Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
June 30, 2026
Mircea Magureanu
Vajrayana Buddhist deity yoga transformation is modeled using concepts from signal modulation, control systems, and field emanation theory. The mind's triadic baseline (Sem, Lo, Thugs) and the materialization of form from the ordinary physical body (Lus) to the enlightened dimension (Sku/Nirmanakaya) are analyzed. Nine dramatic moods (Gar-gyi Ro-dgu) act as frequency modulations over the blind carrier kinetic energy of consciousness (Sem), rendering the false egoic self-construct (Dak) dormant. The Lineage Blessing during ritual (Puja) down-links absolute, self-arising reality (Rang) through Samaya, replacing the disciple's conditioned egoic apparatus and projecting an illusory body (Tulpa) as an automated cybernetic feedback loop for spiritual protection.
Frontiers in Psychology
May 19, 2026
Cora Zeng
A formless, persistent inner dialogue partner called Dialogical Inner Voice Personification (DIVP) emerges spontaneously in childhood, operates through linguistic turn-taking, and is experienced as part of the self. Drawing on eight autoethnographic interview sessions with an AI research assistant and parental accounts, the author—a 14-year-old gifted bilingual student—traces DIVP's phenomenology and development from early childhood to adolescence. Five literatures (inner speech, imaginary companions, Dialogical Self Theory, giftedness and overexcitability, and non-pathological voice-hearing) each explain a component, but none captures the full configuration. A dual-overexcitability mechanism (intellectual × imaginational) is proposed as a candidate explanation, and the clinical risk of misdiagnosis in gifted children reporting such experiences is examined.
Figshare
January 28, 2026
Mark Lemon
Conscious experience can be understood as a process mediated by an aperture—a bandwidth of awareness—that operates over an invariant geometric structure. The model proposes a twelve-fold toroidal thoughtform that can be partitioned into focal lenses, each describable as an archetypal attractor, phase sector, symmetry class, or developmental band. A central control parameter, aperture, regulates the balance between differentiation and integration, producing distinct experiential octaves. Consciousness units aggregate into metastable configurations depending on aperture width, forming gestalts whose scale matches the active bandwidth. Subjective experience occurs within these constraints rather than being generated by content alone. The framework is interdisciplinary and designed for future formalization and empirical operationalization.
Open MIND
January 1, 2026
Yang Wan
The Multi-Cognitive Regime Architecture (MCRA) V5 reconceptualizes the mind as a dynamic runtime system rather than a static module structure. It defines seven cognitive regimes—integrative, homeostatic, social-norm, logical-reasoning, adaptive-neural, affective-anchoring, and perceptual-encoding memory—each a distinct runtime configuration of the same neural hardware. Hebb's Rule serves as the meta-rule: all cognitive structures are shaped by experience through the same plasticity mechanism. The framework provides unified mechanistic explanations across dreaming, Dissociative Identity Disorder, major depression, and LLM hallucinations. It generates independent, operational falsifiability conditions for all seven regimes, advancing the theory from a philosophical proposal to a testable scientific hypothesis.
December 11, 2025
Satoko Fujiwara, Hiroki Miura
Young adults in Japan are developing new forms of religiosity that blend digital, fictional, and embodied practices, challenging traditional frameworks. The authors introduce "2.5-dimensional religion" and "subjective ritualization" to capture how practices like oshi-katsu (fan devotion), 2.5-D musicals, tulpa creation, and anime pilgrimage blur reality and imagination. These activities shift from narrative-based subjective myths to participatory subjective rituals, expressing religiosity through affective ties and performative engagements in both physical and digital environments. The work offers a new theoretical lens for understanding religion in an age of fragmented identities and technological mediation.
Spiritual Psychology and Counseling
June 1, 2025
Neil Dagnall, Kenneth Drinkwater, Giovanni Caputo et al.
1 citation
A single case study of a 36-year-old man in France who reported ghostly encounters after playing the horror game Doki Doki Literature Club! tested the Haunted People Syndrome model, which describes such episodes as arising from people with heightened sensitivities, paranormal belief, and perceptual contagion. The participant showed slightly below-average haunt intensity, above-average recognition patterns for the syndrome, and scores indicating high transliminality, paranormal belief, and stress. His narrative aligned with the proposed process, and he experienced depersonalization, derealization, and dissociated identity, with aftereffects of situational enchantment. His understanding of the experiences evolved through active sense-making.
Incursiuni în imaginar
November 2, 2024
Ayusman Chakraborty
Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay's novel Debjan (1946) depicts an afterlife where dead protagonists travel through multiple parallel worlds. Although Bandyopadhyay is often seen as a realist writer, this novel reveals his imaginative power by blending orthodox Hindu beliefs with Theosophy, a Western occult movement that claimed roots in Eastern religions. The article highlights how Bandyopadhyay uses Theosophical concepts like "thought form" and "tulpa"—the idea that mental constructs can be made real through spiritual training—to show spirits creating imaginary worlds. This mingling of Eastern and Western spiritualism makes Debjan a unique literary site of cultural encounter, a point previously overlooked by critics.
Social Compass
June 1, 2024
Satoko Fujiwara, Hiroki Miura
2 citations
In contemporary Japanese youth culture, the boundary between religious and non-religious practices is blurring, shaped by three key concepts: 'practicing belonging', 'vicarious spirituality', and 'gendered fetishism'. These are illustrated through the phenomenon of 'tulpa'—created paranormal beings derived from Tibetan Buddhism—along with other examples. The article argues that what may appear religious to Japanese scholars might not be viewed as such by Western scholars, and that factors transforming religiousness in Japan affect not only spiritual but also secular settings, leading to parallel phenomena.
Journal of Religion, Media and Digital Culture
November 30, 2023
Vivian Asimos
The Slender Man, an internet-born monster from 2009, owes its lasting popularity to how its online community resolved two challenges of mass communal storytelling: narrative inconsistency, addressed through apophatic theology (defining the monster by what it is not), and the erosion of fear when stories are easily searchable online, countered by the concept of the Tulpa (a thought-form made real). Participants play with knowledge and religious ideas, generating mimetic excess that blurs the boundary between reality and fiction.
Schizophr Bull
February 1, 2023
Tanya M Luhrmann, Ben Alderson-Day, Ann Chen et al.
In communities where hearing voices is common and expected, people are taught cultural models to identify and explain voice-like events. These communities share common features: they teach discernment to accurately identify the legitimate voice of a spirit or being, and they use two methods to enable experiencing spirits—trained attention to inner experience and repeated speech to the invisible other. The ability to hear spirits becomes more skilled with practice, and what is heard becomes clearer over time. Despite shared cultural ideas, individual variation in experience exists, some possibly reflecting psychotic process. Voice-like events may be shaped by cognitive expectation, trained practice, and an experiential pathway.