Religion and Egregors
Jan. 24th, 2023 01:35 pmI guess this is somewhat of an addendum to my previous post on Neopagan groups serving as fronts for various political activist causes.
On yesterday's Magic Monday post,![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
jprussell posted a follow-up question on a comment thread; there he asked JMG, "Can egregores ever act as vehicles for actual divine powers?"
JMG responded affirmatively, "Yes, and in fact that's how religion works -- the egregor of a deity becomes a vehicle for the divine power. What sets a real religion apart from the kind of thing we're discussing is that real religions are born out of religious experience: people have personal encounters with a divine power, their experiences become the template for an egregor, and the egregor becomes a meeting ground through which the divine and the human interact. In a fake religion, the egregor is created by human beings for human purposes, and the divine never comes into the picture at all."
Thentamanous2020 added, "Interesting! That explains why movements who utilize religion as the vehicle of a political cause (whether it's neo-conservative/woke christianity or say white nationalist who take to Norse drag) end up having such a poor record of producing either mystics or even spiritually changed laypeople. They're not even trying to dial up the right god(s)."
JMG responded, "Ding! We have a winner. Exactly; if all you've got at the top of your system is a human-made egregor, that's as far as you can go."
I think this is a very important point that can add some extra depth to what I have been investigating. Namely, that in trying to discern a spiritual/religious endeavor from mere pageantry or political activism, it might be helpful to look at the overall character of a given group's participants. A good litmus test might be, "is this group a place where any of its members have experienced at least some degree of spiritual change for the better?"
On yesterday's Magic Monday post,
jprussell posted a follow-up question on a comment thread; there he asked JMG, "Can egregores ever act as vehicles for actual divine powers?"JMG responded affirmatively, "Yes, and in fact that's how religion works -- the egregor of a deity becomes a vehicle for the divine power. What sets a real religion apart from the kind of thing we're discussing is that real religions are born out of religious experience: people have personal encounters with a divine power, their experiences become the template for an egregor, and the egregor becomes a meeting ground through which the divine and the human interact. In a fake religion, the egregor is created by human beings for human purposes, and the divine never comes into the picture at all."
Then
tamanous2020 added, "Interesting! That explains why movements who utilize religion as the vehicle of a political cause (whether it's neo-conservative/woke christianity or say white nationalist who take to Norse drag) end up having such a poor record of producing either mystics or even spiritually changed laypeople. They're not even trying to dial up the right god(s)."JMG responded, "Ding! We have a winner. Exactly; if all you've got at the top of your system is a human-made egregor, that's as far as you can go."
I think this is a very important point that can add some extra depth to what I have been investigating. Namely, that in trying to discern a spiritual/religious endeavor from mere pageantry or political activism, it might be helpful to look at the overall character of a given group's participants. A good litmus test might be, "is this group a place where any of its members have experienced at least some degree of spiritual change for the better?"
