What is an egregor?

Answer 1

Tree

An egregor was originally one of the legendary "watchers" (also, Grigori, Nephilim) of the apocryphal Jewish Book of Enoch, who descended to earth and taught mankind the arts and sciences-and in doing, introduced discord.

These angelic beings were reimagined by Dr John Dee as the elemental "watchers" or "watchtowers" in his system of Angelic magick. The watchers are associated with four or seven archangels, who have been ritually invoked as guardians in traditional prayers. They are closely related to the Annunaki or "sons of heaven" of ancient Meospotamia.

Over time, magicians who studied Dee's sytem began to view the egregors as collections of cosmic forces rather than intelligent beings. Today, an egregore is a sort of being or thought-projection created in magical groups by collective visualization- a being that can be seen and even called upon by others. In other words, a sort of artificial angel or god-form. One can also view the various pantheons of gods as egregores created by the subconcious imaginings of a society.

The concept of the "meme" is something of a modern take on egregores.

Answer 2

Egregore is a term from Old English which is fading from general use in modern English. Essentially, an egregore is the "spirit of a thing", usually a human group or organization, shared by the members of the group, for whom it provides guidelines concerning principles, beliefs, and goals. Companies, religions, states, and clubs all can be said to have egregores. An example of the presence of an egregore could be when "a project takes on a life of its own."