this remote region of the Rocky Mountains, in order to stake out a uranium claim.

Although it was late in May, deep snowdrifts still filled the valley. As the three men made their way to their prospective claim site, they often had to plunge deep into the moist snow, leaving their trousers soaking wet up to the knees.

After having reached the site at the top of a steep incline and taken the necessary rock samples, the three were preparing to leave when they spotted two men accompanied by two women coming towards them. What seemed particularly surprising was the fact that the newcomers looked like two prosperous suburban couples out for a Sunday stroll.

Except for their footwear, none of them were dressed in outfits suitable for mountain climbing, but instead wore light summer garments. One of the couples seemed to be in their mid-thirties, while the other looked to be well past sixty. The men found it astonishing that two such elderly people should be trekking in such arduous country.

The two groups exchanged pleasantries, but the men were somewhat bemused by the strange answers they received from the two couples. When asked where they had left their car, one couple indicated that they had left it at the highway, while the other said that it had been left at the campground. What was odd was that these two places were five miles apart.

When asked whether they had come up on the road past the campground, one of the four responded that they had passed the “two-wheeled vehicles”. When Dale Howes asked him if he was referring to the motorcycles he had seen parked down below, the man looked puzzled, and then repeated “the two-wheeled vehicles”.

After a short conversation this man announced, “Well, a storm’s coming, so I guess we’ll go on up the ridge and across the mountain to Montezuma“. The three men were astounded. Montezuma lay more than five miles away across some of the most forbidding country in the Rockies, and necessitated a crossing of Red Cone mountain at an altitude of 12800 feet (3900 metres).

The two couples then took off up the ridge while the three men set off on their return journey. Having gone several hundred yards downhill, they looked back to see how the two couples were faring. To their amazement the four had covered almost twice the distance.

They continued to watch as the distant figures surged up the steep mountain slope until they were lost to sight. The three men carried on through the deep snow until they reached the log where they had stopped earlier for lunch.

It was at this point that Dave Dallas said very quietly. “Their legs weren’t wet!” There was one other feature which none of them could explain. The four strangers had not left any tracks in the snow.  5

Every thought that we think appears as a real manifestation upon a particular plane of consciousness. As Thomas Bearden puts it, thoughts are “real, physical objects in their own world domain.”

In this subtle world frame domain they are initially indiscernible. Yet if they are sufficiently energised, these thoughts come to manifest themselves upon that level of consciousness that we call our waking world of reality. When they do so, they arrive complete with their own milieu and validity.

Joseph Pearce calls this arrival the Eureka! insight. When our thoughts suddenly appear in form before us, we are startled by the shock of recognition. “Why, of course”, we say, “that is the way things really are. That is the way things always were, but we just never realized it before“.

We imagine in this discovery that we have gained a new and deeper understanding of the universe, as it really is. What the universe has actually done, however, has been to reflect our own thoughts back to us in form. It has moulded itself according to our belief.

Thoughts take shape according to the underlying landscape of belief, and bring to each generation a reflection of its own psychology. We are the sole architects of our universe, for, as Pearce remarks, “We are the determinant, the prism that shapes inner and outer into a meaningful pattern that is the only reality we shall ever know.”  6

The more a thought form or tulpa is reinforced through repetition, the easier it becomes for that form to manifest on the physical plane, and the more likely it is to reappear.

As Bearden explains, “As interest in sasquatch/bigfoot grows and the effort to discover him intensifies, the kindling of the tulpoidal form intensifies. With this intensity of kindling it is getting easier to evoke a bigfoot type tulpoid, and as it continues, sasquatch is going to be tuned in and stabilised.

“If so the past will just be changed, and we will be able to dig up ancient bones of sasquatch, and find his lairs, and track him down with dogs and capture him. In that case sasquatch will become a respectable animal and will stabilize in our reality.”  7

If what Bearden has suggested should actually occur, and bigfoot come to take its place among the accepted species in our menagerie of life, we will have remade our own reality in accordance with our beliefs. Bigfoot will then be revealed to us as a new Eureka! experience.

Anthropologists will confirm its place in the hierarchy of species, pointing to its role in the developing saga of human speciation. This new creature will be catalogued according to its diet and behavioural characteristics, which will no doubt show a remarkable fidelity with other ape-like forms known to science.

We will wonder why we never discovered its existence earlier, since the evidence will now be obvious for all to see. Scientists trained within the “normal” paradigm of science will then point to those very anecdotal reports which are rejected by scientists today, as evidence that bigfoot always was with us.

Yet they will inevitably miss the subtle way in which our “reality” will have come to rearrange itself. For as Pearce points out, “The normality into which it will be translated will be a reality that has itself been translated, or transformed into terms compatible with the new desire.

“The ‘ecological’ satisfactions demanded by the new idea and its radiating contingencies will somehow be met.  The vast network of our reality will make adjustments for inclusion of the new concept.  The infinite process of change will have its logical, normal, and reasonable working out. The action of psyche and physis will have gone full circle.”  8

The universe represents a continuing manifestation of our thoughts, hopes and dreams. It constantly renews itself according to whatever paradigm of ideas currently holds sway. The universe is not a fixed array of objects grinding their way remorselessly to extinction.

