Egregores: The Occult Entities That Watch Over Human Destiny - Mark Stavish 2018
The Modern Era and the French Occult Revival
Victor Hugo appears to be the first author to use the word egregore as part of modern language. The word appears in La Legende des siecles (The Legend of the Ages) in 1859, where it is used as both an adjective and a noun. Less than a decade later, in 1868, it appears in the writings of Eliphas Lévi, in Le Grand Arcane (The Great Mystery). Lévi clearly identifies the word egregore with the Kabbalistic lore of those beings who were said to be the fathers of the Nephilim. Lévi describes them as beings ignorant of our existence. It may very well be from this source that the use of the term entered modern esoteric lore, as well as the teachings of various French Martinist and Rosicrucian movements and that of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn.
THE TAROT BY MOUNI SADHU
Mouni Sadhu is the pen name of Dymitr Sudowski (1898—1966), a Polish Theosophist and Martinist. His writings indicate that he was deeply involved in Hermeticism from 1926 to 1933 and was influenced by the writings of Professor Grigorii Ossipovich Mebes (1869—1930). Mebes, a leading figure of Russian Freemasonry, was also the principal literary inspiration for Estonian-Russian Christian mystic and Hermetic magician Valentin Tomberg, which can clearly be seen in the latter’s anonymously published book Meditations on the Tarot: A Journey into Christian Hermeticism. In fact, both Sadhu’s book The Tarot and Valentin’s work are nearly identical in philosophical tone save for one critical point: Sadhu asserts the existence of positive egregores, but for Tomberg all egregores are ultimately “demonic.” While Sadhu uses the twenty-two cards of the tarot’s Major Arcana as the basis for his presentation of Hermetic philosophy (primarily through the eyes of Martinism), he also includes an extensive amount of practical occult advice in each chapter.
Tomberg takes a different tack, providing an exhaustive philosophical view of the tarot as it relates to the major esoteric trends (albeit through the lens of Roman Catholicism), thereby giving it a sort of idealistic high medieval flavor and making it deeply inspirational.
In fact, Tomberg’s work has been hailed as the “most beautiful and instructive book of the twentieth century concerning Western esotericism” by the prominent French scholar of Western esotericism Antoine Faivre of Sorbonne University.1
In addition, Father Bede Griffiths (1906—1993), the British-born Indian Benedictine monk who later became known as Swami Dayananda, and the internationally renowned Trappist theologian and accomplished author Abbot Thomas Keating endorsed it publically. The most recent edition includes an afterword by Cardinal Hans Urs von Balthasar, “widely considered to be one the greatest Catholic theologians of the twentieth century”—no small feat considering the nature of the topic presented.2
For many readers, these books are the only connection they have with the teachings of Martinism as presented in the English language. These two volumes also contain within them a nearly complete presentation of the major themes and ideas of late nineteenth-and early twentieth-century French occultism, which provided the foundation for the British, American, and Russian occult revivals of the same period.
Mouni Sadhu’s The Tarot lists fifty-two references made to egregore and egregores in its index. “Egregor: is a collective entity, such as a nation, state, religions and sects and their adherents, and even minor human organizations. The structure of Egregors is similar to that of human beings. They have physical bodies (that is, collectively all the bodies of those who belong to the particular Egregor) and also astral and mental ones, the Egregor being the sum total of all these elements.”3 And later on Sadhu states that “in the colloquial language it can be said, that the magic Chain is composed of both living and dead men, as well as elementals of different types.”4
He further elaborates how egregores come into being:
Imagine that an intelligent and well-disposed man, who is able to concentrate, is thinking about a good idea, giving it a certain form. He may then find others, who have the same or similar ideas, and so a circle of men may come into being, who are all thinking along the same lines but in a different form. It is as if every one of them is repeating the drawing of a plan, placing a pencil again and again on the same contours. The thing grows in strength, develops an astrosome and becomes an “Egregor” or collective entity.
Such an Egregor, like each astrosome, defends, heals and even resuscitates the physical bodies of its members, rousing them to activities and realization of the principal idea incorporated in the Egregor. So, for example, an Egregor of a benevolent society may urge its physical members to still more activities and work, and the attracting of new members. Egregors belonging to organizations and nations which are inimical to one another, are able to fight on the astral plane, while their human beings fight on the physical.
If on the physical plane, enemies destroy the bodies of members of a particular Egregor, their astrosomes [astral bodies] fortify the Egregor on the astral plane, while their human beings fight in the physical world. Recall the persecution of Christians by the Jews and Pagans in the early days of the new religion. The former won the fight, because they were stronger on the astral plane. That is why the Church, at that time, said that the blood of martyrs is the best seed for the new Christians.5
Egregores can even establish themselves through various physical locations, thereby assuring their continued survival. The location or object—such as a relic—then becomes a talisman of sorts, directly connected to the Earth and the life experiences of the Adept who established it. This is often a “natural occurrence” rather than the result of rituals, invocations, or those operations limited to creating a single object exclusively for ritual purposes. It has, if you will, an element of “grace” about it.
