Long, long before ever Richard Dawkins came up with his metaphor of the “meme” (and it’s not entirely clear that he knew it was a metaphor), the idea of the “egregore” was part of Hermetic, occultic lore. Associated with Theosophy, Rosicrucianism, and earnest practitioners of magic, and likened to the tulpa in Tibetan Buddhism (sensationalized by Alexandra David-Néel, Annie Besant, and others), the egregore could be dismissed as just so much esotericist nonsense. Diehard materialist that he is, Dawkins’ concept of the “meme” (a word derived from the Greek μιμεῖσθαι – mimeisthai – “to imitate”) is certainly not an occultic or magical allusion, of course; by it, he was trying to explain “scientifically” the phenomenon of the “viral” spread from mind to mind of ideas and behaviors throughout a culture. For him, it was a strict matter of matter. The “egregore,” by contrast, is something much more than a meme, although it addresses a similar phenomenon. It is conceived to be a non-physical creature, a spiritual entity, created by the thoughts and feelings of a group – in short, a collective thought form that assumes a life of its own and whose material effects are seen and felt. The word “egregore” – like “meme” – is of Greek derivation; it comes from ἐγρήγορος – egregoros – meaning “watchful” (the name “Gregory” has the same derivation). Without going into detail, the term comes to us by way of 1 Enoch 1:5 (an apocalyptic work, not considered canonical by Christians except by those in the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church), which speaks of spiritual beings called “Watchers” [1] – in context, the word presumably refers to some variety of fallen angels. To make a long story short, the “Watchers” became associated in esotericist circles not with fallen angels from “above,” but rather with entities created by human minds “below” – a sort of transmogrified thought-demon that grows in power to exercise influence and even dominate whole peoples. Again, we might disparage the idea as so much twaddle, and yet there is a kernel of truth in it that we shouldn’t be too quick to overlook. For sober, pragmatic spiritual direction, in fact, it points us to a blatant reality that can justly be deemed fundamental and which we face constantly.
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