Egregores: The Occult Entities That Watch Over Human Destiny - Mark Stavish 2018

Foreword

Acknowledgments

This book would not have been possible if it were not for the inspiration and encouragement of several people who pushed me to further investigate and elaborate upon the subject of egregores. I am indebted to the assistance rendered in the production of this book by Richard Steinberg (New York), Alfred DeStefano III (Virginia), and Professor Joscelyn Godwin (New York). I thank everyone at Inner Traditions who had a hand in bringing this book to print. Any errors are completely my own.

It would also have been impossible to write this book if it were not for the support of my wife, Andrea Nerozzi, and our two sons, Luke and Nathaniel. To them I am eternally grateful.

Foreword

James Wasserman

Here is a truly welcome volume in the canon of esoteric literature. So little has been written about the phenomena of the egregore that the word is not even in the Microsoft spell-check dictionary.

And yet, as Mark Stavish points out, an understanding of egregores is a critical part of the journey to spiritual liberation. I believe egregores are both positive and negative. They can inspire or enslave. In either case they must be recognized for what they are so they can either be encouraged as a source of inspiration and creativity or combatted in the quest for psychic freedom.

Egregores can be as simple and familiar as the icons of patriotism such as the uniformed soldier, the singing of the national anthem at a football game, the political rally or speech with the candidate or official surrounded by flags, Arlington Cemetery, the Washington Monument, the Jefferson Memorial, the White House, or the Capitol. For many, these will be considered positive images, whether the culture is American as above, or French with the Eiffel Tower, British with the House of Parliament, or Russian with the colorful Kremlin. All serve to rally citizens to a love of country, alliance with each other, and the embrace of their shared cultural ideology and history—in other words, union with the national egregore.

On the negative side of the patriotic egregore we have the Nazi swastika and the rallies of an enthusiastic and hypnotized mass of people, shamelessly accepting the ravings of a lunatic. Today we have the examples of North Korea and Iran to remind us of the dangers of manipulation against a population’s best interest, and certainly against the greater values of political liberty and spiritual freedom. The egregores erected and sustained by tyrants have a mysterious ability to fascinate people, to almost fill the starving bellies created by the contempt of their leaders, to influence the fevered brains of a suicidal crop of martyrs as they march over the cliff to their own deaths like Gadarene swine. In the case of Iran it is particularly disturbing, because, were Iranians to embrace the true historical national egregore, they could celebrate a culture and civilization as old as humankind, one that produced the likes of Omar Khayyam and Shams-i-Tabriz, a history whose elegance and refinement stands as a testament to spiritual people everywhere.

Think now of the symbols of commercial egregores that infest modern life. Take Coca-Cola, for instance, with which you can rot your teeth and expand your belly with the illusion of sophistication and refreshment as you invoke the epidemic of diabetes—this, in virtually any country in the world! Or Marlboro cigarettes, whose iconic cowboy embodied that rough and tough frontier masculinity before he succumbed to the ravages of lung cancer. Then there are the golden arches of McDonald’s, heralding obesity and ill health with its faux meat and rock-bottom prices mirrored only by its lack of nutritional value. Or how about the smiling faces of debt-crazed credit card addicts as they proudly display their Visas and Mastercards, prior to the inevitable, kitchen-table, bill-paying ordeal four weeks later.

Communication egregores are built with symbols like the rainbow peacock (NBC) strutting and fretting its hour upon the stage of fake news, or the omniscient eyeball (CBS), whose command of Truth was long ago sacrificed to the siren call of political propaganda. I am old enough to remember the disdain with which the Soviet Pravda state-controlled newspaper was held in America. And I am also young enough to have seen eight years of adulation and shameless fawning over one regime favored by the media and the subsequent hatred and frothing at the mouth over another, which it despises. The mantra of the New York Times—“All the News That’s Fit to Print”—is a lie whose object is incitement and the propagation of insane myths and irrational policies designed to steer a proud national legacy into the oncoming pathway of the Mack truck of globalism and cultural self-destruction.

Religious egregores built over thousands of years are still capable of indoctrinating people everywhere. What is it that gives power to the crucifix, whose doctrine of original sin and obedience to the appointed hierarchy guides so many people into so much unhappiness? The crescent and star are symbols of a teaching that—taken to its lowest level—taps in to a group mind that includes suicide, murder, female genital mutilation, and an embrace of collectivism dictating everything from bathing to breakfast. The six-pointed star and its associated doctrines of separation and victimhood, while clinging to the status of God’s chosen people, is another resilient egregore that could well be improved upon.

If you turned on a news broadcast or visited a website during most of 2017, you were likely to find a group of violent uncontrolled people battling the traditional established national egregore of Free Speech. The ability for citizens to freely engage in meaningful political discourse was hymned into existence by Thomas Jefferson and the other Founders, enshrined in the Bill of Rights as America’s first enumerated freedom, and ignited in popular culture again in the 1960s with the Berkeley Free Speech Movement. I imagine poor old Mario Savio turning over in his grave at the antics of Antifa and others as Berkeley was turned into a war zone by leftist-inspired censorship storm troopers and jackbooted, mask-wearing street gangs. Americans watched a respected egregore being turned on its head as police stood idly by in passive acceptance, as ordered by the cowards and political malcontents who sign their paychecks.

