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

The Egregore of the Ancient Mystical Order Rosae Crucis (AMORC)

Since its appearance in 1915, the Ancient Mystical Order Rosae Crucis (AMORC), better known as the Rosicrucian Order, has grown from humble beginnings in New York City to a worldwide organization. Although its height arguably occurred in the 1990s, AMORC has still managed to maintain a premier place among Western esoteric and initiatic organizations. Its most recognized headquarters is in San Jose, California. AMORC also maintains distinct administrative offices and temples in countries across the globe, providing teachings in nineteen different languages.

In 1930 a series of five documents—or manifestos, as they were called—totaling about fifty pages, were sent to select members of AMORC. They contained the personal and private recollections and struggles of the organization’s founder, Harvey Spencer Lewis (1883—1939); they were to be read, signed, and returned. Titled Pronunziamento to All the World, the cover page gave a listing of no less than twenty-four “Signatories to the International Rosicrucian Council” along with “others.”

The main page had an impressive German-language title stating that the document was from the “International Headquarters of the Supreme Council of the Ancient Mystic Order Rosae Crucis,” followed by “S.S.S., Berlin, Germany 1930.” At the bottom it claimed to be “Issued through the united Organizations of the Rose Cross,” followed by a list of organizations: Ancient Mystical Order Rosae Crucis (AMORC), Brotherhood of the Rose Cross, Fraternitas Hermetica Lucis, Ordo Templi Orientis, Collegium Pansophia, and Societas Pansophia.

To cap this off the document also claimed to be “the Second Official FAMA issued by the Original Fraternity Rosae Crucis since the Seventeenth Century.” We find affirmation that all of this work was being undertaken for the good of humanity and “for the COMING NEW AGE.”¹

While the document contains three signatures, one belonging to H. S. Lewis, it is doubtful that the mentioned “signatories” existed in any uniform manner; if they did exist they were probably more honorary than active. However, this document should not be seen as simply another piece of internal marketing, because members who received it had already been in the order for well over a dozen years and in that way alone had demonstrated their loyalty (or at least their continued interest) in AMORC’s style of esoteric teachings. This document, and ones similar to it, are in fact magical operations. Here the semihistorical and mythological Rosicrucian fraternity, a worldwide body of Adepts, is affirmed, listed, and again announced to all the world—or at least to those who had been members for approximately fifteen years or more and who belonged to the order’s highest and last 12th degree.

What makes these documents interesting is that, despite their title page’s dedication “to all the world,” these special lectures were to be signed and returned to the Supreme Grand Lodge located in San Jose, California. Thus the secret is both revealed to the worthy and concealed from the profane. The egregore is strengthened, and the image and ideals of a worldwide Rosicrucian movement, under the direction of AMORC and guidance of the invisible Adepts of the Great White Brotherhood, is reinforced. That which is fiction slowly materializes into fact; the dream becomes reality, and history is justified. To only the most tried and trusted members, those who have demonstrated their loyalty, is the Truth revealed.

The specialness of this experience and the emotional energy it creates and directs toward the entity cannot be overstated. The publications to which we refer are dated “Second Edition. 1946” and contain the following statement by Ralph M. Lewis (1904—1987), son and spiritual heir of Harvey Spencer Lewis. “And so in 1918 the late Imperator of AMORC, Dr. H. Spencer Lewis, issued in manuscript form a new Confessio R. C. Fraternitatis, and I here bring to you a reproduction of it with the hope that you may be so Cosmically illuminated as to attain that state of Cosmic Consciousness which it has brought to many who have been privileged to read it previously.”²

The transformative nature of reading the text is affirmed, and what other schools might call a guided meditation, or “pathworking,” is presented. The information is not given for its own sake but rather to transform the student—to bring him or her closer to a specific realization. This is reinforced by the “averment” that is at the end of each booklet.

