2020-08-21 17:05:32 ¶ ●

and on the topic of getting caught up in other people’s theorycrafting, i’ve been doing some more surfing around other people’s theories. it’s a filthy habit, i know, but the other day i came across something really simple that has me rethinking the whole way i’ve been approaching twin peaks. dale cooper and his FBI colleagues are part of the blue rose task force; they investigate cases similar to that of lois duffy, who was charged with the murder of her own tulpa.

leland palmer was a blue rose case. it was his doppelganger that killed laura palmer. which isn’t to say that leland is innocent of any crime; the fact is that we already know from hawk’s black lodge stories that a doppelganger is just another part of someone. their ‘shadow self’, representing the darkest parts of their soul, with which they are meant to come to terms on their way to the white lodge. The Return’s mr. c isn’t just a case of BOB ‘possessing’ cooper’s doppelganger. in truth BOB and the doppelgangers are intrinsically linked. BOB is the evil that men do, and our doppelgangers are the evil sides of our selves. BOB is inherently inside every single doppelganger. this has always been the question posed by BOB’s existence; were leland’s crimes really the result of possession by some spirit, or is BOB just representative of something that was truly evil about him? the doppelgangers merely universalise this conundrum.

it’s also easy to get caught up in the technicalities of what the ‘difference’ between a doppelganger and a tulpa is. i think things become a lot clearer when we accept that a doppelganger is just a kind of tulpa. doppelgangers, and as an extension the black lodge as a whole, are just psychic emanations of people; and that’s just what a tulpa is. the three coopers feint was in reality a double double cross. dougie jones was “created for a purpose”, but so was mr. c. both of them are tulpas of cooper, merely representing different components of his psyche.

i think this streamlines one of the first thought processes i kicked off when i started my most recent viewing of twin peaks - what’s up with the ongoing tv show within a tv show narrative? as i later pointed out, twin peaks itself is also a tv show within a tv show. and just as lodge spirits are ‘reflected’ as tulpas in the flesh world, so too can the Invitation to Love characters be considered tulpas of the main twin peaks cast. so by better understanding these characters as psychic reflections of each other, we might be able to build a better understanding of what role all these characters serve.