By James Donahue

Ever since I learned how to leave my body I have been puzzled by some of the peculiar entities I have met while in that state of consciousness. While some of them are clearly intelligent beings filled with light and a willingness to communicate, others appear as shapeless, mindless life forms, drifting like zombies through the room, or they come like soldiers, assigned to disrupt the peace of the house and if allowed, cause mental distress.

While we reason that some of these beings may be angelic, and some demonic, and others aliens from other dimensions and worlds, we have been unable to define the multitude of grey, groveling, crawling, scurrying, sometimes massive menacing-appearing beings that seem sometimes to be all around us. At times they blanket us like a fog while sapping our energy. They seem to have no purpose. Where to they come from and how did they get in our space?

We recently came upon the concept of the egregore, which is defined as something created by collective human consciousness that can exist in the spiritual realm that surrounds us. Thus it is possible that all of the “living” entities we meet in the astral are no more then egregores, created by the many religious groups that have existed in the past or exist today, mythological stories told around campfires, works of magickians, or just plain mind-curses sent to cause trouble in another person’s life.

There are a variety of ways in which esoteric writers have attempted to describe the egregores. The one we liked best was that they are “watchers, thought-form entities created by visualization, ritual and such. They come in collective groups. They are somewhat like angels, except that they are relatively mindless and quite willing to follow orders.”

Gabriel Emerson wrote that the egregore “is the psychic and astral entity of a group.” He wrote that all members of a group, a family, a club, a political party, a religion and even a country not only create egregores, but are psychically included in its existence. And because we are socially active, we all are involved in the creation of several egregores as the same time.

From Gaetan Delaforgem we find the definition: “an egregore is a kind of group mind which is created when people consciously come together for a common purpose.” When an egregore is formed, however, “unless an attempt is made to maintain it deliberately it will dissipate rather quickly. However if the people wish to maintain it and know the techniques of how to do so, the egregore will continue to grow in strength and can last for centuries.”

The article continues: “An egregore has the characteristic of having an effectiveness greater than the mere sum of its individual members. It continuously interacts with its members, influencing them and being influenced by them.”

What is a bit scary is that “if this process is continued a long time the egregore will take on a kind of life of its own, and can become so strong that even if all its members should die, it would continue to exist on the inner dimensions and can be contacted even centuries later by a group of people prepared to live the lives of the original founders.”

An example of this would be the evocation of the 72 Spirits of the Goetia by the late magickian Aleister Crowley and later posted on this website, complete with drawings and descriptive articles. After lying dormant for centuries, Crowley not only evoked them back into public awareness, but our posting this information on the Internet has given these spirits more power than they ever had at the time of Solomon, when they were last known.

The Gaetan Delaforgem article notes that when the egregore is concerned with spiritual or esoteric matters its influence is even greater. “People who discover the keys can tap in on a powerful egregore representing, for example, a spiritual or esoteric tradition.”

This is why practicing magickians claim to have successfully summoned a Goetia Spirit and used it to acquire influence, power or wealth. But those who know of such matters warn that anyone who tries such things must know what they are doing and be masters of their craft. The dangers include perturbating psychic influences and a restriction of inner freedoms. The egregore can appear to become the master when this should never be the case.

Powerful examples of egregores in our society might include the Devil, Santa Claus, the spirit of Jesus that Christians “invite” into themselves, collective prayer or a wish for a certain outcome in a competitive event like a football game or election, the luck of a rabbit’s foot, and possibly even the appearance of UFOs.