Standing in the presence of the God of my Heart and ever mindful of the Terror of the Threshold, I do solemnly affirm that I have carefully read and meditated upon the contents of this manifesto. I further affirm that at that supreme moment when I was conscious of the spiritual surge within my being that enthralled and caused me to ascend in consciousness above and beyond my mortal and physical environment, and when I was also aware of the invisible presence of the Cosmic Hosts, I did affix my signature below and record the hour, day, month and year of this Cosmic experience. I do also solemnly avouch by these same tokens that I have permitted no other eyes but mine to peruse the contents of this manifesto.³

HARVEY SPENCER LEWIS: THE FOUNDER OF AMORC

The pages that follow give a more detailed description of Harvey Spencer Lewis, the aforementioned Imperator of AMORC. These descriptions detail his childhood, his early leanings toward mysticism, and the experiences that directed him toward his life-changing journey to France in the early twentieth century—a journey that he would claim put him in contact with some of the last remaining “Rosicrucians” in France. He repeatedly affirmed that these connections conferred upon him the requisite authority for his establishment of the Ancient Mystical Order Rosae Crucis (AMORC) in 1915 in New York City.

The story that follows is related in a style typical of the day. We are told of HSL’s education, spiritual searching, and, importantly, the psychic experiences that formed the direction of his life. While meditating in his favorite church, Lewis explains that the following experience unfolded.

I heard a voice, clearly and distinctly, not from within me, but from without. Even as I write this my entire nervous system is affected, emotionally, for I can easily hear the sound when the first word was spoken; it was “Peace!” . . . At first I saw no one, or no thing. I looked at the Cross, and while it appeared no different than before, I did detect between me and the Cross there was a faint mist. . . . I realized that the misty substance was but two or three feet in front of my own body. Continuing to gaze at it and not through it, I saw that it had a form. . . . A feeling of dizziness came over me, and I closed my eyes.⁴

Then after a period of time:

Slowly I brought my gaze back to the figure before me, and this time it was more intense or rather more opaque. I gazed into the face of the figure. It was indistinct . . . yet all of the figure was of a white or light mist like a thick, white smoke. Again words came from the lips of the figure. . . . They impressed me as coming from a Holy, Infinite Mind, and I listened with a feeling of respect and appreciation, but not awed or perplexed.

What was said to me, in substance was this: If I wished to know more about the Rosicrucians and their teachings, I must prepare for an initiation into the fraternity which had an exoteric body . . . that I would find naught about the fraternity in any book or paper, for its secrets had never been published and would not be published; that I must find illumination from within and not from without; that he who spoke to me was an AMORCUS of the ancient fraternity and had been selected to be my guide, until I was prepared to cross the threshold and continue alone; that the exoteric body of the fraternity no longer existed in America, and had not existed for the past 101 years; . . . that I should devote every Thursday evening to attunement for guidance; that the next exoteric body of the fraternity would be in France, or was still there, or something of this kind. There was probably considerably more said . . . but these facts did come to me either at that time through the speech made or the following Thursday night’s period of meditation when I heard a voice speaking in my home but saw no figure.⁵

Continuing in the third booklet Lewis states that during these weekly sessions a series of “Seven Master Minds” revealed themselves to him, and as one would speak, the others could be sensed or heard in the background. He then states:

It appears then—and this must someday be proven—that each of these quite distinct personalities are previous incarnations of my present soul and mind, and that in the recesses of the mind—which is perpetual and constant with the soul in all its incarnations—there are niches or chambers wherein is stored and even preserved the personal entity of each incarnation’s conscious existence. . . . Thus, the soul may have twelve such chambers, each chamber representing a possible incarnation of the soul wherein is recorded, and immortally preserved, the memory “storehouse” of each incarnated personality. Therefore, the mind of man in each incarnation is a cumulative mind, a resultant of the addition or combination of all past personality minds. In my own case, there were but seven previous phases of the soul . . . already complete . . .⁶

However, it is important to draw our attention to the preamble that accompanies the third lecture. It appears slightly out of place, as if to draw our attention to it—to drive home an important point.

