I have had several notes from students on our recent training pages on the “high weirdness” of the Mothman era and all the strangeness related to the activities at Point Pleasant, West Virginia in 1967. Some question if this is really within the realm of what we call “paranormal” or it is truly in line with all of the other ASUP cases over the years.

My response is simply that as our name suggests, we deal with the study of all unexplained phenomenon, not just the comfortable stuff that we deal with on a daily basis; we may have built a comfort zone around the routine haunting, apparitions and poltergeist we deal with, but that does not give us a dispensation from addressing the problems less common, at least until we can say categorically that it is a phenomenon more closely allied to the other sciences rather than our own field of inquiry.

Such is the case of things created by human hands that live in the netherworld of the paranormal; there are many names for these creations, Oints, Tulpas, Elementals, the Golem or just plain old entities, all of which did not come to this place by human birth, but rather the creation of man himself. These creatures are the true Frankenstein’s monsters and while humanity at large may wish to ignore them or otherwise deny their existence, they are very, very real.

I know that I have students who will read this and reject it out of hand, to those folks I only ask that your read these pages and tuck the information into your memory to be resurrected on the day you come in contact with one, and believe me, if you are to continue to work in this field, you will encounter them, sooner or later!

While the most common “creator” of the run of the mill elemental is found to be practitioners of the occult, I will address them last, for what will be obvious shortly. Instead, I wish to start in the recent historical record, in the work of Alexandra David-Neel (1868-1969) who is credited with the creation of a flesh and blood Tulpa. She was a Belgian-French explorer, spiritualist, Buddhist and writer, most known for her visit to Tibet, in 1924, when it was forbidden to outsiders.  Néel wrote over 30 books about Eastern religion, philosophy, and her travels. Her teachings influenced beat writers Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg and had a profound effect on the modern philosophy of several generations.

Neel brought the least understood Buddhist practices to western culture, but she will be remembered among paranormalists for her experimentation in what can only be called “mystic arts” from Tibet. It was widely recognized that she was successful in willing the creation of a Tulpa in the form of the least threatening imaginary figure she could think of, namely a rather rotund, jolly Friar, who looked a good deal like Friar Tuck from the tales of Robin Hood. This of course parallels the image of the fictional Dr. Venkeman who conjured up the image of the marshmallow man, when challenged to choose his monster in the film Ghost Busters! The only difference is that Neel’s creation was very real.

Modern students of thought-forms or Tulpas concede that Neel’s Friar was unique, but the concept is rather simple. First, Neel, an adept at meditation as learned in Tibet, creates the image of her entity in her mind, then projects it consciously and with great difficulty then gives it a life of its own. In the case of the Monk, Neel admitted that in time, he transformed himself into a totally different character and personality and according to her account of the transition, eventually had to be destroyed. Nevertheless, Neel’s account gave relative support to the creation process, at least in the Eastern and Buddhist cultures.

Ivan Sanderson, a Scot who was a naturalized American citizen, was the son of an adventurer who was killed by a charging rhino in Africa when Ivan was a teenager. He soon followed in his father’s footsteps. Sanderson attended Eton College, and, at 17 years old, began a yearlong trip around the world, focusing mostly on Asia. Sanderson earned a B.A. in zoology, with honors, from Cambridge University, where he later earned M.A. degrees in botany and geology.

He became famous as a crytozoologist and the most credible witness to see a Kongamato, after being attacked by a creature he described as "the Granddaddy of all bats". This encounter occurred when he had shot a fruit bat that toppled into the water. He went to retrieve his catch but was warned by his partner to duck. He described the following events:

"Then I let out a shout also and instantly bobbed down under the water, because, coming straight at me only a few feet above the water was a black thing the size of an eagle. I had only a glimpse of its face, yet that was quite sufficient, for its lower jaw hung open and bore a semicircle of pointed white teeth set about their own width apart from each other. When I emerged, it was gone. ... And just before it became too dark to see, it came again, hurtling back down the river, its teeth chattering, the air "shss-shssing" as it was cleft by the great, black, Dracula-like wings."

