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Son Has Double Standard about His Mother's Beliefs

4/14/2015

Dear Papabear,

I'm an agnostic atheist, but my mom and some of her friends believe in New Age things such as psychics and crystals that have special powers. As far as I'm aware, a lot of, if not all, New Age stuff is pseudoscience, which would mean that people who sell crystals, charge for psychic readings, etc. are knowingly or unknowingly scamming people.
There is the possibility of people (not necessarily my mom or her friends, just anyone in general) using New Age alternative medicine in lieu of science-backed, proven-to-work medicine, and dying as a result.

I also object to the "Law of Attraction", which states that the good things you experience are directly because of your thoughts and implies that the same is true for negative experiences including debilitating illnesses like AIDS or cancer. This philosophy also implies that the best course of action is to brush negative people off, even if those people are friends/family, and to suppress any negative emotions such as fear or anger (I used to do the latter, and my doctor told me it was bad).

Also, I've heard that many New Age beliefs are appropriated from Eastern cultures (e.g., the New Age idea of chakras vs the original Hindu concept), which seems reprehensible.

In addition to these moral objections, I also worry for my tulpas (I've gained a few since my last letter, by the way). One of them looks like this: http://s7.photobucket.com/user/Yangmio/media/FMA/TuckerChimera_ReferenceSheet.png.html, and two of them look similar to this: http://www.fullmetal-alchemist.com/forums/uploads/1156353980/gallery_38076_736_8798.jpg (this was the only one I could find that highlighted their fluffy-looking coats). Let's say that my mom finds out I have tulpas. I see it as possible that she will make a snap judgement and declare the three "monstrous" ones to be malevolent based solely on their appearances. I hold this belief because I asked a New Age YouTube what he thought of those tulpas' appearances; he hasn't written back yet, but knowing that he ascribes stereotypically masculine and feminine traits to "male energy" and "female energy" respectively, he'd probably say that they're as evil as they look. In addition, I've heard from one source that "negative entities" will pretend to be on your side, can give you headaches*, and generally cause you to experience negative things like nausea or fear**, although there doesn't seem to be a consensus on just what negative entities do.

Possibly, my mom might think that my three other tulpas are malevolent, despite them not looking monstrous in the slightest. I inexplicably think that it'd be impossible to convince her otherwise. If it's relevant, one of them objects to New Age stuff because she feels like it keeps the scientific community from taking tulpas seriously.

Basically, I'm worried that my mom might be headed down a road that could damage her physical and emotional health, morals, and wallet (it may sound selfish, but I feel that any money she spends on New Age things would be better spent putting me through college or paying whatever hypothetical bills need to be paid), and cause her to worry about me unnecessarily (although her jumping to conclusions that I'm mentally ill would probably be as bad as her jumping to the conclusion that I've attracted evil spirits to myself).
Would attempting to "deconvert" my mom from New Age beliefs be the right thing to do, or would I be infringing on her right to freedom of religion?

*I've had minor headaches that I interpret as my brain adapting to housing multiple minds.

**I've sometimes been distressed by irrational worries that my mom secretly knows about/disapproves of my tulpas, but only once by the "monstrous" tulpas themselves (they originated as intrusive thoughts). I felt guilty that one of them, Nina, had to temporarily change her appearance/hide who she was so that I could learn to see her as a person who just happens to look weird, instead of as a monster. I also felt guilty for trying to get rid of them just because I was scared of how they looked.

Alec (age 20)

* * *

Dear Alec,

Your letter puzzles this old bear. You’re openly hostile about your mother’s beliefs in “New Age” practices, saying, for instance, that is a scam and counter to well-established science, and yet you believe in tulpas, which are most definitely in the realm of mysticism. Furthermore, you complain that her beliefs emanate from Eastern cultures and you find this “reprehensible.” But! Dear Alec, where do you think the idea about tulpas came from? Tibet and other Eastern cultures! So, what’s the deal, hon? Gosh, if that isn’t a double standard, this bear doesn’t know what is.

