"The reaction has been one of the most positive I’ve ever had. Egregores really has struck a cord in the esoteric community."

Autorentext

Mark Stavish is a respected authority on Western spiritual traditions. The author of 26 books, published in 7 languages, including The Path of Alchemy and Kabbalah for Health and Wellness, he is the founder and director of the Institute for Hermetic Studies and the Louis Claude de St. Martin Fund. He has appeared on radio shows, television, and in major print media, including Coast to Coast AM, the History Channel, BBC, and the New York Times. The author of the blog VOXHERMES, he lives in Wyoming, Pennsylvania.

Klappentext

The first book to explore the history and influence of egregores, powerful autonomous psychic entities created by a collective group mind

• Examines the history of egregores from ancient times to present day, including their role in Western Mystery traditions and popular culture and media

• Reveals documented examples of egregores from ancient Greece and Rome, Tibetan Buddhism, Islam, modern esoteric orders, the writings of H. P. Lovecraft and Kenneth Grant, and the followers of Julius Evola and Aleister Crowley

• Provides instructions on how to identify egregores, free yourself from parasitic and destructive entities, and destroy an egregore, should the need arise

One of most important but little known concepts of Western occultism is that of the egregore, an autonomous psychic entity created by a collective group mind. An egregore is sustained by belief, ritual, and sacrifice and relies upon the devotion of a group of people, from a small coven to an entire nation, for its existence. An egregore that receives enough sustenance can take on a life of its own, becoming an independent deity with powers its believers can use to further their own spiritual advancement and material desires.

Presenting the first book devoted to the study of egregores, Mark Stavish examines the history of egregores from ancient times to present day, with detailed and documented examples, and explores how they are created, sustained, directed, and destroyed. He explains how egregores were well known in the classical period of ancient Greece and Rome, when they were consciously called into being to watch over city states. He explores the egregore concept as it was understood in various Western Mystery traditions, including the Corpus Hermeticum, and offers further examples from Tibetan Buddhism, Islam, modern esoteric orders such as the Order of the Golden Dawn and Rosicrucianism, the writings of H. P. Lovecraft and Kenneth Grant, and the followers of Julius Evola and Aleister Crowley. The author discusses how, even as the fundamental principles of the egregore were forgotten, egregores continue to be formed, sometimes by accident.

Stavish provides instructions on how to identify egregores, free yourself from a parasitic and destructive collective entity, and destroy an egregore, should the need arise. Revealing how egregores form the foundation of nearly all human interactions, the author shows how egregores have moved into popular culture and media--underscoring the importance of intense selectivity in the information we accept and the ways we perceive the world and our place in it.

Leseprobe
Chapter 5
The Lovecraft Circle
Robert E. Howard and Conan the Barbarian

Robert Ervin Howard (1906-1936) wrote over a hundred stories for publication in a career that lasted twelve years. He is widely accepted as the father of the “sword and sorcery genre” with his creation of “Conan the Barbarian.”

In August 1930, Howard wrote a letter to Weird Tales magazine that would begin an active correspondence with H. P. Lovecraft. This exchange of letters, opinions, and literary ideas would initiate Howard into “The Lovecraft Circle,” where he was introduced to many authors of similar interests; each member of the group encouraged others to contribute to the various fictional worlds and mythologies they had created. This unique feature of the circle elevated it beyond what is often thought of as “networking” in modern business terms, or a writers' club, but into a magical operation wherein the thought forms it generated took on vigorous lives of their own--as can be seen by the longevity of the works created by its members almost three-quarters of a century after it was started.

In April 1932, Howard wrote to Lovecraft and detailed his most recent heroic character--King Conan the Cimmerian, also known as “Conan the Barbarian.” Howard later stated, “Conan simply grew up in my mind a few years ago when I was stopping in a little border town on the Rio Grande. I did not create him by any conscious process. He simply stalked full grown out of oblivion and set me at work recording the saga of his adventures.” He would later state to fellow “Lovecraft Circle” member Clark Ashton Smith, While I do not go so far as to believe that stories are inspired by actually existent spirits or powers (though I am rather opposed to flatly deny anything), I have sometimes wondered if it were possible that unrecognized forces from the past or present--or even the future--work through the thoughts and actions of living men. This occurred to me when I was writing the first stories of the Conan series especially. I know that for months I had been unable to work up anything sellable. Then the man Conan seemed suddenly to grow up in my mind without much labor on my part and immediately a stream of stories flowed off my pen--or rather, my typewriter--almost without effort on my part. I did not seem to be creating, but rather relating events that had occurred. Episode crowded episode so fast that I could scarcely keep up with them. For weeks I did nothing but write of the adventures of Conan. The character took complete possession of my mind and crowded out everything else in the way of story-telling.” (1)

Arthur Machen and “The Bowman”

One of the writers read by Howard and other members of The Lovecraft Circle was Arthur Machen. Machen’s greatest literary achievements were in the gothic horror genre. However, it is his often ignored involvement in a widely reported “paranormal event” that is of interest to shapers of mass consciousness and public perception.

In August 1914, the British Expeditionary Force was in retreat. The war--which was supposed to end in a few weeks--was going badly for Allied forces in France and morale was plummeting. Machen recalled reading the newspapers of the day describing the retreat of British forces, and stated that he fell into despair. Machen, who was then working as a journalist writing war reports and various propaganda pieces from the home front, wrote a piece entitled “The Bowman,” first published on September 29, 1914, in the London Evening News. The piece was a work of fiction, but this apparently was not clearly stated, as the story presented soon took on a life of its own. The story reports of ghostly apparitions appearing at a critical moment to protect the retreating British soldiers, with phantasmal arrows slaying advancing Germans by the thousands.

Desire for such divine (or at least supernatural) intervention was so strong amidst a population hearing of their army in retreat that it went from being not just the ghosts of English longbowmen--as Machen had originally written--but to angels under the direction of St.George, the patron saint of Great Britain. Churches and other religious bodies took up the story to inspire, comfort, and encourage their congregations, whose fathers and sons were fighting in France for reasons that were not always very clear. Soon, stories appeared of enlisted men and officers who claimed to have se…