H.P. Lovecraft, Sunday School and “Dagon”

“Dagon” is one of H.P. Lovecraft’s earliest stories, often thought to be the precursor to his classic tales “The Call of Cthulhu” and “The Shadow Over Innsmouth”.  According to S.T. Joshi¹, Lovecraft wrote “Dagon” in July of 1917, following a nine-year hiatus from his earlier attempts at fiction writing.  The story was first published in the Vagrant, a publication of the National Amateur Press Association, in November of 1919.   

Joshi reports that at least part of the inspiration for “Dagon” came from a nightmare Lovecraft had.  Explaining a plot point, Lovecraft is quoted as saying “…the hero-victim is half-sucked into the mire, yet he does crawl!  I know, for I dreamed that whole hideous crawl, and can yet feel the ooze sucking me down!” 

The story was later published in Weird Tales in October of 1923.  L. Sprague DeCamp², much more critical than Joshi, references a letter Lovecraft wrote to Edwin F. Baird, the magazine’s editor, regarding publication of “Dagon”.   The letter exemplified Lovecraft’s attitude toward the writing profession and his self-deprecating view of his work: “I have no idea if these things will be found suitable, for I pay no attention to the demands of commercial writing.”   

In his letter he goes on to write: “If the tale cannot be printed as it is written, down to the very last semicolon and comma, it must gracefully accept rejection.  Excision by editors is probably the one reason why no living American author has any real prose style…” DeCamp makes the argument throughout his biography that Lovecraft’s haughtiness, “art-for-art’s sake” attitude, and disparagement of his own work made success as a writer almost impossible during his lifetime.   

“Dagon” takes place during World War I.  The narrator is captured by Germans in the South Pacific but manages to escape in a lifeboat.  After drifting at sea, he wakes to find himself marooned on a vast expanse of mud and slime recently heaved to the surface following volcanic activity.  He explores this strange terrain and discovers an enormous monolith covered with hieroglyphs and weird imagery, including that of humanoid fish-like creatures. 

No big surprise: he is then horrified later to see a giant, living version of one of the carvings, emerging from a nearby pool of water.  He flees, barely retaining his sanity, and is later rescued by an American ship.  He is taken to San Fransisco, where he convalesces in a hospital.   

But he is not safe there for he knows that the horror will follow him.  He relies on morphine to deaden the fear and memory of what he saw.  Almost as an afterthought, he “…sought out a celebrated ethnologist, and amused him with peculiar questions regarding the ancient Philistine legend of Dagon, the Fish-God…” He anticipates a day “when they may rise above the billows to drag down in their reeking talons the remnants of puny, war exhausted mankind…” 

Joshi appreciated this early effort of Lovecraft’s; “Dagon” contains the germ of several themes Lovecraft developed later in his work: the antiquity of earth, the existence of still viable remnants of ancient civilizations hidden in remote locations, the shattering effect of knowledge.  Readers of Lovecraft will also recognize the paranoia and preoccupation with eldritch worship of the Great Old Ones, a common motif in later stories.  

It’s not clear how much Lovecraft based his pantheon of Great Old Ones on biblical sources—he was, after all, officially atheist and disdainful of conventional piety.  DeCamp reports that Lovecraft attended Baptist Sunday school at age five, where he alarmed his instructor by taking the side of the lions against the Christians.  At any rate, his later “cosmicism” would likely not mix well with comforting thoughts of humanity being the “crown of creation^”3 .   

Yet readers will observe in several of Lovecraft’s stories references to circles of stones on hilltops and appalling liturgical practices among secretive cults—similar references are made in the Old Testament in such books as Leviticus, Deuteronomy, Judges, and 2nd Kings, among others.  Dagon is often mentioned here and with good reason: he was an earlier competitor of Jehovah, well established in Canaan and ancient Mesopotamia, and a challenge for the ancient Israelites as they migrated into the “Promised Land”. 

Though he doesn’t get much good press, Dagon figures in several well-known bible stories. In the final moments of Samson’s life, he destroys a temple of Dagon by pulling it down on top of himself and the Philistines gathered there. When the Israelites lose a battle against the Philistines, the latter steal the Ark of the Covenant and put it in their temple next to an idol of Dagon. The next day they discover that the statue of Dagon has been knocked over and its head and hands broken off—hmmmm. It’s possible that Goliath, the Philistine giant whom David killed with his slingshot, was a worshipper of Dagon.  

Though not emphasized in the story “Dagon”, Lovecraft’s horror of miscegenation—of interbreeding with other races and ethnicities, mixing with other cultures—is also a preoccupation in Old Testament passages. Lovecraft was never a champion of cultural diversity, and neither were the ancient Israelites.  

But the real Dagon may not have been a Philistine fish-god at all. Though he was the national god of the Philistines and worshipped in their cities along the Mediterranean coast, he may have been an import or an adopted god who was worshipped throughout northern Syria and Mesopotamia, from the Early Bronze Age to the beginning of the Iron Age. Dagon was connected with fertility, agriculture, and grain, especially corn.⁴ His worship was also related to prosperity and royal legitimacy. He was also considered a “father of gods”.  

Some scholars suspect that the similarity of Dagon’s name to the Hebrew word for fish may have led to early confusion. Dagon also resembles words in cotemporaneous languages for “grain” or “cloudy”. So, it seems likely that the notion that Dagon had anything to do with the sea is erroneous. He was very much a land-based deity. 

The error was not H.P. Lovecraft’s fault. Dagon as “fish-god” was a misinterpretation carried forward from Medieval scholarship and not detected until the early twentieth century. It is the fault of history—too much time—and time enough—for us eventually to get things wrong. To paraphrase the mad Arab Abdul Alhazred: “That is not dead which can eternal lie, and with strange aeons even the facts may die.” 

