Is Santa a Tulpa?

Every year, as the festive season arrives, anticipation builds as we await for a visit from Jolly old St Nick on Christmas Even, otherwise known as Santa Clause.  I want to address in the elephant in the room here, he is REAL!  Well I think the idea and spirit of him is quite real.  We talk about Santa as if he’s a real presence in our lives.  He’s more real to kids than a character from any other story.  Now we are people who sit and talk to spirits, ghosts, invisible entities, whatever you want to call them.  So it makes me wonder, if all that can be real, could Santa actually be real?  If we believe in the idea of him enough, can this manifest into something more?  Could Santa be a tulpa? 

What is a Tulpa?

A Tulpa comes from Tibetan Buddhism where it is a consciously created being or object. In the same way, it is consciously created, it is thought again that a person can unknowingly create a Tulpa. When you look at the meaning of the word Tulpa, it means to build or construct. It is thought to be a much more complex version of a thoughtform that develops its own sentience and its own will. In modern-day society, people commonly will use lucid dreaming in order to ‘create’ their own Tulpa. They think of it almost as an imaginary friend they can communicate with at will and helps them through certain things in life. The Tulpa is thought to always be growing and learning. In the same way our dreams can turn bad, so can a Tulpa. There are many people who report their Tulpa has turned on them and caused a lot of trouble in their life and it has taken them in some cases, years to get rid of them.

On an interesting level, when you think of a group of people somehow manifesting a form of Tulpa just by thinking about it, some people believe that a lot of religious figures or creatures are actually forms of Tulpas. A famous creature such as Bigfoot could in fact be a type of a Tulpa. Sightings of ‘Nessie’ the Loch Ness monster again could in theory be a form Tulpa. One of the more popular theories at the moment is that of Slenderman. It is a figure that was created on creepypasta, yet people claim they have seen this fictional figure. Could it be a case of a Tupla? If you have people going to a location, thinking in detail about what something looks like and how it moves, could you actually manifest it into existence?

Is Santa a Tulpa?

Santa is unlike almost any other character in human culture. He has a physical description that we can all picture without even needed to look at a reference.  We know his personality.  We can picture a bellowing HO HO HO.  Whether people celebrate Christmas or not, it is hard to avoid any sort of reference to Santa around this time year.  Parents feed the belief to their kids and in fact as someone who has done this, nothing used to bring me as much joy as Christmas during the Santa years.  The media buys in with Santa forecasts on the news Christmas Eve and special appearances on National Broadcasts to show he is on his way.  The belief is so strong that children often behave as if Santa exists in a literal sense.  I mean they have to if they want to stay on the good list!

By Definition, a tulpa becomes stronger the more attention and belief it receives.  It doesn’t need a biological body.  It doesn’t need physical proof. The idea is that through collective belief and emotional energy an entity can continue to feel real to people, even if the mechanics behind it aren’t supernatural in a traditional sense. 

Santa lives in millions of minds across the world simultaneously. He has a consistent identity across cultures. Every year that identity is reinforced by rituals and imagination.  If a tulpa is a thoughtform that takes on a life of its own through consciousness and belief, then Santa is one of the largest shared thoughtforms in human history.

It is worth ‘thinking‘ about don’t you think?

Here is some further reading if you choose to go down this rabbit hole:

Tulpas, Thoughtforms and Poltergeists