Fundamentally, you are saying that it’s okay for you to believe in a mystical spirit but if your mother does it, it’s wrong. That ain’t right.

Then you ask me if it would be justified to “deconvert” your mother so she no longer has these beliefs (although how you’d go about that, I have no clue), yet you are frightened that if your mother discovers your tulpas she’ll forbid you to believe in them. Do you not see what’s happening here? You wouldn’t like it if your mother told you “no tulpas allowed,” but you think it might be okay for you to tell her she is wrong about her own beliefs?

You ask if you are being selfish. Um, yes, you are. Your selfishness is also revealed in the statement that you are offended your mother spends money on “New Age things” when she should be spending it on your college education. Lemme tell ya something, me bucko. Your mother is not obligated to pay for your college education. In fact, she was in her legal rights to boot you out the door two years ago when you were 18. Anything above and beyond that she gives you out of the goodness of her heart and her love for you. Maybe you should try being grateful for that instead of being so resentful.

Take a good look at yourself, Alec. Perhaps those images of tulpas are rather ugly because there is something not so attractive in you. The good news is you can fix that. In fact, Papabear predicts that if you would focus on being a selfless, loving, caring son and human being, your tulpas would morph into something quite beautiful.

Think on it,

Papabear

7 Comments

Mitch

4/14/2015 10:24:42 am

Crap.

This whole misunderstanding seems like it arose from the word "tulpa", so let me clarify:
The fact is that that's the word that's been used to describe this phenomenon for several years. I don't believe in the mystical idea of "thinking about a creature so much that it gains a physical form". I agree that use of the word "tulpa" to describe what is essentially an imaginary friend that appears to be sentient and can act as a calculator or notepad, or provide an alternative perspective on things) is appropriation, but I don't think that the word will change—it's been hijacked in this manner for several years, and people are used to using it to refer to a psychological phenomenon.
Here's more info on the phenomenon I'm talking about when I say "tulpa": http://www.reddit.com/r/Tulpas/wiki/faq. I, along with the majority of people who make tulpas, see this as a psychological phenomenon, not a mystical one. As you can see from that link, under the question “is this really a new phenomena?”, the term “tulpa” is from Tibet, but the concept it refers to has been around since the Ancient Greeks, who were not an Eastern culture (although the did border Turkey, which is part of the Middle East), and who believed in Daimonism (a concept to the Tibetan idea of tulpas) long before 20th century Tibetan Buddhists.
Little kids can have imaginary friends. Writers can experience their characters "coming to life". Most people are capable of imagining "how would person X react to event or information Y?" People can have dreams in which they interact with what appear to be other people (dream characters)—I consider these points evidence to back up the psychological phenomenon that is unfortunately referred to with the same word as a religious practice, but I haven’t found any evidence to support the claims that crystals have healing powers, that a person’s thoughts directly create his or her external/physical reality, or anything of that sort (to the best of my knowledge, there isn’t any way to prove that tulpas exist, but there are bits of psychological/neurological research that, taken together, can offer support for their possibility). As far as I can tell, tulpas (in the psychological view) are theoretically possible, but things like contacting the dead and healing people with crystals are not.

It’s not that I’m worried my mom will say “no tulpas allowed”, it’s that I’m worried she’ll say “you’re in contact with negative spirits and need to be exorcised” and/or “you’re mentally ill and need to be institutionalized and doped up on antipsychotics”, for the sole reason that some of my tulpas happen to look a certain way. I’m worried that she will judge them by their appearances and not listen when I tell her about the benign or even positive things they’ve done.