According to Sadhu, “Very advanced elementars [Adepts] connected with powerful Egregores (usually religious ones) sometimes leave certain centres on the planet, through which the Egregoric forces may act. Such are the graves of some saints, or genuine advanced yogis, or other spots like Lourdes, the Holy Sepulchre, and some less well known places, often accessible only to initiates.”6
Sadhu affirms that there exist positive and negative egregores and details some of the psychic actions of Adepts on the astral realm. These actions are designed to enhance an existing egregore or to generate a new one. He also wanders into a discussion of psychic feeding, or “vampirism,” of an environment to acquire psychic energy for action on the material realm. Despite the term, Sadhu is clear that this vampirism is an energetic extraction and not of the mythological blood-drinking kind. (This is unfortunately a poor choice of words on his part, because the methods he is talking about are often considered part of a very high esoteric practice.)7
Each of these processes is intimately tied to the emotional or astral strength of the Adept. The majority of practitioners, however, will not interact with these energies in astral travels but rather in the physical world through the use of rituals. Sadhu addresses this point succinctly and clearly when he writes, “The active part of Kabbala is: ’if we operate Kabbalistically with the symbols and formulas in full consciousness of their meaning, then such an operation MUST be reflected—in a certain measure—on the development of real happenings, on the changes of the astral clichés [forms], and the mental currents.’”8
The vitalizing part of the ritual is in vocalization of the various divine names associated with the ten spheres of the Tree of Life. Just as God spoke “the Word” and Creation came into being, so does the Adept recite the divine names and bring into being occult phenomena, beings, or even worlds.
Now you may be ready to realize the aims of the connection of the TEN NAMES in Theurgy and magic. They are formulas of the separate cycles of the Great Diabatic Process in the Life of the universe. THEIR FULLNESS ENVELOPS EVERYTHING THAT HAS BEEN PERFORMED AND EVERYTHING WHICH WILL BE PERFORMED. It is, so to speak, the full reflection of the subjective understanding by the Collective Man (Universal Being) of the Mystery belonging to the construction of the world, manifested in the signs of his initiatory language.
With every theurgic ceremony and with many magic ones is connected the ritualistic pronunciation of part of the Holy Names, or all of them. This depends upon the kind of Sephiroth taking part in the process of RISING prayers, or conjurations. Therefore exact knowledge of the Names and Sephiroth is indispensable even for the beginning aspirant in Hermeticism and magic. This defines for him the ability of performing Kabbalistic activities in any part of the Diabatic process and GIVES HIM THE ABILITY TO FORTIFY HIS WILL-POWER WITH FORMULAS CONTACTING HIM WITH THE IMMORTAL EGREGORE OF THE GREAT CHAIN FORGED BY THE GUARDS AND MASTERS OF THE WHITE RACE’S KABBALAH.9
However, one need not be an official member of an egregore to be affected by it. Sadhu states that it is possible to attract sympathetic souls to an egregore for the purpose of vampirizing them—that is, feeding off their emotional and physical energies. Examples of this can clearly be seen in sporting events as well as political campaigns and various forms of media manipulation. “The operations of Ceremonial Magic do not extend only to two-plane entities, but also to incarnate ones. It is possible, under favorable conditions of course, to evoke and compel the astrosome [psychic body] of a living man or Egregore of a Chain, having incarnate representatives, and so on, to perform anything.”10
This power of attraction and even subjugation is not limited to human beings. It extends to everything that lives in the visible and invisible worlds, and egregores are living beings. “Hermetic Tradition is firm in the statement, that EVERYTHING IN THE UNIVERSE IS MUTUALLY CONNECTED AND BOUND TOGETHER OR INTERWOVEN. This is important! If you realize this, many of your troubles, fears and uncertainties will cease to exist.”11 For this reason Sadhu, like Jean Dubuis, encourages students to work with their own “weak Kabbalah” instead of that of someone else or that of a group. Work with your own images, prayers, invocations, and “mantrams” that are derived from your understanding of the Kabbalah so as to limit the influence various egregores may have on you.
VARIOUS INTERPRETATIONS OF DEMONS AND EVIL
The framework for Valentin Tomberg’s discussion of egregores falls primarily under the heading of the tarot card known as The Devil. For Tomberg, the fifteenth arcanum is the symbolic embodiment of psychic and magical creations of all egregores. All egregores are then demonic, because they are a creation of man’s desires and result in humanity being chained to a false god or ideal.
