"Spirit Guides in Pop Culture"
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As a tie-in to our latest issue, we would like to present
some of the most recognizable and lasting forms of “Spirit Guides” in modern
pop culture….
Most cultures throughout history have long imagined non-physical entities: from helpful spirit guides and guardian angels, to mysterious tulpas and egregores born from belief. In recent times, authors and filmmakers have eagerly explored these concepts – portraying imaginary friends that come to life, collective thought-creatures fed by belief, and ghostly mentors guiding heroes.
Spirit Guides: Mentors Beyond the Veil
Spirit guides are traditionally seen as benevolent spiritual
mentors–often the souls of ancestors or wise beings–who offer guidance and
protection. These might be ancestor spirits, guardian angels, animal totems, or
personal deities. For example, ancient Greeks spoke of the daemon or genius,
and likewise, many indigenous cultures teach that ancestral spirits or nature
spirits help guide the living. In 19th-century Spiritualism, mediums famously
claimed to contact spirit guides who would speak through them and offer wisdom.
In popular fiction, spirit guides often appear as the ghost
of a departed mentor who returns to counsel the hero. A few well-known examples
include:
- The
Jedi “Force Ghosts” in The Star Wars franchise– After
Obi-Wan’s death, he returns as a spirit to advise Luke Skywalker. Later,
Yoda and even Anakin Skywalker’s spirit appear to guide the new
generation. These Force spirits retain their identity after death and
manifest visually or as voices to help the living. Luke many times hears
Obi-Wan’s voice urging him (“Use the Force, Luke”) and sees Obi-Wan and
Yoda appear with comforting advice at critical moments.
- Mufasa
in The Lion King – In a memorable scene, lost Simba receives
guidance from the spirit of his father, Mufasa. Mufasa’s ghostly visage
forms out of the stars and clouds to remind Simba of who he is (“Remember
who you are”), giving him the courage to claim his destiny. This emotional
moment echoes a common mythological motif: kings or heroes guided by their
fathers’ spirits.
- Harry
Morgan in Dexter – In the TV series Dexter,
the title character is a forensic expert who also lives a secret life as a
vigilante serial killer. Dexter was taught a strict moral code by his
adoptive father, Harry, to channel his violent urges only against other
killers. After Harry’s death, Dexter often “sees” and converses with
Harry’s figure, who appears in times of stress to talk him through
situations. This Harry is not a literal ghost but an internalized guiding
voice–essentially Dexter’s conscience given the face of his father.
Beyond these, countless other stories feature guiding spirits. In Avatar: The Last Airbender, previous Avatars (Aang’s past lives) appear in visions to advise Aang. Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol famously has spirits as moral guides – the Ghosts of Christmas Past, and Present. One of the most recent examples would be Principal Larissa Weems’s ghost for Wednesday in Netflix’s Wednesday. Even in superhero media, the trope appears: in Black Panther, T’Challa speaks with the spirit of his father in the ancestral plane for guidance. All these examples show, that we love the idea that the wisdom of the departed (or of the spirit world) is still with us, lighting our path.
Thought-Forms: Beings Made of Mind
Moving from guides that already exist in spirit, we come to
beings that are said to be created by the human mind itself. In mysticism and
occult lore, tulpas (also called thought-forms or imaginary friends made real)
are entities or objects that originate through mental or spiritual
concentration. The term tulpa comes from Tibetan Buddhism (sprul-pa, meaning
emanation or manifestation), but it entered Western occult vocabulary in the
early 20th century via Theosophy. Theosophists defined a tulpa as a
materialized thought-form–essentially, a concentrated thought that takes on a
separate existence.
One famous story comes from Alexandra David-Néel, a French
explorer and Buddhist scholar who traveled Tibet in the 1910s. David-Néel wrote
that she learned from lamas the technique of creating a tulpa, and as an
experiment she conjured an imaginary monk. After intense visualization
exercises, she began to perceive this monk as a real presence. At first he was "benign," but over time, as the story goes, the tulpa gained strength
and autonomy–and even a mischievous streak. David-Néel claimed others started
seeing this phantom monk as well, and he gradually changed in appearance and
temperament, growing lean and unsettling. She wrote, “So real did he become in
time that on one occasion a herdsman mistook the chimerical monk for a live
lama…”. Alarmed that her “mind-made” companion had become unruly, she decided
to reabsorb/dissolve him.
Such ideas have provided rich inspiration for modern
storytelling:
- Slender
Man – This tall, faceless figure in a black suit began around 2009
as a pure work of internet fiction. Users on a forum collectively built up
the lore of Slender Man. In-universe (and in some Slender Man-inspired
stories), there’s a meta-narrative that Slender Man himself became “real”
because so many people believed in him. Indeed, some analyses have called
Slender Man a “modern tulpa-effect,” a being “attributed to multiple
people’s thought processes.” In a tragic real-life echo of this concept,
two girls infamously attempted harm in 2014 believing it would appease
Slender Man.