Now, my Brothers and Sisters, I fully realize that what I have written in the last few paragraphs [of the previous lesson] is decidedly difficult to understand, and that to those who do not know me or our work it may well sound like either the raving of a mad mind or the fiction of a clever brain. The reason that it is neither of these, and likely to be rejected, has forced me to withhold the TRUTH and in its place present a different version of my first introduction to the Order Rosae Crucis. Read on and realize, if you can, what it has meant to me to know and always have impressed upon my mind that the real facts and TRUTH must be veiled and the FICTION exploited because fiction seemed more plausible than truth. I who had become disgusted with the fiction theories of scientists, when most desiring the truth, now understood why TRUTH MAKES US FREE ONLY WHEN UNTRUTH HAS EXHAUSTED ITS POWER TO ENSLAVE US.⁷

This is followed by the following footnote: “As has been previously explained, the early history of the Order for this jurisdiction, prepared for public reading, had to veil many facts which now can be told in these private manifestos.”⁸

The remaining manifestos shed light upon his journey to France and meetings with the last remaining members of a long inactive lodge, in a wretched state of disrepair, in Toulouse. This is accompanied by a series of psychic visions and conversations with the aged members, with his host acting as translator. The final manifestos in the series give an ominous prophecy regarding the purpose of the order, insights into further spiritual crises experienced by Lewis, and the statement that “Brothers and Sisters” must help him prepare for this reincarnation so as to continue the work he started.

Lewis’s French host and spiritual instructor states:

No doubt you understand by this that our Order is pledged to combat the efforts of one great institution, which has for ages held the minds and souls of the masses in the grip of ignorance, fear, and superstition. This is the Hierarchy of the . . . From the days when the Master Jesus was chained by the hands of the Roman bigots, our Order has been secretly and sacredly pledged to prepare man and woman for the hour, when the hand of evil reaches out in the name of God to stifle the soul and blunt the mind. This, too, will be your solemn duty, your obligation, and to which you must pledge your life and possessions and your every earthly act and power, before you may receive from our hands the final key, the last and lost word, the jewel and the blessings, without which you can do naught.

And so, in the year 1915, . . . your country will quietly enter the cycle of preparation for the coming greater battle in your own land. By the year 1920 your work, if performed according to the Law L.L.L. [Light, Life, and Love], will have reached a point where it will have Peace and Power of its own established in every division of your country, for so it is decreed in all the ancient papers, bearing upon the destinies of nations and peoples. Then—soon thereafter—will come the day of conflict within your country’s boundaries, when the Sign of the Cross will be held aloft by the . . . under the rule of the King of Darkness, and it will be met and neutralized by the true Sign of the Cross, held in the hearts and minds of your Brothers and Sisters in every city and state. To your assistance will come out other Brothers of the Holy Craft of King Solomon, whose workmen have been laying the material stones upon which your esoteric structure can be builded.

Naturally you will suffer much, individually and collectively, before the day and hour of triumph comes. But these sorrows, these tests and trials will make your souls purer and stronger, and you as the Builder of the Great Temple of Human Souls, will meet great opposition, and must sacrifice the greater part of your life that truth may come. Some time, when you least expect it, you will find in your country the place where the secret R. C. Stone was placed by our delegates, the “Monks of the Mount” . . . and where again you will meet face to face the Master, who has guided you here. . . . I now ask you to pledge to us that you will take up the work FOR man’s freedom, AGAINST man’s slavery; for MAN’s knowledge against MAN’s IGNORANCE, for Light against Darkness, for OUR ORDER against the . . . !⁹

