The Field Reprised

Morphic Fields & Egregores

Moving the Conversation Forward

by Peter Mark Adams

The idea of ‘the field’ - an intangible, multi-level repository of knowledge and

memory; a ‘knowing field’ that encodes everything from genetic instructions up to the
multi-generational memory of every species, may still seem strange to most people;
nevertheless, science is starting to develop the concepts and a research methodology
that supports and explains what it is and how it operates.

Biologist Dr. Rupert Sheldrake has, over the course of the last forty years,
demonstrated that such fields, dubbed ‘morphic fields’, control organic growth and
self-organisation at every level. He has also demonstrated how they propagate
information between the members of the same species, an effect he has called,
‘morphic resonance’.

We have all thought of someone only to have them suddenly call us or appear in front
of us in the most unlikely times and places! And most pet owners have seen their pets
react to events - such as the return of a family member - long before they could
possibly have been aware of it occurring.

Such field effects have long been leveraged in the development of practical energy
therapies. In Family Constellation Therapy complete strangers, positioned to mimic,
and so, in a sense, enact a person’s family or organisational relations (even though
they know nothing whatsoever about the family or organisational members they are
representing and who, in any case, may be long dead) will suddenly experience the
emotional dispositions of that person as an ‘emotional overlay’ on their own state.

As though this spontaneous emergence of deep patterns of familial or organizational

interaction where not extraordinary enough; it then becomes possible for a facilitator
to reconcile disturbances felt within this field arising from unresolved conflicts,
estrangements and injustice within the group even in the absence of the original
members, and even if the source of the injustice is centuries old.

The reconciliation affected by the facilitator then propagates to all of the family or
organisational members. In other words, reconciliation - through the familiar human
mechanisms of apology, forgiveness and the replacement of hatreds and jealousies
with acceptance and respect - provide a reconciliation and harmonisation of the
originating family (or organizational) field itself.

These facts demonstrates that the disharmony in morphic fields - the fields that hold
the key to the harmony of our personal, familial, community, national and
international lives - are founded upon a concept of natural justice; and that
disharmony within such fields arises out of injustice. Justice, therefore, is an integral
part of ensuring harmony on the planet at every level and amongst every sentient
species.

Esotericists of all traditions have long recognised the existence of such fields - called,
‘egregores’ in esoteric contexts. Less well understood is the fact that these fields are
the key to all practical esoteric work.

At the inception of an order or group, its members will either connect to a historically
attested egregore or create one that accords with their own inspiration and symbolism;
they will then ‘charge it’ through energised ritual practices. As subsequent members
are drawn to the order their energised intent and ritual observances will act to further
enhance the power of the egregore whether or not they are aware of this fact, since it
is occurring, so to speak, ‘behind the scenes’.

Thereafter, the egregore provides a transpersonal ‘powerhouse’ that all of the Order’s
members can call upon to affect kinetic operations - change in accordance with will.

In a seminal article, ‘The Egregore of a School’, the English mage, W.E. Butler wrote,

“the fundamental nature of the egregore consists of collective emotions ... the
thoughtform itself is amoral taking its directions from those connected to it ... it is
obvious that such energy can be used for good or evil purposes ...”
Butler’s reference to the uses to which an egregore’s energy may be put places a
special emphasis on establishing what any group that we may seek to join ultimately
wishes to accomplish.

Just as significantly, esoteric scholar Dr. Joscelyn Godwin has observed that, “If it is
sufficiently nourished by such energies, the egregore can take on a life of its own and
appear to be an independent, personal divinity with ... an unlimited appetite for further
devotion”. In other words, rather than serving a group’s agenda - it becomes the
agenda that individuals are increasingly drawn to serve.

Amongst established esoteric groups, more often than not, the purpose of the egregore
is not just to create a powerhouse that can then be deployed towards the attainment of
certain worldly objectives; it is to establish a common ‘meeting ground’ where order
members can interact with the higher order beings that oversee the order.

In ‘Egregores’ - the only book that I know of that deals exclusively with this topic -
Mark Stavish cites a body of detailed, technical information derived from the
knowledge lectures of one of the nineteenth century’s most significant magical orders,
the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. The instructions consider the relationship
between the Order’s egregore, its initiatory processes, and the initiand’s energy body
(aura or body of light).

Briefly, the initiatory processes are used as a way to systematically cleanse and
strengthen the initiate’s own energy body through the influx of the egregore’s higher
order energies; thereafter, the connection between the initiand’s energy body and the
order’s egregore becomes so close that the egregore becomes an integral part of the
initiate’s own energy body.

In cases like this the creation of the egregore has, typically, been motivated by such
ideas as gaining access to personal, communal and even global spiritual guidance
from evolved beings capable of, and willing to, support the harmonious development
of all sentient life.

For any aspirant, the issue is to understand that all magical, spiritual and religious
affiliations inevitably involve some degree of connection with - indeed immersion in -
an egregore; an egregore, moreover, that they themselves may have had little
influence in forming.

