Tulpa, Jesus Christ, and Mental Health: Exploring the Intersection of Voluntary and Involuntary Psychological Processes
What if the voices we hear—whether originating from a place of trauma or devotion—carry messages we ought to honor, not diagnose? What if the phenomenon of tulpas and the internalized concepts of God, Jesus Christ, or spirit guides in general are not anomalies of the psyche, but profound expressions of spirituality and identity?
The concept of a Tulpa, originating from Tibetan Buddhism, describes an externalized emanation created through focused meditation and thought. Similarly, the Western Christian practice of internalizing the personality of Jesus Christ or the voice for God provides believers with a moral compass, resilience, and solace through crises. At their core, both practices are voluntary and involve constructing a “presence” that provides guidance and insight.
Such volitional processes, however, are sometimes compared to dissociative personality disorders, such as Multiple Personality Disorder (MPD) or Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID), which typically arise involuntarily in response to trauma. The latter conditions are viewed as fragmented coping mechanisms rather than intentional spiritual practices. Yet, the parallels—multiplicity of identity, creation of distinct “personas,” and their tangible impact on behavior—are striking.
The primary difference lies in agency. Voluntary processes, such as creating a Tulpa or internalizing Christ, stem from intent and self-guided spiritual exploration. Individuals consciously manifest these entities as tools for personal growth, morality, or strength. Trauma-induced dissociation, conversely, is involuntary and painful, characterized by a loss of control over the personas that emerge.
Mental health professionals face a nuanced challenge in navigating this distinction. Failing to recognize the intent behind certain psychological phenomena risks misdiagnosing deeply rooted spiritual practices as pathological conditions. At the same time, conflating trauma-induced dissociation with intentional practices may invalidate the genuine mental health needs of those suffering.
The narratives surrounding psychological wellness often prioritize regulatory frameworks that strip experiences of cultural, spiritual, or personal context. However, both tulpamancy and discipleship represent ways individuals process existence, morality, and belonging. For a therapist to dismiss a deeply devout individual’s connection to Christ as “religious fanaticism” or to reduce the Tulpa to “hallucination” is to stifle the profound richness of human consciousness.
Consider the ethical implications. If Tulpas or internalized Christ-like personas provide resilience, offer a moral compass, or foster emotional growth, should they not be accommodated, perhaps even celebrated, within therapeutic frameworks? Here lies an opportunity to explore significant intersections of spirituality and psychology that could redefine mental health care.
Take, for instance, an anecdote of spiritual dissociation interwoven with trauma. A visit to my first wife Donelle amidst a long-term psychological crisis revealed the presence of multiple personas—one embodying a six-year-old child reflecting trauma’s echo and another embodying “God,” dispensing profound, loving wisdom. The juxtaposition of these personas underscores the dual realities of spirituality and psychological fragmentation—one born from pain, another seemingly from divine inspiration.
Sharon (left) and my first wife Donelle, in 1993 after Donelles’s long-term stay in Fort Steilacoom mental hospital.
This experience prompts key questions for mental health professionals and theologians alike. Is the “God persona” an active coping mechanism akin to a Tulpa, or did it emerge involuntarily as a byproduct of suffering? And how do we, as family members, friends, or professionals, honor both narratives without invalidating their significance to the individual?
Toward a More Holistic Approach
- Distinction Through Dialogue
Family members, fruends, and mental health professionals must learn to differentiate voluntary spiritual practices from symptoms of psychological illness. Open dialogue, devoid of judgment, is essential in understanding the intent and context behind these experiences.
- Cultural Competence
The intersection of mental health and spirituality demands cultural literacy. For practitioners, family members, and friends, they must educate themselves on the spiritual traditions while providing care, friendship, and family support that respects these practices.
- Collaborative Research
An open dialogue between theologians, spiritual leaders, and mental health experts can foster deeper understanding of how cultural and personal beliefs interact with psychology. Joint case studies and interdisciplinary seminars could be a good starting point.
