Egregore is a concept that was already mentioned while discussing the Western influence on Touhou's worldbuilding, but it's time to dig in deeper. There are two ways to define the term ”egregore”. First is of a more psycho-social nature and goes as follows: ”autonomous psychic entity composed of and influencing the thoughts of a group of people”. If we were to replace the word with ”psychic” with something like ”cultural” we would essentially land at a borderline mainstream social science construct. While the most pathological individualist humans of course deny any outside influence in their lives, I think we can agree that we are part of various cultural groups that influence us to varying degrees and that these cultural groups seem to have a ”life” of their own. We tend to call such things ”memetics” these days.
Things like nations, religions, schools of philosophy and in modern days various fandoms seem to be born, live and sometimes they die. Sometimes they mutate into something unrecognizable. For example, ”Christianity” is alive and well, but has next to nothing to do with the Christianity that existed in the immediate vicinity of its prophet's life. Egregores change over time because not only do they affect humans, humans affect them too in a two-way exchange. Many say that these type of egregore are in fact entirely conjured forth by human belief and interest.
By this flat definition Touhou is, no doubt about it, an egregore. ZUN's fantasies were always meant to be enjoyed in the context of doujin culture which has been a very fertile breeding ground for various kinds of fandoms. They have however since escaped the confines of Japan and become an international cultural force. As niche as it may be, Touhou has an enormously committed and adoring fanbase. The single minded devotion that some show to the franchise or even just a single character is exceptionally fervent.
Each generation of fans also brings its own interpretations, rejuvenating the egregore and allowing it to sustain itself. In turn, the egregore of Touhou has had a very real impact on its fans. It has inspired countless creative works of basically every genre possible. People have found excitement, enchantment, escapism and eros within its world. Some have even found things exceeding these.
Numerous people of every gender have cosplayed as the characters, bringing them in a way to life. Touhou has offered community to many. I'm sure there have been some romances, maybe even families born out of the community, as much as the Western otaku like to think themselves of loveless and romantically hopeless. Some have even been inspired into superhuman feats of human-machine co-ordination known as ”Lunatic 1CC run”. I genuinely believe that the highest tiers of Touhou gameplay are so out of norm for human capabilities that they constitute nothing less miraculous than the ability of Tibetan monks to self-regulate their body temperature.
There is however a second definition that many of you will find more difficult to accept and likely also much more troubling. A more esoteric definition of egregore goes as follows: ”autonomous psychic entity composed of and influencing the thoughts of a group of people and the home or conduit for a specific psychic intelligence of nonhuman nature connecting the invisible dimensions with the material world in which we live”.
The crux of this segment is to offer some proof that perhaps there indeed is a ”specific intelligence of nonhuman origin” (or perhaps rather, intelligences) at the heart of Touhou. Before we delve into that, we however need to understand a bit of the history behind the occult idea of egregores, some related and similar ideas and also explore the concept of archetypes as a way that egregores engage with humanity.
It all comes back to Sariel (and some later developments)
The term ”egregore” is from Ancient Greek and means something like ”watcher” or ”wakeful”. This term found its way into the occult sphere via nothing less than the Biblical tradition. In the Book of Enoch, they are used to refer to a group of fallen angels who were put to watch over humanity. They however became corrupt, engaged in sex with human women and spawned a species of giants known as the nephilim.
It's of quite some interest that Sariel, a name those interested in PC-98 Touhou lore will recognize, is one of the Watchers. In the Bible, he gave humanity the understanding of the ”cycles of the Moon” (linking it to ZUN's later fascination with our celestial companion), which has been usually interpreted as the lunar calendar.
Highly Responsive to Invocations?
The more magician-brained among us would perhaps think that maybe invoking the name of a Watcher will grant the target of the invocation a fragment of its power, but it's maybe a bit too early for such conclusions. It should be noted that ZUN took the character almost whole cloth from Shin Megami Tensei. This does not really diminish its power though, as SMT and in particular it's Persona spin-offs have also gone off to enjoy a long life full of devotees. It's also quite fascinating that one very prominent, very powerful youkai who controls boundaries is also associated with eyes, being a kind of a ”watcher” herself. Pure coincidence, or...?