Here Tomberg directs the reader to a discussion of evil, the nature of demons, how they come into being, and the key point and nature of all spiritual practices, as it is also the danger therein. “Every spiritual exercise tends to lead to the identification of the meditant with the subject of meditation, i.e., to an act of intuition, the fifteenth Arcanum of the Tarot, in so far as it is a spiritual exercise, cannot—and must not—lead to an experience of identification of the meditant with the subject of meditation. One should not arrive at an intuition of evil, since intuition is identification, and identification is communion.”12
He further states: “One ought not to occupy oneself with evil, other than in keeping a certain distance and certain reserve, if one wishes to avoid the risk of paralyzing the creative elan and a still greater risk—that of furnishing arms to the powers of evil. . . . The world of evil is a chaotic world—at least, as it presents itself to the observer. One ought not to enter this jungle if one does not want to lose one’s way there; one should be an observer from the outside.”13
While it is easy enough to ignore this warning because of the actual or perceived religious bias of the author, similar statements have been made by more iconoclastic individuals. In fact, a passive preoccupation with evil—particularly as expressed by many piety-seeking faithful who have an overwhelming desire to avoid evil and therefore see it existing everywhere—unconsciously consumes them. How does it do so? In the same manner one would eat an elephant: one small bite at a time. We need only examine the lives of those who constantly speak of evil to see the truth in this statement.
In his book of odd and curious anecdotes of the paranormal, Swimming Where Madmen Drown: Travelers’ Tales from Inner Space, Robert Masters recounts the experience he had with evil while researching a book on witchcraft. Masters, who was a leading figure of the Human Potential movement together with his wife, Jean Houston, writes that in 1960 he arranged to live in Arkansas, in the Ozark Mountains near White River, for one year for the purpose of research and writing. The book he was researching was Eros and Evil: The Sexual Psychopathology of Witchcraft. It addressed the antisexual themes that ran through the medieval witchcraft trials. Masters asserts that as a result of dealing with the cruel and violent nature of the material, “several authors of histories of witchcraft have experienced severe clinical depression.”14
He then goes on to detail the variety of phenomena that he himself began to experience—phenomena he observed that was identical to what he was reading about in his research. This included infestations of scorpions, centipedes, and tarantulas. As well, dead birds and animals began to show up on the property at which he was residing, along with dead vegetation and trees, sudden flooding from a dry creek bed, and gusts of wind that created “whirlpools of dust and looking like something one would more likely encounter in the desert. Overall, there was a kind of psychic pall that hung over the place, and friends who came to visit me during that time remarked in one way or another about the extremely oppressive feeling of the place. . . . Almost as soon as my book was completed, the whole array of phenomena vanished almost at once. . . . I remained for another eight months or so, [and] they never reappeared.”15
Masters states that he believes this was a “clear-cut, complex, and powerful example of mind—and possibly soul as well—interacting with nature.”16
Similar phenomena were noted by Aleister Crowley, pertaining to his research into the Qlippoth, or the demonic forces in the Kabbalah.
Noted author James Wasserman had his own odd experiences with similarly strange phenomena, which he described in his autobiography, In the Center of the Fire: A Memoir of the Occult 1966—1989. Wasserman, along with the mysterious “Simon” and Larry Barnes, were instrumental in publishing the Avon Books mass-market paperback of the Necronomicon. The Necronomicon is a fictional book of Babylonian magic invented by H. P. Lovecraft, one of the most influential and important writers of fantasy and horror. According to Lovecraftian lore, the Necronomicon was written by “the Mad Arab” Abdul Alhazred in Damascus in 730 CE. Translations are said to have made their way through the hands of the great occultists across the ages, including John Dee. The entire base of the Necronomicon is its focus on supposedly containing the secrets of an ancient cult who worship the “Old Ones.” (These Old Ones are a race of tentacled monsters who are described as being of extraterrestrial origin.) Themes around the Necronomicon, and its purported power to drive those who come into contact with it insane, play an important role in several of Lovecraft’s most popular stories. It also influenced an entire genre of its own with numerous spin-off stories by other authors as well as inspired imitators. Since its appearance in 1978, the “Simon edition” of the Necronomicon has continuously been in print.
What a loony period the Necro[nomicon] production would be. For some reason, nearly everyone who entered our loft shed blood . . . others were constantly cutting themselves in minor accidents. Then one night, I got a frantic call from the typesetters downstairs. Their loft had been overrun by rats bursting through the walls. . . . The Temple in my own loft had a padlock on the outside door so it could be sealed as a private space for my magical work. On July 4th, Jane and I returned from dinner and fireworks. I had an uneasy feeling when we walked through the loft door, itself secured by a heavy-duty police lock. . . . I discovered that my Temple door was open, that the hasp had been broken, and that this appeared to have occurred from the inside out. . . . Nothing else in the loft was the slightest bit disturbed.17
These examples serve to illustrate why Tomberg asserts that the purpose of The Devil tarot card is not to present the metaphysical dimensions of evil (although he briefly enters that path at the end of the chapter) but rather to illustrate how individuals can lose their freedom to an entity that they or others have generated—an entity that is an artificial being whose creator becomes its slave.
