Egregores – can we do without them?

[Geof Nanto]

From Wikipedia:

 

“Egregore (also spelled egregor; from French égrégore, from Ancient Greek ἐγρήγορος, egrēgoros 'wakeful') is an occult concept representing a distinct non-physical entity that arises from a collective group of people. Historically, the concept referred to angelic beings, or watchers, and the specific rituals and practices associated with them, namely within Enochian traditions.

 

More contemporarily, the concept has referred to a psychic manifestation, or thoughtform, occurring when any group shares a common motivation—being made up of, and influencing, the thoughts of the group.” 

 

The most comprehensive short introduction to the subject of egregores I’ve found is here:

https://theosophy.wiki/en/Egregore

 

“Every group, congregation, society, or party, has an egregore, a group consciousness, which may be weak or strong.” Lineage is another one we are all particularly familiar with.  Underneath these ones are ones that are so pervasive that they are all but invisible. They form the zeitgeist, the spirit of the times.  

 

Can we do without them? I say, no. We need their protection and support in order to grow spiritually. They give our individual hearts and minds ‘houses and cities’ in which we find shelter and community. The best we can do is to be aware of their pervasive reality in both the secular and spiritual worlds. 

 

When I find an egregore that resonates with me and I align myself with it, I become an active participant in building its power.  For instance, it’s insightful to witness myself and other members of this forum working at strengthening the power of our pet egregores. Egregores want to grow and are forever seeking new members. 

 

With that knowledge we have some chance to discern between helpful and harmful egregores and realise how staying too long within the shelter of a particular egregore can change it from helpful to harmful – like how a plaster cast helps a broken arm to heal but keeping it on after the healing is complete weakens the arm. 

 

I have been drawn to, and greatly benefited from, the shelter of a number of egregores over the course of the decades of my inner and outer cultivation practice. And I still need aspects of many. But slowly, very slowly, as I grow more individuated – that is, more Self-connected – I find myself being guided towards feeling warmly comfortable as a homeless wanderer.  Not homeless in the traditional sense of the wandering monk without a fixed place of physical residence – I very much need the shelter of my forest cabin, my temple – but homeless in the metaphorical sense of having successive egregores lose their ability to provide shelter.  But I’m only able to sustainably do this to the extent I’m able to find heart-felt connection with more subtle realms outside and beyond these. And nurturing that connection is the most meaningful thing in my life.

 

I could say I’m feeling my way into an egregore of the divine; of asking to be shown how to make ‘myself’ worthy of that place of belonging. Or, stated another way, of cultivating in a way that allows the embryotic Self to grow within me. In other words, my progression is one of refining my egregore support – and hence the egregore I help uphold – towards the increasingly subtle, yet at the same time the increasingly real.

 

[Geof Nanto]

Although I’m not a big poster here, I read all the discussion on topics that interest me. I need this forum for the connections it gives me with people on a wide variety of spiritual paths. Although where I live has strong secular community support and is a very friendly place to be, my natural inclination as an older person is to favour a relatively reclusive lifestyle with a strong connection to the stillness of nature. Dao Bums is the only social media I contribute to, and what I like about this forum is that it doesn’t favour any particular egregore (though it does have a definite zeitgeist).  

 

Sure, people regularly push their own cultivation practice or conceptual perspectives, putting effort into explaining why they see theirs as the best. And that’s a good thing providing it doesn’t become excessive. That’s what keeps the forum alive. People who come here are looking for meaningful spiritual practice or to discuss the practice they have. Over time, some cultivation practices and conceptual perspectives have found resonance here while others have fallen by the wayside. Hopefully, that’s a reflection of their underlying harmony or disharmony with the flow of Dao.

 

Yet on occasions an individual or a group puts in so much effort to build their egregore that their posting becomes way excessive. That saddens me, especially when it comes from anyone who claims Daoist credentials.

 

I did some searching of the vast Dao Bums archive which extends right back past pre-Han times into the Warring States period (a state never far beneath the surface of the continuing present) and found this ancient version of Daodejing 29:

 

If we seek to seize this forum and dominate it:

I see this as unachievable.

Dao Bums is a spiritual vessel.

We cannot meddle with it, nor can we control it.

Those who meddle with it, ruin it. Those who control it, lose it.

This is why wise people do not meddle with things,

and so do not ruin or lose them.

 

It is the nature of things either to lead the way, or follow after.

Either to breathe in through the nose, or blow out through the mouth.

They are either strong, or weak. They either make it, or fail.

 

This is why wise people do away with excess,

and do away with waste and extravagance.

 

 

Edited May 29, 2022 by Yueya

[Desmonddf]

Egregores are deeply connected with Karma and Dharma. And those three relate to the Myriad Dao. Paths in reality.

They are linked with Destiny, and believing we have them as "pets", and can freely come and go as we please, is quite dangerous.

