Please help me explore this...um...concept.

Limbo,

This is a popular concept in sci-fi, but it is usually found in the alien species.

Please elaborate more on the context of this concept; give me an example.

Also, try to be more specific in your title - that would attract more people.

Be more specific in your request. How do you want people to explore this concept when it is invisible and only sensed by those that are clairvoyant?

As it stands, it is one of the most ridiculous and stupid things I've ever read about. Try putting down the hash pipe before you "explore" this concept further.

I read the encyclopedia entry provided and thought I had nothing to say about it at all. I just don't know enough about the world to say for sure that this explanation (thoughtforms) is impossible. It is however kind of a neat attack on the materialist position. It seems to me that one of the best defenses a materialist has against claims about the paranormal, is that all reported experiences of the paranormal require only a psychological explanation. This way she can still accept reports of paranormal happenings, she can accept that some if not most of these reports are not lies, and still maintain that these things are all just in their heads. If however she sees the ?'thought' in thoughtforms and says "ah, a psychological explanation!", and accepts it. She is now in the position of having bought a little ?'thought' for a lot of ?'form'. She should have just stuck to her guns, and said "Show me that these things have some sort of existence outside of the mind. And then we can talk about how they come to be." Of course, she might be a little uncomfortable with her hardnosed materialism (naturalism) and decide that it is a good compromise, take it, and then go about defending it. It would be a hard position to defend, but I don't think impossible.

I will elaborate a bit.

Thoughtforms are artificial entities, created accidentally or intentionally by the mind. They can be created by groups or individuals.

Throughout history they have taken many forms, depending on the local folklore of the culture that creates them. For instance, our modern culture accepts the possibility of UFO's, it's part of modern lore, we have common conceptions of the characteristics of UFO's, and so thoughtforms take the shape of UFO's.

Poltergeists are another example of modern thoughtforms.

Long ago they would take the form of fairies, gnomes, elves, or whatever else the local folklore conceptualizes.

Then there are the kind that are created intentionally. I don't know how much anyone here knows about ancient esoterics, but I know quite a bit. Every system I know of has methods of summoning and/or creating entities. They seemed to think they were spirits/demons/elementals, but I believe they were thoughtforms, created by the highly disciplined mind of the ancient adept.

King Solomon, the father of ceremonial magic, was a powerful summoner. Summoning and binding entities to his service was his specialty. I think he was creating thoughtforms.



Socrates, evidently, had a thoughtform. A Daemon. It seems likely that Socrates was a trained adept of the Mysteries and knew methods of thoughtform construction similar to those of King Solomon.

Shamans create thoughtforms. Witches create thoughtforms, and bind them to animals as a "familiar". Thoughtforms can also be bound to objects, those are called talismans.

If thoughtforms aren't bound to anything, they are usually invisible. When visible, one of the most common appearances is as a ball of light.

Thoughtforms can also be bound to people. When done accidentally the result is something usually mistaken for "demonic possesion". When done intentionally, the result is a "medium" who can "channel" information from the thoughtform.

Precognition and telepathy could be defined as receiving information from a thoughtform or from some level of collective consciousness.

I don't mean this to be an attack on any paradigm or belief system so I hope no one takes this concept as an offense. I am merely a truth-seeker.