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Darryl Cooper
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Interesting concept. Tons of eye witness accounts of soldiers on the battlefields and trenches of the world wars seeing incredible creatures born from the darkest nightmares. Like a projection of their collective deepest fears. Whether real or imagined, easy to see how entire peoples can conjure these types of mental entities which do have a tangible effect on the real world.
The Greeks spoke of Rage, Panic, etc as embodied beings roaming the battlefield.
The Nuklavee sightings in the trenches come to mind.
I had never heard of this concept before reading/listening to this installment. Would it be completely wrong to compare egregore to a self-fulfilling prophecy or even in some sense Stockholm syndrome? Just trying to associate this term with something more familiar to my understanding.
Also, is it always called forth in group settings or could it be something an individual experiences? I am thinking of something like a child thinking of monsters in the dark. To that child it can very much seem as real as a cat or a chair or whatever. This is probably ridiculous but I am really fascinated by this concept.
Welcome aboard the Egregore train! I've been thinking a lot about it since HWFO first started writing about it on his substack.
https://hwfo.substack.com/p/memespace-egregores-and-google-maps
He then appeared on Rebel Wisdom and talked about it with David Fuller.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4IjW16FCpkA
Paul VanderKlay then picked up the ball and commented on their discussion.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QHCACU53rqQ
All of these are highly recommended for anyone who wants to dive deeper.
Can't wait for more of Darryl's take in future episodes.
Very interesting piece here DC.
I've never heard of egregores before, but I've always known that intense human emotion can manifest as I'd call apparitions or residual energies.
Could you just imagine jonestown at night?
Good stuff…now let’s use our collective attention to conjure angles.
For some reason, God has put us in the hinterlands of the Universe where we play at things, we know not what.
Let us put in a call to God and his angles for support.
Watch out for those rouge angles of Satin though.
Who conjured the Soviet Union?
Thx for the live version. I prefer hearing you read a piece like this vs me reading it.
This seems like a helpful block in whatever foundation you are building. it always strikes me when you hear of some celebrity death that “their demons won”, and the Inside Knowledge game is ‘we all know that is metaphorical’. But what if it isn’t? You don’t need to wander far into the New Testament to hear that demons were a real problem, and it is Christ that subdues and banishes them.
Great work, once again. I don’t know how familiar you are with Fr. Chad Ripperger, but this post reminds me of his lectures on spiritual warfare and psychology of demons. I would love to see the two of you get together for an interview. you’re pushing up to limits where traditional clerics seem more qualified than psychoanalysts to speak on these subjects.
Have always felt that society at all scales is able to manifest "demons". I think Momo on you tube is a great example.
Hey man, unrelated note but I recently visited some botanical gardens in Sarasota FL that were based off of Patti smiths music and art. Couldn't get the stories you told of her in the human forever series out of my head. Is there a way I can email/share some of that with you? You may get a kick out of it.
martyrmade @ gmail
I actually had Siri read this too me and then re-read the post once I got home.
Would kill for a part 2
Coincidentally, eastern orthodox icon- carver and thinker Jonathan Pageau (repeated guest of Jordan Peterson's podcast), along with John Vervaeke and Jordan Hall. Jonathan's stated goal was to attempt to unify the ontology of egregores (or "hyper-agents" as Vervaeke prefers to put it, for specific reasons) with their symbolism as chimaric demons. The conversation took place on Jonathan's podcast "The symbolic world" and it's one of the most interesting conversations I've ever listened to. So, for your consideration:
The Symbolic World: 239 - Jordan Hall and John Vervaeke - Egregores, Mobs and Demons
Episode webpage: https://soundcloud.com/jonathan-pageau-307491252/239-jordan-hall-and-john-vervaeke-egregores-mobs-and-demons
Media file: https://feeds.soundcloud.com/stream/1295871094-jonathan-pageau-307491252-239-jordan-hall-and-john-vervaeke-egregores-mobs-and-demons.mp3
Can’t find part 2 or beyond.......🤷♀️
Has it been dropped?
Hey Darryl, I know you have tons of stuff to do, but I was wondering if there was going to be more on this topic. Every time I listen to anything you write about, talk about, or discuss with a guest, this concept raises its head. It seems to be the "dark force" behind much of what is going on today, driven by social media network swarms, wokeness, "newspeak", and so on. I would love to add more depth of insight into this topic. I suspect that this power has been recognized for millennia, but in days past was attributed to personified specters, as opposed to the higher-order effects of group optimization or whatever the hell drives these things deep inside the black box.
Darryl, after hearing this episode I wanted to share this track the egregore of egregores compelled me to write and record when I was young and didn't even know there was already a term for them! I had to settle on "Memetic Colossi, " fusion of the Selfish Gene Meme Section and Shadow of the Colossus
https://benevolentxmachine.bandcamp.com/track/memetic-colossi
It must be the "egregore" zeitgeist. Been enjoying this new comic book series called "Ministry for Truth", and it's heavily based on this concept of mass formation but with gov't fuckery and paranoia thrown into the mix. They don't used the term in the book, which I thought was really interesting, maybe the writers don't want to be limited by it.
Can't remember where I first heard the term "egregore", might have been on Jason Louv's Ultra Culture Podcast, but alas, that source amnesia is an old friend. This episode also reminds me of Snow Crash with the Nam-shub subplot. Looking forward to part 2.
More on demons. Demons, shame, and resentiment.
https://rhyd.substack.com/p/the-demon-and-the-genius
On Demons.
https://flatcapsandfatalism.substack.com/p/demons
I prefer to believe that we cannot know nor are meant to know what lies beyond the veil, so any search is fruitless outside of mining fantasies from strictly human sources. That is why faith is as good as it gets and infinitely more valuable than any belief that cannot be substantiated.
Still, the pursuit of egregores yields other treasure. One such entertaining find is Harlan Ellison's Deathbird Stories that describes several scenarios where we create our own gods literally from our collective wills.
The best of the collection is The Whimper of Whipped Dogs. Ellison turns a true story about a murder in NYC where the witnesses fail to help the victim into a haunting tale of several murders where the tenants in an apartment complex watch from their balconies what unfolds in the courtyard below.