{"id":4285,"date":"2006-05-25T14:17:44","date_gmt":"2006-05-25T14:17:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/groonk.net\/blog\/?p=4285"},"modified":"2006-05-25T14:17:44","modified_gmt":"2006-05-25T14:17:44","slug":"superman-is-a-tulpa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.groonk.net\/blog\/2006\/05\/superman-is-a-tulpa\/","title":{"rendered":"Superman is a Tulpa"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Neil Gaiman and Adam Rogers penned an article on the power and myth of Superman.  I find myself reading it repeatedly.<\/p>\n<div class=\"blocked\">About a decade ago, Alvin Schwartz, who wrote Superman comic strips in the 1940s and &#8217;50s, published one of the great Odd Books of our time. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.wired.com\/wired\/archive\/14.06\/myth.html\" class=\"external external_icon\">In <em>An Unlikely Prophet<\/em>, reissued in paperback this spring, Schwartz writes that Superman is real. He is a <em>tulpa<\/em>, a Tibetan word for a being brought to life through thought and willpower.<\/a> Schwartz also says a Hawaiian kahuna told him that Superman once traveled 2,000 years back in time to keep the island chain from being destroyed by volcanic activity. Maybe it happened, maybe it didn&#8217;t, but it <em>does <\/em>sound like a job for Superman &#8211; all in a day&#8217;s work for a guy who can squeeze coal into diamonds. Schwartz then tells of his own encounter with Superman in a New York taxi, when he learned firsthand that Superman&#8217;s cape is, in fact, more than mere fabric.<\/p>\n<p>[&#8230;]<\/p>\n<p>Superman stands between humanity and a capricious universe.<br \/>\n(<a href=\"http:\/\/www.wired.com\/wired\/archive\/14.06\/myth.html\" class=\"external external_icon\">read the entire article<\/a>)<\/div>\n<p>I do disagree with the statement that, &#8220;Bruce Wayne plays Batman.&#8221;  In my mind, Bruce Wayne is the facade that Batman puts up in order to deflect accusing eyes.  If you could talk to Bruce&#8230;if he were standing flesh and blood in front of you and you asked him the honest truth, &#8220;Who are you really?&#8221; I&#8217;m dead sure he would say, &#8220;I&#8217;m Batman,&#8221; without hesitation or campy intent.<\/p>\n<p>(via <a href=\"http:\/\/www.wired.com\/wired\/archive\/14.06\/myth.html\" class=\"external external_icon\">wired news<\/a>)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Neil Gaiman and Adam Rogers penned an article on the power and myth of Superman. I find myself reading it repeatedly. About a decade ago, Alvin Schwartz, who wrote Superman comic strips in the 1940s and &#8217;50s, published one of the great Odd Books of our time. In An Unlikely Prophet, reissued in paperback this [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,49,52],"tags":[24],"class_list":["post-4285","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-admin","category-comics","category-just-freaking-neat","tag-myth"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.groonk.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4285","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.groonk.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.groonk.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.groonk.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.groonk.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4285"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.groonk.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4285\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.groonk.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4285"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.groonk.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4285"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.groonk.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4285"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}