Archons and egregores

[ShenGoku]

Anyone know where i can find authentic information on the archons that control the Matrix and how they operate? Also i remember a cultivator called sonofthegods mentioning that the chakra system in new age thats taught is a false system. Anyone know about that? Thanks

[stirling]

What is it that an Archon sees or knows that someone trapped in the Matrix does not?

 

IMHO all chakra systems are Relative teachings. They are ways of visualizing "blockages" and other phenomena that are ultimately illusory.

 

https://www.lionsroar.com/what-are-the-two-truths/

[Zhongyongdaoist]

On 3/24/2021 at 6:53 PM, ShenGoku said:

Anyone know where i can find authentic information on the archons that control the Matrix and how they operate? Also i remember a cultivator called sonofthegods mentioning that the chakra system in new age thats taught is a false system. Anyone know about that? Thanks

 

Your questions are interesting, but the answers are complex.

 

First of all there are two attitudes toward Archons, the one which the movie The Matrix populized and is characteristic of Gnosticism and Bhuddism, in which Archons or beings who serve the same purpose as Archons, but under a different name, are agents of "evil", who keep human beings imprisoned in a world of sense which is deceptive and detrimental, and the other which is characteristic of Platonism and Daoism in which the world, however much it may be a place of trouble and sorrow, is also a necessary part of a longer journey which leads people out of this world and into a better one.  As such, Archons are at worst a necessary evil which leads to an ultimate good,  and could actually be viewed as good spirits, because necessary for the creation and maintenance of the earthly part of the journey.  Archons in the second sense are much less well known in modern times because of the historical development of the last few hundred years, though they played important parts in the Cosmology and spiritual practice of such late Platonists (usually called Neoplatonists) as Iamblichus and Proclus.

 

All of this is very complex and I could write about it in considerable detail, but I don't see much point in writing more unless there is some active interest in this thread.  Egregores are a complex matter also, and the same goes for them in terms of me writing more about them.  I am also very busy which is why I did not see this thread until the other day, and this could limit my ability to do much more here.

 

ZYD

 

 

[silent thunder]

Synchronous, happening upon this topic this morning.  Egregores and Tulpas were a rare show as a topic of conversation at work yesterday, due to a co-worker's inquiries into fellow workmate's beliefs, or non-belief in angels/demons and other similar beings.  He was mostly interested in stirring up debate about beliefs, but when he got to me, my response surprised him as it was neither 'yes' or 'no', it was both and conditional and he was intrigued by the concepts having never heard of them before and it primed me for some more exploration myself.

 

I've almost no study on Archons, but Tulpas and Egregore are a fascinating realm of inquiry to me. 

 

Glad you found it too and had a bit of time to respond @Zhongyongdaoist, i always appreciate your contributions here, moreso due to understanding how challenging it is to approach such topics when busy... you've always done admirably in my opinion, engaging with depth and insight even when being brief. 

 

Any recommendations for authors in this realm would be welcome (lately, acquiring engaging reading material has been like gathering mist with a net).

[Zhongyongdaoist]

2 hours ago, silent thunder said:

Any recommendations for authors in this realm would be welcome (lately, acquiring engaging reading material has been like gathering mist with a net).

 

Thank you for your kind words above, I do the best I can with a lifetime of research, study and practice, and to know that it is appreciated is a comfort in my old age.

 

Just to add a bit on egregores, the Wikipedia article is, as it often is, a good place to start, among other things it brings out the two primary meanings of egregore, the more historical one as "watcher" and the contemporary occultist meaning as a "group mind", quite nicely.

 

I suspect that the OP in pairing Archon and Egregore within the context of the Matrix intends the more historical meaning of a watcher and not the occultist meaning of a "group mind".  As I am not much interesting in spiritual Peeping Toms, I cannot provide much insight into that.  On the other hand I have studied the use of egregores in magic since my late teens, and could say quite a bit.  I will start by saying, to quote the Wikipedia article, as "a kind of group mind that is created when people consciously come together for a common purpose" is kind of a laughable oversimplification and misleading in its fundamental presuppositions.  I learned very early that even a single magician practicing a simple ritual could create an egregore, and what was necessary to do it as I mention here:

 

On 4/3/2014 at 7:13 PM, Zhongyongdaoist said:

As for egregore's the textbook on them is:

 

Mouni Sadhu, The Tarot

 

And for me the summer 1968 was the summer of Mouni Sadhu's Tarot. I took money I got from my high school graduation and plucked down $12.50, plus tax, allowing for inflation $90.00 or more dollars of today's money. I read it three times cover to cover and many sections over and over again. Sadhu was to knock Crowley from the top of the heap, where he had been for some years, but was already teetering. The book tells you everything that you need to know about egregores. Unfortunately it is not an easy book to read or understand.

 

Son of the Gods, who was mentioned in the OP, has an only slightly better understanding than that expressed in the Wikipedia article.

 

As for a little serious reading on Archons, here is a good academic paper, which I will link under the humorous name that I stored it on my own computer:

 

How 'bout them Archons

 

I hope that this is useful, more later as time allows.

 

ZYD

[Jaba]

16 hours ago, Zhongyongdaoist said:

I learned very early that even a single magician practicing a simple ritual could create an egregore

egregore is essentially an evolved "psi ball" isn't ? Just make an energy ball, give it a lot more power. Put some intention into moulding it to be permanent, take another shape, etc. Give it more prana, its intelligent enough to be a minion ("servitor") and eventually a full fledged "egregore" (meaning it can pass the Turing Test :D) Chi is normally seen as a kinetic or life-vitality field. But it can also be viewed as a psychological field, especially within the context of internal alchemy and refining shen.

