Differences between thoughtforms and true spirits?

[PrincessKnight]

What are the main differences between thoughtforms and true spirits?
How can you understand if you have met a thoughtform or a real spirit?
Do thoughtforms communicate in the same ways as spirits do?
TYVM!

[Lewk]

What are the main differences between thoughtforms and true spirits?
How can you understand if you have met a thoughtform or a real spirit?
Do thoughtforms communicate in the same ways as spirits do?
TYVM!

Hmmm...

I'll have a go at answering.

Spirits

Thinking out loud, as it were, what do we mean by 'spirits'? Let's say we mean beings who were previously alive. Clearly there's a vast variety among them. Or do we also mean beings that are not alive on the physical / earthen plane? That would include the idea of living entities and immortals who are alive in the astral / spiritual realms. So the word 'spirit' can refer to several categories of being. ie Not all the same thing as each other. But they might all be thought of as beings that came into being 'naturally' and were not created 'artificially' by other beings. (Even here there must be some exceptions...and what do we mean by 'naturally'?)

You can probably see where I'm going with this.

Thoughtforms

What do we mean by 'thoughtforms'? This is another word that is used to refer to more than one type of thing. Long term prayer and worship services carried out in a church will build up what has been called a thought form. A repeated worry can be a thought form. The collective energy pattern of a crowd is sometimes called a thought form (see egregores). People may accidentally / unwittingly send thoughtforms to other people (either negative or positive). Differing Christians' ideas of what their messiah is like may well be responsible for having created multiple thoughtforms of the Christ in the astral. You can terrorise yourself with your own thoughtform, which is your imagined fear with a psychic add-on (see Franz Bardon on Schemas).

Or thought forms can be created intentionally. One example is group experimental efforts to create a god-like thought form. Some occult societies have created thoughtforms as their secret leaders ( I think both wittingly and unwittingly), which have turned negative and caused havoc, much as an out of control tulpa can. So, yes, tulpas, servitors and so on...intentionally created by humans. Some can be created sentient and some can become sentient over time, maybe a very long time.

Some of that is just part of what some people call the psychic background. (There's a load of psychic junk out there.) Some of it is organised, if that's the right word.

That is my take on the philosophical differences. A lot depends on what someone means when they use a word.

How to tell the difference between one or another in practice depends on your level of discernment - psychic ability that tends to take time to develop.

[Lewk]

oops...missed a bit.

Communication - sentient servitors are created / programmed to interact and communicate just like spirits. eg Eclipse Metaphysical's Guardians. I 'kept' them before discovering spirit keeping. Very similar in some ways.

You can psychically dialogue / interact with many things, even with pure energy... or spell bindings. Clouds, plants, your body, your higher self. The list is virtually endless. So again I would say it's the psychic / intuitive ability of discernment that enables us to tell the difference between one thing or another.

[cairngorn]

I was just reading a book where the author, David Spangler, describes a thoughtform he experienced at C.S. Lewis' grave. He claims to have seen the author standing there, smiling and sending love. When he tried to talk to the apparition or engage somehow it just smiled the same way and sent the feeling again. The author concluded that he suspects admirers focusing on the author might have created a lasting thoughtform

Point is, simple thoughtforms often have repetitive or stereotyped behavior. I have no idea how you'd be able to figure out an advanced and independent thoughtform from a spirit though. Would there really be much difference?

[Lewk]

I was just reading a book where the author, David Spangler, describes a thoughtform he experienced at C.S. Lewis' grave. He claims to have seen the author standing there, smiling and sending love. When he tried to talk to the apparition or engage somehow it just smiled the same way and sent the feeling again. The author concluded that he suspects admirers focusing on the author might have created a lasting thoughtform

Point is, simple thoughtforms often have repetitive or stereotyped behavior. I have no idea how you'd be able to figure out an advanced and independent thoughtform from a spirit though. Would there really be much difference?

Very interesting about CS Lewis' grave.

Yes, from personal experience I'd say you get very similar responses from sentient servitors and spirits - but there is a different feel. One forum member once posted here that Duojnas feel rather like a sentient servitor (aka sophisticated, created thought form).

And it has been said that some spirits people encounter on their astral travels have evolved from being something like that, eventually reaching full spirit-hood (for want of a better term). And we may not know their origin.

