Egregore

An egregore (also spelled egregor; {{etymology|fr|égrégore}}, {{etymology|grc|ἐγρήγορος, egrēgoros|wakeful}}) is a concept in Western esotericism of a non-physical entity or thoughtform that arises from the collective thoughts and emotions of a distinct group of individuals.{{Cite web |last=Delaforge |first=Gaetan |author-link=Gaetan Delaforge |date=Winter 1987–1988 |title=The Templar Tradition Yesterday and Today |url=https://www.masonicworld.com/education/files/artjun02/TEMPTRAD.htm |access-date=2023-06-22 |website=Gnosis}}{{Cite web |last= Binford |first= Harry |title= Egregores: The Occult Entities That Watch over Human Destiny |url= https://www.theosophical.org/publications/quest-magazine/5077-egregores-the-occult-entities-that-watch-over-human-destiny |access-date=2023-06-22 |website=Theosophical Society in America |language=en-gb}}

Overview

In magical and other occult traditions, it is typically seen as having an independent existence, but in other kinds of esotericism, it is merely the collective mind of a religious community, either esoteric or exoteric. In the latter sense, as a collective mind, the term collective entity, preferred by René Guénon, is synonymous with egregore. See the usage overview below.

In the apocryphal Book of Enoch, the term referred to angelic beings known as watchers, and was also used by associated (Enochian) traditions to refer to the specific rituals and practices associated with these entities.{{Cite web |first=L. S. |last=Bernstein |date=2012-01-08 |website=The Rosicrucian Archive |title=Egregor |url=http://www.crcsite.org/printegregor.htm |access-date=2023-06-22 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120108221129/http://www.crcsite.org/printegregor.htm |archive-date=2012-01-08 }} Some other literary and religious works, such as The Manuscript Found in Saragossa, have also made references to these angelic beings.

Variant descriptions

= As independent angelic being =

Egregores are quite independent entities in the Book of Enoch, and there was then no notion that they arose from a collective. In literature, especially older literature, "egregores" have often been straightforward references to these Enochian entities. This is the case in Jan Potocki's novel The Manuscript Found in Saragossa, which calls egregores "the most illustrious of fallen angels".{{Cite book |last=Potocki |first=Jan |title=Manoscritto trovato a Saragozza |publisher=Adelphi |year=1965 |isbn=9788845900389 |edition=10 |location=Milan |language=Italian |translator-last=Devoto |translator-first=Anna}} The French author Victor Hugo, in La Légende des siècles (1859) ("The Legend of the Ages"), also uses the word égrégore, first as an adjective, then as a noun, while leaving the meaning obscure.{{Cite book |last=Stavish |first=Mark |title=Egregores: The Occult Entities That Watch Over Human Destiny |publisher=Inner Traditions |year=2018 |isbn=9781620555774 |edition=ebook |pages=Introduction, chapters 1, 3, and 4 |language=en}}

= As spiritual elite =

The Traditionalist School philosopher Julius Evola, in his Revolt Against the Modern World, referred to an elite of spiritually aware people, who keep Tradition alive, as "those who are awake, whom in Greek are called the εγρῄγοροι",{{Cite book |last=Evola |first=Julius |title=Revolt Against the Modern World: Politics, Religion and Social Order of the Kali Yuga |publisher=Inner Traditions International |year=1995 |isbn=0-89281-506-X |edition=1 |location=Rochester, Vermont 05767 |pages=364 |language=en |translator-last=Stucco |translator-first=Guido}} apparently alluding to the Watchers, and the most literal sense of their name, which is "wakeful" or "awake".

= As group mind =

In esotericism, "egregore" has been used to denote a "group mind" or "collective consciousness" of a religious community. René Guénon said, "the collective, in its psychic as well as its corporeal aspects, is nothing but a simple extension of the individual, and thus has absolutely nothing transcendent with respect to it, as opposed to spiritual influences, which are of a wholly different order". This usage was followed by Gnosis magazine and by Olavo de Carvalho, and, according to Guénon, began with Éliphas Lévi.

