Mark Stavish | Egregores, Magic Thoughts, & Living Ideas

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00:51 Which means you'll unfortunately never hear my voice again. In the 1930s, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt addressed the nation through a series of radio broadcast known as the Fireside Chats His aim was to reassure the common man that our society would recover from its troubled times From 1930 and I deal with a different kind of fire For a new era of worldly frustration we offer a- I'm Greg Carlwood These are the higher side chats. How's it going people from sunny San Diego? I'm Greg Carlwood and we've been around the block long enough to know that our world is much weirder than they'd have us believe within our modern mainstream reality tunnel, and we're rarely presented with the worldviews that dominate indigenous cultures secret societies and the esoteric texts that prominent people have valued throughout history and continue to seek out today

01:52 And it's this greater understanding of our natural systems and the power of consciousness that unlocks the esoteric toolbox individuals can use to enrich their own lives and pursue their own true will. A threat to any tyrannical system of oppression, if there has ever been one! So despite the corporate sorcerers of Hollywood and Silicon Valley working hard to make sure we continue to worship at the altars of superheroes and smartphones, all while ignoring the greater significance of this power. I suggest an alternative in the work of today's guest Mark Stavish We've heard the more magically inclined preach the power of thoughts and ideas And their ability to grow and even come alive in the world beyond our eyes

02:33 Often telling us that the more attention they can absorb, the more real a collective thought form can become. But the books breaking down exactly how to wrap your head around this... ...how they affect us and what we can do about it are few and far between! But lucky for us Mark has recently written a new book doing exactly that called Egregores The Occult Entities That Watch Over Human Destiny And he's just the guy to do it to, because Mark has a lifetime worth of study and experience in magic, spirituality, comparative religion, philosophy and mysticism with an emphasis on traditional Western esotericism. He is also the founder & director of The Institute of Hermetic Studies and The Louis-Claude de Saint Martin Fund, and author of 26 books and counting

03:20 So let's just get into it. Bend the knee, people! For the alchemical author and esoteric egregore educator extraordinaire, the seer of unseen influence Mark Stavish welcome to THC Thank you very much, and I love that introduction. I've got to get that put on a calling card! That's great. I appreciate that and it is a serious pleasure to have you here You've done a lot of really interesting work that I hope we can touch on but your latest book Egregores crossed my path right at time when i'm Really thinking a lot about the power of thought forms And just how important it is to develop a strong and fortified mind

03:58 And it's very fortuitous that we can talk about exactly that. Of course, you refer to egregores in the simplest terms as an autonomous psychic entity created by a collective group mind I've also heard you say they function as social control mechanisms But let's elaborate on that for the uninitiated What more can you say to flesh out what is and isn't an egregore? Well, there's two aspects of it and one of them is the traditional view. And this is where in fact I got into email this morning regarding it from I think it was Anthony Peake, regarding some research he's doing or one of his friends is doing. And that was about the term egregores and how it appears in the book of Enoch, the Ethiopian book of Enoch So you have this traditional view in which the egregore is an actual spiritual entity or being

04:53 and has a psychic conduit or umbilical cord if you will, which is really good way of thinking about it. Both the wormhole and umbilical cord I just thought that up right now we can mark the date in time on it That's the way we want to think of it because it both involves movement back-and-forth energy which would be the umbilical cord aspect but also information consciousness which would kind of be the wormhole aspect So you want to really wrap your mind around that. So what's on one end is humanity down here in terra firma with its cults and worship and deities, and on the other end it some spiritual force or intelligence which is a recipient of that devotion and those energies which in turn then provides whatever the contractual agreement is in return This is the way traditional religions work this is the way a lot of magic works

