Tulpa(Wylie:sprul-pa;Sanskrit:निर्मितnirmitaandनिर्माणnirmāṇa;"to build" or "to construct") is anupayaconcept inTibetan BuddhismandBon, discipline and teaching tool. The term was first rendered into English as 'Thoughtform' byEvans-Wentz(1954: p.29):

In as much as the mind creates the world of appearances, it can create any particular object desired. The process consists of giving palpable being to a visualization, in very much the same manner as an architect gives concrete expression in three dimensions to his abstract concepts after first having given them expression in the two-dimensions of his blue-print. The Tibetans call the One Mind's concretized visualization the Khorva (Hkhorva), equivalent to the Sanskrit Sangsara; that of an incarnate deity, like the Dalai or Tashi Lama, they call a Tul-ku (Sprul-sku), and that of a magician a Tul-pa (Sprul-pa), meaning a magically produced illusion or creation. A master of yoga can dissolve a Tul-pa as readily as he can create it; and his own illusory human body, or Tul-ku, he can likewise dissolve, and thus outwit Death. Sometimes, by means of this magic, one human form can be amalgamated with another, as in the instance of the wife of Marpa, guru of Milarepa, who ended her life by incorporating herself in the body of Marpa."

The mindstream communion affected by the wife ofMarpain the abovementioned quotation, is an ancient mode of mind transmission (Tibetan) orempowerment(Tibetan:) in the Himalayan traditions, documented in thefolkloreand anthropological studies of Himalayan and SiberianShamanism. The Russian PsychiatristOlga Kharitidipublished her direct experience of this phenomenon in theAltay Mountains, where a shaman merged a stream of hisconsciousness continuumor 'spirit' with hers.This phenomenon is a variation of the spiritual discipline ofphowa(Tibetan) and is often rendered as "spirit possession" within English anthropological discourse.Inmysticism, atulpais the concept of a being or object which is created through sheerdisciplinealone. It is a materialized thought that has taken physical form and is usually regarded as synonymous to a thoughtform.The term comes from the works ofAlexandra David-Néel, who claimed to have created a tulpa in the image of a jollyFriar Tuck-likemonkwhich later developed a life of its own and had to be destroyed.The tulpa phenomenon is assumed by the consciousness-only doctrine first propounded within theYogācāraschool and is part of theMahayogadiscipline of thegeneration Stage(Wylie:kye rim; Sanskrit:utpattikrama) ,Anuyogadiscipline of thecompletion stage(Wylie:dzog rim; Sanskrit:saṃpannakrama) and theDzogchenperfection of effortless "unification of the generation and completion stages" (Wylie:bskyed rdzogs zung 'jug)