Lovecraft created a new egregore in his fiction, perhaps fashioned out of his revulsion to ocean creatures. Dagon became Cthulhu, Ashdod became Innsmouth.  What if Lovecraft had known the truth about Dagon? What horror might he have imagined if Cthulhu had arisen from the land instead of the sea?  

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¹I Am Providence, by S.T. Joshi, (2013). 

²Lovecraft, A Biography, by L. Sprague DeCamp, (1975) 

³Genesis 1:26—“Then God said, ‘Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.’” 

⁴A reader correctly points out that “corn” in this sense is a generic term for grain, not the New World plant that we know today. Lovecraft famously detested sea food and perhaps ocean-based life-forms in general, which may explain why his monsters are often amorphous, polypus, tentacular entities. I’m not sure how he felt about corn. 

Precognitive Dreams and Predestination

Precognitive dreams are common among people who regularly take note of their dreams.  Carl Jung believed dreams could predict events well in advance of their occurrence; he reported he had dreamt of the impending death of his mother.  The notion of someone having a dream or vision that predicts a significant future event is a frequent trope throughout history and across cultures.  It is also a familiar motif in literature. 

A classic example is found in the Old Testament.¹  Joseph, the son of Jacob, interprets the dreams of two of his fellow prisoners, a cupbearer and a baker.  Joseph intuits from the metaphoric imagery in the men’s dreams that the cupbearer would soon be released from prison and restored to his position in Pharoah’s court.  Alas, the baker’s dream—”…on my head were three baskets of bread.  In the top basket were all kinds of baked goods for Pharaoh, but the birds were eating them out of the basket on my head”—foretold his decapitation and impalement three days later. 

There are of course numerous reports of dreams in the Bible, many of them precognitive in nature, and I imagine there are similar examples in other religious texts from various traditions.  Precognitive dreams are a universal human experience, and often associated with both religious and secular matters of importance.  

Analysis of case studies involving precognitive ability reveal some interesting and remarkably stable patterns.²  Parapsychologists identify four typical modes of precognitive experience: intuitive impressions, hallucinations, realistic dreams, and unrealistic dreams.  Citing the work of Louisa Rhine³, Irwin and Watt reported the relative percentages of reports of precognitive experiences in these four categories:  intuitive impressions (26%), hallucinations (9%), realistic dreams (44%) and unrealistic dreams (21%).   

No surprise; the bulk of precognitive experiences occured during ordinary dreaming.  Interestingly, there is research suggesting that precognitive dreams about other people may predict tragic events like serious illness or death, but dreams about the self tend to concern relatively trivial matters.   

I have precognitive dreams from time to time, but they are nothing to write home about.  Usually, they have nothing to do with facing execution or exoneration, much less with success in battle, earthquakes, volcanoes, winning the lottery and so forth.  

My spookier dreams are nothing like those of Henry Anthony Wilcox.  He was the “psychically hypersensitive” sculptor who dreamed of “great Cyclopean cities of Titan blocks and sky-flung monoliths, all dripping with green ooze and sinister with latent horror”. Wilcox’s dream anticipated the dreaded return of one of the Great Old Ones from beneath the Pacific.⁴  

My precognitive dreams are not like this and it’s just as well.  But here are a couple examples from my notes.  See what you think. 

#76 “The Copy Machine Jams” 

I am attempting to copy a big pile of documents, many of the pages clipped together by metal clasps and paper clips.  I put these into the chute without removing all the clips, and the copier soon jams.  I realize I should have removed the clips and go tell the receptionist up front what I have done. 

I had this dream on New Years Eve in 2015. I had been on Christmas break and out of the office for most of the week. When I returned to work, I saw an email from the receptionist sent on 12/30/15, the day before my dream. She had called in the copy machine repairman to diagnose a copy machine breakdown. The tech guy reported that a jam was due to someone putting a stack of material in the automatic feed that contained paper clips. 

“The truth is out there”. 

But this is how pathetic my life had become at the time—that my powers of extra sensory perception detected the psychic scream of our secretary as she once again had to deal with a jammed copy machine. 

Technically speaking, #76 is not a precognitive dream, since I recorded having it after the actual event occurred.  Parapsychologists might classify #76 as an example of clairvoyance or a retrocognitive dream. Or perhaps it was a telepathic dream—I may have channeled the mind of the perpetrator who messed up the copy machine.  In any case, I obtained knowledge of an event that I could not have detected via the usual senses.   

Skeptics would rightly point out that there is a very high probability that some office idiot will neglect to remove paper clips before using the copy machine, thus causing it to jam. It happens all the time. And this is a major problem evaluating psychic experiences outside of controlled laboratory conditions—“in the wild” so to speak. Often, the probability of a precognitive event happening simply by chance cannot be ruled out.  

But what do you think of the following?  

#1067 “Mowing with Two Mowers” 

I am in the backyard preparing to mow the lawn.  The grass is quite high.  I decide to push two mowers at the same time.  I am thinking that this might save me some time to do this task.  I line up the mowers side by side and start off across the lawn.  It’s very hard to keep the mowers aligned, and one veers off in a different direction, leaving gaps in the mowing that I will need to return to later. 

The very next day, I heard a loud crash in the pantry area of a local food bank⁵ where I volunteer a couple days a week.  A woman from the front desk had been pushing two big carts side by side, returning them to my work area. and lost control of one of them. The cart had fallen over making a loud bang. She apologized and explained “I was trying to save some time by pushing two at one time.” 

There isn’t an exact match between the dream about the lawn mowers and the woman pushing the two carts the next day. However, there is an obvious echo of “pushing two instead of one side by side to save time”. When the cart fell over in the work area of the food bank, and the woman apologized, I immediately recognized the incident as a repetition of content I had dreamt about the night before. 