05:44 Hence the old notion of signing a contract with whatever, whether it's the devil or some entity or some other such thing. So you have this notion of exchange Now within that you also have the other notion of well, the collective energies of the people because anything that's being fed usually wants to grow and wants more. Notice that with everything! That's a great power of Jupiter in both its blessing and its curse. Mo mo mo! You know whatever you feed you get more up okay? So we have to be careful about that where our energy is going Now, on the more non-traditional and modern sense of the word we still have that collective notion but we don't have a metaphysical view. That is, we don't have the notion that there's something or some intelligence – you want to call it extraterrestrial for a nice confusing term? You want to call it metaphysical or angelic whatever you wanna call it? It's not there instead what we have is more of a Jungian collective consciousness or collective awareness

06:48 which is kind of abstract, we don't really know what it is. It's like the old definition of pornography with the Supreme Court Justice say, It's the same thing with the collective consciousness. We often can't always define it, but we can begin to see it in action and that is what the book is trying to help people do, is look at what are their relationships with different groups? And of course we deal primarily with spiritual groups or religious or initiatic and political groups because those are the most powerful and strongest in people's lives. This could be anything! This could be your family group this could be your bowling league, PTA... Anything you're involved

07:27 that has really two or more gathering together in my name, we'll get into that begins to form some kind of collective consciousness or baseline of interaction. And that's why we can begin to describe egregores as social control mechanisms because whenever we're within a group what does it do? It begins to inhibit our movement of action. It begins to define what is acceptable and unacceptable, sometimes very loosely. And sometimes as we can see with things like political correctness very strongly

08:05 Well it definitely does seem like sometimes ideas have a life of their own especially in the context of a lot of people focusing on one thing and you hear people who come out of cults or really radical political groups where they say, man I don't know what happened. Like i was just interested in this subject matter and then all the sudden it pivoted and went direction that didn't expect and then realized oh my god This is not what I signed up for and now I'm in a cult or this group's doing dark things. And that's kind of something you talk about in the book,

08:42 Just in the same way that we think of a baby coming to being in the mother's womb and then it spins off into its own independent entity sometimes, agar gores can do a similar thing and i was the first thing i thought is the way people sometimes describe. Calls that there and they didn't even realize ideas can morph and change and take you places you didn't expect Very much so, and that's the whole point. This is not the New Age movement I signed on for. No. Right. This is not the utopian paradise I was promised. And this happens all the time! This is the point people... it's truly surprising because for people who are all about enlightenment and openness in truth and honesty, the greatest sack of liars you'll find are

09:32 the spiritual and contemporary New Age movements. And I mean across the board, that includes those people doing psychic research which there aren't that many anymore of a pair of psychology all these fields have so-called spiritual exploration They all exist in these little bubbles. I just had this conversation this last weekend with quite a few people at the Institute for Hermetic Studies at our annual conference, and they loved the conference because we managed to dovetail so many different disciplines and subject matters together under the rubric of hermeticism both classical and modern. So we do justice everything in that regard when you go to these other conferences

10:15 events and all these people are working in their own bubbles. And that's an Agri-Gora bubble, it isolates you from actually communicating with other people. And yet at the same time theoretically the reason they went into these studies is to better understand themselves better help humanity blah blah blah but at the end of the day it really becomes very isolated echo chambers a very narrow opinion and views so You know, that's what the book is about just sitting back and saying look are you getting what your promise? And if not here are your options Right but it's powerful and strong these social control mechanisms these egregores These collective youth they're so insidious like you say you just start out with all this enthusiasm Wow, listen to guru. I got her. What did his group? I joined or who does lodge a man of these studies in

11:12 Next thing you know it's 10 years later. How did I get here? Amen, you know i definitely learned that you have to have your philosophy and ideas locked pretty tight the hills You're prepared to die on because sometimes you get into a new worldview or something and it takes a long time To unpack what's down beneath all those layers of pr That make an idea seem attractive And then you get way down to it and you're like This does not agree with me. It can happen to people and as you say in the book, we've got sports teams fan clubs pop culture trends political movements cults corporations all of these things are examples of a collective focusing their attention on one thing and that energy tends to well up We've all heard saying like you are the company that you keep And that's sort of in reference to egregorian influence couldn't you say?

