Friends

1. There’s a religion called Sufism where everybody is looking for someone called “The Friend”. The Friend is subjective but the ideal is to be worthy of them in the objective world. To say it’s pretty hard is an understatement because well, you live here too and you know how it is, some people are just psychos who live off other peoples good will. It’s hard to turn the other cheek if you know they’re a vampire see, but The Friend isn’t cynical. The parallel between The Friend and Jesus is so similar that it’s hard to tell them apart except maybe by name or birthright. The official solution in both cases is that perfection is just someone’s opinion and a friend would overlook any embarrassment. So we should forgive them and pretend they didn't try to scam us to destitution. With aboulutely no cynicism I can tell you that's not going to happen.

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In that regard I’d still say Jesus is a pretty good idea, He sells well as make believe something to look for in the physical world. It's the organization that promotes Him that has pretty much lost the thread; becoming giant bureaucracies supporting charismatic social climbers that ascribe superfluous bullshit to scare, impress, and scam the natives all to support political ideologies that usher in the end times. It’s a sham but actually, I don’t care so long as they don’t impact me personally.

2. Tibetan buddhism is built around an earlier shamanic religion called Bon and maintains some of its practices. For example they make pretend people called Tulpas, that can act independently as company, helpers, lookouts, lovers, or whatever. Other people can meet them and interact without knowing they’re imaginary. (You & me are totally real though for sure) (because I said).

3. There are other species of make believe critters, like all the various cryptids. But both of the above mentioned (1 & 2) come from approximately the same area (South central Asia), have similar traits and uses, and could maybe have survived as rumors for thousands of years just because it sounds interesting, or maybe not. Maybe Jesus was a Tulpa with a good agent.

4. Some Native American shamans say there are beings called Allies that are associated with psychotropic plants. My own experience with Jimson weed didn’t go very far, but I sort of saw where it can go. It completely silences the internal dialog. Absolutely nothing, you can try to babble but it feels false and unnecessary, and is actually a relief to be free of it. So you cast around for something to fill the void. One of the things that comes up is movement and actions going on around you. You relate to whatever it is through previous social experiences and if it’s capable of relating back (or even if it isn’t), your social experience determines the trip. Casteneda says there are a number of other ways to relate there such as dancing & singing. It really helps to stay away from territorial anima. If you’re somehow compromised and they latch onto you, it could be scary or even fatal, if you believe Castaneda. There are said to be ways to control them but I didn’t like Datura much except for the suppression of brain babble, but that was great. My experience was that I chose to be uninvolved because I knew I could be sucked in, and I didn’t have a framework or a teacher. I did seriously look but was apparently not the right material.

Since there are other ways to find a friend, those should probably be researched first. Of these, Jesus looks easiest and has the widest appeal, recognition and support. But (to me) Tulpas have the most credability because they are probably the basis of the Jesus story.