Of course, Sanderson was a colleague who wrote for FATE and other popular magazines and is mentioned here for his creation of a new term to define such entities; he called them OINTS which is short for “Other Intelligences.” Sanderson was also interested in the Point Pleasant activity, especially as it swirled around Woodrow Derenberger, the UFO contactee who introduced the world to Indrid Cold, the mild mannered, personable alien who was atypical of his fellow travelers. Cold did not abduct or pressure Derenberger, who first declined an offer to visit Cold’s craft. Sanderson later wrote that he saw Cold as the ultimate Tulpa, once created from Derenberger’s fertile mind, which later took on a persona all its own. While Wood only had a grade school education, he was something of an electronics aficionado who had a very creative side. He took a very young bride late in life, fathered two children and lived his seventy odd years in a rural setting, yet he apparently created a highly evolved creature, understood the concepts of time travel and if nothing else mesmerized the world with his tales.

Sanderson of course was able to project Derenberger’s creation in theory, if not practice, but his suggestion of Cold being Woody’s “Oint” is a reasonable conclusion, unless of course you subscribe to the alternative, which would be that Cold was a real time traveling alien. Woody’s sincerity when talking about Cold suggest that he truly believed that Cold existed, which is of course is a sign of a Tulpa.  Once Woody accepted the projection of Cold as a flesh and blood creature, the entity he created was able to take on a life of its own, separate from his creator, just as the Friar had done with Neel.

Yes, before going further down this circuitous path, I acknowledge that we are reasonable and rational professionals, who have built our studies on real time observations that can move meters and be recorded. And yes, obviously, only Woody Derenberger and possibly his wife were eyewitnesses to Indrid Cold as a real creature, but never the less, there is circumstantial evidence of his existence, if you are willing to accept the anecdotal accounts of contemporary investigators like John Keel and others. Keel reported that no less than six investigators were present at Derenberger’s farm one day, when Woody announced that Cold was flying over the house at that moment in his craft. According to Keel and others of note, they all poured out onto his front yard and looked up, seeing a UFO passing slowly overhead. The only question is whether this was a “real” UFO or a projection created by Derenberger.

If you find this entire matter totally unbelievable, I might take you on a little side trip, back in time to a backwater village in upstate New York, where a young man had a similar series of meetings with an “angel.” The young man came away from these meeting with a new consciousness, a collection of “golden” pages, which he later translated into what is now the Book of Mormon and the seed of a new multi-million member church that changed the eventual course of U.S. history. Joseph Smith, like Woody Derenberger believed in his visitor and went on to found the first truly American religious institution, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

This of course brings us to the phenomenon most likely to be encountered as field investigators of otherwise “normal” paranormal events; the creation, identification and possibly the destruction of entities created by otherwise regular people in the pursuit of alternative religions, for good or bad. This too is not a new idea. The Golem has existed in the literature of the Kabala for centuries and is as real a possibility at Neel’s Friar Tuck. The Golem was reportedly first introduced as a protective entity, given the mission to watch over a congregation in Orthodox Judaism in times of danger. The Golem has been discussed in other presentations, so we won’t devote a lot of time to its history here, but it fits the overall representation of the Tulpa in that every contemporary account of its existence ends with the necessity to destroy it, once the entity began to take on its own personality and stray from its original purpose.

We therefore have a long history to look back on when speaking of these creations, whether we chose to call them a Tulpa, Golem, Elemental or Oints, the names change but the character of the entity does not. But you ask again, what does this have to do with me? Well, generally speaking you are as likely to run into one of these creations as anyone and it is important that you recognize that what is at hand is neither your common ghost nor religious manifestation.

Again, in a world gone slightly mad at the edges, we will come across what someone may think is a haunting scenario and as the professionals we have to be ready to identify what is at hand. Elementals are routinely encountered when we cross paths with modern purveyors of magik. I take a moment to note that the word Magik in this context is not a misspelling. Magic is the slight of hand performance of an entertainer, while Magik is the spellwork of alternative religious practitioners. Magik is not negative or evil in and of itself, like everything the direction of its influence is guided by the intention of the practitioner. The creation of the elemental is however misguided at best and like its forunners will eventually have to be destroyed, simply because all of these creations will take on their own will, which may or may not be contrary to the original desired response.