Again, pretty mundane stuff, as with the copy machine dream above. Have you had similar experiences? One wonders what practical value such dreams might serve. In the examples above, neither dream provided information I could make productive or timely use of.  

However, the possibility of precognition and precognitive dreams has interesting metaphysical implications. Does the future already exist in a form that we can perceive at times in dreams? If so, does this lend support to Calvinist ideas about predestination—that events are already determined, recorded as it were, such that we can occasionally preview them?   

I won’t say something facile like “everything works out for the best” or “everything is going to be ok in the end”, or that this or that event is somehow part of God’s master plan, whatever that might be. Events in our lives can be joyful and affirming but also tragic and horrifying. Sometimes we get a glimpse of what’s coming. Often, not.   

But I can predict that right now there are idiots in offices all over the world using copy machines improperly. What do you think will happen next? 

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¹Genesis 40:1-22. 

²An Introduction to Parapsychology, by Harvey J. Irwin and Caroline A. Watt, (2007). 

³Louisa Rhine, the “first lady of parapsychology”, was one of the most influential researchers in the field circa 1948 to 1983, establishing a foundational classification system for psychic experiences. 

^4“The Call of Cthulhu”, by H.P. Lovecraft (1928)  

⁵Support your local food banks if you can—”food deserts” are spreading in many urban areas. 

Unidentified Anomalous Press Reports (UAPRs)

I have been watching all the old X-Files episodes on Hulu lately, making my way through the third season, circa 1996. But why watch a science fiction/horror show about government conspiracies involving extraterrestrials, when I can watch the real thing unfolding in the media right now? 

Declassify the Documents? 

I read in the New York Times this morning that Chuck Shumer, the senator from New York, wants to create a commission that will declassify government documents about UFOs¹.  There is bipartisan support, and part of the impetus for this legislation may be to corral the burgeoning conspiracy theories about government coverups.  Schumer’s bill is modelled on legislation passed in 1992 allowing review of documents pertaining to the assassination of John F. Kennedy—an event that also generated many conspiracy theories.  We have been here before.  

Interest in what the government knows about these phenomena has increased since the recent release of military videos depicting hard to explain objects hovering and flying about. To date, the government has not released all the data it possesses, chiefly for reasons of national security.  This resistance to full disclosure has frustrated congress and encouraged conspiracy theorists, hence the legislation.   

Government officials have repeatedly denied that the videos and other material they have contain evidence of alien invasion.  They have also denied that government agents have retrieved the wreckage of a crashed extraterrestrial vehicle or are warehousing material of extraterrestrial manufacture.  Of course they would.  Weirdly, the proposed legislation contains a provision allowing the government to claim any crashed spaceships that might be in private or corporate hands, “however unlikely that such things exist.”  Hmmm. 

Attack of the Metallic Orbs     

The All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) has been collecting reports from around the world of “mysterious metallic orbs”.²  The spherical objects range in size from about 3 feet in diameter to the size of an automobile and are white, silver or metallic in color.  They tend to appear at altitudes of 10,000 to 30,000 feet—where commercial aircraft fly.  When spotted, the orbs can be stationary or move at speeds of up to Mach 2 apparently without exuding any thermal exhaust while they operate.  

The AARO receives between 50 and 100 reports of these strange objects a month, though only 2%-5% are considered truly “anomalous”. However, sightings of unidentified anomalous objects increased dramatically following David Grusch’s allegations that special government programs are in possession of fragments and an intact vehicle of non-human origin—and have had these items for decades.  

Write To Congress! 

During a recent interview with Sean Hannity, Senator Marco Rubio of Florida reported that individuals with very high government clearance had come forward to claim that our government is “reverse engineering” fragments of exotic technology to advance our own technologies and defense systems. Senator Rubio could not say whether the allegation was true or not but opined that people with very high clearances involved in important projects for the government are either telling the truth or are crazy. Couldn’t they be both?   

The All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) an agency of the Department of Defense, has stated that they have “not discovered any verifiable information to substantiate claims that any programs regarding the possession or reverse-engineering of any extraterrestrial materials have existed in the past or exist currently.” Of course they would. 

Representative Tim Burchett of Tennessee, who is on the House Oversight Committee looking into UFOs and UAPs, has speculated that Earth would have no defense against an extra-terrestrial invasion.⁴ Technologically speaking, “…we are vastly out of our league” and the aliens could “…turn us into a charcoal briquette”.  

Back in March, the Tennessee lawmaker Burchett reiterated the allegation that the U.S. government has recovered extraterrestrial technology and is attempting to reverse-engineer it—and that it has “recovered a craft at some point, and possible beings.”⁵ According to Burchett, the government may have been involved in this matter “… since 1947, probably since about 1897 in what was the Auroro Texas ‘UFO crash.” 

Representative Mike Gallagher of Wisconsin has helpfully suggested that UAPs are either time travelling vehicles piloted by people from the future, or the manifestation of an ancient, technologically advanced culture that is just now revealing itself to the world after spending millennia in hiding. 

“The Truth is Out There”, as the X-Files proclaimed at the beginning of every episode. But is it really? Who can get to the bottom of this UFO/UAP business now that Mulder and Scully are retired? Maybe we should ask the Cigarette Smoking Man: “What is the plan?” 

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¹“Bipartisan Measure Aims to Force Declassification of U.F.O. Records”, by Julian Barnes, New York Times, 7/14/23.  UFOs are now officially called UAPs, though various government agencies dispute whether the unidentified phenomena are “aerial” or “anomalous”.  Couldn’t they be both? 