AMORC AND THE CATHEDRAL OF THE SOUL

The existence of the “Cathedral of the Soul” was first announced in the January issue of The Rosicrucian Digest. The first edition of Liber 777: The Cathedral of the Soul: Its Origin, Purpose, and Program of Services (later renamed The Celestial Sanctum) was written by Charles Dana Dean (1878—1933), an early AMORC grand master of North America, and made available a month later to members. The September 1932 issue of The Rosicrucian Digest described this psychic creation as follows: “It [Cathedral of the Soul] is an imaginary, ethereal Cathedral, first created in thought and then sponsored and maintained by thought, and it today is a living example of thought power. Contacting this Cathedral of the Soul in thought is equivalent to contacting a sacred shrine on the earth plane.”¹⁰ It further goes on to say that “the Cathedral is a spiritual creation resulting from the concentration of spiritual thoughts and spiritual vibrations directed to one point from the thousands of minds on earth. In all of the Oriental philosophies and religions such a focalization of thought and spiritual meditation and contemplation is not only possible and feasible but a great probability.”¹¹

Harvey Spencer Lewis, Imperator of AMORC and creator of the Cathedral of the Soul, gives the following description of its function and purpose in his January 1930 announcement in The Rosicrucian Digest.

Our members are to hear much about this Cathedral of the Soul in the near future, and at present I wish merely to announce its name and present to you a brief picture of what it is. This cathedral is that great holy of holies and Cosmic sanctum maintained by the beams of thought waves of thousands of our most advanced members, who have been prepared and trained to direct these beams of thought at certain periods of the day and the week toward one central point, and there becomes a manifest power, a creative force, a health-giving and peace-giving nucleus far removed from the material trials and problems, limitations and destructive elements of the earth plane.

The Cathedral of the Soul shall be your Cathedral and mine, and the dwelling place of the great masters of the past and future.¹²

Like many psychic creations, it appears that initially working with the development of the “Cathedral” was limited to select members of the organization and then expanded to the general membership. A specific image was suggested, that of a cathedral, and times for meditation. There was some discussion even in the early years of this work about how long such a practice should continue and whether it should be abandoned completely after the organization was firmly established to avoid having too much influence on members. While the term egregore was not used (and in fact, AMORC did not start using the term until it entered the popular occult lexicon in the 1990s), the development of an egregore is what was being discussed and practiced.

Despite the importance that the Cathedral of the Soul plays in AMORC’s practices, the ideas presented in conjunction with it at times appear inconsistent and contradictory. While the most current edition of Liber 777 suggests that members and nonmembers may use any symbolic image that they are comfortable with—something from nature, a favorite spot, an imaginary location, or an AMORC temple—much of the earlier teachings focus on the use of the Cathedral image drawn by Lewis.

Dean writes in Liber 777:

All through the years of 1915 to 1922, he [HSL] selected those advanced and prepared initiates of the brotherhood who could help him in his creation. Working through the long hours of the night, writing letters and papers of instruction to these several hundred associates, he prepared them and strengthened them in the method of attuning with him so that they might come together in the Cosmic and there have communion and lay the foundation for this great Cathedral. Hundreds of letters were written, several thousand experimental contacts were made, and many hours of mental and spiritual labor were devoted to evolving the plans and the features of this new conception of the human mind. . . .

There are hundreds of others who never cease to speak of the joy and happiness, and the inspiring benefits that came to them through their communions and contacts in the Cosmic while aiding in the creation of this Cathedral. Silence regarding the plans and the work being carried on was one of the essentials, and we know from letters received recently, how happy thousands of our members are to know that the great work is finished now and that announcement of the existence of the Cathedral of the Soul can be made.¹³

Further:

It is my pleasure to submit to our members some of the details regarding this Cathedral, and knowledge as how our members may benefit by its existence. . . . As a symbol of the Cathedral we have adopted a picture shown in this pamphlet, drawn by the pen of H. Spencer Lewis himself, so that we may have an emblem by which to express a reflection of our spiritual ideas. This symbol contains many of the elements which he had in his mind as being typical of the magnificent and inspiring grandeur of the invisible Cathedral. . . .

