Russell Smith

Tulpa Russell Smith

In many cultures around the world, shamans and mystics claim to be able to create physical objects just by imagining them in their mind's eye. Tibetan yogis claim the ability to create living beings by performing the Dubthab rite. The product, the living manifestation of their disciplined visualization, is called a tulpa. Four kids in their last year at school, sick and tired of the Hardys-the local crime-family-search for an answer to their problems. Stevie, misguided by his own bitterness towards them, suggests creating a terrifying tulpa with the hope that it will plague them, scare them-even harm them. Soon, they are leaving school and losing contact with each other. The rite they had been performing is largely forgotten-a dumb fragment of their childish past. Then, eighteen months later, for no apparent reason, strange, disturbing things start happening around them. If their thought form is out there walking around as an independent entity, it isn't doing the things they intended it to do. They begin to feel as at risk as anyone else. But just who is at risk? And does the thing even exist?