² “Pentagon, NASA Have No Idea What Those Weird Flying Metallic Orbs Are”, by Joseph Curl.  DailyWire.com, 7/12/23 

³ “Senator Says UFO Claims May Be ‘Biggest Story in Human History”, by Daniel Chaitin. DailyWire.com, 7/12/23. 

⁴ “Congressman has grim take after access to UFO footage: ‘We Can’t Handle It’”, by Chris Eberhart. FoxNews.com, 7/12/23. 

⁵ “Congressman Says UFOs Can Fly Underwater, Government Has Been Covering Up Presence Since 1890s”, by Joseph Curl. DailyWire.com, 7/8/23.  

⁶ “UFO Fervor Grabs Washington: Congressman Says UFOs May Be ‘Ancient Civilization,’ Senator Says Craft Retrievers Unaccountable”, by Joseph Curl. DailyWire.com, 7/5/23. 

Dreams, Altered States, and Memory

Lately I’ve been fascinated by research about the neurology of dream states, now augmented by ever more sophisticated technology for measuring—and manipulating—brain waves and brain metabolism.  It seems that real progress along the frontier of dream research must take an increasingly neurological approach.  Three developments caught my attention recently. 

Dreaming and Running  

Earlier I reported on recent dream research at our local university¹.  Scientists discovered a new brain wave rhythm, faster than others, which showed an anti-phase synchronization pattern across the left and right brain hemispheres. The brain wave pattern occurred in the retrosplenial cortex, a small associational area at the back of the corpus collosum, near the cerebellum.   

This area interacts with parts of the brain involved with vision, memory, and spatial perception.  The retrosplenial cortex seems connected with sense of time and position in space and is especially active when people are running—and dreaming.  Scientists speculate that, just as the brain must rapidly anticipate potential environmental hazards during a run, it must also manage the oncoming unexpected and fluctuating content of dream imagery.  

Out-of-Body Experiences  

NPR recently carried a story² about scientists who identified a part of the brain associated with out-of-the-body experiences.  These are common in dreams as well as other altered states of consciousness.  Dr. Josef Parvizi, a neurology professor at Stanford, determined that this region was the anterior precuneous, a sausage shaped section of the brain located in-between the two hemispheres, at the back of the brain, near the upper portion of the occipital lobe.  Scientists believe the precuneous has a role in episodic memory, visuospatial processing, sense of self, and consciousness. 

Parvizi reported on a patient who experienced out-of-body sensations related to his epileptic seizures.  The man described feelings of “floating in space” and being “a third observer to conversations that are happening in my mind that I’m not part of.”  Parvizi and his team were able to artificially recreate this out-of-body experience by administering electrical stimulation to the man’s anterior precuneous.  The technique was later applied to eight other volunteer subjects, with similar results.   

Scientists suspect that this region of the brain is responsible for our “physical self”, that is, our sense of being located within our bodies, and that our body and thoughts are ours and not someone else’s.  A fully functioning anterior precuneous is important for ensuring that we perceive our experiences as happening to us and not to other people. 

The drug ketamine may have similar effects on the part of the brain associated with out-of-body experiences.  Ketamine is an anesthetic, useful for pain management, and increasingly prescribed for depression.  Its antidepressant actions are not well understood.  Ketamine can produce hallucinogenic and “dissociative” effects, and as “Special K”, has been used as a recreational drug. 

One researcher speculated that Parvizi’s technique might one day replace the need for ketamine treatment of depression, though no one has investigated this yet.  Parvizi’s first subject experienced out-of-body sensations related to his seizures, which somewhat resemble the effects of ketamine.  However, “dissociative” effects are also observed in dreams—that we are out of our bodies, or that we are someone or something other than ourselves while dreaming—so it seems possible that the same region of the brain is involved. 

REM, NREM and Memory  

More recently, I’ve posted on the role that REM and NREM cycles have in strengthening neuronal pathways—by matching new experiences with older ones—and in so doing transferring memories into long term storage³.   

REM and NREM sleep alternate in multiple 90-minute cycles throughout the night, but the relative proportions of each type of sleep change.  Across cycles, time in REM sleep increases while time in NREM decreases.  (Though dreaming can occur in both phases, it is typically during REM sleep that we dream.)   

As the night proceeds, memories that are referenced in dreams shift from very recent experiences to more remote ones.  Some scientists hypothesize that in the first half of the night, when NREM sleep dominates, weaker or redundant memory traces are erased in favor of preserving and strengthening older, more important connections, a process augmented by the longer periods of REM sleep that occur towards dawn.⁴   

An Example 

This seems consistent with my own experiences.  The dream below seems to illustrate the process of melding recent and older experiences into a kind of metaphor for long term storage. 

In the middle of the night my wife and I are awakened by some animal noises.  From the front window we see nothing moving in the front yard.  (We often have deer that come by to snack in the garden.)  My wife says “It might be coming from inside the house.”  Now I hear sounds coming from the basement.  I descend the stairs into the darkness below, not sure what I will find.  I need a stick or broom handle just in case—I’m thinking it may be rats.  I can hear them but can’t see them.  I’m sure they are some kind of rodent. 

The origin of this dream is pretty straightforward.  There is a wasp nest on the top of the front door, probably under the siding, or inside the frame of the door.  Spraying has not deterred the wasp, which luckily seems to be a solitary species and relatively harmless.  Its wings vibrate against the wood, making a loud, high-pitched buzz—so we know when it comes and goes.  My wife has said a couple of times she thinks it’s inside the house.  At any rate, we do have an animal in the house—this wasp.  The dream seems to recall and comment on this situation.   