 

Yes, some are smaller. Some can be created. Some can be destroyed.

 

Not all.

 

Those who can, are usually incomplete. They seek to absorb and dominate because they are "paths with no end". Once the egregores, karmas and incomplete dao find their ends - then they become indeed Dharmas and Dao.

 

The incomplete egregores, karmas and minor dao can be small and passible of being dominated and used. But can also become gigantic and terrible in only a few hours or even minutes.

 

They can be porous, of easy entrance and abandonment.

 

Or can be extremely strict, almost impossible to enter, or worse, easy to enter, almost impossible to leave.

 

Be careful of underestimating spiritual beings. One's own free will and freedom can be taken, traded or destroyed. Power can be dispersed. Strenght sapped. Will depleted, Thought obscured, Consciousness muddled and so on. There are means to do all of those, and many spiritual beings are aware of such means. 

[Lairg]

Is there an egregore encompassing almost all the martial arts and committed practitioners?   

 

What is its intent?

[Geof Nanto]

8 hours ago, Desmonddf said:

They are linked with Destiny, and believing we have them as "pets", and can freely come and go as we please, is quite dangerous.

 

Yes, you are correct. Egregores are definitely not pets.  I saw that was a misleading expression of what I meant when I reread my post but didn’t edit because I didn’t consider it central to my meaning and I thought if anyone picks up on it I will correct it then. 

 

As to the remainder of your post, you are describing egregores in the more conventional, negative sense. I wanted to get away from that narrow fear-based perspective and outline how pervasive egregores are and how helpful they can be.  I was hoping my meaning was clear from what I’ve already said. If not, then so be it. That is not to say the subject isn’t worthy of further discussion, just that I personally do not want to comment on it any further at this stage.  But I will definitely read further comments with interest. 
 

Edited April 2, 2022 by Yueya

[Lairg]

Can the standard human with some trillions of internal intelligences - more or less coordinated - become an egregore, for example at first stage enlightenment?

[RobB]

Displaying my ignorance here but, @Yueya, would you say that your local community: 'where I live has strong secular community support and is a very friendly place to be' is in some way an egregore? 

[Geof Nanto]

9 hours ago, RobB said:

Displaying my ignorance here but, @Yueya, would you say that your local community: 'where I live has strong secular community support and is a very friendly place to be' is in some way an egregore? 

 

Yes, I would. And there are a number of very committed people who are at its core, mostly women. They put plenty of effort into trying to create a caring and supportive community.  BTW It's a rural community spread over a large area with about 200 people in total. 

[RobB]

Thanks. Would it be accurate to say that we find egregores everywhere that we find a sustained, shared sense of purpose or identity? I'm in the UK and we seem, as a society, so fragmented and dissipated right now. I'm not sure whether something has been lost and needs re-finding or whether something else has ascended and needs repressing or undermining. Maybe neither and it's just a question of riding out the flow of consequences as best we can. 

[Geof Nanto]

On 03/04/2022 at 8:16 AM, RobB said:

Would it be accurate to say that we find egregores everywhere that we find a sustained, shared sense of purpose or identity?

 

That's a very good way of expressing it IMO.

 

On 03/04/2022 at 8:16 AM, RobB said:

I'm in the UK and we seem, as a society, so fragmented and dissipated right now. I'm not sure whether something has been lost and needs re-finding or whether something else has ascended and needs repressing or undermining. Maybe neither and it's just a question of riding out the flow of consequences as best we can. 

 

Good insights in those questions but much too subjective for me to attempt to reply to because, to my mind, it’s something we all need to come to terms with in ways that suit our innate disposition and external circumstances.

 

For me personally as an older person it means attempting to feel real connection with something deeper than these types of egregores in the way that I tried to explain in the final two paragraphs of my OP. If I could rely entirely on these human created egregores for heart and mind connection and support, then I would have no need to go deeper. Alas, the present societal situation which you outline, world history and my experience with groups confirms to me that that's not the case now, nor has it ever been.  

 

But I certainly value that we humans attempt, with varying degrees of success, to create supportive groups and societies. I could not live without the material and cultural structures they provide, and I have spent a good part of my life contributing to these.  I honour them, try to help maintain them if I can, yet increasingly feel detached from them. Detached, but not opposed or alienated.  Whereas, beginning in my early adolescence and for quite some time, I felt a terrible alienation from the world at large including peer groups, felt opposed to all societal dominants, yet desperately wanted to be a part of it all. It’s only in retrospect I can acknowledge that because of this I felt a terrible existential loneliness.  When I was in it, I needed to keep that feeling almost totally suppressed or it would have overwhelmed me.   But thankfully, through a process of inner change, that unhealthy alienation has slowly transmuted through successive stages of more subtle connection into a healthy sense of belonging to a far greater reality.

Edited May 20, 2022 by Yueya