This matters for two reasons: firstly, an egregore embodies all of a group’s history,
character and symbolism - good as well as bad; and secondly, since the egregore acts
as a gateway or portal to higher order beings - the spiritual guides who ‘stand behind’
and provide the spiritual guidance of an Order - the connections that are formed in
such orders may well - indeed, in some cases, are intended to - last beyond the grave
and into subsequent lives. This places a special onus upon each of us to consider well
what we are involving ourselvcs with, how deeply we are implicating ourselves and
whether it deserves such, potentially, unlimited commitment!

The point here is for each of us to recognise the reality and nature of the intangible
forces associated with membership of a group or order; and to call upon everyone to
skilfully assess the benefits accruing from and morality within their group against any
loss of personal sovereignty that membership involves.

Each of us should also heed Butler’s warning that, “unless care is taken the power of
independent thought may be reduced”; in other words, there is an ever-present danger
of ‘group think’ taking over one’s outlook on life leading to a one-sided and
unbalanced perception of reality.

For all who seek higher levels of self-realisation as a path of service to all sentient life
and the well-being of our planet’s ecosystems, we would underline the importance of
cultivating reflexivity in our dealings with any group or order; as well as maintaining
one’s independent, extra-order pursuit of personal healing and growth; both of which
are necessary to ensure that one’s psychological and spiritual life can continue to
evolve.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Mark Stavish adds the invaluable insight that egregores exist in a space beyond that
imagined by those who hold to,
“a dualistic notion of magical practices being either subjective or objective in nature
but fail to grasp the juncture where these distinctions overlap and the essentially
parasitic nature of these beings”

In other words, an egregore is a collectively generated parasitic entity or being, in

other words, a demon! This being so, why on earth would anyone consciously agree
to allow themselves to become, on the most intimate spiritual level of their being, part
of the food for such an entity?

For just as the member’s pour energy into a group, so the egregore, in a “reverse
action”, passes the influence of the group back into each member; the psychological
import of which is a sense, not only of belonging, but of a greatly augmented personal
power. The cost, and dangers, Butler warns are that, “unless care is taken the power of
independent thought may be reduced” - in other words, a form of mental entrapment
or, as we would say colloquially, brain washing or mind control..

Following the innate logic of these discourses, Stavish points the reader towards the
importance of cultivating refexivity in dealing with any group or order; as well as
maintaining an independent - extra-order - pursuit of personal healing and growth;
both of which are necessary to ensure that one’s psychological and spiritual life can
continue to evolve.

Finally, although most of these esotericists have restricted their comments to the idea
of the egregore as an organised thoughtform; the further development of this idea
would need to include the egregore acting as an intersubjective gateway to another
order of reality and potentially, to another order of being.

Stavish underlines the danger with a quote from the mystic, Valentin Tomberg’s
‘Meditations on the Tarot: A Journey into Christian Hermeticism’. Therein Tomberg
reads the imagery of tarot trump XV The Devil - which classically features two
humans loosely chained to a block upon which the devil is sitting - an illustration of
how humans can lose their freedom to an egregore.
In this context Tomberg, whose work has been endorsed by leading Roman Catholic
clergy, includes the egregore of Catholicism amongst these parasitic, potentially
enslaving, and fanatical behaviour engendering forms!

Historically, almost every single human culture has practiced, or is still practicing,
some form of possession cult; are we, as a human race, continuously interacting with
our own thoughtforms or with other-dimensional beings? Perhaps when such
interactions result in channelling stale ‘knowledge’ we can infer the influence and
feedback from one or other of our own creations or egregores; but when such
interactions give rise to states of ecstatic, uplifting insight we are ‘touched’ by higher
order beings? Finally, and on a darker note, the egregore may also act to provide a
gateway for dark, predatory entities - in these cases the outcome of their influence on
the members of the egregore can be reduced empathy and an increased propensity to
enact violence of various kinds.

I leave it to the reader to decide.

You may well be forgiven for thinking that it is only at this point of interaction with
another order of being that esotericism really comes into its own. Unfortunately the
text takes us no further along these particular roads. Instead, we turn to explore ideas
for freeing oneself from the grip of an egregore that one has grown out of or begun to
find oppressive.

Slavish introduces a number of techniques for releasing oneself from an egregore; a

task that may be more difficult than at first imagined given the, sometimes, long
standing social aspects of group membership.

A technique attributed to Joscelyn Godwin, is the idea of ‘therapeutic blasphemy’ - a

conscious desacralization of one’s former attachments possibly including a public
denunciation of one’s former ties and the destruction of any related symbolic items or
dress. Stavish underlines what is, perhaps, the most important move - and one that
should be at the forefront of any spiritual seeker’s mind - that of taking inner refuge
(to borrow a Buddhist term) wherein one relies solely on one’s own inner sense of
direction for guidance.

Stavish, Mark
Egregores: The Occult Entities that Watch over Human Destiny.

Inner Traditions Press (2018).