12:10 Yes, within Buddhism particularly Tibetan Buddhism they have emphasis on what they call the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha. The teacher which in this case is the Buddha, the awakened teacher. The Dharma, the teaching of course notice they're not like Hinduism and other Indian philosophies you have the dharmas where every individual has their dharma here it's singular Buddhism is even very in that sense a control mechanism with its dharma, the singular And then you have the Sangha or the community of practitioners. And that has different meanings on different levels too, but on the most basic level that's what it is and you see that in various esoteric groups where people greet each other as father and sorer or brother and sister

12:59 and of course the master of the lodge. And then you have the volume, The Sacred Law, the volume of teachings. Often these are meant to be symbolic that help us along the way but they can become very literalized. They can become very concrete for people in some ways in a very negative way and suddenly you join this group to find yourself You know, the joke in Freemasonry is I joined to find the secret teachings of the universe and ended up being given an apron doing chicken dinners and fish fries. So at least in that regard Masonry's pretty benign but within a lot of other groups it's not always that case. And at the least you find yourself just being a PR person building franchise

13:44 trying to recruit new members all the time. It becomes an occult version of Amway, you know? People want to avoid you because you're trying to hand them a...you know, an application or something and pull them in. And even that we can laugh about because we've been there and we've done that and seen that but then we move into some other groups where it can become very destructive and insidious So even though we do see things like people who get insanely obsessed with a sports team or religion or even a show, or something like that. We can see that but most people today probably don't have a spiritual context or framework to think of some unseen entity they're feeding or an idea coming alive and

14:32 It just doesn't jive with the modern materialist worldview. Of course, that worldview is greatly flawed but can you give us some context for the way this works and the overarching worldview that might help us to rationalize the concept of ideas becoming real or sentient? It just seems so foreign to moderneers I think unless they're looking in places outside of the mainstream I think we have two examples, one which is very early in the book. Which is how in classical world the priests of say ancient Rome would have these symbolic, we see them as symbolic but they saw them as literal battles with the gods of the opposing city or that was going to be attacked by the opposing army

15:18 And these can be worked out even with small models in some ways. Someone said to me, I think it was Pat Slusky who said that the Enochian chest is like that. That in the golden dawn system, an Enochian chest was meant to actually be a movement of forces using the actual pieces. So we often don't think in those terms. You know when you go to church...I said this last night to someone who's talking about their ministry and he says they say their prayers but they don't actually expect anything I'm dealing with a minister right now, an Episcopal priest who told me he would help me out with the family and you know several weeks ago going on a month later. And he's not returning my text so if he's listening return my text because what happens is when they finally get involved in something metaphysical they get frightened. Hmm...I understand that You know in the modern world they say it but they don't believe in the ancient world They said it in more or less belief none of those not everyone

16:12 You have to understand that not everyone believes in an afterlife, not everyone believes in the metaphysical. But it was dominant. Nick Seeger from Ephrata, the Pennsylvania community where the Pietist community was during the 17th and 18th century, even into the 19th century. He was presenting at the IHS conference this last weekend and he gave a very good world example of the worldview of Ephrata because you have to understand their worldview goes back to the Middle Ages in which the world is alive with these streams of interconnections and energies Now we call that the doctrine of correspondences or associations where my heart has some relationship to the Sun And the Sun of course has relationship to Christ

16:55 Hence the heart of Christ is in me. You see how simple those words are? We hear them but we often don't really understand they're taken quite literally in different times and places so we have to understand the world as seen as interconnected and filled with a host of beings both visible and invisible not simply what we can sense with our five physical senses, and understand with our very uptimes physical mind Then we have the example of Alexander David Neal, and this has been quoted quite often. And there is some debate about its authenticity but it still fulfills the function. I'll let scholars argue about it. It fulfils the function of the notion of thoughts becoming corporeal tangible in things and of course her famous story of how she created a thought form that at first other people could begin to sense then they could begin to see