He compares this process to that of the creation of a tulpa in Tibetan Buddhism. “For, in accordance with his experience of them, Eliphas Lévi saw in demons—such as incubi and succubi, the Leonard masters presiding over witch’s Sabbaths, and the demons of the possessed—only creations of human will and imagination, projecting, individually or collectively, their contents into the malleable substances of the ’astral light’ and thus engendering demons, which are therefore engendered in Europe in exactly the same way as the Tibetan tulpas.”18
Both Eliphas Lévi and the Tibetan masters are in agreement not only with respect to the subjective and psychological origin of demons but also with respect to their objective existence. Engendered subjectively, they become forces independent of the subjective consciousness that engendered them. They are, in other words, magical creations, for magic is the objectification of that which takes its origins in the subjective consciousness. Demons that have not arrived at the stage of objectification—that of an existence separate from the psychic life of their parents—have a semi-autonomous existence that is designated in modern psychology by the term psychological complex.
Occultist and author Israel Regardie was also Aleister Crowley’s personal secretary and transcriptionist. In several of Regardie’s books he discusses this notion of demons being subjective psychological complexes. This is also a topic of considerable disagreement among Western occultists who insist on a dualistic notion of magical practices being either subjective or objective in nature but who fail to grasp the juncture where these distinctions overlap and the essentially parasitic nature of these beings. For Tomberg, an egregore is a collective demon whose prime examples in the twentieth century can be seen in the political movements of National Socialism and Communism.
The spectre [of communism] has grown. . . . Engendered by the will of the masses, born of despair following the “industrial revolution” in Europe, nourished by the resentment accumulated amongst the masses through generations, armed with a dummy intellectuality which is Hegel’s dialectic misconstrued—this spectre has grown and continues to make the rounds in Europe, and in other continents. . . . Today already one third of mankind is impelled to bow down before this god and to obey it in everything. . . . Because for Marxism there is no God or gods—there are only “demons” in the sense of creations of the human will and imagination. This is the fundamental Marxist doctrine of the so-called “ideological superstructure.” According to this doctrine it is the economic interest, i.e. the will, which creates, i.e. imagines, ideologies—religious, philosophical, social and political. For Marxism all religions are, therefore, only such “ideological superstructures,” i.e. formations due to the human will and imagination. Marxism-Leninism itself is only an ideological superstructure, a product of intellectual imagination, on the basis of the will having arranged—or re-arranged—social, political, and cultural things in a certain manner. And this method of production of ideological superstructures on the basis of will is precisely what we understand as the collective generation of a demon or an egregore.19
Tomberg asserts—and this may be the reason why he has been so well received by Roman Catholic officials—that there is a clear distinction between the “mystical body of Christ” or the “church triumphant” and the egregore of the church in the political world.
If there are egregores of initiation orders and religious—and other—communities, they are always negative. The egregore of Catholicism, for example, is its parasitic double (the existence of which it would be futile to deny), which manifests itself as fanaticism, cruelty, “diplomatic wisdom” and excessive pretentions. But insofar as the positive spirits of communities are concerned, they are never egregores, but rather they are entities from the ten hierarchies (ten, because the tenth hierarchy—that of mankind—is included here). It is therefore a human soul, an Angel or an Archangel, who assumes responsibility for the direction of a human community in a positive sense. Thus, it is not at all an egregore but rather St. Francis himself who is the spiritual director of the Franciscan order. It is similarly so for the Church. Its guiding spirit is Jesus Christ.20
He goes on to say that “no, there is the Word, and there are egregores before whom humanity bows down; there is revelation of divine truth, and the manifestations of the will of human beings; there is the cult of God, and that of idols made by man. . . . The Word and idols. . . . operate simultaneously in the history of the human race.”21
This creates a razor-sharp—and let us emphasize thin—distinction between the notion of an egregore as universally evil because it is generated by humanity, and the Christian faith, by which Tomberg means the Roman Catholic Church, as ultimately positive because it is generated by God through Christ. This point is theologically sound but is also clearly subjective. It is no different from the Tibetan Buddhist need to “control the narrative” and attempt to keep all discussion of Buddhism within the hermetically sealed and circular framework of Tibetan Buddhism and culture. While there is some truth to it, at the end of the day it cannot hold up to reason and is simply an article of faith.
This view as presented by Tomberg immediately confronts us with an unbridgeable dualism of almost Manichean proportions. The only way for humanity to escape the power of its own creations—that by their nature are evil—is to surrender completely to God. It appears that we are being told to accept the “egregore” that is “not an egregore.”
The semiscientific cum metaphysical rationale for all egregores being evil is given:
In order to engender a psychic or “astral” entity, it is necessary that the psychic and mental energy that you produce to this effect coagulates, i.e. enfolds. A form is not produced by radiation; it is produced only by coagulation or enfoldment. Now, good only radiates; it does not at all enfold. It is always evil which does this.
You cannot engender . . . an “egregore of universal love” because the quality of will and imagination required to this end is not held together as a formation centered in itself, but forms an alliance—one of “radiating movement”—with the activity of the world of spiritual hierarchies. The psychic and mental energy of love would never give rise to the formation of an individual psychic or “astral” entity; it would immediately and wholly put itself at the disposal of the celestial hierarchies, saints, and God. Therefore, although one can certainly engender demons, one cannot engender artificial Angels.22
However, Tomberg does give some practical and insightful advice on how to avoid creating or strengthening negative forces.