- Reimagining Spirituality in Therapy
Spirituality should not be classified as mere coping but as a legitimate aspect of psychological resilience and growth. Tulpas, internalized beliefs, and even “divine” personas including angels and disembodied spirit guides can serve as allies in therapeutic settings, guiding clients toward healing and empowerment.
The current frameworks for mental health care offer tools for recognizing disorders but often fall short in understanding the complexities of volitional spiritual practices. The phenomenon of Tulpas and the internalization of Christ-like personas challenges us to rethink diagnostic criteria, therapeutic approaches, and the narratives we uphold.
Mental health professionals must move beyond reductive categorizations. They must view spirituality not as a set of abstract beliefs but as a tangible, integral part of the human experience—a dimension as real and impactful as trauma itself.
We are faced with a profound opportunity. By bridging the gap between spirituality and psychology, mental health care can evolve into a discipline that truly honors the entirety of the human condition. Families and friends of those who practice forms of tulpamancy, those who internalize Jesus as an interactive image, and those who are sufferers of disassociative personality disorder can enhance their understanding and not feel threatened by these manifestations of conscious, or unconscious, expressions of the multiple identities that are present
Now is the time to ask ourselves profound questions, to explore and expand our understanding of faith, spirituality, thought, and identity. It is time to explore the intersection of spirituality and mental health further—our insights could transform how we approach the human mind.
I invite you to engage with these ideas, to explore the intersection of spirituality and mental health further. Attend a seminar. Read up on cultural competence. Or reflect on how your own beliefs shape the way you view your patients’ spirituality.
Because in a world where the lines between mind, soul, and spirit blur constantly, understanding is not just a personal or professional responsibility—it’s an act of profound humanity. Who can say with certainty what reality truly is? Those who cling too tightly to what they think that they know, can unintentionally exclude a “whisper from God” that might be experienced and revealed in the newness of each moment, no matter what or who the source may be.
So, We Were Created In Who’s Image?
So, who are the ones we trust to guide us whenever we are uncertain of the next step on our spiritual path?
In a therapeutic relationship, the therapist attempts to help the client create a tulpa, or bridge image from the therapist to the patient’s innate healing possibilities. This bridge image is nothing more than an internalized representation of the therapist’s teachings, associated with and blended into the internal picture of the therapist, which eventually informs the patient of his/her better choices for making conscious, self-affirming decisions for their life, in the absence of the therapist’s physical presence. On the positive side, this also helps the patient with any attachment to the therapist, for when the therapeutic relationship finally ends, the patient still carries the image, or tulpa, of the therapist and the teaching, which brings comfort in the therapist’s absence until the healing client can stand on their own feet.
This therapeutic relationship has excellent healing potential and, of course, in the negative, manipulation and abuse if the therapist had not previously reached an optimal personal healing quiescent point. The therapist must have risen beyond their own need to be emotionally manipulative to be of help. The therapist must NOT become financially dependent on payments made for services by specific clients, or abuse is inevitable.
This same entrainment or neuro-linguistic programming principle involves the spiritual teachings embedded within a student and guru in any spiritual teaching relationship. Often, just seeing the picture of the guru stimulates memories of the teachings transmitted throughout the teaching relationship and brings a sense of warmth or comfort to the evolving student. The same potential for attachments forms between guru and student, and the wise guru does not encourage emotional attachments, lest the student regress and remain dependent on outside influences to affirm their value. It is well known that famous gurus profit immensely from the imaginary or real services provided to the student. See Eckert Tolle, Deepak Chopra, Tony Robbins, the late Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh (aka OSHO), etc. You better have a fat wallet if you want big-name guides providing direction for your next spiritual step.