17:48 and then it wouldn't go away, she had to dissolve it. And with a great deal of effort and we're told in various occult practices not just within that aspect of her experiences in Tibetan Buddhism particularly all throughout the yogas all the Indian yogas tell us same thing magical talisman tells us the same thing, all these other things that whatever the mind focuses its energies on we either bring to ourself that is like a magnet if you will for lack of a better description or actually create and bring into being. We actually create it because according to the ancient cosmologies in the beginning there was nothing and out of nothingness

18:35 things came into being. And that humanity or each individual, each man, each woman who Crowley wonderfully said is a star is a microcosm of that greater universe or macrocosm so we have the same powers and abilities within us to create it says in the New Testament these things which I do social greater things should you know that your gods And I think the word is Elohim, Elohim is creative beings. So that's the framework now what can happen is a perfect example. I was at a building a few days ago it said to be the most haunted house in America and someone wrote to me and said when they knew the owner back in the 80s they never had any problems there. Owners from early 70s did and there are some stories around it and owners later on did

19:33 The woman who lived there for the longest time didn't seem to have any problems and someone suggested that there may never have been a haunting there or something was really going on. But having all these ghost hunters come in there and stir things up creates a haunting. Why? It's like anything, people don't think about it They don't have a good metaphysical view. They can understand this stuff Now if I take a plate of food and put it on my porch should i be surprised If I attract the neighborhood cat or uh in the groundhog or squirrels, or even flies and mosquitoes? I wouldn't be surprised if that happened No But why am I surprised if I go into a building or someone's house and start looking for ghosts And then suddenly find them right even if they weren't there to begin with

20:23 Well i like this kind of perspective and you can understand why they wouldn't teach this world view in public schools it's interesting that you mentioned buddhism talk about a lot in the book as well as all the drama within, who does them but you mention it has a control mechanism. And i thought that for awhile just because i'm always skeptical of any thing that permeates a culture completely and that obviously made the rounds in the east. And this phrase, life is suffering well that's very convenient I think for a government to want its people to believe it just seems like a very defeatist idea and i know there's nuance to it the more you get into it but just at the base level to think of buddhism the worldview as life is suffering 101

21:14 I always kind of had an odd reaction to that. I don't feel like that's the best way to look at the world, maybe you're going to bring suffering into your world more than you need to if you just constantly think about that phrase. Well there is nuance to it and of course when you are living in Southern California in 2010-2015 2019 you have a different view That's true. Everyone wants to live in California, right? I would say here life is costly not necessarily suffering but they're not that far apart sometimes well They're not they're not Suffering changes from person the person like this suffering because people think rich people don't suffer I've known a lot of rich people and they suffer mm-hmm. They suffered tremendously

22:03 And someone says, oh but that's suffering. That's not something well matter of your emotional response right? I mean you should have seen the look on her face when i said to a client you know You understand now that your daughters will never make the money required to maintain their standard living on their own based on their education and they will marry for money to maintain it and The responses is I know I've talked with my husband about that. I know damn that stings iPad That's suffering. That's suffering on a different level than not being able to eat today, or as we often have to say to folks I know a lot of teachers and teachers just love the bitch and complain We allowed to say that word cuz tell you absolutely any word we want they love to complain It's like mercury what it is like Virgo's on overdrive Life is not a matter something in going down the checklist right or wrong right or wrong

23:03 And sometimes you have to say, no. You've got a first world problem it's not that bad. That's our joke but still it's suffering and we have to go through these one by one and remove suffering from our lives even on the most infinitesimal level. How do we deal with this? We realize that most of the things which we suffer from is a matter of perspective. It's true This wealthy mother suffers because she cares more about the social standing and the ease Or she's beginning to have that conflict She suffers because she knows that a meaningful relationship is important, but there's all this social standing blah and all those Okay fine you've made your choices deal with it