About "putting me through college": I said "it may sound selfish, but I feel that any money she spends on New Age things would be better spent putting me through college [i]or paying whatever hypothetical bills need to be paid[/i]".
I’d like to emphasize the "or paying whatever hypothetical bills need to be paid" part, by which I mean [i]her[/i] bills (not mine, in case I failed to communicate that). My rationale is that the more money she spends on things that haven’t been scientifically verified to do the things people claim they do, the less money she’ll have to support herself (if she ever gets to a point where she would have to decide between buying New Age things and supporting herself). I don’t see her beliefs leading to a financial crisis in the [i]near future[/i], but I want to mitigate the risk of that happening at [i]any[/i] time as much as I can. I want to lessen the chances of her becoming the type of person who blames people for their problems, no matter how slim the chance is of her becoming this type of person. I want to lessen the chances of her being taken advantage of by people I view as con artists—again, no matter how slim the chance of her being taken advantage of is. You’re free to disagree, but as far as I see it, I’m doing this out of the goodness of my heart and my love for her; as far as I see it, I [i]am[/i] being a caring son. The reason I want to get her away from New Age beliefs [i]entirely[/i] (as opposed to simply saying “Mom, you should be cautious of scammers”) is because I feel like believing in healing crystals, reiki, psychics, etc. at all could potentially lead her to focus on those things, to the detriment of her relationships with others and to the detriment of her financial situation—as an analogy, Hercules couldn’t just cut off the Hydra’s heads, he had to take that extra step to keep new heads from growing. You can’t presume “this tulpa looks like a negative spirit, therefore it is, therefore m

mitch

4/14/2015 10:26:47 am

(cont'd)Hercules couldn’t just cut off the Hydra’s heads, he had to take that extra step to keep new heads from growing. You can’t presume “this tulpa looks like a negative spirit, therefore it is, therefore my son is in danger” if you don’t believe in spirits; you can’t fall for conmen selling healing crystals if you don’t believe crystals have healing powers. You won’t have to worry about choosing between supporting yourself and buying New Age things (such as investing in costly seminars that offer pseudo-self-help or teach you that everything in your life—good and bad—is your fault) if you see no reason to buy New Age things.

You said “perhaps those images of tulpas are rather ugly because there is something not so attractive in you”. I can see why you would think this, given that I forgot to include the information that these particular tulpas resulted from binging the show the characters they look like are from—on a side note, these characters weren’t outright villains, but were incredibly tragic (a scientist desperate to keep his license has to impress his peers, so he creates a talking animal by merging his four-year-old daughter with her pet dog. A vigilante kills the resulting creature. In his attempts to bring his daughter back, the regret-filled scientist accidentally turns himself part dog).
Essentially, they are a result of the Tetris Effect, but with a TV show instead of a videogame; the forms they take are a result of my having intrusive thoughts of particular scary-looking (emphasis on “looking”, not “acting”) anime characters, and unintentionally paying attention to these thoughts; one of the dogs (Nina) even told me, “scariness is only skin-deep”. I used to have intrusive thoughts before bed, but these tulpas keep that from happening. I assume that, if they were a representation of some dark part of me, they would act like it and make my life a living Hell. When they first appeared, I reacted by trying to get rid of them. When they came back, I had two tulpas, and Shou (the one with a human face) was contemplating suicide via starving himself of my attention (his logic was “Why should I be permitted to exist if Alec is frightened of my appearance and if, as far as he or I know, his mind cannot handle more than two tulpas?”); when Nina came back, she changed her appearance for the purpose of allowing me to get to know her as an individual who just happens to identify with a form that I (used to) be frightened of—I got to know her, and now I treat her as a person, instead of a scary-looking monster. They have not acted malevolent in the slightest, in spite of existing (in my mind, [i]not[/i] physically) for about ten months—if they had any desire to screw me over, they probably would have done so by now. They have good reason to, because I tried to get rid of them by imagining them being [i]lit on fire[/i] (symbolically—my logic was “fire kills germs, and intrusive thoughts are similar to “mental germs”.”) for the sole reason that I was scared of how they looked. They have an excuse to be malevolent, to seek revenge, but they aren’t and they don’t; I know I’m about to repeat myself, but I would just like to emphasize the fact that although they look evil, they have never acted in a way that would be to my detriment, which I would expect them to do if they represented some dark part of me.