Then there is the category of individual and personalized psychological egregores. As one builds and succumbs to bad habits, thought-forms are built in the aura that sustain such behavior against one’s best interests or the most resolute determination to improve. Perhaps the simplest example is the laziness that precludes exercise! How often the most fervent intentions—whether for spiritual, physical, or psychological advancement—are thwarted by the obstinacy of habit, the negative egregore that has sucked power from the individual in order to sustain its own independent existence.

In 2001, I described spiritual secret societies in my book The Templars and the Assassins. I wrote of the innumerable myths and legends of teachers of wisdom who have been described as bringing the gifts of civilization and spiritual teachings to humankind. I wrote that they have been conceived and described as gods, angels, spirits, and even extraterrestrial intelligences. I mentioned the characterization of inner plane Adepts, by which such beings are often described in the literature of Western occultism.

I discussed how these beings are viewed by the spiritual societies that embrace them, and that a positive interaction can be established by the interpenetration of the three- and four-dimensional worlds, to the betterment of both.

Members of mystical secret societies may believe they are in contact with higher intelligences who are guiding the societies through invisible channels. These intelligences are often perceived as having enlisted themselves in support of the secret society in order to share their wisdom with aspirants psychically attuned to the emanation of their energies. The society may then be conceived of by its membership as a three-dimensional manifestation for the evolutionary workings of higher consciousness.

These are the living egregores that are built and sustained by group ritual, shared practices, hierarchical teachings, and inner doctrines of such a society. Mark Stavish describes the model of the Ancient Mystical Order Rosae Crucis (AMORC) in some detail. My experience has been with a different group, but there are notable similarities.

Again, it must be kept in mind that egregores are living beings. They must be fed and nurtured. I think spiritual interactions with them can be healthy as long as such interactions remain pure and positive. Both the aspirant and the egregore must be protected against corruption by the group’s leaders and the tendency for many spiritual societies to become lackadaisical, to devolve into a culture of laziness and sloppiness. The egregores attracted by such a society will be as misguided as the membership itself. Spiritual hygiene is as important for the members of a group as it is for the egregores that sustain and inform it.

One of the most interesting parts of Mark’s book is his discussion of freeing oneself from the power of egregores one has previously accepted and then rejected in the interest of Truth and the evolution of one’s personal path. As discussed in some detail in my memoir In the Center of the Fire, I wrestled with this problem twice. In fact, if you count my political journey from Socialism to Constitutional Libertarianism, it was three times.

Battling for one’s freedom from the egregores one has willingly embraced and then moved beyond can be a fight for life and death. Perhaps in less dramatic language, it can be considered the conflict between courage and fear or integrity—and caving in. The psychic and psychological chains and tendrils that wrap themselves around the adherent of various belief structures and mechanisms have an unbelievable power. I do not know if it is possible to avoid making the mistakes in the first place. In my own life, I have profited immensely from the battle to maintain my sanity through these ordeals, which in some cases have lasted years. Such conflict breeds strength, for muscles are developed by the strain of exercise.

Yet remember that muscle growth is actually a process of muscle tearing followed by muscle repair to result in enhanced muscle mass. In other words there is pain, danger, and suffering—all elements that make for authentic initiation. Such themes will accompany the escape from and rejection of egregores that no longer serve the spiritual needs of the individual. Spirituality is individualization—the acknowledgment and creation of the true self is the path of the mysteries.

Truth is the guardian of Liberty. Fear not. If you have the courage and discrimination to do the next right thing, to seek after spiritual impeccability in your own life, I firmly believe you will succeed. Go forth!

James Wasserman is the author of several books, including The Templars and the Assassins, The Temple of Solomon, The Mystery Traditions, and In the Center of the Fire: A Memoir of the Occult 1966—1989. A longtime student of the occult and a member of the Ordo Templi Orientis since 1976, he lives in New York City.

Preamble

The following is from the Corpus Hermeticum, Book 16.

12. Every kind of creature is sustained and nourished by the Sun. As the spiritual world embraces the physical and fills it out with every different kind of form, so the Sun embraces everything in the cosmos, raising up and strengthening all generations. And when they are spent and ebbing away he receives them back.

13. The choir of spirits, or rather choirs, are placed under the command of the Sun; “choirs” because there are many different kinds of powers. They are set in formation under the stars, and are equal in number to them. Thus arrayed they serve each of the stars. Some of these powers are good and some are evil by nature, that is to say in their activity. For the essence of a spiritual power is its activity. There are also some who are a mixture of good and evil.

14. All these spirits have been given authority over affairs upon earth and over turbulences there. They cause a variety of disorders both publicly in cities and among nations, but also in the life of individuals. For they shape our souls after themselves and arouse them by residing in our sinews, in our marrow, veins, and arteries, and even our brain, penetrating as deep as our very entrails.

19. Through these instruments God Himself creates all this, and all things partake of God; since this is so, they are God. Therefore in creating all things, he creates Himself; and He can never cease to create, for He Himself never ceases to be. As God has no end, so His handiwork has neither beginning nor end.¹ [emphasis added]