Let us be silent. . . . To be silent is more than to keep things secret; it is more even than to guard oneself from profaning the holy things to which a respectful silence is owed. To be silent is, above all, the great magical commandment of not engendering demons through our arbitrary will and imagination. . . .
Let us resign ourselves, therefore, to the Great Work of contributing constructively to tradition—the spiritual, Christian, Hermetic, scientific tradition. Let us thoroughly immerse ourselves in it, let us study it, let us practice it, lastly, let us cultivate it, i.e., let us work not in order to overthrow but in order to build. Let us range ourselves amongst the builders of the “great cathedral” of mankind’s spiritual tradition—and let us try to contribute to it. May the Holy Scriptures be holy for us; may the Sacraments be sacraments for us; may the hierarchy of spiritual authority be the hierarchy of authority for us; and may the “perennial philosophy”—and also truly scientific science—of the past and present have friends in us and, should it be the case, respectful collaborators! This is what the commandment to be silent entails—the commandment of not engendering demons.23
Like Sadhu, Tomberg notes that physical locations can be the anchor points of spiritual force. However, he makes a distinction, based on theological assumptions, between talismans and the sacraments, stating that holy sites, relics, and sacraments are not talismans (storage containers for energy) but rather gateways through which an inexhaustible energy flows.
DISINFORMATION—THE DEVIL MADE ME DO IT
Despite his claims of not discussing the metaphysics of evil, Tomberg does take a slight detour down the road of attempting to explain the role of evil in the world. He speaks of the “hierarchies of the Left,” those beings often referred to as the Qlippoth in Kabbalah, whom we have mentioned before. These demonic beings are the counterpart of the hierarchy of angels. Tomberg places them in a scriptural context, such as in Job, wherein the purpose of the demon is to test the spirituality of man. Here, he says, the demon will only leave once it is convinced of an individual’s holiness. It acts, as it were, as “the devil’s advocate” in the trial of the soul before God, for one is only holy once “good and evil agree upon it.”
The other role is that of a demon who is controlled and put into the service of good. This is similar to the story of King Solomon controlling demons to build the temple, or the notion within Tibetan Buddhism of Padmasambhava binding demons to defend the dharma. The most interesting example given by Tomberg, however, concerns demonic influence as simply intent upon distraction. “There are also entities from the hierarchies of the left accused of making use of ridicule—farce—as a means of demonstrating their prosecuting thesis. An entity belonging to this latter category is known in the western world. This is Mephistopheles, whose portrait Goethe painted with astonishing exactness. . . . The ridicule which Mephistopheles makes use of has a serious foundation. It is primarily human pretension and snobbery that turns into ridicule. Here is an example of this: . . .”24
At this point Tomberg tells the story of Hugh Clayton Randall-Stevens, describing him as a retired journalist who was financially secure, spiritually indifferent, and living a life of leisure with his wife. Then in February 1925 he suddenly started getting “messages” from an entity who claimed to be the Egyptian god Osiris. Osiris revealed to the journalist all of the ancient wisdom of Egypt that archaeologists had yet to discover—but someday would. Soon Randall-Stevens began to draw images, having never drawn before. The style was simplistic and yet pompous, and it detailed the struggle between good and evil, with the obligatory reference to Atlantis. Several books of this channeled material were published by Rider of London, and, in time, it was articulated that the unsuspecting channeler of ancient wisdom was also the reincarnation of Pharaoh Akhenaton.
Of course Tomberg insisted this is not Osiris but the spirit of Mephistopheles, with “the whole revelation . . . only a farce made by him for the . . . credulous? No—for spiritual snobs.” The books even contain a note from the author stating that the reason they are being read is not because of their wisdom—for little is there—but because of how the material is communicated: it is done so in “an extraordinary way.” It is the fantastic that people are after, not the truth.25
Spiritual snobbery is a fine phrase for it, and one that is echoed in a different manner by Joscelyn Godwin in his book Atlantis and the Cycles of Time: Prophecies, Traditions, and Occult Revelations, wherein he spends a fair amount of time discussing Randall-Stevens. “The warning that our civilization is heading for imminent doom is a favorite refrain of Atlantologists. To a certain cast of mind, often shared by Superior Intelligences, it always seems that the present day is on the brink of catastrophe, because everyone is so wicked (except of course the writer and his or her readers).”26
If we pause for a moment we find something a little deeper here. It is not just one person who is being distracted from the search for inner spiritual awakening or Truth. No, it is everyone who reads or comes into contact with a book of such banalities. We also see that evil does not need to control everyone, it just needs to influence the right one, and through this influence not even control people—simply keep them distracted. These themes are addressed by renowned British philosopher and author Colin Wilson in The Mind Parasites and by British author of the occult Gary Lachman in A Secret History of Consciousness. However, with the exception of Lachman’s book, which is largely a restating of Wilson’s premise presented in a historical context, few writers on the paranormal have approached this critical point: evil does not need to control everyone, it just needs to keep as many people as possible distracted from progressing on the path. This distraction comes in various forms by way of the media, personal electronic devices, video games, movies, television, music, and sports. Mindless political memes are among the most popular manifestations at the moment. This also means that the creators and purveyors of these media and the products produced for them are prime candidates for demonic obsession and possession. To affect one of them is to reach millions through them.