In this Cathedral, provision has been made for a Cosmic Choir where the voices of specially prepared members of our organization here in America, and in other lands, will be heard at times chanting and singing the sacred anthems that have been composed by inspired Masters of our organization in the past. At other times those who contact this Cathedral and dwell in it will hear the Music of the Spheres and the Cosmic Melodies as though played upon the grandest organ the world has ever known. In the East of this Cathedral our members will find a beautiful altar in a magnificent apse, illuminated by the violet light of Cosmic vibrations.

Above the altar will be suspended by magnetic forces a jeweled TRIANGLE, with point downward. This is the emblem of the Cosmic Trinity. The three symbols at its corners, blazing with violet fire, represent LIGHT, LIFE, LOVE—the Cosmic names of the TRIUNE GODHEAD. From the center of the dais will come the voice of the visible or invisible Master or Teacher who at times will instruct and inspire our members with messages and illuminating lessons. There will be alcoves and small chapels on each side of the Cathedral’s nave, in which the individual members may dwell alone, in silent meditation and prayer, seeking peace and consolation in times of suffering and anguish. There will be communion rooms in which members may meet the Masters and speak with them and receive direct illumination and instruction, advice and guidance.¹⁴

Daily Communion Services

On certain days of the week there will be various convocations held in this great Cathedral by the coming together of the minds of thousands of our members attuned throughout the world to this focalized and centralized area of Cosmic Consciousness. . . . As part of the magnanimous plans of the Imperator, he will have definite periods throughout the month when he, personally, will direct the healing work in the Cathedral, . . . at other times the Imperator will bring the Holy Assembly in contact with some of the Great Masters of the Great White Lodge who will expound an inspiring message.¹⁵

When special ceremonies are being conducted by one of the Masters of the Great White Lodge, the Triangle over the altar will be especially bright in its violet illumination.¹⁶

There are no other rules and regulations regarding the process for making the contact with the Cathedral than those [preliminary prayers] stated above. Considerable time has been given to the preparation of these instructions to make sure that every point that might be given to our members has been included. This method of making the contact is more or less an individual one with each member and all we can do is to tell you the general method, and have you work out your own process and there earn as well as learn The Way to the Cathedral. Remember the words of the Master Jesus, “I am the Way!” The Way is through the Spirit of Christ, through the principle of the Christus, through the divinity of our soul, and through your longings and desires.¹⁷

The Cathedral of the Soul was later renamed the “Celestial Sanctum,” and the idea of mass collective effort was seen in its various healing services and in the AMORC practice known as Medifocus. Here members and interested nonmembers would find on the final page of each monthly (and later bimonthly and quarterly) issue of the organization’s magazine, The Rosicrucian Digest, a drawing of a world leader and a phrase. In the magazine’s fiftieth anniversary issue, which was published in November 1977, there is a sketch of President Jimmy Carter as the personality for the month of December. The code word to be used in connection with him was EXPED. A drawing of Britain’s Queen Elizabeth is given for February 1978, and the code word to be used with her was SCALE.

The key to the phrases, which acted like mantras, was given at one point to the members so that they and others would send specific thoughts to the identified leader. The ideas were general enough—peace, friendship, harmony, and so on—and nondirective as to any specific manner. This practice was abandoned after many years, and instead a note appeared suggesting that members simply send out thoughts of goodwill to one or more leaders of their choosing. As stated in the May 1987 issue, “Medifocus is a special humanitarian monthly membership activity with which each Rosicrucian is acquainted. On the first Sunday of each month, at any hour you select, you will enter into a five-minute period of meditation, focusing your thought upon a specific troubled area of the world.” It also affirmed that the “basic purpose of Medifocus is a humanitarian effort directed toward world peace.”¹⁸

THE THIRD MIND

The coordination of knowledge and effort of two or more people, who work toward a definite purpose, in the spirit of harmony . . . No two minds ever come together without thereby creating a third, invisible, intangible force, which may be likened to a third mind [Master Mind].