After being first put into scripture, this concept sits mostly idle waiting for some 1600 years. In the late 1800s, Eliphas Levi, a noted French occultist, conjured the name once more. He is the first to use the term egregore to describe collective entities. He also sets the tradition of depicting them in a negative light, calling them ”terrible beings” who crush us because they are ”unaware of our existence”. Certainly many a egregore present in Levi's time were such things.
A later early figure is Rene Guenon, who apparently never actually used the term ”egregore”. Nevertheless, he is an important figure in the development of the idea of collective entities. In his views, (spiritual) collectives possess a subtle force that consists of the efforts of present and past members. He also had the quite interesting idea that prayers are not directly received by spirits or deities, but the ”collective entity” of a group that then acts as an intermediary! Thus the prayers from those who are not members of a particular group would be ineffective.
A prominent organization which put the idea of egregores or collective entities into practical use was the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. It pioneered the occult revival at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries and inspired much of later Western magical traditions, including Thelema and Wicca. In certain documents given to higher ranking members which have now become known thanks to the order being defunct for a well over hundred years, the entire point of the Order's magical practice was to establish a kind of ”etheric link” to a group of ”astral entities” who could empower humans with magical energies, but in turn needed ”devotion” to sustain themselves.
While there is nothing particularly alarming about the Order's philosophy and operations, I find this slightly unnerving. Not really in itself, but mostly because the Golden Dawn's rituals are well-spread in the modern world, sometimes presented in a borderline trivial way, as if they were some kind of Fun Excercises! Rarely if ever you see this context added, and even back in the day this would have been hidden from lower ranking members of the order. One has to wonder how many have unknowingly established a link to some Hermetic egregore because they did a Fun Excercise! of visualizing multicolored orbs of light in their body long enough...
A lot of things happen after Golden Dawn becomes defunct. Wicca becomes a thing and over time becomes an immensely influential thing. Thelema becomes a thing. Aleister Crowley fucks up a big ritual and possibly summons the Loch Ness monster, feeds blissfully unaware dinner guests peyote, becomes a heroin addict, does a number of other things and establishes quite the legacy. Jack Parsons possibly summons the ufonauts. Both atheistic and theistic Satanism become a thing and in time they become extremely popular things. Julius Evola and his friends allegedly revive the egregore of the Roman Empire. Evola ”ponders fate” on a walk and gets paralyzed from bomb shrapnel during WWII. His legacy too outlives him.
The secular art of collective entities evolves too. The concepts and arts of advertising, propaganda and psychological warfare are born. These two realms interact in uneasy ways, a rabbithole reserved for those with a fortitude of heart and mind. The battle of ideologies rages in the post-World War Two world, and some people develop an inkling that perhaps this battle of ideologies might not be so metaphorical. All the while the ideas of collective entities lurk mostly in the background, reserved for the highest ranks of esoteric orders, governments and corporations.
It takes until the 1980s for the concept of egregore to resurface again. An unusual work of Roman Catholic Hermetic occultism known as Meditations on the Tarot surfaced, produced by an anonymous author. In it, egregores are described in rather negative light. The Antichrist is seen as an egregore, ”an artificial being that owes his existence to collective generation from below”. Egregores are also described as ”demons engendered by the collective will and imagination of nations”. Of course the author of that book does not see Catholicism as an egregore and is generous enough to extend that view to other branches of Christianity and even Freemasonry.
The author of this text invites the reader to ponder on Luke 6:41 and the colorful history of the Catholic church. The more scholarly types will also derive much illumination from reading about the history of Yahweh, who somehow got promoted into capital-G god over time.
From Watchers to Spirit Ecologies
In 1987, the idea of egregore for the first time truly sheds its Biblical weight and spreads its wings when Peter J. Carroll published the earth-shattering, paradigm shifting Liber Null & Psychonaut. Carroll takes a much more neutral view of egregores. He writes that science sees matter as the base of existence and spiritualism sees the spirit as the base of existence, but that magic holds a kind of hybrid worldview as it pays more attention to the quality of consciousness itself. In such a view, organic and psychic forms evolve together. Organic development generates psychic fields which then feed back into the organic form. Each species of living beings has its own psychic form or magical essence.