TELEPATHY AND MIND CONTROL THROUGH THE MEDIA
It should come as no surprise that during the 1930s, when mass broadcast media was still in its relative infancy, both the BBC and NBC radio networks undertook a series of mass on-air telepathy tests. NBC did these in cooperation with Zenith Radio Corporation, and, as part of them, the original “Zener Cards” (the most common tool used in extrasensory testing) were distributed to the public. Zener cards are a deck of twenty-five cards consisting of five symbols: a circle, cross, wavy lines, square, and five-pointed star. They were created by psychologist Karl Zener (1903—1964) in the 1930s for experiments in psychic research. This work was done in conjunction with J. B Rhine. Packs were sent to local Zenith radio sales-and-repair shops for promotional purposes and were also available for purchase in five-and-dime stores. These cards were so popular that they were unavailable two weeks after their initial issue and had to be reprinted.
Specific individuals working in the field of telepathic research included American botanist and the founder of parapsychology, J. B. Rhine (1895—1980). He was the founder of the Rhine Research Center, located on the campus of Duke University, Durham, North Carolina. The Rhine Research Center is an independent center for the study of parapsychology. It is the successor organization to the Parapsychology Laboratory at Duke University and is possibly the oldest facility of its kind. It was founded by Rhine when he retired from Duke University in 1965; it was first called the “Foundation for Research on the Nature of Man and the Institute for Parapsychology.” Unlike the Parapsychology Laboratory, the Rhine Research Center is not affiliated with Duke University. In The Reach of the Mind, Rhine attests to the telepathic experiments that were conducted by the Zenith Corporation on several occasions in the 1920s and 1930s.
The nineteen-twenties, however, saw a marked rise of interest in telepathy. It was paralleled by a similar increase of public interest in spiritualism and was doubtless affected by it. The tremendous loss of life and the widespread bereavement which took place during the First World War, together with the ensuing uncertainties and shifting values, undoubtedly had the effect of turning men’s thoughts towards the possibility of forces beyond the knowledge of science. Countless men and women felt the need of something more than purely physical explanations of life and death. A mass telepathy experiment was conducted by radio over the Zenith Broadcasting Station in Chicago in 1923, and a little later the British Broadcasting Corporation conducted another. Later still, the Scientific American magazine carried out a self-testing program in telepathy, and there were numerous other manifestations of popular interest.27
In a booklet, What Well Known Scientists Say about Telepathy, published in March 1938, E. F. McDonald Jr., president of the Zenith Radio Corporation, made the following statement.
This booklet is intended as a preliminary report from the Zenith Foundation to its partners in this great adventure of exploration. Necessarily incomplete, it nevertheless sets down in permanent form some of the best and most scientific contemporary thought on this subject. Even more important than its contributions to the scientific fund of information on the subject of mental phenomena is the fact that this radio series has lifted the entire subject out of the dungeon of prejudice into the white light of serious discussion by millions of people. I want to thank the many scientists, educators, and other speakers who appeared on the Zenith programs, for permission to reprint their interviews. I want to express my appreciation to the hundreds of thousands who participated in the Zenith telepathy tests and to the many thousands of listeners who sent in their experiences.28
Preliminary conclusions of the experiments, which lasted for thirty weeks, were compiled and listed in the booklet. They stated:
· Telepathy functions best when strong emotions are involved.
· Telepathic ability varies in individuals, as well as at certain times.
· Physical distance has no effect on telepathic communication.
· Telepathic communication is most often experienced between people with blood or love relationships.
· Time is not a factor in expressing or experiencing telepathy.
· Age is not a factor in expressing or experiencing telepathy.
Statistical results were based on a quarter of a million responses with preliminary results showing that the odds of some of the test results being left to chance were 1 in 10,000,000,000,000,000,000. The report went on to state: “Of greater importance than cold statistics, however, is the repeated testimony of Zenith Foundation programs of the successful men and women who attributed their success to the conscious or unconscious use of little known mental powers. . . . We do not have to wait until science can explain these powers, but we can use them now in our daily lives merely by heeding the premonitions and impulses which add to success and happiness.”29
Dr. Rhine’s books, including New Frontiers of the Mind and others, were listed on the instruction card along with participating radio stations, date, and time. His work is intentionally quoted here because his research has made him one of, if not the only, household name for psychic research. In addition, his research was done well over half a century ago. This point is brought up to demonstrate that, despite extensive evidence of psychic phenomena and ability, the general public believes in it not because of “science” or statistical reports, but because of personal experience.