Let’s address one other point here. It is not the job of the paranormal investigator to take on the role of dragon slayer; you are not to become involved in the destruction of such entities, any more than you should be involved in their creation. Unfortunately, you will probably encounter such creations in your work. My personal recommendation is to follow the wise man’s lead, “Give unto Caesar the things that are Caesars, and unto God those that are God’s.” You did not create it, nor should you be involved in destroying or displacing it. When you come upon a case where there are obvious signs of demonic infestation or possession, you have been taught to back out quietly and do nothing to further exacerbate the scene. You have been told to maintain order, protect the family and others around you and call for supervision, who in turn will advise the proper authorities of what you believe you have uncovered. In such cases, it is the job of the church or other religious institution to deal with the mess, not the investigator, who is ill equipped to enter into such a struggle.

Likewise, when you encounter an elemental, your job is to identify what you have, maintain order so that things do not spiral out of control, protect the client as best you can and call for supervision. The Director will quickly review your findings and attempt to come to some understanding of who might be contacted to defuse the situation, but this is not your job. You are no more equipped to deal with a free standing elemental than you would be to deal with the demonic. “Give unto Caesar,” and in this case, please let the Director find the proper person or group to deal with what it at hand. Calling in the wrong person or group can lead to disaster. This is not something that you would want to follow you home; it is not a puppy, any more than Neel’s Tulpa was truly Friar Tuck. These things tend to have very sharp bites and can be physically dangerous to face off against without proper training and guidance.

I realize that all of this is probably a little more than you ever considered when you first became interested in paranormal investigating, but this is in fact a part of what we encounter and you have to be reasonably prepared to understand and identify this kind of phenomenon. Admittedly, this is not something that most people even know exist in the real world, it is the stuff of vague references, a wink and nod of knowing and little else. It is obviously the stuff of Grimm’s Fairy Tales, but then too, we have to be ready to encounter the occasional fairy in our line of work as well, and I am not talking about Tinkerbelle. The frantic call from a parent, reporting that their teenaged child’s room is haunted can easily lead you to this kind of case, so be alert to the possibilities. It is unfortunate that with the growth of the interest in alternative religions, we see an increase in the number of “entity cases” in the field.

In many instances, these cases come to us as just another “haunting” but it soon becomes apparent that it is something more involved. Just as the poltergeist was simple to identify, it most likely involved a pre-pubescent teenager and manifested in the random act of tossing odd knick-knacks about a house, or in the more evolved cases, involving adults who were not fully matured, the fire-starters, et. al., they all were fairly easy to spot and once identified, their “Shelf life,” was fairly brief and simple to explain.

Today, the new “poltergeist” is the more evolved “entity” that could be all so more complex. Anyone could create it, from a young child to a grown adult and the reasons are as multiple as sands on a beach. The investigator stumbling into one of this case, rarely told at the onset what he will be dealing with, because the client has no idea themselves. It could be the effect of a conjuring by an ill prepared teen or the willful creation of a seasoned practitioner who has either overstepped their bounds or created the entity for some malevolent purpose; maybe it was created to be a watchdog, now grown into something ever so more powerful, or a simple creation for companionship that now is suffocating the emotional space of all around it. The reason for its existence is a part of the problem, reversing the process is much more complicated than just dealing with a ghost.

In the attempt to prepare the field investigator for all manner of things he or she may encounter, this is probably one of the most difficult, just short of the demonic. In a sentence, the goal is to displace such an entity, either destroying it outright, or more creatively just returning it to its creator, but that is not within you purview as an investigator. This is not something easily taught and it is better that we do not address it, anymore than I would undertake the teaching of the finer points of an exorcism. It is enough that you know what you are seeing and call upon those who can deal with it to do so.

Our job is to identify, classify, and hopefully understand the nature of things not routinely seen in society or science as “normal” and there is nothing more paranormal than the entity, whether you chose to call it a Tulpa, Oint, Elemental or Golem, they are all equally challenging in the field and not to be taken lightly.

© 2009 by Rick Moran & the ASUP, Inc.     All rights reserved    Reprint with permission.