The Inner Vehicle

Prayer, Tulpamancy, and the Magic of the Mind

Abstract

T.M. Luhrmann has demonstrated the role of mental imagery practices which allow evangelical Christians in the Vineyard Church to hear and interact with God through their physical senses combined with focused mental concentration. The online community of tulpamancers employs similar practices to develop a kind of imaginary friend within their mind, known as a tulpa. This paper compares the psychological processes in question, arguing that both evangelical Christians in the Vineyard Church and tulpamancers use similar imaginal techniques foster the experience of contact with a non-human other (God in the case of evangelical Christians and tulpas in the case of tulpamancers). It also explores how Christian tulpamancers reconcile their prayer practices with the tulpa-creation process and how they differentiate between interactions with their tulpas on one hand and God on the other.