Finally, this same principle resides at the foundation of all religions. Within the Christian faith, where the practitioners attempt to embody the teachings of their prophet, Jesus of Nazareth, they worship mostly unread bibles, paintings, sculptured works, idols, stained glass panels, and statues of Mary crying, Jesus’s face miraculous appearing in cloud formations, their morning toast, or wherever their imagination creates an image similar to their most revered teacher. Yet, the teacher and Mary have been dead for 2000 years, so the student must be taught through other less enlightened teachers and their often disfigured interpretations of the dated sacred texts. They try to teach the religious neophyte that this is one-stop shopping, and the practitioner depends on the church and its teachings for the rest of their lives for any hope for an eternity with the church’s distorted, though often sincere, images of God.
Jesus, his image, and his teachings were never intended to be utilized the way that so many churches, including many Southern Baptist, White Evangelical, and those promoting “new age” and “new thought” understanding, now use him. It is disgraceful that it is used to generate more income for the all too often corrupt leaders of the faiths. And PLEASE remember to tithe! Never mind that the Catholic church has more money than several countries. The more you pay, the happier that God, er, the church is! That pastor has a family to feed, too! Prosperity theology appeals to the unhealed, greedy money accumulator within us, Joel Osteen, and 100 million others. Come on, open up the wallet of the parishioner in the pew next to you, and give like you always wanted to! You have to give to receive! The surest sign that God loves you is that you have a big, fat bank account with a big spiritualized ego to match! Just remember, the size of your bank account, or the account of the church of your choice, is no direct indication of the presence of the Spirit of the Universe. However, it does indicate how well you have adapted to the Capital-lust economic system.
The object, in truth, is to also internalize the teaching vs. just internalizing the teacher. When we internalize the teacher, we have created an idol, yet another break, or fragmentation, is encouraged within our consciousness. The average human being has over a dozen (though some are plagued with “legions”) or more fragments of self or “the other, or you” images floating around in the unconscious parts of their self. These may be historical archetypal images, including God, the Devil, the Trickster, and other disowned and unconscious or conscious and celebrated parts of our awareness of our self, along with the distortions in judgments of “the other or not me.” If God is still speaking to us, rather than through us, we are not ready for the real Kingdom of Wholeness and its Sublime Universe of non-duality. Similarly, if we are still plagued by the voices or the echoes of our unhealed past, we remain on the periphery of our true potential while still wrestling with fragmented and hyperactive minds.
Either way, conscious or unconscious, healing is not possible until all of the exiled, disowned, and otherwise unconscious and conscious aspects, or images of self, and the misinformed judgments of “the other, or you” are integrated, or woven, back into the conscious fabric of our undivided being. You can tell how good of a job you have done by evaluating the sum total of your relationships with the outer world. If there is still a lot of trauma and drama with external relationships, there probably is still work to be done on the inside, and/or it is time to “shake the dust off your feet” and move on to a new location. You can also tell by how much negative self-talk remains. Whatever you imagine God to be, remember that God has qualities that incorporate love of self, love of the other, and the peace that rests with the assurance that our creation, or all of our created images and narratives, point to the inherent goodness of life.
In truth, there is no room for duality. I believe that the bridge image or tulpa must be eventually discarded, lest the client just carries the bridge, the teacher and teaching, as an unnecessary guest, an embedded narrative covering and obscuring the natural light of pure awareness that being healed can ultimately reveal.
There is no room for The Father, The Son, and The Holy Ghost in Truth. There is only room for God seeing Itself, for God is omniscient. So, all past images, where relevant, just inform our present moment with their insight and wisdom rather than dominate and control our life experience if we are to see as our Creator has created us to see, in the truth of who we are.
Each of the images that we, or our culture, created in the past was to be yet another bridge to a new land, and potentially, closer to our truth, but often they were never completed, and thus continue to lead us astray, and to eventual dead-ends. Rather than just looking at Life through a revolving, hypnotizing collection of kaleidoscopic images, it is possible to achieve a vision where we are the unified wholeness of our healed Self rather than unenlightened worshippers of some unknown, unknowable, and unrealizable spiritual fantasy.
