During the Summer of 2026 I got an email from Morbid Anatomy librarian requesting writings on thought forms and other esoteric ideas. This is my response:
THOUGHTFORMS
A thoughtform is a “mental construct generated by focused thought, emotion, or imagination. Depending on the context, it refers either to the psychological visualization of an idea or to an intentionally crafted, semi-autonomous psychic entity.”
In many esoteric traditions, including Theosophy, sustained and emotionally charged thoughts are believed to manifest as tangible energy patterns on the astral or mental planes. Psychologists and secular philosophers, by contrast, interpret thoughtforms as powerful cognitive patterns or externalizations of inner dynamics. A person's persistent habits, self-image, or even internalized concepts—such as a brand, ideology, or movement—can be understood as living thoughtforms that shape behavior and reality.
During the height of the New Age movement, I came across a book titled *Thoughtforms*. I bought it and am certain I still own it. Yet despite searching my library repeatedly, I have been unable to find it. I resorted to visualization techniques—nothing. I called upon my elves, those unseen forces of nature and ancestral spirits that, for me, symbolize a bridge between the physical world and the spiritual realm. They embody harmony, higher consciousness, and the untamed magic of the cosmos. This time, however, their response was silence.
So I turned to Google before entering my own memory library in search of thoughtform files. There I encountered the two definitions that most interested me: the occult and the psychological.
As a clinician, I am trained to observe cognitive patterns and the ways they are externalized, shaping behavior and reality. In clinical language, we often call this projection. Yet nothing has brought me more directly into contact with the intersection of the psychological and the esoteric definitions of thoughtforms than my work with members of the African community.
Many sessions involved entering a reality in which spirit and daily life coexisted seamlessly. Conversations frequently centered on what clients saw around them—or even what they saw in my consulting room. Understanding these experiences required an aerobic exercise of both intellect and spirit. My clinical training provided one framework; my personal experiences offered another. Often, it demanded intellectual acrobatics to explain to other providers that a person was not psychotic but rather speaking from within a cultural and spiritual reality that differed from their own.
At around the same time, I repeatedly saw my father sitting quietly in a corner of my consulting room, observing me as I worked. On those occasions when I was alone, I spoke to him.
Once I asked why he had come.
“I just wanted to see what you do. Now I understand.”
“I just wanted to see what you do. Now I understand.”
My father died in 1991.
Continuing with my father and moving into more personal spiritual territory, I recall an experience that occurred shortly after his death. Several days after his crossing, I went for an Ifá reading, a traditional Yoruba divination practice used to seek guidance, understand one's destiny, and navigate life's challenges. During the reading, I was advised to prepare a ritual table to assist him in his journey.
When I returned home, I followed the instructions.
That night I was awakened by a strange sound coming from the ceiling above my bed. Looking upward, I saw my father's hands reaching toward me. My immediate impression was that he did not realize he had crossed into the spiritual realm. I sensed confusion and struggle in his energy. I began speaking to him, attempting to comfort and orient him.
Was that a thoughtform? …
Experiences such as these have occurred throughout my life. Most happen at home, ranging from apparitions to sounds and kinetic sensations. Friends who have crossed over sometimes seem to return for a visit. I see them and converse with them. The conversations often revolve around what I am doing, my curiosity about how they are faring, and whether they are content where they are now.
There are also moments of intense meditation upon someone—moments in which my concentration becomes so focused that the person appears vividly before me. Simply seeing them brings comfort and satisfaction.
Four years ago, I was hospitalized overnight for observation after experiencing chest pain. In the middle of the night, I awoke to find two large beings standing beside my bed, one on each side. They were dressed in long, radiant white garments.
“Do not worry,” they said. “It is nothing. We are here.”
Their reassurance soothed me, and I fell back asleep.
The following afternoon I was discharged. The diagnosis, essentially, was that it was nothing to worry about.
The following afternoon I was discharged. The diagnosis, essentially, was that it was nothing to worry about.
These mystical experiences enrich and inform my artistic practice. Sometimes an image appears in a dream and follows me throughout the day until I bring it to life on paper or canvas. Other times, a drawing dormant in one of my sketchbooks begins to announce itself. I start seeing elements of it everywhere, as though the image is insisting upon its own birth. Then I know it wants to be brought into the world.
The noises I hear in my apartment—knocks on a table, the clatter of silverware in the kitchen, the sound of a utensil falling onto a counter for no apparent reason—I often interpret as signs of a presence seeking contact. I always want to understand the message, though I rarely succeed.
There was a period when these sounds occurred almost nightly as I prepared for sleep. In response, I would leave a piece of paper, a pencil, and a bowl of water nearby, inviting the visitor to leave me a note.
Nothing ever appeared.
And now, as I write this piece, three of the five ceiling lights in my office are flickering.
If I say, “Hello. How can I help you?” the flickering stops.
Ghosts?… Thoughtforms? …
Or perhaps lingering elves, leaping from one light to the next? ...
