In the obscure
parlance used in the
study of
mysticism and
psychic phenomena, an
egrigor is a
persistent object or
entity invoked into being by the
concentrated force of will of multiple
participants in a group of psychically
talented participants, or
visualization amongst participants in a mystical
ceremony. Sometimes spelled as "egrigore" or "egregore" or "egrigori," this concept
parallels the
Asian concept of the
tulpa. The claim has been put forth that these mentally projected "thought-forms" have even the
capacity to effect tangible
modifications to
photographic film. It is, traditionally, easier to call into being and control such a thing with a
multiplicity of minds attuned toward the task. An
account (questionable as it may be, naturally) of such a thing falling out of the control of its divining mind is written in "Mysteries and Secrets of Voodoo, Santeria, and Obeah":
"Alexandra David-Neel was travelling through Tibet, early in the twentieth century. She worked hard, exerting great concentration and mental energy, to produce an amiable little monk, plump, smiling, and totally benign. There are various accounts of what went wrong, but the tulpa she had created surreptitiously escaped from Alexandra's control and became what can only be described as some kind of independent entity. It was no longer plump and amiable. The smile became a triumphant sneer. Other members of the expedition could now see it clearly. The tulpa had become decidedly sinister. It took Alexandra a great deal of time and energy to destroy her creation, and in some accounts she also needed considerable help from experienced local lamas."
Another work, this one on the "
sexual psychopathology of
witchcraft,"
reports:
"Egrigors, once in existence, may develop wills of their own, passing beyond the control of their creator(s). Sometimes, it is reported, they turn upon their creators, inflicting bodily harm. There is the story of a young woman driven insane by the physical and mental cruelties of her Egrigor-lover...."
An
animated version (in several senses) is even
hunted in one
episode of the Columbia Pictures/DiC series,
The Real Ghostbusters. The
team finds themselves tracking the
ghost of
Sherlock Holmes -- a
concededly fictional character, a
creation solely of the
mind of Sir
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. In the episode,
Egon justifies this
occurrence via the
explanation of the ghost being such an egrigor, a physical
manifestation of the fictional character brought into being by the strong
feelings of
fandom fealty.
Now write that conception on a larger
scale -- if it might be imagined, just imagined, that strength of collective
appreciation might give rise to a ghost of a popular unquestionably fictional character, what might result from a similar
direction of
will towards
belief in a person truly believed to have existed (whether or not they even did so)? What manifestations might be given wings upon faith so strong, redoubled by the apparent confirmatory power of every in a series of such manifestations?
And indeed, the purported phenomena of the egrigor is, by some, credited with the experience of that which is believed to be miraculous. In
The Golden Bough,
James Frazer posited that "
primitive man creates his gods in his own
image." And so, it follows that were primitive man to possess the
power to unknowingly modify some
fractional
fragment of his own physical reality, they would not only
figuratively, but
literally be creating their gods as egrigori in
accord with their
imagination. And, especially, if those primitives began with the
veneration of the spirits of their own
honored
dead, imagine how inexorable might be the self-sustaining projectile path of the egrigoric
deity as
human ego magnified.