Social conformity attempts to maintain the rules of the teachings in a social setting. In a therapeutic setting, it is typically just a simple relationship between the therapist and the client, and the therapist establishes the majority of the rules of engagement. Yet, group therapy offers a much more complex dynamic, where social dynamics become part of a healing intention. The guru/student relationship is similar to the therapeutic relationship, and parallels continue in the setting of an ashram, which is the community of followers. Christianity and other religions rely almost exclusively on the social setting to practice and enforce tribal values that were once inspired by and perhaps practiced by the originator of the faith.
There are over 2 billion human beings who claim to be Christians. Yet, as we see in America, to claim to be a Christian is to claim any number of differing and often conflicting ideals and values. The teachings of Jesus, especially the Sermon On The Mount, have been rejected by a sizeable portion of those claiming Jesus as their teacher. “What would Jesus do?” used to be an essential question to those following his teaching. Yet, it has now morphed into “What can I get away with” in the now disrespected names of Jesus and Donald Trump while celebrating right-wing conservative billionaire values.
So, in whose image have you created yourself?
Are you willing to let go of all the controls of teachers, teachings, and their aging, corrupted images? Are you willing to say goodbye to any or all tulpas you have created to bring comfort, assurance, and guidance to you?
Are you willing to be healed and made whole?
Free yourself of all idols and images.
Free yourself from the ignorance of others and social conformity.
Free yourself from religious hucksters, fundamentalists, and propaganda.
Free yourself!
You are the Teacher.
You are the Teaching.
You are the Taught.
You are, and that is enough!
What would Jesus do? Oh, that is an easy question to answer.
“Straight is the way, and narrow is the gate, and very few there be who enter in,”
And,
And Jesus went into the temple of God and drove out all those who bought and sold idols in the temple and overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold doves. And he said to them:
“My house is a place of prayer, but you have turned it into a den of thieves.”
And he said:
“It is harder for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I say to you, it is easier pulling a camel through the eye of a needle than bringing a rich man to the kingdom”.
And, he said:
“The things that I do, you shall do, and even greater things than I have accomplished.”
Umm, there might be a need for many humbling experiences to bring a person to totally reject their current dysfunctional and materialistic course. Still, those millions of dollars are like a strong magnet to hold people’s attention away from actual change.
We can’t buy a stairway to Heaven. We can’t even rent the steps to Heaven, either.
There is real work to be done, and Jesus, your guru or your therapist, can not do it for you.
If your headlights are dirty, you cannot see clearly.
You cannot see clearly if your mind is cluttered with a multitude of images, illusions and materialism.
You are heading for the ditch if you don’t care about your consciousness.
The image remains forever materialistic, a mere limited placeholder, or bridge, to our fundamental, culturally obscured, infinite nature.
The chasm that exists between you and the other, which is another you, and between you and God is the image and the nearly infinite narrative that you, your family, your religion, and your culture created in ignorance and misunderstanding. That chasm is you until you see its unreality.
.Then, all that you see, and will ever see, unto eternity is the unified self and its infinite expressions of its boundless loving creativity, which “you” are now a most conscious and active part of.
“Nevertheless, I tell you the truth. It is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Helper (Comforter) will not come to you. I will send him to you “—Jesus of Nazareth.
God helps those who help themselves.
Do you get it now?
We all can do much better for our lives and our Spirit by not becoming another profit-centered ego passing as the latest minstrel of Truth, whether Western or Eastern, based on understanding.
True gurus know that no Teacher, no matter how popular, permanently affects our so-called “salvation”; it is always up to the individual to work out their life’s details and heal from childhood and adult traumas. Issues not addressed forthrightly and without reservation will haunt us like specters. Just because the “fickle finger of fate” has appeared to choose one writer, speaker, or teacher over another (or a million others) means only that the public, whatever that means, resonates with their message of hope. However, verbal transience is once again masquerading as permanence. They market “hope,” and we are susceptible to messages that imply that we too can be wise, become enlightened, ascend to Heaven after death, or whatever the empty promises of this type of marketed hope and hype imply. Writers who leave wishful thinking behind and directly confront Life’s issues may have something to say. Still, in this capitalist world, there is no guarantee that promoters will rise to support the work or that bored, disinterested readers will catch fire with the message. Sharon and I have a little personal experience with that one.
