Source: http://www.strangerdimen...2013/03/25/on-egregores/

On Egregores
By Rob Schwarz

An egregore is a thoughtform, a creation of the human mind.

But unlike tulpas or servitors, an egregore is a manifestation of a group consciousness, which can become powerful enough to take on a life of its own. It becomes driven by the collective (and often unintentional) willpower of large numbers of people.

We’re not simply talking about spooky ghosts and evanescent poltergeists here, though (like Philip Aylesford, a rather popular tulpa experiment).

No, egregores can manifest in the form of nations, corporations, memes, and ideas. Concepts invented by the human mind.

The more these ideas are called upon or repeated or reinforced, the more powerful they grow, and the more likely they will become something beyond mere thought.

Examples of (possible) egregores include:

- Corporations – brands, logos
- Shared ideas – memes, urban legends, the Internet
- Nations – flags, culture, patriotism
- Spiritual or other group beliefs
- Paranormal entities and experiences – it’s possible that many of the paranormal experiences people have, such as NDEs and alien abductions, may very well be the result of a collective consciousness thoughtform


As you can see, egregores don’t need to be “conjured.” They can manifest over time through sheer awareness and acknowledgement by large groups of people. You need not be consciously aware to participate in the creation of an egregore.

Between What Is Real And What Is Not

Obviously, this is just the metaphysical point-of-view. You don’t have to believe the human mind can conjure ideas into anything physical.

But you do have to wonder: in this Information Age, in this connected world of constant media feedback, the Internet, and memes, at what point do our silly stories and shared beliefs become something…real?

Something out of our control?

The human mind is capable of extraordinary things. In the future, we’ll look at some of the stranger aspects of human consciousness, scientific explanations, and the possible formation of new egregores and thoughtforms. Stay tuned.

I have started to wonder... the various gods and goddesses worshipped throughout history... is it possible that some of them have become egregores, existing within the human groupmind? And perhaps not just deities... but famous philosophers, like Rumi, Buddha and Lao Zi? For those that are, it may literally be a case of belief being the energy they feed off of...

Perhaps these entities are the Archons that the Gnostics spoke about?

Maybe, maybe not...

This concept should get way more attention among users of psychedelics.
Also if we continue to think along those lines, even the nexus might have its own egregore by now. weird dreams involving the nexus, sounds familiar?

Great topic. I guess the idea of gods or archons being egregores comes down to definition. I myself have interest in this but wouldn't call myself an expert but I will share my two cents. I tend to think of egregores as patterns of information that are fed by our emotions/actions/words/intention, basically where consciousness collects egregores form. Though I don't identify myself as being gnostic I am aware of some of their ideas and see some merit to them. I tend to think of archons as patterns of information in my subconscious that present mainly as emotions/urges/drives and sometimes as thought. So in that regard they are the same thing but charged up several magnitudes of scale in their influence.

The egregore that got me thinking about them before I knew of the term was romantic relationships. In particular the 'you, me, the relationship' type talk/dynamic. I feel that when we talk of the relationship that is an egregore. Also in groups of friends I became very aware of the egregore in my friend group when I was in my late teens/early twenties. As a group they would do things which they would never do when in a one on one situation. Maybe that's the origin of one's a company, two's a crowd. Two is when other egregores come in and 'oversee' a situation.

A question I'd add to this discussion is what happens to an egregore if two groups interact with it with vastly different actions/emotions/intentions behind it. Since people over vast time scales can interact with the same egregore then surely two different groups in the same time period can as well. Now consider religious gods especially the Abrahamic religions. Their deity is interacted with by people with a lot of devotion, love and with an intention for peace. The same deity is interacted with by people who kill in the name of that deity, slaughtering many thousands of people who do not identify has worshippers of that deity or whatever other reason they have.

What happens to that egregore? I suspect that the group which displays the strongest emotion, as I believe emotion is the main form of 'food' as well as expression for them, ends up dominating the 'lore' of the egregore (hows that for a rhyme!). Compare the strength of the furry/rage and whatever other emotion one needs to kill another in the name of some deity plus the emotion of their victims and the victims relations with the strength of emotion generated with the emotion given by the peaceful/loving worshippers. I feel that the emotion of being sad of all the atrocities comitted in the name of one's beloved egregore probably also feeds the 'war-god' like egregore which also shows the power of television.

Looking forward to hearing others thoughts.

If I understand you correctly, you're referring to the noosphere?



IMO, this is precisely why it is incumbent on those with the loudest voices to speak with the utmost care, because as we are seeing on a daily basis right now, the dumbest slogan or tweet can rapidly evolve from a 'mere' thought-form into concrete reality. No magick necessary.

Regarding deities, I'm sure this is also their likely source, but as to which came first, the deity or the worshipper, that's quite a tough one... But it does lead to the question, does a deity which nobody worships continue to exist, or rather, exert power over the living?


I'd imagine one group 'sustain in their minds' a vision of a loving, compassionate deity, and are guided in their actions accordingly, while the other do the same for a wrathful, vengeful aspect of the same deity, which informs their actions too. IMO, polytheism - which typically allows for multiple aspects of the same god - handles this dualistic tension (between say, a creator and a destroyer, both of which are ultimately necessary in a balanced system) better than monotheism, where 'evil' tends to be outsourced to a single, rogue 'anti-god' figure. Or Demiurge, as the Gnostics would say.

This story (the fight between the white wolf and the black) is very well-known, at least in its incomplete version, but the full version here makes much more sense.

But if you ask me, one of the most widely-accepted and egregious egregores of all, is fiat-money. Human society is contorted by its effects, and the endless pursuit of it enslaves billions, and destroys the biosphere, but outside of human thought, it is what, exactly?