NAPOLEON HILL, THINK AND GROW RICH

The third point articulated in the above quote from Think and Grow Rich is the critical element, and we see it in the creative life of many individuals.

Beat author William S. Burroughs and artist Brion Gysin called this phenomenon the “Third Mind” and wrote a book of that title, consisting of their collaborations. They further elaborated not just on the idea of a creative impulse at work but also gave various methods to engage and express it. Burroughs himself typified the notion of an established anti-establishment character. Like many representatives of the Beat, Hippie, and general counterculture generation movements, Burroughs was self-destructive, self-indulgent, and unpredictable, and he sought out direct experience as the basis for his philosophy and art. His saving grace was that he was a brilliant and successful writer, bringing his wide and varied life story into his work. He was very much a magician in theory and practice—transforming appearances and meanings as he willed, always seeking a different and deeper experience and expression of self. Given his pronounced belief in the power of the mind to create very real physical phenomena, and his chaotic drug-induced lifestyle, the unfortunate and deadly shooting of his romantic partner Joan Vollmer in Mexico cannot be seen as an “accident” in the true sense of the word. Rather it should be viewed more simply as the working out of the energy of their collective actions. In short, the magical being they had engendered was taking its toll.

The Third Mind was beyond any conventional ideas of art—or even the “anti-art movement”—being an exploration of the deep psychic potential that went beyond the usual humanistic and political philosophies. As a result, the Third Mind was itself a phenomena with deep political implications as it was clearly nonconformist, in all that such a word can imply, but left up to the individual to explore and realize.

Here the inspiration became a force to be expressed, as well as contacted. Techniques (i.e., rituals) were employed to this end, featuring drugs, alcohol, sex, cathartic emotional releases, meditations and visualizations, acts of “cultural blasphemy” of a sort, and the fundamental belief that reality could be created, destroyed, and rearranged in some fashion.

Assumption of the God form, guru yoga, and the bumper-sticker question “What would Jesus do?” are all methods of entraining one’s mind to a particular expression of “cosmic” intelligence and, depending on the methods used, to an egregore as well. Thus one can tune in to the nature of the “mind of Hermes” without having to do so through the methods of a single group and its attendant egregore. Simply asking a question (such as “What would Jesus do?”) is a means of directing one’s attention to a specific spiritual or enlightened intelligence or mind and its methods of expression.

In the late twentieth century the modern British occultist and author Peter Carroll developed Chaos Magic, which attempted to overcome this issue of dedication to a single practice or path and instead sought to use anything the individual desired to use as part of the process. Whereas the motto of Thelema³ drew its inspiration from sixteenth-century French renaissance writer and humanist Francois Rabelais and his statement “Do what thou wilt,” the Chaos magicians drew their guiding maxim from the hashish-smoking Assassins^†1: “Nothing is true, everything is permitted.” It is not surprising that part of the inspiration for Chaos Magic derived from science fiction and fantasy, particularly the works of modern British science-fiction author Michael Moorcock and contemporary British fantasy author Terry Pratchett (just as Grant sought to use Lovecraft), as well as from the art, writings, and magical methods of Austin Osman Spare. Although there was a tremendous effort to support the principles of Chaos Magic in terms of science (quantum physics in particular), the greatest impact that the movement has achieved appears to be in the limited domain of occult subculture.

The leaning toward the shadowy side of the psyche that Chaos Magic taps into is only marginally different from the more hardcore approach of various Left-Hand Path groups, Grant’s Ordo Templi Orientis (OTO), and many paths dedicated to goetic practice. These paths also tend to share a common fate—the inability to sustain themselves beyond very small groups. The overarching themes of heroic individualism coupled with the crippling disintegration and deadening weight of “demonic” and “qlipothic” attractions makes cooperation around common ideals and objectives difficult to sustain for all but the most dedicated.