tulpa means A magical creature that attains corporeal reality, having been originally merely imaginary. It carries an Arena rating of 1561, earned across 2 head-to-head judged battles.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, tulpa ranks #543 of 17,131 for Scariest Words, #2,706 of 17,163 for Funniest Words, #2,731 of 17,130 for Most Beautiful Words, #3,470 of 17,143 for Best Fossil-Poetry Words.
tulpa is pronounced /ˈtʌlpə/.
Why “tulpa” is a great word
A tulpa is a self-induced imaginary companion regarded as an autonomous, sentient entity, created through intense mental discipline and belief. Borrowed from Tibetan སྤྲུལ་པ (sprul pa, "emanation, magical creation"), itself a calque of Sanskrit निर्मित (nirmita, "built") or निर्माण (nirmāṇa, "building"), the term entered Western esoteric and popular discourse in the early 20th century. Unlike an "imaginary friend"—a childhood psychological construct born of loneliness or play—or a "hallucination"—an involuntary sensory event—a tulpa is a volitional project of consciousness, a deliberate architecture of personality willed into its own perceived life. It begins as a voice in the mind’s quiet, a flicker of independent gesture behind closed eyes, a weight on the other side of a shared thought. It is the monk in meditation who has walked so long through a particular inner landscape that the landscape begins to walk back—evidence that the mind is a house we never finish building, and that we are not always alone in it.
Etymology
Borrowed from Tibetan སྤྲུལ་པ (sprul pa, “emanation, magical creation”), equivalent to a calque of Sanskrit निर्मित (nirmita, “build”) or निर्माण (nirmāṇa, “build”).
noun
- A magical creature that attains corporeal reality, having been originally merely imaginary.e.g.“When the year was up, the tulpa began growing. It lost its fear of its master and began taking on new forms of its own. It ceased to run errands ....” — 1966, Nikos Kazantzakis, England: A Travel Journal, page 110:
- A type of thought-form regarded as capable of independent action, with a persistent personality and identity; a kind of modern imaginary friend.
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
Words closest in meaning
By meaning, not spelling — each word's AI semantic fingerprint, nearest first.
- tupilak 59% match — A monster (either invisible or having a physical form constructed from animal bones, sinew, etc) created in secret by a shaman and sent into the sea to seek and kill a specific enemy. vs tulpa →
- tinkerbell 57% match — Anything whose existence or power depends on the faith of believers. vs tulpa →
- aquastor 53% match — A being created and sustained by the power of the imagination and the concentration of thought. vs tulpa →
- phantasm 53% match — Something seen but having no physical reality; a phantom or apparition. vs tulpa →
- taliswoman 51% match — A talisman in the form of a female figure. vs tulpa →
- corporealization 51% match — The process of making corporeal, of giving physical form to. vs tulpa →
- tulku 51% match — A high-ranking lama who can choose the manner of his or her rebirth. vs tulpa →
- phantasmal 51% match — Of or pertaining to, or having the characteristics of, a phantasm (“something seen but having no physical reality”); imaginary, unreal. vs tulpa →