Review of Mark Stavish’s Egregores by Peter Mark Adams

Stavish, Mark

Egregores: The Occult Entities that Watch over Human Destiny.

Inner Traditions Press (2018).

‘Egregores’ by Mark Stavish provides a unique focus on a topic that the Mage, W.E.
Butler, described as, “... something that is very important but which is usually
forgotten by the majority of esoteric students.”

The egregore is certainly one of the most important practical, and metaphysically
intriguing, ssues connected with the practice of religion, spirituality and magic
generally.

Briefly, an egregore is an psycho-energetic entity created from the energised intent

associated with any focused group activity. In particular, any consistent pattern of
ritual practice will result in the creation of an independent, immaterial entity that will
encode the group’s orientation, knowledge and moral character as well as its
distinctive iconography.

Stavish’s book is profusely illustrated with examples drawn, primarily, from the
Western esoteric tradition; but comparative data from Tibetan Buddhism and Taoism
is adduced to establish the universal nature, and recognition, accorded to the concept.
Indeed, so rich is the cited material that it is only possible in the scope of a review to
touch upon some of the more significant cases.

Stavish introduces us to the discourse that has evolved amongst some of the leading
esotericists over the last one hundred and fifty years. At the outset Stavish, aptly,
frames the key issue with a quote from Joscelyn Godwin to the effect that,

“an egregore is augmented by human belief, ritual, and especially by sacrifice. 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”.

For the practitioner the issue, in effect, is to be aware of this fact and to skilfully
assess the, so to speak, cost benefit equation that is being alluded to here. This theme,
this concern for balancing the benefits accruing from attachment to a group’s egregore
with the healthy continuance of one’s independent personal and spiritual life, runs like
a leitmotiv throughout the book; indeed it appears repeatedly in the cited writings of
the various esotericists who have dealt with this subject.

Stavish’s initial sections provide a sound introduction to a body of information taken

from the knowledge lectures of one of the nineteenth century’s most significant
magical orders, the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. This detailed, technical
information defines the Order’s egregore much as we have already done, but goes on
to consider the relationship between the egregore, the Order’s initiatory path and
processes, and the initiand’s energy body (aura or body of light).

Briefly, the initiatory processes are used as a way of systematically strengthening the
connection between the initiand’s energy body and the Order’s egregore. This
continues through the various grades until,

“Being parasitic by nature, it (the egregore) forms a firm shell within the aura itself,
which resembles the shape of the body”.

In other words, at this stage the egregore becomes an integral part of the initiate’s own
energy body. In the Order’s conception, the egregore acts as a portal or gateway - an
“etheric link”,

“allowing access to certain regions of the astral plane where a contingency of astral
entities govern their respective areas”.

How and on what basis is this link used?

“Basically this is a two-way communication. The astral entities need devotion to

increase their own power ...”
That being so, what flows back to the initiate, what does the initiate gain from
entering into this parasitic relationship? In theory, the energy necessary to affect
personal and spiritual transformation.

This account must, once more, point us towards a consideration of the implications of
this degree of intimacy between the egregore, the ‘astral entities’ contacted through it
and the initiate.

Forwarding the conversation, Stavish interjects 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, it is no good dismissing the influence of the egregore as merely

imaginary or psychological.

Stavish provides further elucidation by drawing on the writing of the English Mage,
W.E. Butler. Once more, Stavish provides a lengthy and useful quotation that enables
us to assess the Butler’s point of view for ourselves. In an article titled, ‘The Egregore
of a School’, Butler wrote,

“the fundamental nature of the egregore consists of collective emotions and that 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 may be put places a special
emphasis on establishing what any group that we may seek to join ultimately wishes
to accomplish and its moral stance more generally; though this may well be difficult
for a new initiate to judge for two main reasons; firstly, because the egregore likely
pre-dates the initiand’s introduction to it, and may in fact pre-date the individual by
centuries if not millennia; and secondly, the hierarchical nature of most groups entails
that knowledge is only released in stages as the initiate is drawn ever closer into the
group’s social circle and egregoric field.
This is important on a number of fronts; for whilst the Golden Dawn instructions state
that the ‘link’ will be closed down when a person leaves the Order; this may well be
an over simplification. The problem is not only the parasitic nature of the egregore,
but of what that egregore stands for, what it is intended to achieve and therefore the
nature of the astral entities that lay behind it. A final complication is that although the
initiate’s perspective may well be limited to their present biographical time-line, it is
clear that there is a broader sense in which their time-line long precedes their current
reality and may well have, for want of a better word, ‘karmic’ traces, egregoric and
entity attachments from their ‘past lives’.

Such a multi-life perspective is far more likely to be apparent to the entities behind an
egregore than it is to an individual lost in the complexities of their present life;
nevertheless, if those attachments exist they will affect the situation irrespective of
whether the individual acknowledges their existence or not.

Even in the absence of these occulted dangers, Butler warns that,

“unless care is taken the power of independent thought may be reduced”;

In other words, a form of mental entrapment or, more colloquially, brain washing or
mind control may occur. 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 - as 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!

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.
Towards the end of the book Stavish turns to exploring a range of strategies for
freeing oneself from the grip of an egregore that one has grown out of or begun to
find oppressive.

One technique, attributed to Joscelyn Godwin, is the idea of ‘therapeutic blasphemy’;

the conscious desacralization of one’s former attachments by engaging in the public
denunciation of one’s former ties. Another approach is the destruction of any related
group-related items. 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, as he notes, a Buddhist term) wherein one relies solely on
one’s own inner sense of direction for guidance.

I cannot recommend this book to highly as an essential adjunct to one’s spiritual or

magical path. It provides the opportunity for one to step back and take a meta-view of
the entire field of one’s engagements, the opportunity to dwell on them, their
implications and how they are either forwarding or inhibiting one’s own personal,
social and spiritual development. It is, as Butler noted almost half a century ago,
“something that is very important but which is usually forgotten by the majority of
esoteric students”.