From the diary of “Light Horse” Harry Lee

As many of you know I am a Revolutionary War reenactor and spend a lot of my time teaching about our early American past to school children as well as adults. What a better way to combine my love for history as well as the macabre and the paranormal by giving you a wonderful ghost story from the Revolutionary War and it comes directly from the diary of “Light Horse” Harry Lee.
It was 1781, Lee was dispatched to chase down British General Charles Cornwallis and harass his rear guard as Cornwallis was making his way from the Southern colonies and approaching Virginia. Light Horse was to rendezvous with Francis Marion AKA The Swamp Fox before making the journey further north. His men were camped close to an area known as Drowning Creek, NC when the incident happened.
The officer of the day was getting reports of strange noises coming from the night right outside the pickets and demands for identification were given by the Americans. When no reply came, shots were fired into the darkness.
Lee was confident no other troops were in the area. He was days from Marion and no known British forces were nearby. Lee was about to dismiss the alarm when another alarm came from the perimeter sentries. Movement outside the camp. The sounds of horsemen making their way through the neighboring swamp.
Another shot rang out into the night. Lee sent riders out and men placed on alert. Again…nothing.
The men began to murmur…were these men? Or ghosts? Several times sentries reported movement in the darkness and his men trembled in fear.
Then an alarm came from the picket at the main road. Movement ahead in the darkness.
Lee had all fires extinguished and guns at the ready for the entirety of the night. Eyes peering into the pitch of night.
With the coming of the dawn, his men wearily prepared themselves for the march out. Bodies strained from being awake all night and talk of the supernatural.
As they prepared to march out, I give you the words of Harry Lee himself from his diary: “In this state of suspense we might have continued long, have not the van officer directed his attention to the ground for the purpose of examining the trail of our active foe. When to his astonishment he found not the tracks of men but the tracks of a large pack of wolves. It was evident that the enemy was a troop of these wild beasts. Collected together and anxious to travel in their usual route and finding it obstructed by our camp, they turned from point to point to pass the field only to be fired upon. They widened their circle until they found the road. Our agitation vanished and was replaced with fastidious glee. No occurrence was so apt to illicit it then the one we just experienced. Never was a day’s march more pleasant. Being one who continued in good humor, inter sped with flashes of wit. For a time, their strain of discipline ceased. Each considered himself a dupe. The pickets, the patrols, the sentinel, and the officers of the day were picked as particular objects of derision. How wonderful it is that these men cannot tell the difference between soldiers and wolves”

Tulpas

The word itself makes me smile. And then the word makes me frown. Why? Because like most esoteric thoughts and practices it can be misinterpreted (or reinterpreted) into something that is very different from the original intent of the practitioners. What is a Tulpa? Its roots go back to Tibetan Buddhism that one is able to create an intelligent and sentient being with the power of their own mind. In layman’s terms, an imaginary friend.

The concept of a “thought form” or Tulpa comes from the Spiritualist and Theosophist movement of the early 20th Century. The “thought form” concept goes back to before the Middle Ages in Western Society and comes closer to our concept of magic. At least the type of magic that is considered by most today as sympathetic magic. The idea is actually very simple in concept but the practice is… iffy. Basically if you can think it, you can do it. This sounds almost like the Rhonda Byrne phenomenon The Secret (which I have serious issues with but that’s another story) but with the spin that you are creating a living sentient thing simply by thought. By first creating it in your mind and then projecting it out and making it real. The end product is an imaginary friend made real.

When I first read into this I could wrap my head around the concept of creating something out of will and perhaps breathing a completely separate consciousness into it. Then I thought, wait…isn’t that like induced Schizophrenia? The idea of purposefully bringing a second thought pattern into your head with the intent of conversing with it is a highly dangerous situation. Its like listening to your “inner voice” yet having an argument with it. And then you add to it the theory of making it tangible and outside the body. A mental homunculus made real.

What makes the matter even more interesting is the concept that things related to paranormal activity may instead be the byproduct of a Tulpa experiment. Ghosts? Or a Tulpa. This opens a whole new can of worms on looking at the paranormal and perhaps cryptozoology. If enough people believed in Bigfoot, wouldn’t this possibly CREATE Bigfoot? Probably the best modern example of this is the phenomena known as Slenderman . There is a community surrounding this alleged paranormal persona and is believed to be a “thoughtform” or Tulpa creation. Now….if you really want to take a step into the bizarre, My Little Pony Tulpas. I kid you not.