[Zhongyongdaoist]

4 hours ago, Jaba said:

20 hours ago, Zhongyongdaoist said:

I learned very early that even a single magician practicing a simple ritual could create an egregore

egregore is essentially an evolved "psi ball" isn't ? Just make an energy ball, give it a lot more power. Put some intention into moulding it to be permanent, take another shape, etc. Give it more prana, its intelligent enough to be a minion ("servitor") and eventually a full fledged "egregore" (meaning it can pass the Turing Test :D) Chi is normally seen as a kinetic or life-vitality field. But it can also be viewed as a psychological field, especially within the context of internal alchemy and refining shen.

 

You're confusing an egregore with a simple thought form.  An egregore does require more than one entity and is more like a system of linked beings, some egregores emerge and evolve spontaneously, but magicians can learn to create and control them.  This is where the characterization of it as a "group mind" comes in, but it is not just a "group mind" of people, but can include other classes of beings, such as spirits of various ranks,  That is why a single magician performing a ritual can "create" an egregore, assuming at least that the spirits who are supposed to show up, do in point of fact show up.  I don't have time to say more now.

 

ZYD

[Jaba]

4 hours ago, Zhongyongdaoist said:

 

You're confusing an egregore with a simple thought form.  An egregore does require more than one entity and is more like a system of linked beings, some egregores emerge and evolve spontaneously, but magicians can learn to create and control them.  This is where the characterization of it as a "group mind" comes in, but it is not just a "group mind" of people, but can include other classes of beings, such as spirits of various ranks,  That is why a single magician performing a ritual can "create" an egregore, assuming at least that the spirits who are supposed to show up, do in point of fact show up.  I don't have time to say more now.

 

ZYD

Sorry I don't understand the difference. If a thought form which is just an accumulation of chi and shen, is given life vitality it can develop intelligence like an egregore, no? You mention the necessity of a collective but a well trained magus can do what many occultists of weaker discipline attempt to do.

[Zhongyongdaoist]

2 minutes ago, Jaba said:

4 hours ago, Zhongyongdaoist said:

 

You're confusing an egregore with a simple thought form.  An egregore does require more than one entity and is more like a system of linked beings, some egregores emerge and evolve spontaneously, but magicians can learn to create and control them.  This is where the characterization of it as a "group mind" comes in, but it is not just a "group mind" of people, but can include other classes of beings, such as spirits of various ranks,  That is why a single magician performing a ritual can "create" an egregore, assuming at least that the spirits who are supposed to show up, do in point of fact show up.  I don't have time to say more now.

 

ZYD

Sorry I don't understand the difference. If a thought form which is just an accumulation of chi and shen, is given life vitality it can develop intelligence like an egregore, no? You mention the necessity of a collective but a well trained magus can do what many occultists of weaker discipline attempt to do.

 

I'm sorry, I made the mistake of thinking that you came up with the ideas on thought form and egregores on your own, when in point of fact you are only repeating Chaos Magic dogmas.  I should have followed up the reference to servitor in your original post, which I recognized as a specifically Chaos Magic technical term, before posting my own.  In Chaos Magic thought forms and egregores are linked in this way:

 

Quote

Servitors form part of a thoughtform continuum: from sigils, to servitors, to egregores, to godforms. [2][3] At the start of the continuum are "dumb, unintelligent sigils", which represent a particular desire or intention.[3] When a complex of thoughts, desires and intentions gains such a level of sophistication that it appears to operate autonomously from the magician's consciousness, as if it were an independent being, then such a complex is referred to as a servitor.[3][1] When such a being becomes large enough that it exists independently of any one individual, as a form of "group mind", then it is referred to as an egregore.[4]   (Wikipedia Article, Servitors)

 

However, you did not mention the complete sequence, only the idea that a thought form might spontaneously "evolve" into something "intelligent" enough to pass the Turing test.  A notion which, as far as I can tell, is introduced by Madame Alexandra David-Neel in one of her books in an anecdote about a Tulpa that took on a life of its own and went seriously amuk.  I read Madame David Neel's Magic and Mystery in Tibet when I was thirteen or so, but I can't remember whether I read the anecdote in it, though I do recall later references to the story, but I cannot place them exactly now.  The idea is followed up by Franz Bardon in his Initiation into Hermetics, a book which I read and studied with considerable attention in the late Sixties, reading it cover to cover three times.  I started practice Bardon's system while working intently with practices derived from the Golden Dawn.  To make a long story short the Golden Dawn method's proved more effective, and I stopped Bardon's training.

 

I will grant your point that the Chaos Magical view that a thought form that influenced a number of people would meet the minimum definition of an egregore even in the sense in which I use it, but as far as I am concerned suffers from the same conceptual limitations as all Chaos Magic does due to its underlying ontological commitments.

 

Beyond that I don't consider this thread to be a place to enter into further discussion about egregores, especially since this only comes to the fore in a discussion of one of the possible meanings of egregore, and we are not even sure if that is what the OP means by the term, so without some feedback from the OP about what sense of egregore is at issue, I don't see much point in posting more on the matter at this time.

 

ZYD