It’s interesting that the location of the creature shifts from the front door (in reality) to the basement, (in the dream), from daylight activity (the wasp) to night time (possible rodents), and from small (insect) to large (rats?).  We have had mice and voles in the basement before, so the content of the dream resembles a past reality.  This example seems to support the idea that patterns of REM and NREM sleep serve to bolster long term memory storage—comparing new experiences to old and modifying the underlying neural connections accordingly. 

If I used a Jungian or psychoanalytic approach to this dream, I might ask what it means to have an animal take up residence in my home.  Is my psyche, often symbolized by a structure like a house, being invaded by some more primitive impulse or emotional complex?  This could spin out into lengthy discussion about the archetypal significance of rodent imagery, basements, darkness, climbing downstairs, battling vermin, etcetera.   

But I think in this case the dream is just about household pest control. I’d better get on it. 

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¹“Neurology and Dreaming”, Egregoric Times, 6/12/23. 

²“Scientists have found part of the brain that triggers out-of-body experiences”, Jon Hamilton, All Things Considered, NPR, 7/3/23. 

³“Dreaming and Defragmentation”, Egregoric Times, 6/28/23. 

⁴“What Determines the Contents of Our Dreams?”, by Gary L. Wenk, Ph.D., Psychology Today, 6/23/23. 

Egregores Part Five–Some Speculations

This post concludes a five-part series about egregores.  Earlier I offered several different perspectives about egregores, proposed a working definition of the phenomena, and described both the natural history of egregores and their pervasiveness in society. In this last installment I want to collect several speculations and theoretical questions for future exploration.  I will simply list them below, with a few remarks after each.  I welcome comments from readers who may have insights to share. 

•What is the role of metaphorical thinking in the creation and maintenance of egregores?  Readers are probably familiar with the term metaphor as it relates to the interpretation of poetry and other kinds of literature.  But here we are talking about an overarching process of perception and understanding.   

Metaphorical thinking involves a comparison of something complex, unfamiliar or incomprehensible to something more concrete, mundane, and useful.  Forming a metaphor involves translating or mapping superficial similarities from the unknown to the known.  Thus, we say things like “the mind is like a computer”; it seems to have “circuits” and “files” and “memory storage” like the computers we use every day.  Is the mind an actual computer?  Probably not, and the metaphor simplifies the actual complexity and subtleness of the mind.   

Metaphors masquerade as knowledge or wisdom, when in fact they are merely tentative comparisons of new to old information, a preliminary impression until a deeper understanding comes about.  Their chief value, for better or worse, is to determine subsequent perceptions and behavior in response to the object or phenomena described by the metaphor.   

Does it matter whether we perceive our relationship with China as an athletic event—they are our economic “competitors”—rather than a military conflict—they are our “enemies”.  Would our future actions be different depending on which metaphor we chose?  

Metaphorical thinking seems involved in the formation and maintenance of egregores, especially those that are personified and anthropomorphized: think of “mother nature”, or “big brother”.  These two are not quite egregores according to our earlier definition, but conceivably could become so under certain circumstances.   Is “nature” our mother?  Is a 1984-style totalitarian government our brother?  If we answer yes to these metaphors, how does this affect our behavior towards nature, or government?  

•To what extent is the unconscious mind, through dreaming, involved in the formation of egregores?  Recent dream research suggests that the cycles of REM and NREM during sleep are associated with the culling, collation and strengthening of neuronal pathways that form the neurological substrate of memories.  The process seems to involve matching new experiences with old ones, translating immediate or short-term memories into long term storage, presumably based on some similarity between the old and new.   

This implies a comparison of some sort.  Is this the neurological basis for the highly metaphoric imagery that we experience in dreams?  It’s a short jump from here to the metaphoric content of dreams, nightmares, poetry, literature and other creative cultural products, including egregores. 

Or, from a psychoanalytic perspective, are egregores simply projections of repressed or unexpressed parts of the unconscious, internal subjective experiences rather than external phenomena?  Because egregores are socially mediated and require groups of people focused on their manifestation, is the entity really a collective projection of some psycholgical or emotional issue its followers share? 

•How do social media and related communication technologies impact the life cycle of an egregore?  At the very least social media would expedite the formation of such an entity by disseminating its stigmata rapidly, attracting new members, and facilitating the repetitive, ritualistic homage paid to it.  

Critical to this process is a “naming event”, which allows the undifferentiated “energy” of an emerging egregore to enter the language, everyday discourse, and so begin to affect perceptions, thoughts, and actions.  The naming event lays the groundwork for a socially mediated invocation of whatever kind of egregore is being summoned.  Collectively we ask, “What are we calling this thing?” 

The relationship between society and its various egregores—mediated through social media and communication technologies in general—is symbiotic.  The increasing dissolution of boundaries between private and public life, the transformation of life into simulations of life patterned on media imagery or virtual realities, the confusion of reality and fantasy, of information and disinformation—all these contribute to the demise of a shared perception of reality.  This creates an ideal habitat for egregores to grow and develop. 

There are other questions I have, too many to go into much depth here: Is sensitivity to what Jung calls synchronicity a prerequisite for experiencing egregores? Are egregores also sustained by everyday cognitive habits like “confirmation bias” and the like?  Do some egregores emerge from specific geographical locations because of local history, social conditions, and characteristics of the natural environment?  (That is, are they a form of genius loci?)  I could go on, but I’ll stop for now… 

It seems—to me at least—that a systematic study of egregores would be timely and relevant to our contemporary predicament: the erosion of a shared sense of reality, the demise of some workable consensus about what constitutes truth, and what is desirable in our society.  Given what we may know or suspect about egregores, what if anything should be done?  Or as the prophet Ezekial asks, “How then shall we live?” Right now, it seems best to remain vigilant and self-aware. 