Yet in spite of the massive amount of research since these public experiments were done more than half a century ago, the scientific community as a whole fails to demonstrate any significant interest in parapsychology or even to show any confidence in the research in which its own members engage. These observations ought to demonstrate that the witnessing of or participation in psychic phenomena, at least as of now, is a predominantly intimate and personal experience, and any scientist involved in psychic research, despite Dr. Rhine’s optimistic views, still places their professional reputation and career in danger.
AMBELAIN AND MARTINISM
Robert Ambelain (1907—1997) was a French essayist and author of forty-two books, some of them written under the pseudonym Aurifer. He was a leading member of many Martinist bodies and involved with esoteric Freemasonry, serving as the grand master of Memphis-Mizraim from 1960 until 1985, and ordained a bishop in the Gnostic Universal Church in 1946. Even during the Nazi occupation of France from 1940 until 1945 he was a ceaseless organizer of esoteric movements in France and abroad. He wrote about all areas of esoteric history, theory, and practice.
Ambelain’s many associations made him directly familiar with the formation, maintenance, and dissolution of egregores. His authority on the matter made him widely cited by both Sadhu and Tomberg in their works. The following is from his book Practical Kabbalah, translated by Piers A. Vaughan for private circulation.
We give the name Egregore to a Force generated by a powerful spiritual current and later fed at regular intervals, conforming to a rhythm in harmony with the Universal Life of the Cosmos, or to a meeting of Entities united by a common characteristic.
In the Invisible, outside of the physical perception of Man, there exist artificial beings, generated by devotion, enthusiasm or fanaticism, which we call egregores. These are the hearts of the great spiritual currents, good or evil. The Mystical Church, Celestial Jerusalem, the Body of Christ, and all such titles, are the qualifications which give communion to the egregore of Catholicism. Freemasonry, Protestantism, Islam, and Buddhism have egregores. Great political ideologies have them too.
Psychically integrated through ritual initiation or through an intellectual adherence to these currents, the affiliate becomes one of its constitutive cells. He augments the power of the egregore through the qualities or faults which he possesses, and in exchange, the egregore isolates him from the external forces of the physical world, and with the collective force it had previously stored, greatly enhances the feeble means of activity of the man who joins with it. [emphasis added] Instinctively, popular language gives the name of “circle” to an egregore, thus intuitively expressing the idea of a circuit. Between the constitutive cell and the egregore—that is to say, between the affiliate and the group—a sort of inner psychic circulation is thereby established.
This explains why opponents of such a concept, on studying the origin, nature and life of this concept, often end by joining with it or at least by espousing a part of the theories, even without their knowledge. They are connected to a current, which, as it is more powerful than those who are primitively linked to it, carries them unknowingly away from the road that they imagined they were following. [emphasis added] If they were free of any affiliation, this action would only be the more brutal and strong.30
According to Ambelain, the formation of an egregore is described in the works of the Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius of Loyola, Ignatius being the founder of the Jesuits. It should also be underscored that egregores are vitalized through rituals, thus only human associations can form them. The corollary is that the destruction of an egregore rapidly occurs with “the death by fire of its living members” and the destruction of its ritual and paraphernalia. Without these material supports and the emotional-psychic energy they provide, the astral egregore will wither and die. Incineration is required so as not to shed blood, the medium of occult vitality (“the life is in the blood”), particularly if its release is ritualistic.
However, because one can experience a profound backlash upon leaving by choice or through excommunication, Ambelain suggests that one temporarily seek shelter in “an equivalent but opposite power.” Just as physical associations exist because of membership, so egregores exist because of the entities or beings that they attract on the astral plane. The power to attract, compel, and maintain these entities is a direct result of the rituals and sacrifices performed for them by their earthly adherents. Again, all egregores exist on three levels: material, astral, and celestial.
For this reason any interruption in the performance of the ritual will have an equally disruptive effect on the vitality of the egregore. Thus rituals, after a certain period of time, cannot be modified without weakening the egregore, making secrecy all the more critical. Rituals composed of “secret names, words, and formulae . . . to awaken and establish the egregore” are also directed around specific astrological events to coordinate with celestial and cosmic cycles. It is not by accident that equinox and solstice rituals play such an important part in many organizations. However, in larger movements wherein the mass of the “faithful” provide a certain amount of vital power, this power is passive. The active quality and quantity of energy comes from those most capable and dedicated in their practice. It is for this reason that, regardless of all claims to the contrary, there can be no egalitarianism in an occult movement—or in any spiritual movement for that matter, as the leadership or “inner circle” will be in charge of maintaining and directing the egregore.