Sometimes these egregores may be felt as a presence or even be seen. Those who perceive the egregore of humanity frequently describe it as a god. Carroll also sees that all life on Earth contributes and depends on a vast composite egregore which has been historically known with a great variety of names. While I personally consider Carroll's picture incomplete, I think he takes a very right step towards a kind of idea of spirit ecology.
Since the 1980s, egregores have become increasingly popularized as a concept. It's even started to slither out of the esoteric realms, as the emergence, rise and dominance of the internet has illuminated our social networks in a way that would have been incomprehensible in the past. This illumination has come in forms of both secular network theory being born, popularized and becoming banal and more esoteric interpretations finding ground. Carroll's interpretation has been supplemented with later, more neutral analyzes of various organizations and even fandoms as egregores.
Our age of hyperconnection has also made things that were once hidden visibles. One is only a YouTube rabbithole away from types of knowledge that would have had people killed in the 1970s. But things are becoming more visible in another way too. Many are starting to feel an intuition that the internet is ”haunted” or ”filled with demons”, an intuition that might be more right than they would like to think. This (unfortunately accurate) perception of invisible anti-human agents lurking in the hidden corners of the world has sustained the genre of occult literature where egregores are presented as agents of evil persists. Gary Lachman's Dark Star Rising, which explores Donald Trump's presidential campaign and its connection to ”meme magic” performed by denizes of 4chan is a good example of this.
A somewhat more balanced view is presented in Egregores by Mark Stavish. Stavish wishes to illuminate the concept in both its more secular and esoteric manifestations. His concern and hope is that people could unshackle themselves from harmful egregores, ultimately implied to be all egregores. Yet as with much discussion around egregores initiated by Americans, there seems to be some kind of fantasy of scrubbing yourself clean of any trace of outside influences. I believe this is very much impossible and will only lead you to some very dangerous egregores thriving on the illusion of extreme individualism.
In my view, it's equally as impossible to separate ourselves from all egregores as it is to separate ourselves from all other organisms. We are ultimately inseparately part of a much greater ecosystems, be they biological, social or spiritual. This idea of spiritual ecology I think is also helpful for necessarily decentering humanity a bit. We have to understand that even in the most biological sense we are no the only form of intelligence on this planet. I would say that all life demonstrates some form of intelligence. I think there are especially certain hybrid systems which are far more intelligent than we give them credit for. It has been discovered that plants communicate using the mycelial networks of mushrooms. These networks potentially even have biological capacity for memory. What would the intelligence of a forest look like? What would the total spiritual mass, the egregore, the kami of a forest look like? What would the intelligence of all forests look like? The intelligence of a whole planet..?
Even if we leave such grand questions and speculations aside, we have to understand how co-dependent we are on our environment, all our environments on every level. For example, only in very recent years have we come to truly understand how much human health depends on both external and internal (macro- & microcosmic) environments. In particular the role of probiotic gut bacteria in maintaining overall human health is a rather new discovery. But on the other hand, there are also microbes out there that can thrive in the human gut that will cause disease, even death.
By extrapolation, there are also social and spiritual ecosystems and agents within them that can support a healthy, good, fulfilling human life, just as there are ones which will harm, kill or turn you into something unrecognizable. Just because the world seems to be full of darkness does not mean there is no light, just because there are so many wicked egregores that wish to enslave us to a horrible future does not mean all do.
So which one of these is Touhou?
To me, Touhou is like a forest.
A forest is a single thing in the way we perceive it, but it is also made up of many things. You can find trees, plants, mushrooms and various kinds of animals there. There have been many studies pointing out the health benefits of spending time in forests. Phytochemicals and certain micro-organisms seem to have positive health effects, not to mention the benefits of exercise. I would argue there are also positive spiritual aspects, but you might think that's woo, so that's beside the point for now. Forests can of course also provide very concrete resources, such as food or timber.
But forests can also be places where there are poisonous plants and mushrooms, biting insects, venomous snakes and dangerous predators. Drinking unfiltered pond water will probably make you very sick. You can get lost in a forest. You can get yourself killed. And if you are willing to believe in the woo, there might be even a darker spiritual side to certain forests. The European faerie lore is full of mischievous beings dwelling in forests which would sometimes abduct, even kill people. The United States' forests are haunted by Sasquatches, Jersey Devils and Skinwalkers. Every country has such tales, tales of getting spirited away. In Japan, well, they had youkai...