The reason I didn’t mention that what I mean by “tulpas” is “a psychological phenomenon supported by evidence x, y, and z” in this letter is because I mistakenly thought that I had clarified the matter in a previous letter. I realize that I’ve repeated myself that “there is at least some evidence to support the possibility of tulpas as psychological constructs, but no such evidence to support New Age beliefs” and that “I view tulpas as psychological, not metaphysical”; taking a step back and looking at this objectively, I think that I’m trying to make up for failing to clarify what I meant by “tulpas”, and overcompensating by repeating myself. Please inform me if there is something you’d like me to clarify.

The way I see it (I’m not trying to say that I’m right, this is just my perspective), the issue I came to you with is that I want to do what I think is best for my mom, but I don’t want to come off as a moralizing asshole. If I did decide to do this, I would gently point out what I see as flaws with New Age spirituality (example: “Doesn’t reincarnation/past life regression contradict psychic mediums? As I understand it, the former says that you never truly die; but the latter says that once you die, you die, but you can be contacted by a living channeler.”).

Papabear

4/14/2015 11:49:18 am

Hi, Alec/Mitch,
You're correct, I goofed here. I apologize about the definition of "tulpa" mix up. This changes things a little, but not entirely. Instead of arguing a mysticism vs. mysticism butting of heads, we have a mysticism vs. parapsychology conflict. I say "parapsychology" because the kind of tulpas you're talking about have not been proven, either. Even in the link you provide, it says:
Q: Prove tulpas!
A: Tulpa are a highly subjective phenomena like hypnotic trance or lucid dreaming. We are looking into proving them eventually via formal psychological and neuroscientific study, but that is some way away. Your best hope of proving it to yourself is to try it.

I am not going to say tulpas are not real, but neither will I say that your mother's beliefs are invalid. Neither, as you admit, have been proven, and saying they "might be proven scientifically in the future" still doesn't mean they are true. Actually, people are striving right now to scientifically prove things such as life after death and other "New Age" stuff.

Okay, so that said, let's go to your concerns about Mom. Now, if she is spending so recklessly that she is not paying her bills, going into debt, etc. Yes, she could have a real problem. Perhaps we should cut through all the crap about whether tulpas or New Age beliefs are real and address that issue. Is she a shopaholic of New Age stuff? You might want to check this out: http://www.shopaholicsanonymous.org/.

If, on the other hand, your mom is doing no harm to you or herself and others, then it is none of your business. If you are harming no one, do what you will, as Wiccans say. If you are genuinely concerned about your mother's financial stability, then sit her down gently and have a mature talk about it, leaving out your doubts about her beliefs.

If you get into an argument about which of your beliefs are true, neither one of you has the right to tell the other that he/she is wrong. We believe things such as tulpas, chrystal power, or whatever because these things bring us comfort and because we wish to believe in something more amazing in our lives than the mundane things we can see, feel, and touch. Because we want our lives to be about more than just death and taxes. If your mom's beliefs bring her that joy and comfort, then leave her alone. Her beliefs are just as valid as yours.

Your mom is a grown woman. It is still, frankly, rather arrogant of you to think "I know better." You're 20. Frankly, at your age--and even at your mom's--you don't know crap. We are tiny specs in a vast universe beyond our feeble comprehensions. Don't belittle your mom. For all you know, she could be right.

Hugs

4/14/2015 01:35:46 pm

You make some good points here. It's possible that my mom is right, and it's possible that life does continue after death. I have a vague idea of what I'd say in response to what you said, but I get the feeling that replying would lead to a back-and-forth, and the comment section would turn into a friendly debate lasting several pages; I'm not sure if all that data would bog down the Internet speed of anyone who tries to access your site, or otherwise inconvenience you or anyone else. If I have nothing to worry about in that regard, and if you ever have time, would you be open to a friendly debate about "tulpas vs metaphysics", or anything that might fall under that umbrella?