Egregores Part Four–In Society

The last three posts discussed approaches to the study of egregoric phenomena, offered a working definition of egregore, and made preliminary remarks about whether egregores can be considered alive and able to act independently of the minds that formed them from indeterminate “energy”. 

This is the fourth installment of a series I’m tempted to call an attempt at systematic “egregorology”, which I admit sounds a bit grandiose. In this post I will briefly discuss the importance of egregores in history and society—a very broad and unwieldy subject. A clear focus and some parameters will help in covering this ground; any survey of egregoric influences in society cannot be exhaustive. (If this project ever morphs from blog to book, “Egregores in Society” would surely occupy the longest chapter.)  

When I first started the Egregoric Times I wrote a few early posts about egregores in politics, horror literature, and religion. These are just three of many examples of their pervasiveness in society. One can find similar phenomena operating in many institutions, the work setting, in culture, and in economics.  

In fact, almost any endeavor involving organized human social behavior can generate egregores, particularly in situations where there is lack of consensus among groups, and the way forward through some problem or conflict is unclear, complicated, foggy, or undifferentiated. Where to start?  

I could begin at the very beginning—with the account in Genesis, or one of several other creation mythologies—in which a parental god calls forth the world from the amorphous, primordial chaos. No one has ever observed the creation of the earth, much less the universe, but the notion of how it was done—the making and forming and naming of indeterminate matter by a primeval deity—shows some consistency across cultures.   

Is this narrative the model for subsequent human attempts to do something similar at a local level? To “play God” and summon things that may accomplish our will—at least for a while?  

It seems that egregores are the source material for gods, ghosts, demons and other personified supernatural forces. What then follows in history are ever more elaborate rituals for their invocation and worship, and sooner or later, a theology. The inevitable sectarian violence that continues to plague us can be seen as competition among rival egregores over time. 

(Many consider it blasphemous to believe that the Divine is a creation of the human imagination. Out of deference and respect to monotheists—of which I am one—I would clarify: the Divine itself is not a creation of mortals, but its image—the perception fallible humans have of the Divine—almost certainly is an egregore. Hence the prohibition in several faith traditions against the making of “graven images” which can often lead to idolatry, that horror of the Old Testament.) 

In conventional religious practice, as well as in various occult and esoteric traditions, an egregoric entity may be invoked or evoked intentionally by followers. But can this process occur inadvertently? Could an egregore develop and evolve beneath the consciousness of those who later submit to its influence? By accident, or stealth?  

This is a familiar trope in horror entertainment—the fear of “being taken over” by some mysterious and unnamed force, to be possessed and controlled. This prevalent and recurring theme in horror and science fiction may reflect broader social anxiety about phenomena that we experience collectively, and to which we succumb. 

Outside of religious expression and interaction with the supernatural, egregores appear in disturbing secular experiences as well: extremist political movements, xenophobia, warfare, economic oppression, and celebrity cults, among others.  Insofar as they influence and direct collective human behavior, egregores can be powerful “influencers”, and potentially dangerous.  

Here in the United States, we are approaching a tumultuous political year, at a time of rapid social and technological change. There is a lack of consensus about the direction our nation should take on various issues, even a lack of consensus about reality itself. These are ideal conditions for the formation of egregores.  

Will we retain a modicum of self-awareness and self-restraint, or will we submit to being manipulated by forms of thought and perception we are barely conscious of? In these troubled times, what sort of entity will our society unwittingly conjure and empower with our devotion? 

Next time I will collect some untidy and discomforting speculations about the nature of egregores. 

Egregores Part Three–Natural History

Previously, I described different approaches to the study of egregores, and attempted to develop a working definition. For now, an egregore is defined as an entity that emerges from undifferentiated “energy”, takes form through a process involving human imagination, attention and interaction, and achieves a degree of agency, independence, and longevity—all contingent on the “faithfulness” of its devotees. 

Obviously, there are elements of this preliminary definition that need refinement. What is this energy that takes shape and is sustained by human attention? What is the process by which this comes about? In what way does an egregore achieve autonomy and the ability to act on its own? My plan is to address these questions in greater detail in future posts. 

In this third installment of the series, I will focus on the natural history of the egregore, its “life cycle”, and the extent to which it can be considered alive—and so capable of death. People who are aware of egregores and interact with them talk about the “energy” involved in summoning and sustaining them. Whether this energy is a metaphor, or some actual but still unknown force or type of matter, its necessity suggests that egregores are perceived as living beings, at least by their followers.    

This creates an immediate challenge for those of us who are interested in these phenomena but may not be followers of any specific egregore. Awareness of egregores, and interaction with them, is a highly subjective experience, difficult to quantify or demonstrate to the uninitiated.¹ This seems true on both the individual and societal level. How do you detect an egregore if you are not one of its believers? 

In the view of this blog, an egregore may be observed indirectly—and its existence confirmed—by the effects it has on its surrounding material and social environment. This is not a strange concept; invisible objects, from subatomic particles to distant exoplanets are detected by analyzing their influence on surrounding objects or by perturbations in various types of energy. For example, scientists can describe the size, position and atmospheric composition of planets orbiting faraway suns by deconstructing the starlight deflected at the edges of these worlds. 

But what does an egregore do to its surroundings that would allow its detection? Egregores are formed from undifferentiated energy and sustained by energy derived from their followers. Perhaps this energy is really attention, which can be quantified and operationally defined. In the case of egregores, it should be possible to locate them by analyzing the number of adherents, the amount of money and material resources devoted to worship, the amount of time spent worshipping or invoking the entity, and even the physical labor and cost of creating sacred space and the implements for ritual practice. 

Energy transfer and utilization of local material resources can suggest the presence of a life form. Are egregores alive? Scientists have developed criteria for determining whether phenomena can be considered alive. These include a capacity for growth, movement, irritability, reproduction and metabolism, all quantifiable to a degree.   