Patrick Zalewski, the well-known Adept we mentioned earlier, has described the formation, growth, and even mutation of an egregore by using the metaphor of a honeycomb. In a private correspondence with the present author, he writes:
Think of a ritual or belief where the overall boundaries encompass core components and support mechanisms are visualized as the interior of a beehive or honeycomb with its numerous cell divisions. While a number of cell divisions can occur or even change, as long as they maintain the core principles then the same egregore is simply being tweaked. However, there is a tipping point, and once that is reached then something will change into something else. An example of this in the Golden Dawn system is the different letters on the Enochian Tablets. The Tablets work even with the various letter changes. You can also apply this paradigm to general ritual. It is a case of measuring comparative difference—when they are minor it does not matter and when they are major, well, then it does!31
On a psychic level, egregores are anthropomorphized images of the concept at hand. For instance, peace, war, love, wealth, and nation are all just ideas that are created through visualization and vitalized through regular ritualized emotion, and finally made concrete through a specialized sign or symbol. These signs or symbols are no different from the logo of a company, brand, or product, which are themselves lesser or greater egregores. Just as a logo acts as a form of legal protection for the company and its employees who work together for a common cause, so too does the sigillum (magical sign or seal) of an egregore act as an identifying, guiding, and protecting force for its members.
Yet this relationship does not last forever. Egregores that have existed for a period of time will become independent and no longer obey their earthly masters. An egregore may easily turn into “a fierce tyrant” and cause its associated organization or movement to deviate from its original purpose. Thus, to conquer an egregore one must first evoke it. This may explain why some esoteric groups have a built-in life span or “expiration date” (as with the Rosicrucian cycle of the “opening” and “closing” of the Vault). The egregore may be an essential mechanism or tool, but for the movement to maintain control over its own egregore and continuity of mission, it must go through periods of activity and rest as do human beings.
In summary, the formation of an egregore is identical to all magical operations where an effect in the material world is desired. In the process, incense, signs and symbols, the visualization of concrete images, the formation of “magical chains,” and a mental current fortified with emotional desire are ritually enacted on a regular basis. While the number of members assures a certain amount of physical life for an egregore, it is the regular and proficient performance of its rituals, combined with the spiritual union of its members, that give it strength. Thus secrecy must be maintained as far as is possible, as well as the generating of goodwill, approval, and even passive support for the egregore from those who know about it but are not members of the associated group.
This necessity of general goodwill, or at least neutrality toward an egregore, is understood most clearly when we see the actions of egregores upon each other on the astral plane. This action is most powerful between countries, religions, political parties, or any area where there is direct competition. French mystic Paul Sedir describes this combat between egregores. The following, from Sedir’s book Initiations, is a conversation between the doctor, a seeker of occult knowledge, and Andreas, who holds that knowledge. Andreas speaks first.
“Great historic catastrophes, as you now must have seen, have not had less futile causes. One must therefore pay attention to them if one is to intervene usefully in any way. We French have a greater right and duty than anybody to love our country in every way. If, doctor, you have any awareness of the Invisible realm you must have seen how much light and beauty has come to Europe through France in spite of the follies of some of its sons and the misdemeanors of its princes. . . . Ingratitude is not the prerogative only of men. The beings that the grandiloquent Eliphas Lévi called ’egregores’ also possess this fault. The egregores of other nations have no concern for our own country. On the contrary, they’d very much like to dominate or even destroy it and enrich themselves from the spoils. And the Adversary, who’s on the watch for every chance of a quarrel, helps as much as He can. In the three persons about whom we were talking He found a marvelous field of opportunity. All three had neither country nor religion. Their god was just themselves, and the invisible forces sought to profit from the egotistic passions of these three, who held in their hands the most powerful levers of social life, to bring down our country.”
“I am beginning to understand,” I said, “but if I’m not being indiscreet, are you thinking of intervening in this coalition?”
“Certainly doctor. Isn’t it my duty if Providence has given me the means?”32
POLITICS AND THE OCCULT
This theme of egregores’ role in politics is echoed in Politics and the Occult: The Left, the Right, and the Radically Unseen by Gary Lachman. As Lachman points out in his brief foray into the world of egregores, even if a spiritual force is not at work there is a peculiar utilization of group consciousness that can take place for good or for ill. In this respect Lachman quotes the Polish philosopher, linguist, and poet Jean Gebser and his “magical structure of consciousness,” made up of an interconnectedness of all living beings and specific expressions of group consciousness. Lachman points out that this collective “shadow,” or “egregore,” can express itself in fiction, as the English novelist, poet, playwright, and politician Edward Bulwer-Lytton (1803—1873) demonstrated in his occult novel Zanoni, as well as in real life. Lachman quotes Morris Berman, the American historian and social critic best known for his book The Reenchantment of the World: “An entire culture can eventually undergo very serious changes as the result of slow accumulation of enough psychic and somatic changes on an invisible level.”33
This peculiar group force of mind is something that has been consciously created and cultivated by a variety of associations. While religious and political associations are easiest to identify—and esoteric and occult movements make the most vocal claims to the existence and power of their egregores—in the media-dominated world we also see marketing and branding of celebrities and multigenerational television and movie franchises as having their own egregores. These may even be composed of smaller units, but they all feed into the larger ideal or collective entity.
The human potential movement of the 1960s and 1970s, the movement that would morph into the New Age movement, had among its various proponents those who actively sought to create thoughtforms and even “ensouled” egregores as part of its mission. Of course, this was all to be done to bring about a more enlightened age and leadership—but “more enlightened” according to whom?