The ego was created as an intelligent, though misinformed, agent of our deep need for safety and love in a world that still does not know how to be safe and to love itself and each other. Our ego is a birthing canal for the energy of the Universe, so let us not be permanently stuck in it. The ego is the water of consciousness that eventually carries us back into the ocean of Spirit and is not our enemy. Never forget the world also has an ego, though every bit as fragmented as the most mentally ill among us. Attempting to fix the world will only drive one crazier than they already are if the personal ego still affirms its terminal uniqueness and has not yet begun collaboration and reunification with what is true.
Patriarchy and misogyny, capitalist systems gone socially awry, racism, hubris, and lack of empathy and compassion towards each other, AND THE PLANT AND THE ANIMAL KINGDOM continue to make the world an unsafe place for all life upon this planet. We forget that our biological origins are through the plant and animal kingdom, and if we don’t respect their rights, we have lost respect for ourselves. This only encourages irrational, unskilled behavior from our most precious creation, our ego. Many won’t speak out against troubling social, ecological, and/or religious issues. One of ego’s avoidance subroutines is to ignore the evil of others, knowing that to judge others of misbehavior is to have to acknowledge the malfeasance within itself,
It is time to follow new paths of consciousness. The worn-out ruts of our world culture will become our graves if dramatic and lasting change is not made.
There is a timeless path, but we must first unhitch our ego from the overworked horses of our troubled individual and collective past. We must unhitch our egos from the corrupted powers of this era.
The spiritual path is the journey we must all take to become reunited with our true value. It is unique for each of us and will not be found along Capitalism’s competitive superhighway
Let me steal your watch from your pocket, then sell it back to you—Alan Watt’s opinion about gurus, enlightenment, religion, and truth.
We are all enough.
No saint, sage, guru, or prophet can walk the Path for us.
It is healing to have company along the way. Bring snacks; it will be a long walk into eternity.
Tread lightly, with a curious mind and an open heart.
Gee, you are YOU!
TIME TO CELEBRATE OUR REAL LIFE TODAY.
And your authentic Self is free!
Spiritual capitalism need not corrupt any seeker of Truth.
JUST SAYING
If I charged people to listen to me, there would be more perceived value in what I say.
Argh, then I would be just another f..king GURU.
Perfection
Perfection still lies behind all image-darkened eyes
To look within ourselves without judgment is to find
The sublime surprise of which all life is comprised
The divine energy that supports all life, including mankind’s,
With courage drought, from fear and illusion made naught
We move from materialistic shadows into spiritual light
The Kingdom once sought is the new vision caught
To overcome the fragments of self is to see with unhindered sight
A love all-knowing, supported by the truth that’s showing
With the Divine, we are destined to walk hand in hand,
In us, it’s growing; through us, it’s showing
A love for all life between space and land.
Our hearts entwined, with one soul divine
To this world, we become a blessing immense
Though we pass this earthly way for one short mortal day
Who, with a spiritual healing experience, would dare dispense?
As I look at my life’s history, I witness Love and its healing Mystery. The most significant insights I have ever had continue to arise through the sacred Silence within my being. Words are formed to become the bridge from that Silence to the conscious mind in its attempt to bring balance back to which the verbal Universe has brought imbalance. Yet those words, though sacred to me, are only pointers to the potential of others.
Yet, to continue to point, I must.
Hatred, indifference, positive or negative empathy, love, healing, or mutual destruction are parts of our infinite potentiality. The choice is ours to make for our unique life experience when we become more healed and conscious. There is a Silence within each of us attempting to inform our consciousness as to how to best exercise our free will. What is our choice today?
The Silence continues to reach out to the turbulence within our world and bring balance back to our imbalanced souls.
My world will never be the same.
How about yours?