With egregores, energy consumption for these ends could be measured indirectly through diversion of material resources, money, labor, time and space—a kind of socially mediated metabolism. Another requirement is that the alleged life form be able to store and transfer information—typically, but not necessarily, in the form of macromolecules that convey genetic and metabolic coding, like DNA or RNA. It seems that egregores come close to meeting several of the above prerequisites, at least in a metaphoric sense. 

(I will note that exobiologists continually broaden the definition of “life” in anticipation of what might be discovered in such extreme environments as the Saturnian moon Titan, or in the upper atmosphere of Venus. At least egregores are terrestrial creatures!) 

Like other life forms, egregores must struggle against other egregores for limited resources and for the life sustaining attention of humans. The latter, so vital to the ecology of egregores, are often distractible and open to the sway of competitors. On a societal level, this can manifest as iconoclasm, various heresies, sectarian violence, and war. Or the social and economic environment of these entities can change over time, threatening their longevity. In this regard, egregores are subject to the forces of evolution, and are capable of growth and development, but also extinction.     

In the next post, I will suggest some ways that egregoric phenomena can operate in society, and have influence beyond the particular social groups that invoke them.  

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¹It would be interesting to do brain scans of subjects as they attend to egregoric imagery, using instrumental measures like those used in dream research.  What parts of the brain would light up? 

Egregores Part Two–Definition?

In my last post, the first of a series, I described four broad approaches to the study of egregoric phenomena: the applied, the psychotherapeutic, the satiric (or critical), and the sociological. The last perspective is the one adapted for the most part here. I am not an occult practitioner, but I am curious about a phenomenon with serious implications for both individuals and society.   

I am at the very beginning of this project, so it will be prudent to define terms, beginning with the term egregore. This is not easy, because the concept is understood in different ways, depending on the various personal experiences of those who are aware of and interact with these entities. The meaning of the term has also changed over time.  

Not only is it possible to find experts with differing conceptualizations; one encounters practitioners who apply contemporary or archaic understandings, using wisdom drawn from different historical time periods. Some people attempt to summon egregores that resemble angels or servitors, while others are concerned with egregoric influences in the workplace or during a political election.  

There is nothing wrong with a diversity of viewpoints—ever—and it may be that further exploration and dialogue will uncover an underlying principle that unites all these experiences and makes them intelligible. 

One way to conceive of an egregore, at least in its early stages of development, is as a kind of undifferentiated energy. This energy gradually assumes a recognizable form, carved or shaped by the preconceived notions of those sensitive enough to detect its presence; they pay attention to it, interact with it, worship it, and invoke it ritualistically.  

When established, the egregore receives power and sustenance from “energies” derived from rituals, beliefs, worship and sacrifices offered by the faithful community.  This entity can appear over time to develop an active, influential and independent existence—as long as its followers remain devoted to it.  

Originally associated with conceptions of guardian angels or fallen angels, (the record is unclear), the egregore has now morphed into a notion comparable to socially mediated phenomena like memes, hiveminds and “groupthink.” Though in the same general category of social experience, an egregore is not the same thing as these items.   

The differentiating factor may be agency and independence. That is, an egregore has a capacity to affect thought and behavior at considerable social distance from the group that has conjured it. An egregore also has potentially greater longevity, depending on the “faithfulness” of its adherents. Though more research is needed,  I suspect that memes, hiveminds and group think are of relatively shorter duration, and more tied to specific events, timeframes and locations.  

An understanding of egregores can be applied more generally, as a kind of base material and process for the creation of gods, ghosts, demons and other supernatural beings. But the term can also be applied to types of literature, political and social movements, even economic systems. Is the egregore a kind of screen for the projection of human fears and desires, a place where these can take shape?    

The next post will attempt to describe the natural history of egregores, their life cycle, and the degree to which they can be considered alive.       

Egregores Part One–Approaches

Before going further, it will be helpful—at least to me—to consolidate some ideas and information about egregores that I presented in earlier posts. The subject of egregores is vast and subtle, and many perspectives have been offered over the years. I have yet to do a thorough review of all the principal contributors to egregoric lore, though I have perused some interesting books and websites in the interim. A systematic study of egregoric phenomena would naturally start with this first step. (Readers are welcome to suggest materials or resources.)  

What I have looked at so far suggests that “egregorology” is divisible into at least four broad areas of interest. Certainly there is the applied aspect, in which occult practitioners attempt—through various procedures—to conjure egregores for different purposes or dismiss them when they become troublesome. Why do people engage in these obscure and esoteric rituals?  

The easy answer is that people from time to time seek an avenue to greater power and control over others or over events. But I suspect the motivation may be deeper. People may be seeking a more direct experience of the supernatural and of the sacred, something almost completely absent from many conventional religious institutions.  

My own tepid Presbyterian faith, enlivened with an occasional dose of neo-Calvinism, has an admirable social service and social justice vibe, but is devoid of zeal and awe and mystery. I check periodically to see if my mainstream Protestant faith still has a pulse—or if my fellow congregation members do! The people who call up egregores want to see some spiritual action, want a more dramatic and personal experience of the divine, of supernatural intervention. Perhaps there are people who have always sought these experiences, or had these experiences thrust upon them: mystics, prophets, ascetics.     

There is also a psychotherapeutic aspect to managing egregoric influences, for these can be harmful and inhibitory to an individual’s spiritual and emotional health. They can also negatively impact society.  On an individual level this approach takes the form of counseling, education and what may resemble a kind of exorcism. On a societal level this may be expressed in our periodic susceptibility to iconoclasm, when the idols we energize with our worshipful attention must be ferreted out and broken—to make room for new ones. 