At the risk of complicating things, something like thought forms can also be created by spirits in their own realms. And they can create their own versions of something like tulpas / sentient servitors etc. And there seem to even be some very simple, programmable beings that can act / serve like servitors for spirits. (eg Lisa of Mystic Morning Treasures' Krees.

see http://stores.mysticmorningtreasures.co ... ith-krees/

[PrincessKnight]

What do we mean by 'thoughtforms'? This is another word that is used to refer to more than one type of thing. Long term prayer and worship services carried out in a church will build up what has been called a thought form. A repeated worry can be a thought form. The collective energy pattern of a crowd is sometimes called a thought form (see egregores). People may accidentally / unwittingly send thoughtforms to other people (either negative or positive). Differing Christians' ideas of what their messiah is like may well be responsible for having created multiple thoughtforms of the Christ in the astral. You can terrorise yourself with your own thoughtform, which is your imagined fear with a psychic add-on (see Franz Bardon on Schemas).

What you said is very interesting indeed. Just to give an example, I was thinking, if there are multiple thoughtforms in the astral realm that represent Jesus Christ, how can we contact the real Jesus? I mean, how can we be sure that we are speaking with the true Christ and not with a thoughtform that represents him? Of course, the same can be said for every other person, especially if famous (Marylin, Elvis, Chaplin, Ghandi, etc.)

[PrincessKnight]

Communication - sentient servitors are created / programmed to interact and communicate just like spirits. eg Eclipse Metaphysical's Guardians. I 'kept' them before discovering spirit keeping. Very similar in some ways.

So now you don't keep servitors anymore? Why? Who did you entrust them to? Did you send them back to the store?

You can psychically dialogue / interact with many things, even with pure energy... or spell bindings. Clouds, plants, your body, your higher self. The list is virtually endless. So again I would say it's the psychic / intuitive ability of discernment that enables us to tell the difference between one thing or another.

I also dialogue with practically everything, especially with objects that have an anthropomorphic or animal appearance, but I never thought that talking with spell bindings was ever possible. Can you explain it better to me? TYVM!

[PrincessKnight]

I was just reading a book where the author, David Spangler, describes a thoughtform he experienced at C.S. Lewis' grave. He claims to have seen the author standing there, smiling and sending love. When he tried to talk to the apparition or engage somehow it just smiled the same way and sent the feeling again. The author concluded that he suspects admirers focusing on the author might have created a lasting thoughtform

Very interesting! What Spangler descibes looks very much like a kind of holographic figure, don't you agree?

I have no idea how you'd be able to figure out an advanced and independent thoughtform from a spirit though.

It's exactly the same thing I was wondering about...

[PrincessKnight]

And it has been said that some spirits people encounter on their astral travels have evolved from being something like that, eventually reaching full spirit-hood (for want of a better term). And we may not know their origin.

At the risk of complicating things, something like thought forms can also be created by spirits in their own realms. And they can create their own versions of something like tulpas / sentient servitors etc. And there seem to even be some very simple, programmable beings that can act / serve like servitors for spirits. (eg Lisa of Mystic Morning Treasures' Krees.

see http://stores.mysticmorningtreasures.co ... ith-krees/

Amazing!!!

[Lewk]

[...]What you said is very interesting indeed. Just to give an example, I was thinking, if there are multiple thoughtforms in the astral realm that represent Jesus Christ, how can we contact the real Jesus? I mean, how can we be sure that we are speaking with the true Christ and not with a thoughtform that represents him? Of course, the same can be said for every other person, especially if famous (Marylin, Elvis, Chaplin, Ghandi, etc.)

Contact the 'real' Jesus astrally?

Well, the idea would be that the historical Jesus - and there does seem to have been one - is not the same as all of his followers' ideas of him. Logically, even if there is one 'true' Jesus somewhere on the astral, there could still be many strong thought forms of him, sustained by followers' devotion to the ideal of him that their branch of Christianity subscribes to. If Jesus was genuinely a demigod, he may be sitting at the right hand of the god Jehovah in that very high level of the astral reserved for deities only, where human astral travellers cannot go.

Of course this is itself only one belief about the makeup of the different levels of the astral realm. But I think it'd make sense that thought forms of deities and prophets / messiahs would be on a level below that. And, as with most things psychic, discernment would be how you tell the difference.

[...]So now you don't keep servitors anymore? Why? Who did you entrust them to? Did you send them back to the store?

I still 'keep' the Guardian sentient servitors. I started doing that before I discovered spirit keeping.

[...]I also dialogue with practically everything, especially with objects that have an anthropomorphic or animal appearance, but I never thought that talking with spell bindings was ever possible. Can you explain it better to me? TYVM!

'Talking' with spell bindings isn't quite what I meant. Psychic dialogue - or psychic interaction, if you prefer, is what I mean.

People differ in how spell bindings affect them or how their bindings interact with them. But they can lead you in your meditation sessions, show you things, teach you things...maybe especially with club bindings. One binding even started teaching me some codewords and how to use them - or so it seemed.