Blessed Alban Heruin. As far as I understand it, from what you wrote, am I correct that an egregore is the spirit of a group? Sort of a created entity on a psychic realm that both influences and is influenced by members of a group? So that joining the group, one would become more connected to the egregore as time goes on? Thus people who work or spend time together develop a kind of group mind, and begin to associate their sense of self with that of the organization?
I am wondering, first, if the idea of an egregore is related to Adam Crabtree's group trance which he describes in "Trance Zero". He describes interactions in terms of a trance, defined as a process of focus and abstraction: the more one focuses on something, the more abstracted from the rest of the world one becomes. Two people in an engaging conversation are in a degree of trance. A family can create a trance to function as a unit with society, so can a society create a level of trance, which is how the majority of people from a society come to think in very similar terms. Could one say there is a national egregore? Certainly either view could describe the way we see the bulk of a society suddenly adopting a particular viewpoint.
Second, would the fact that I spent my youth moving from place to place every couple of years, including different countries, explain why I don't "get" connection or community? Is it possible that the ability to be absorbed into or at least connect with an egregore must be nurtured as a youth? My girlfriend also moved from place to place as a child and youth and she too feels no sense of connection to organizations, places, communities. I've lived in the same house for 20 years, yet I don't feel particularly connected to my neighbours. People who just moved in last year spend more time socializing than I ever have. When I met my girlfriend she was working for the same corporation -- different locations -- and we giggled together about some of the incomprehensibly garbled and essentially meaningless corporate missives, the kind that reads as if one is being attacked by a swarm of buzzwords. Yet both of us had the eerie sense that others in our respective offices actually took this seriously and believed in it, with almost religious fervor.
I was just wondering about egregores within the context of watching the woke movement coming apart at the seams. As the corporation is pushing the racist 'anti-racism' bunk, and decorating itself with the 'new angry-pride' flag you so cogently described (BTW, if you put four flags together in a pinwheel, it makes a swastika), and pushing the abusive DEI policies, it occurred to me that this whole craziness might be due to the creation of a hostile egregore. Certainly cultural Marxism that took over the university world in the mid-20th century and entranced students (the only word for it) seems to have something more than merely enticing but bad ideas going for it, as if it took on a life of its own as it metastasized across departments and out into the corporate world.
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branchandroot
On the Subject of Egregores
Date: 2023-06-26 08:27 am (UTC)As far as I understand it, from what you wrote, am I correct that an egregore is the spirit of a group? Sort of a created entity on a psychic realm that both influences and is influenced by members of a group? So that joining the group, one would become more connected to the egregore as time goes on?
Thus people who work or spend time together develop a kind of group mind, and begin to associate their sense of self with that of the organization?
I am wondering, first, if the idea of an egregore is related to Adam Crabtree's group trance which he describes in "Trance Zero". He describes interactions in terms of a trance, defined as a process of focus and abstraction: the more one focuses on something, the more abstracted from the rest of the world one becomes. Two people in an engaging conversation are in a degree of trance. A family can create a trance to function as a unit with society, so can a society create a level of trance, which is how the majority of people from a society come to think in very similar terms. Could one say there is a national egregore? Certainly either view could describe the way we see the bulk of a society suddenly adopting a particular viewpoint.
Second, would the fact that I spent my youth moving from place to place every couple of years, including different countries, explain why I don't "get" connection or community? Is it possible that the ability to be absorbed into or at least connect with an egregore must be nurtured as a youth? My girlfriend also moved from place to place as a child and youth and she too feels no sense of connection to organizations, places, communities. I've lived in the same house for 20 years, yet I don't feel particularly connected to my neighbours. People who just moved in last year spend more time socializing than I ever have.
When I met my girlfriend she was working for the same corporation -- different locations -- and we giggled together about some of the incomprehensibly garbled and essentially meaningless corporate missives, the kind that reads as if one is being attacked by a swarm of buzzwords. Yet both of us had the eerie sense that others in our respective offices actually took this seriously and believed in it, with almost religious fervor.
I was just wondering about egregores within the context of watching the woke movement coming apart at the seams. As the corporation is pushing the racist 'anti-racism' bunk, and decorating itself with the 'new angry-pride' flag you so cogently described (BTW, if you put four flags together in a pinwheel, it makes a swastika), and pushing the abusive DEI policies, it occurred to me that this whole craziness might be due to the creation of a hostile egregore. Certainly cultural Marxism that took over the university world in the mid-20th century and entranced students (the only word for it) seems to have something more than merely enticing but bad ideas going for it, as if it took on a life of its own as it metastasized across departments and out into the corporate world.
Bruce
AKA Renaissance Man.