4/14/2015 03:38:58 pm

You can post as much as you like here; it's not going to affect people's ability to access the site. If you wanna chat, you can always contact me on Facebook or FA.

4/16/2015 02:51:51 pm

This is just a semantics issue, but The Skepdic's Dictionary says that "parapsychology is the search for evidence of paranormal phenomena", and says that "an event or perception is said to be paranormal if it involves forces or agencies that are beyond scientific explanation". As I've shown, tulpas can be supported scientifically (re: imagining how a person would react to something, writers' characters "coming to life", etc.). The link draws parallels between tulpas and lucid dreaming, which has been scientifically proven by Dr. Stephen LaBerge.
Shopaholism is just one of my concerns. The way I see it, mediums sell the grieving false hope for up to thousands of dollars (I see no scientific evidence to support the existence of souls, let alone souls that can be channeled, so I conclude that psychics are frauds), alternative medicine salespeople give the sick false hope AND a risk of dying from some disease that's curable (or at least treatable) with modern medicine. Many types of alternative medicine rest on the idea that diseases are caused by imbalances in some sort of "vital force", which is contradicted by germ theory, a theory that has been held as fact for centuries.
One New Age claim is that thoughts directly affect reality. If this were true, cult leaders believed to be gods would possess godly powers, and wishing wells would really work. This doesn't seem to be falsifiable, because all experiments involve people to some extent, not consciousness-lacking robots; a person's thoughts would influence the outcome of any experiment. In addition to being untestable, this belief can lead to undue stress, because you’ll be trying not to think negatively and cause negative things to happen to you, but trying to suppress thoughts often makes you think of the thing you’re trying not to think of.
For a long time, I’ve held the belief that New Age things are unsupported pseudoscientific BS, and can be dismissed as BS because they’re unsupported. With one sentence from a person I take as an authority figure, that’s been shattered. There’s a lump in my throat right now, and I’m not sure, but I think I’m on the verge of tears—because my entire worldview has been fucked, just with “for all you know, she could be right”—“entire” worldview is probably exaggeration, but a big part of my worldview, nonetheless; this part says “if it can’t be supported through evidence, or at least logic, it’s crap”. By the way, I can fit tulpas into this worldview, because of things like “you can dream about people” and “DID shows that it’s possible to have individuals other than yourself in your mind, or at least the illusion of this”, from which I can infer that tulpas are plausible.
I think I might be a hypocrite: I generally think that “what ifs” and “this could be the case” and baseless speculation aren’t worth my time, yet I created my first tulpa by repeatedly answering the question “what would she do in this or that situation, based on the personality traits I’ve chosen for her to have?”
Ideally, the subject of tulpas would not be brought up until my mom didn’t believe in New Age stuff, if such a time ever comes. I think that “belief” is the wrong way to phrase it, because I can logically conclude that tulpas are plausible; I could be wrong on this, but I don’t think the same can be done for mysticism.
I wasn’t planning on belittling her. I was planning on approaching the subject of “as far as I know, there isn’t anything to suggest that psychics, mediums, crystal healers, etc. aren’t frauds; I’m worried you’ll get taken advantage of, or that you’ll start blaming people for their problems” in as gentle a way as possible.

4/17/2015 02:36:47 am

Hey, Mitch, don't stress, okay? I didn't mean to upset you. I'm just trying to note that keeping an open mind about such things is not a bad idea. I'm also not denying your tulpas. Also, she's YOUR mother; you know her much better than I do. And, as you may have read, I always favor open communication between family and friends. Go ahead and talk to her about your concerns. Your feelings on this issue are valid, and I didn't mean to say they were not. Take care.

Son Has Double Standard about His Mother's Beliefs

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