= As independent magical being arising from collective mind =

File:Music of Gounod - Annie Besant Thought Form - Project Gutenberg eText 16269.jpg of Charles Gounod's music, according to Annie Besant and C.W. Leadbeater in Thought Forms (1901)]]

Some authors seem to have merged the esoteric concept with the Enochian concept to arrive at an idea of "spiritual entities" that "feed off the thoughts and energy of a unified multitude",{{Cite web |first=Astennu |last=Sever |date=2022-05-29 |title=On Ressurecting Egregores |website=Occultist.net |url=https://occultist.net/on-ressurecting-egregores/ |access-date=2023-06-22 |language=en-US}} as the website Occultist.net described it, while nevertheless having more of a life of their own; their more specific features and powers depend on the author. Kate Strong, writing for the newsletter "Know Thyself, Heal Thyself", called egregores "symbols, ideas, or ideals that exist in the collective psyche of a group of people and are thought to have an autonomous existence".{{Cite web |last=Strong |first=Kate |date=2021-08-26 |title=What Is An Egregore? |url=https://medium.com/know-thyself-heal-thyself/what-is-an-egregore-dbc71d9e4447 |access-date=2023-06-22 |website=Know Thyself, Heal Thyself |language=en}} This usage seems to have come largely from the Meditations on the Tarot. The concept of a tulpa is similar, as Gary Lachman and Mark Stavish noted.

In occult and magical thought

= In ''Meditations on the Tarot'' =

The Meditations on the Tarot describe the Antichrist as "an egregore, an artificial being who owes his existence to collective generation from below". Elsewhere, the book calls egregores "demons engendered by the collective will and imagination of nations".{{Cite book |last=Anonymous |title=Meditations on the Tarot |publisher=Penguin |year=2002 |isbn=978-1-101-65785-0 |location=New York, New York |language=en |orig-date=1985}} The book cites, but does not completely agree with, the usage of Robert Ambelain in his La Kabbale pratique. Ambelain defined the egregore as "a force generated by a powerful spiritual current and then nourished at regular intervals, according to a rhythm in harmony with the universal life of the cosmos, or to a union of entities united by a common characteristic nature". The author of the Meditations on the Tarot calls this passage from Ambelain "a definition which leaves nothing more to be desired", but disagrees with Ambelain's description of Catholicism, Freemasonry, and Protestantism as egregores.

= In the work of Gary Lachman =

Gary Lachman follows the usage of the Meditations on the Tarot in his book Dark Star Rising, which also suggests that Pepe the Frog may be an egregore in this sense—or a tulpa, which Lachman sees as a similar phenomenon.{{Cite book |last=Lachman |first=Gary |title=Dark Star Rising: Magick and Power in the Age of Trump |publisher=Penguin Publishing Group |year=2018 |isbn=9780525503804 |location=New York |language=en}} In the usage of Lachman and of the Meditations on the Tarot, "there are no 'good' egregores, only 'negative' ones". Lachman cited Joscelyn Godwin's The Golden Thread, which itself cited the Meditations on the Tarot,{{Cite book |last=Godwin |first=Joscelyn |title=The Golden Thread |publisher=Quest Books |year=2007 |isbn=978-0-8356-0860-2 |edition=1 |location=Wheaton, IL |language=en}} as a source for the idea that, while a religious (or other) group who creates an egregore can "rely" on it as "an efficacious magical ally", "the egregore's help comes at a price", since, as Godwin put it, its creators must thenceforth meet the egregore's "unlimited appetite for their future devotion".

= In the works of Peter Carroll =

Liber Null & Psychonaut, by the British chaos magician Peter J. Carroll, uses the word egregore for the first time at the end of the following passage:

Religion takes the view that consciousness preceded organic life. Supposedly there were gods, angelic forces, titans, and demons setting the scene before material life developed. Science takes the opposite view and considers that much organic evolution occurred before the phenomenon of consciousness appeared. Magic, which has given more attention to the quality of consciousness itself, takes an alternative view and concludes that organic and psychic forms evolve synchronously. As organic development occurs, a psychic field is generated which feeds back into the organic forms. Thus each species of living being has its own type of psychic form or magical essence. These egregores may occasionally be felt as a presence or even glimpsed in the form of the species they watch over.{{Cite book |last=Carroll |first=Peter James |title=Liber Null & Psychonaut |publisher=Red Wheel/Weiser, LLC |year=1987 |isbn=978-0-87728-639-4 |edition=ebook |location=San Francisco, CA |language=en}}

The book goes on to say that "those who have perceived the human egregore usually describe it as God", and that "magicians consider that all life on this world contributes to, and depends on, a vast composite egregore which has variously been known as the Great Mother, the Anima Mundi, the Great Archon, the Devil, Pan, and Baphomet."

