Eggregore and group consciences

Birth of a collective identity – Birth of a popular Divinity – Mass cultures and suggestions

Birth of a collective identity

A physical identity is distinguished from a subtle one by the clearness and quality of thoughts. The latter are not only individual aspects, because there are ideas shared by groups of individuals that make up the identity of peoples and nations. Collective identities have the common denominator of men’s and women’s conscience; their differences are mainly due to the collective imagination (habits, particular beliefs and local cultures). Popular cultures become social models resistant to outside influences when they become combat-hardened forms of cultural isolationism.

Birth of a popular Divinity

A strong association of ideas (mass conventions) develops a common identity called eggregore. The eggregore of a group, a nation or a people is an idea, or a whole of ideas, that surround the community like an aura. It is a collective and shared conscience that pervades the participants with its emotional colors.

There are different qualities of eggregore. The most common and less qualified are astral eggregore. An astral eggregore is a concentration of emotional force emitted continuously by the participants to the idea. Since man has many emotional activities, we have a wide range of astral eggregore, both war and peace ones.

Special attention must be given to the astral eggregore whose concentration has eventually become so powerful, that they appear to be the guiding spirits of peoples and nations; they are continuously confused with God. Because of this mistake the religions of many groups, peoples and nations think they ‘have’ a special and exclusive God, that follows and cares about them. We all know the dramatic consequences of this belief.

As it happens among individuals, national identities as well could operate to acknowledge each other’s rights and duties. They talk about it in theory, but this is still a utopia.

Reciprocal acknowledgment of a collective identity, rather than of the right to exist, would lead to experiment a kind of universal conscience. The project of religion and therefore of universal conscience is hampered by the selfishness of astral eggregore. The latter, in order to survive, are able to cause bigger hindrance than what man has to go through in order to face his astrality (see descent in hell).

Mass cultures and suggestions

Processes of good will occur all the time, but they are limited by prejudices guided by strong powers, which curb the development of peoples in order to keep their conscience dormant.

The torpor of the conscience brings illusions that exalt mass suggestions (astral eggregore). Human identities are surrounded by the mirages of imagination and they follow closely the dreams of cultures that created very resistant illusory series (totem), especially when the latter are raised to the role of sacred and inviolable values. Imagination is inborn in man, but we must be able to free ourselves from illusion if we want to free the mind. Particular dreams and personal illusions are easy to discover; it is not so for collective imagination, though, which turns into rites so common that they become invisible.

In a general sense many traditions are attractive when they play the role of popular memory. If they abandon the field of folklore, though, to take up the role of truth, the ‘traditional joy’ turns into fanaticism. We need to beware of it, even before wondering about its authenticity. Traditional elements are filled with sacredness; therefore they excite the popular pride and strengthen the idea of participating to an indubitable ‘truth’ that prevents the mutual acknowledgment of different realities. This creates situations of isolation, where the pride for an alleged uniqueness ends up by trapping the participants in a closed system, where dominates the idea of being the best representatives of ‘true’ and ‘right’ (*).

(*) A closed system is a thesis built to resist denials (Karl Popper). Closed systems are made of totally abstract thesis, ideological statements or religious dogmas that are confirmed only inside their structures and through their instruments. Therefore they can’t be denied. Ideological statements and dogmas are said to be self-immunizing, because they are based on reasonable modules, supported without being questioned. This makes them immune from any kind of denial deriving by a dialectic debate or an intellectual confrontation. Furthermore, as part of a closed system are also considered ideological thesis or beliefs that declare themselves absolute, that is all-inclusive propositions, where there is an explanation of and for everything.

A closed conscience ends up by considering all that is different worse than itself; it acts in an attitude of conflict and rejects and fights it. In order to ‘open’ a ‘closed’ mind we must find the courage to abandon the safety of pre-constituted truths and question everything, starting from ourselves, our habits and opinions. Critical analysis is the keystone for mental opening because it is the condition which the expansion of physical conscience depends on. We must also remember the obstacles of their growth. For example, mental submissiveness hampers intellectual self-government. It is necessary then to avoid unconditional adhesion to a particular ideology or culture, if we want to reach a clear judgment. Learning by itself is not the ideal condition to have clear judgment. The fundament of learning is not passive storage of ideas, but their critical comprehension. Through the lens of critical sense, mind and conscience overcome the appearance of what they know, freeing the meanings from the idols of pre-established truths.

A critical mind (but not skeptical) and the intellect form extraordinary instruments for research, able to make the deep meaning of every circumstance, word or idea resound interiorly (intuitive intelligence).

A shared forma mentis is a group conscience but its value is given by the quality of its thoughts, just like for individuals. This means that consistency is not enough to guarantee for the quality of the group (eggregore); we can be united and solid in our mediocrity.

Collective conscience must be matured according to a process of development similar to the individual one, using critical sense (discrimination), ability of mental elaboration and intuitive intelligence (intuitiveness as a permanent, rather than occasional, phenomenon) to annul falsehood and smoothen disagreements. Bad interpretations are not the worst evil, but their antagonism is.

The antagonism among notions creates disorder inside the conscience and therefore discord among men. Culture and faith antagonisms originate from the desire to be protagonist in believing in an absolute uniqueness, invalidating the relationships between individuals belonging to the same cultural root. The worst conflicts originate from traditional desires to be protagonist and therefore it is our duty to question their authenticity. By filtering imagination we can discern reality from metaphors and their symbolical simulacra, giving our preference to the clearness of a common conscience rather than to dreams of superiority.

Athos A. Altomonte