It really is ultimately up to you how you want to engage with this forest. Do you simply want to admire it? Do you want to trek in it? Do you want to harness it? Do you want to pay respect to the spirits of the land? Do you want to become a hermit and just move in there? Do you want to eat random mushrooms and chase after the faerie lights? Do you want to get eaten by youkai?
I don't want to tell you how you should feel about Touhou or any other egregore that you are engaged with. I want to give you tools to expand your understanding and to help you make more informed choices.
And to better understand egregores, their power and how we can engage with them in different ways, we will have to look at some related ideas and how egregores have historically played with popular culture.
Thought-forms, tulpas and creatures of spirit fire
The idea of egregore bears similarities to some other concepts. One of these is the idea of thought-forms, which originated from Theosophy. Theosophy in general is a rather mixed bag when it comes to both its credibility and the usefulness of its ideas. It was an early 20th century attempt at finding the prisca theologica, the unifying root theology of all religions. This quest took some rather bizarre and troubling turns, including outright fabrications, but perhaps the spirit of the search was more appreciable than its results. Of note was also their attempt at integrating the nascent field of paranormal research into their worldview.
Thought-forms are supposedly a stock selection of kind of ”etheric forms” that people cast off when they think certain types of thoughts. These were uncovered by two ”clairvoyant Theosophists” and were compiled into a book bearing the name Thought-Forms. Instead of being something imagined, they were presented as something the clairvoyants consistently saw people projecting out. Whatever the reality of such thought-forms is (I personally think there is always an element of projection in perception, particularly in matters of the spirit realm), the book had a big influence on the arts and how for example colors are seen within esoteric circles.
This idea of thought-forms was most likely influenced both the idea of egregores as well the Tibetan Buddhist idea of tulpas, and possibly certain Taoist ideas. Tulpas are of course a rather notorious idea by now. Less known are their sister concept, the tulkus. Both are essentially magic formations manifested from magic or psychic powers. Tulpas are more or less ephemeral, while tulkus are lasting and created to carry out the will of their creator after their death.
What has popularized the concept of tulpa is that even traditionally it was thought that all humans are capable of creating such things. The difference between adepts and those merely dabbling was just a matter of power – and control. Indeed, traditional Tibetan lore has many stories of tulpas breaking out of the control of their creator. One can also find many modern tulpa horror stories. Real or fictional, they are a stark reminder of how things can go very bad when the ill-prepared dabble with the paranormal for poorly thought out motives. It should also be noted that the idea of tulpas has been integrated into the Western magical canon via the ideas of servitors and synthetic spirits.
Tibetan Buddhism also regards various deities and demons as something that humans sustain. These ideas come very close to certain modern interpretations of the idea of egregore. It's thought that such entities might have been entirely legendary at first, but over time the countless thoughts directed at them have given them a kind of real existence. I find this idea a bit too human-centric for my taste and would like to ask where exactly did these myths first originate. Nevertheless, this idea of making something real - or perhaps more concrete, more defined, more powerful - via sustained thoughts, efforts and beliefs is extremely relevant for the topic at hand.
Certain strands of Taoist thought also point at something related to the idea of egregores and spirits that humans can conjure. The Secret of the Golden Flower is a book on Taoist inner alchemy that presents a technique for attaining immortality of the spirit. Towards the very end of the process it's noted that ”creatures of spirit fire” will emerge, and that the practitioner should treat them as illusions. While the Western, psychological interpretation that comes with the translation presents them as essentially nonexistent hallucinations, one has to wonder if they might be something more akin to tulpas. In the paranormal community it's thought that people undergoing profound spiritual experiences can accidentaly manifest all kinds of unwanted phenomena, even entities. Regarding the spirits you just invited or manifested as illusions is probably a good way to get rid of them...
Overall, there is a rather wide variety of beliefs regarding the human ability to sustain and conjure various types of spirits or even deities. While I hold an essentially animistic view, I also believe that humans can conjure all kinds of phenomena, perhaps even create spirits of their own. After all, we also are spirits too, and our influence might extend far wider and in far weirder ways than we tend to think.
Next we shall inspect a certain mechanism that empowers egregores and explore the impact that popular culture has had on egregores – and vice versa.