- Supernatural
– One of most lasting concepts of a “Tulpa” comes from the first season of
this hit show. Supernatural features two demon-hunting brothers,
Sam and Dean, who encounter all manner of folklore monsters. In the
episode “Hell House,” they stumble on a unique case: a ghostly killer
haunting a Texas farmhouse. Initially, it seems like a hoax spread on the
internet. But the collective belief of many online fans makes it real. The
monster–a vengeful spirit named Mordechai–turns out to be a tulpa
conjured into existence by the website’s users. Sam and Dean eventually
disrupt the symbol that focuses the belief, to dispel the tulpa.
From horror to animation, the tulpa idea continues to
fascinate. We even see accidental thought-forms in stories: Stephen King’s The
Outsider and IT both toy with the idea of
belief-dependent entities. In A Nightmare on Elm Street, Freddy
Krueger’s existence is strengthened by the fear and attention of his victims–in one film, he begins to lose power when the town’s children forget about him,
a very egregore-like concept. Similarly, Candyman (1992) centers
on an urban legend killer who explicitly warns that disbelief will kill him–he says, “I am the writing on the wall… Tell everyone.”
It’s worth noting that outside of fiction, there are real communities of enthusiasts who try to create tulpas today–often called “tulpamancers.” Fascinatingly, a wave of this trend was inspired by fans of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, who attempted to create tulpas of their favorite pony characters around 2012!
Egregores: Collective Thought-Entities and Shared Dreams
While tulpas often start with one person’s thoughts, the
term egregore usually refers to a psychic entity or force created by the
collective thoughts and emotions of a group. The word comes from a Greek root
meaning “watcher” or “awake,” and historically “egregor”. An egregore is often
defined as a “thoughtform of a group”, an autonomous psychic entity that arises
from and influences the thoughts of a community. For example, one might
poetically say that “America” or “Canada” has an egregore–not just the idea
of the nation, but a kind of energetic thoughtform fed by its citizens’
collective patriotism, which in turn shapes their sense of identity, or how a
strongly united crowd develops a hive mind, how fan communities seem to
generate their own energy and collective creativity.
Fantasy and speculative fiction have eagerly taken this
concept of belief-made beings and run with it. One of the clearest (and
celebrated) explorations are:
- H. P.
Lovecraft’s Mythos – Lovecraft’s cosmic entities (Cthulhu, Yog-Sothoth,
etc.) are usually portrayed as objectively real extraterrestrial or
extradimensional beings in his stories. However, later interpretations and
the general pop culture around them sometimes frame them in egregoric
terms. For instance, Lovecraft wrote that Cthulhu telepathically
communicates with the minds of sensitive people through dreams, instilling
dread and cultish devotion.
- “Clap
If You Believe”: Tinker Bell in Peter Pan – One of the most
classic illustrations of belief giving life is the scene in J. M. Barrie’s
Peter Pan (as traditionally performed). Tinker Bell the
fairy drinks poison to save Peter, and she is dying. Peter breaks the
fourth wall, imploring the audience: “Do you believe in fairies?… If you
believe, clap your hands!” The collective clapping and cries of “I do
believe in fairies!” from the audience revive Tinker Bell’s light. It’s a
magical moment in theater, effectively turning the crowd into participants
in a mini-egregore (their unified belief has real effect within the
story).
- Warhammer
40,000 (Chaos Gods) – In the lore of the grimdark Warhammer 40k
universe, there are monstrous Chaos Gods (Khorne, Tzeentch, Nurgle,
Slaanesh) which are actually created and fueled by the emotions of all
sentient beings. In Warhammer cosmology, the Warp (immaterium) is a
psychic dimension reflecting the thoughts and feelings of creatures in
realspace. Khorne (the Blood God) was born from rage, war and bloodlust;
Tzeentch from hopes and schemes; Nurgle from despair and the fear of
death; Slaanesh (the youngest) from the excesses of pleasure and pain.
Not just grand gods, but even fictional characters and franchises can act like egregores. Consider something like Sherlock Holmes or Batman: they may have started as ideas in authors’ minds, but after a century of global collective “belief” (i.e. fandom), they have more presence in our world than many real people–they inspire, they are constantly reinvented, they live on independent of their creators.
The Game We Play with Imaginary Beings
Across the examples above–whether it’s Luke Skywalker conversing with Obi-Wan’s ghost, or a crowd clapping to save a fairy, or an anime character unwittingly birthing a monster from her trauma – we see a unifying theme: the human psyche has a profound creative power. In myths and metaphors, our beliefs and ideas don’t stay locked in our heads; they can take on lives of their own, for good or ill. From a psychological perspective, one could say we personify and project parts of ourselves as these entities, which then help or haunt us.
From a mystical perspective, one might say thoughts are
subtle matter we mold into spirits. We thrill at the idea that perhaps, if we
all imagine hard enough, we can create heroes to save us ... or monsters to blame.
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