= In the work of Frater Tenebris =

Following this usage, though giving no citations, the glossary in Frater Tenebris's 2022 book The Philosophy of Dark Paganism{{Cite book |last=Tenebris |first=Frater |title=The Philosophy of Dark Paganism: Wisdom & Magick to Cultivate the Self |publisher=Llewellyn Worldwide, LTD. |year=2022 |isbn=9780738772653 |edition=ebook |location=Woodbury, MN 55125 |language=en}} defines "egregore" as "an occult term for an independently functioning spiritual entity created by one or more magick practitioners. Many egregores begin as thought-forms but then become capable of operating independently of the practitioners." It defines "thought-form" as "an esoteric entity created by magick", and "magick" as "a spiritual practice and process to influence the probability of events."

The book mentions egregores in the context of "archetypism", a view that understands "the different gods and goddesses" as "either psychological structures, similar to Carl Jung's archetypes, or different currents of arcane energy found in the Cosmos that are anthropomorphized." Noting that "some archetypists consider the gods to be thought-forms created from worship and prayer by generations of believers", it says that "over time these thought-forms may become egregores that exhibit some autonomy apart from their worshipers", and that "one might imagine these gods along the line of Neil Gaiman's deities in the novel American Gods."

= In Theosophy =

Mauricio Medeiros, writing for the theosophist website Estudo Teosófico, defined an egregore as "an astral, mental, or spiritual construct sustained by several people over a long period of time, giving it a character of permanence that does not depend on any particular individual".{{Cite web |title=Em sintonia com as egrégoras |url=http://www.teosofico.com/artigo/em-sintonia-com-egr%C3%A9goras |access-date=2023-07-05 |website=Estudo Teosófico |language=pt-br}} While saying that egregores have no "life of their own", Medeiros nevertheless emphasized their independence, noting that egregores "can be associated with physical locations", so that "when we enter an environment and feel uncomfortable, what we are often experiencing is the clash between the energies expressed by the egregores of the place and our own energies."

In other esotericism

The Book of Enoch, 1:5, refers to "ἐγρήγοροι",{{Cite web |title=Enoch - Book of Enoch Greek Interlinear |url=http://enoksbok.se/cgi-bin/interlinear_greek.cgi |access-date=2023-06-22 |website=enoksbok.se}} which is usually translated as "watchers".{{Cite book |title=The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament |editor-first=R. H. |editor-last=Charles |place=Oxford |publisher=The Clarendon Press |year=1913 |chapter=The Book of Enoch, Section I |chapter-url=https://www.ccel.org/c/charles/otpseudepig/enoch/ENOCH_1.HTM |access-date=2023-06-22 |via=ccel.org}} As René Guénon says, these are "entities of a rather enigmatic character that, whatever they may be, seem to belong to the 'intermediary world'; this is all that they have in common with the collective entities to which the same name has been applied" in esoteric literature.{{Cite web |last=Tremblay |first=Jean-Marie |date=2005-02-02 |title=René Guénon, INITIATION ET RÉALISATION SPIRITUELLE |url=http://classiques.uqac.ca/classiques/guenon_rene/initiation_realisation_spirituelle/initiation_realisation_spirituelle.html |access-date=2023-06-22 |website=texte |at=Chapter 6, "Influence spirituelle et égrégores"}}

= In the work of René Guénon =

While Guénon notes that he had "never used the word 'egregore' to designate" what he preferred to call a "collective entity", he notes that he had described these same entities in his Perspectives on Initiation, in the following passage:

Each collectivity can thus be regarded as possessing a subtle force made up in a way of the contributions of all its members past and present, and which is consequently all the more considerable and able to produce greater effects as the collectivity is older and is composed of a greater number of members. It is evident, moreover, that this 'quantitative' consideration essentially indicates that it is a question of the individual domain, beyond which this force could not in any way intervene.{{Cite web |last=Tremblay |first=Jean-Marie |date=2005-02-02 |title=René Guénon (1946), Aperçus sur l'initiation |url=http://classiques.uqac.ca/classiques/guenon_rene/Apercus_sur_initiation/Apercus_sur_initiation.html |access-date=2023-06-22 |website=texte |at=Chapter 24, "La prière et l’incantation"}}

Guénon believed that prayer is not directly addressed to spiritual entities such as gods or angels, but rather, "consciously or not, addresses itself most immediately to the collective entity, and it is only by the intermediary of this latter that it also addresses the spiritual influence that works through it". Olavo de Carvalho believed that, according to Guénon's view, the prayers of people who are not members of a community are ineffectual.{{Cite book |last=de Carvalho |first=Olavo |title=O saber e o enigma: Introdução ao estudo dos esoterismos |publisher=Vide Editorial |year=2021 |isbn=978-65-87138-73-2 |editor-last=Robson |editor-first=Ronald |edition=1 |location=Campinas, SP |pages=114–118 |language=pt-BR |trans-title=Knowledge and enigma: An introduction to the study of esotericisms. |quote=Os ritos de agregação dirigem-se àquilo que no esoterismo se chama de egrégora, o ser psíquico da comunidade religiosa. O rito de agregação torna você um membro da egrégora, você passa a participar desse ser psíquico. Segundo René Guénon, todas as preces individuais não se dirigem imediatamente a Deus nem aos anjos, mas sim primeiro à egrégora, através da qual chegam a uma escala mais alta. Conforme essa perspectiva, se um indivíduo que não participa de nenhuma comunidade religiosa (um não-membro) reza, sua prece é sem efeito. Mas se lembrem: quem diz isso é René Guénon; se é assim ou não, eu não sei. |trans-quote=Rites of aggregation are directed towards what, in esotericism, is called the egregore, the psychic being of the religious community. The rite of aggregation makes you a member of the egregore; you start to participate in this psychic being. According to René Guénon, all individual prayers are not immediately directed to God or the angels, but first to the egregore, through which they reach a higher level. From this perspective, if an individual who is not a member of any religious community (a non-member) prays, their prayer is ineffective. But remember: this is what René Guénon says; whether it is true or not, I do not know.}}

= Origin and development of the concept in esotericism =

According to Guénon, the term was first used to designate these collective entities by Éliphas Lévi, "who, to justify this meaning, gave it an improbable Latin etymology, deriving it from grex, 'flock,' whereas the word is purely Greek and has never signified anything but 'watcher.{{'"}} But according to Mark Stavish's 2018 book Egregores, Lévi's Le Grand Arcane ("The Great Secret", 1868) "clearly identifies the word egregore with the Kabbalistic lore of those beings who were said to be the fathers of the Nephilim", i.e., the Watchers. Lévi described them as "terrible beings" that "crush us without pity because they are unaware of our existence."{{cite book |first=Éliphas |last=Lévi |author-link=Éliphas Lévi |title=Le grand arcane, ou l'occultisme dévoilé |trans-title=The Great Secret, or Occultism Unveiled |year=1868 |lang=fr |page=127–130, 133, 136}}

Following the usage of "egregore" as a "collective entity", a 1987 article by Gaetan Delaforge in Gnosis magazine defines an egregore as "a kind of group mind which is created when people consciously come together for a common purpose".

Olavo de Carvalho's 2017 course on esotericism presents a division among types of rites: there are magic rites and religious rites, and religious rites are further divided into propitiatory, sacrificial, aggregation, and initiation rites. Aggregation rites are rites directed to the egregore of a community, and make someone a member of it. Olavo cites Guénon's view that prayer is directed primarily to the egregore, without noting that Guénon did not use the term.

References

External links

{{Wiktionary inline|egregore}}

Category:Fraternitas Saturni

Category:Language and mysticism

Category:Occult collective consciousness