It is instead an unbelievably coherent yet complex reflection upon the screen of consciousness of whatever thoughts and desires we hold dear. Because we have become indoctrinated by the sophistication of the current scientific paradigm, we tend to laugh today at the legends of past centuries, and ridicule beliefs that characterised past generations.

When we read tales of vampires, fairies and werewolves, we consider them to be the superstitious folly of unreasoning folk, the stuff of human fantasy. Yet at a time when vast numbers of people believed implicitly in the reality of werewolves and vampires, tulpoidal phantoms which bore out these beliefs would have been as certain to appear as those tulpoidal creatures which appear to us today.

The vampires which are linked in legend to Transylvania and other parts of eastern Europe undoubtedly existed. To those people who were unfortunate enough to encounter them, they must have appeared as real and as terrifying as bigfoot encounters are today.

Furthermore, as each new grisly occurrence was reported, it would have helped to stimulate belief, which would in turn have added yet more kindling to these tulpas. The only reason why they are not rampant to this day is because our underlying patterns of belief have changed.

In our modern world, it is our own lack of belief in their existence that has robbed them of their power.  Yet they could re-emerge again at any time if the weathervane of belief should happen to swing again in their direction. As it was with vampires and werewolves, so it is with fairies.

As Thomas Bearden remarks, “When enough human unconsciousnesses have the idea of fairies deeply ingrained in them, occasionally a real, living, breathing fairy pops out of the collective unconscious.”  9

Fairies may no longer be as common as they once were, due to the overall decline in belief, but occasionally a real, living fairy still does pop out into our reality.

In 1960, when Dale Martin was a young child, she was living in Picton, near Kingston, Ontario.  One summer evening around half-past seven, Dale was in bed but was unable to sleep.  At that hour the sun was still in the sky and dusk had not yet fallen.  As she lay in bed, Dale was astonished to see a tiny creature fly in through the open window.  She looked at it in amazement.

“My eyes widened at the shock of seeing this beautiful, fairy-like creature. It was almost translucent. I’d say it was about two to three inches high. It floated around my bed and landed on the dresser beside me. I couldn’t believe it and reached out to try and touch it.

“As I put my hand out it landed on my hand – effortlessly. I sat up in bed looking at it with awe. It was just beautiful. I was smiling at it and it looked at me. I wanted to touch it and stroke its wings, but it flew off in a semicircle out of the window. I’ll never forget it!”  10

Our universe of “reality” is far richer than we have hitherto imagined. Not only does it encompass creatures which conform to our conditioned view of nature, but it also contains an astonishing array of anomalous manifestations which appear to defy our accepted understanding of reality.

While these anomalies are difficult to explain according to the classical viewpoint of reality, they derive validation and meaning in terms of the tulpoidal thesis of form. For these unusual creatures, whether they are lake monsters, bigfoot, fairies, angelic or demonic beings, are not real creatures as we have come to know them.

Instead, they are creatures of the mind.

These tulpoidal creations are visitors from more subtle realms of consciousness. Tulpas, being drawn from the collective unconscious of humanity, are free to draw upon anything that exists within this collective bank of images.

Just like dream creatures, which are similar emanations from a subconscious source, tulpas are free to manifest in unlimited ways, without being restricted to accepted laws of physics or to the normal standards of behaviour.

Yet the hairy anthropoids that lurk in lonely forests, or the aquatic creatures that loom unexpectedly out of solitary tarns, are not simply visitors that tantalise us with their fleeting and enigmatic form. Their very appearance is fraught with meaning.

Though disguised in mystery, they nevertheless beckon us towards a deeper understanding of nature and of ourselves. For behind these strange manifestations of mind lies a vital clue to the real meaning of the universe.

Our world is not the product of some supernatural creator. It is instead a magical kaleidoscope of form that is ever linked to the creative power of thought. And we who sojourn in this wondrous world of form, are actually the true makers of its magic.

References:

1  Paramahansa Yogananda, “Autobiography of a Yogi“, Self Realization Fellowship, Los Angeles, 1977, p. 316.
2  Ibid, p. 241.
3  “Talks with Sri Ramana Maharshi“, op, cit., p. 362.
4  John Fuller, “The Ghost of Flight 401“, Berkley, New York, 1978, pp. 150-152.
5  Earl Mortimeyer, “Four Solid Hiking Ghosts“, Fate magazine, October 1977, pp. 80-84.
6  Joseph Pearce, “The Crack in the Cosmic Egg“, Pocket Books, New York, 1973, p. 102.
7  Thomas Bearden, “Excalibur Briefing“, Strawberry Press, San Francisco, 1980, p. 71.
8  Joseph Pearce, op.cit., p. 103.
9 Thomas Bearden, op.cit., p. 189.
10  Dale Martin, personal communication.

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