Though it may annoy those who take egregoric phenomena seriously, there is a satiric angle that some take to the subject of egregores. Seriousness about any subject can always be lampooned. The earnest adherents of any given belief system can be mocked and their rituals disrespected, especially by those who fervently trust in science and reason to explain everything.   

Finally, there is the possibility of a sociological approach, which if I may glorify it as such, is the one used here. Our capacity to create and sustain egregores—to become idolators, to use an older term—has significant implications for society. The process that generates this entity is always a social and collective one. The influence of a given egregore can be pervasive, appearing wherever humans organize for some larger purpose: institutions, cultural products, communication media, politics, economics.   

I have in mind to write a series of posts over the next couple of weeks, which for now I’ll call “Egregorology”. These will gather some preliminary thoughts toward a systematic study of egregores in society, and hopefully serve as a springboard for more in depth investigation. If there is sufficient material and interest, I may consider putting this together as a book—we’ll see. I welcome your suggestions. 

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“By the damned, I mean the excluded…We shall have a procession of data that Science has excluded.” 

—Charles Fort (1919) 

The Return of Little (and Big) Green Men

Maybe you heard recently of an interesting discovery off the coast of Papua New Guinea.¹ Back in 2014, a “runaway fireball” exploded in the lower atmosphere over this region of the Pacific, with bits of what was later named IM1—“interstellar meteor one”—falling into the ocean.  The speed and trajectory of the fireball indicated an interstellar origin, that is, it came from outside our solar system.   

This year, a Harvard professor and his crew of scientists dragged what was basically an enormous underwater magnet along the original path of the fireball, gathering about 35 milligrams of an unusual material².  Ironically, the stuff from outer space had to be examined with a microscope instead of a telescope.  Scientists discovered very tiny, dust-like spherules, 50 in all, that resembled tiny drops of blood.   

The spherules possessed unusual solidity and strength, unlike space rocks examined previously by NASA, and different from anything likely to be found on Earth or nearby planets.  This is probably because They Came From Beyond Space³.  The leader of the research project believes that the material either came from “…a natural environment different from the solar system, or an extraterrestrial technological civilization.” 

In a follow-up to an earlier report⁴, Fox News carried a story a couple weeks ago about a family in Las Vegas that was visited by ten-foot-tall skinny green aliens that were clearly Not of this Earth⁵.  Police bodycam footage of a strange green light streaking across the sky, and a YouTube video of the 911 call were soon circulating on the internet.  The story went viral—one could say It Conquered the World⁶.   

What precipitated the Arrival⁷ of these strange beings?  What did they want from Earth?  It has long been assumed that Mars Needs Women⁸, but it isn’t clear that the extraterrestrials came from Mars, (they were too big), and none of the family members, though terrified, were kidnapped or harmed in any way.  Will they be visited by Men in Black⁹ as part of a subsequent investigation?  Hopefully, “what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas”. 

One could accuse Fox of having a slow news day.  (At least one person has.)  Yet the fascination with UFOs, what NASA now calls UAPs, has certainly returned.   This new acronym, variously translated as “unexplained aerial phenomena” or “unidentified anomalous phenomena”, is a euphemism intended to destigmatize scientific study of these mysterious sightings.  What does this linguistic shift indicate about our perceptions of the reality of UAP events?    

The most intriguing story right now, carried in various news media, is of whistleblower David Grusch’s allegation that the government is hiding wreckage of an alien spacecraft, and operating a clandestine UFO crash recovery program.  The Pentagon has denied this, and why wouldn’t they?  However, Grusch, a former intelligence official, has credibility according to some reports, and the House Oversight Committee is in the process of setting up a hearing to investigate the claims. 

As someone with an enquiring mind—and ‘enquiring minds want to know’—I wonder if someone should compare the alien spacecraft wreckage hidden in secret government storage facilities with the mysterious interstellar spherules found off the coast of Papua New Guinea.  Are they composed of the same material?  Maybe they have already done this!  It seems like something Cigarette Smoking Man would know about. 

Where has he been lately? 

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^1“Strange Objects on Ocean Floor May Be UFO Crash Debris: Harvard Professor”, by Chris Eberhart, FoxNews.Com, 6/28/23. 

²This is a very small amount of material.  For comparison, the following items weigh just one milligram: a small snowflake, half a mosquito, and a dose of LSD (without the paper).  So, the researchers gathered about 17 and ½ mosquitos worth of interstellar debris off the ocean floor, about the weight of a single grain of rice. 

³ 1967 film in which meteors crash into a field in England.  The minds of local scientists and citizenry are subsequently taken over by extraterrestrials, who seek to manipulate them for their own mysterious purposes. 

^4“Las Vegas police install cameras on home that reported ‘aliens’: Family ‘afraid for their safety’”, by Chris Eberhart, FoxNews.com, 6/17/23. 

⁵Classic 1957 film by Roger Corman.  An extraterrestrial agent from planet Davanna comes to Earth to get human blood for the inhabitants of his planet, who are dying of a blood disorder following nuclear war. 

⁶Another classic Roger Corman movie from 1956, in which a naïve scientist collaborates with an evil Venusian, who wants to enslave humanity using batlike creatures that install mind control devices at the back of the neck. 

⁷Innovative 2016 film in which a talented linguist must rush to decipher an extraterrestrial language before terrified nations attack the visitors.  

⁸Cheesy 1968 made-for-TV movie. Tommy Kirk leads a crew of Martian men to Earth to obtain a supply of earth women.  Due to a genetic problem, Martian women can only produce male children, and their race is dying out. 

⁹Horror/Sci-Fi comedy from 1997, in which Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones play investigators uncovering interstellar treachery and intrigue among refugee space aliens on Earth.