23:53 Yeah, yeah Virgo suffer because everything isn't always in its place where it should or ought to be well You know what not everything is sure that a rock some things just aren't get over it. Yeah And you know there is always hope out there I'm sure my parents had conversations about how screwed I was gonna be and look at me now You know things things can happen so I mean I guess there's always a reason to be hopeful even in a debt-based system of rule Well, there is reason to be hopeful because it's a matter of you making decisions. There's always debt-based everything is debt based It's just a matter of how we shape that debt Because that is just another way of saying cause and effect I mean karma isn't just a matter of death but some degree it is It's about energy up or energy down Are your high energy are you low energy? You know what if the relationship two people Is it one where you know in a sense there's an owing or receiving

24:44 So it has many subtleties to it. Karma has many subtleties, but primarily it's about cause and effect so if you want to get out of a debt-based society then You know you're going to have to pay the price for that or if you're gonna live in a debt based Society And actually believe that you have some obligation to pay those debts off You know then that's another system altogether right? Okay, I mean you have to begin to make decisions each of us when I say you use each of us individually and we do that by analyzing what are we told is What we're going to get out of this relationship in this group So if I join the rotary and then I go to these monthly meetings or bi-weekly meetings Or my Kiwanis group. Do I get what? I'm told out of that If I go to church, do I get the salvation? What if salvation do I look around and see that these things are being fulfilled on the people there

25:37 And the same thing with occult groups or esoteric groups or spiritual groups of any kind. So suffering is a part of life, but at the same time it's extremely relative to each and every one of us individually. So I don't get too hung up on that like this suffering thing. I think for me when i look at all my problems and I have many of the same as just the rest of you out there, life is still pretty good. Amen! Cheers to that To play devil's advocate, you know I read a book like this and I start to feel like the old ones are everywhere that we just have all these living thought forms in an invisible plane draining us and Influencing us. And of course that is more of the traditional view but I started to feel a bit claustrophobic Yet nine out of ten people That I know would probably dismiss this idea if I brought it to them How can they be so powerful but also go? So unnoticed

26:37 Well, several things. First of all you are correct they are everywhere I mean look your body is filled with parasites Yeah Of different kinds You just don't know about them You have bacteria in your gut that works for you and works against you in all sorts of places, and you pay no attention to it. Your oblivious to its existence. True A little mite that looks like ancient dinosaurs or something out of a sci-fi movie that lives in your eyebrows. You know? That kind of stuff. Mmhmm Okay So people think they are what they think they are. Thats part of the problem too They don't actually know themselves Thats part of the problem thats a big part Of what this is all about Know thy self

27:19 So, you have to first realize you are not for the most part what you believe yourself to be. That's just an aspect of it and not the totality of it so You're surrounded by these thought forms all the time many of them come and go like soap bubbles Many of your own thoughts come and go like soap bubbles It's kind of a deal but you were surrounded by these And often you don't really realize until you turn off the phone and go camping for a weekend or a day One of the most amazing things I remember is 9-11. What was it? Two or three days without any air travel, how quiet it was. Many people remember that, how quiet it was and then when you're quiet you get to recognize your own thoughts and that's when people get scared, when they recognize their own thoughts they got to be alone with their own mind but that's frightening

28:10 Right. Can't drive without the radio on, can't do dishes without TV on you know can't clean the house without some kind of noise I had one radio show host go off on me and he just couldn't handle this discussion and I wanted to ask him who's your audience because you know he read the book in theory but he just couldn't handle it and then they said look people have free will to some degree right If I run out this window, I can almost guarantee you that I will be hitting the ground. So what about psychic powers and levitation? Well show me! You say they don't exist. I didn't say that. See how there's a logical error here because I didn't say that. I said show me demonstrate it. I'm not saying it can't be done but I am not going to tell you what can be

28:57 I'm going to say it's based on basic theories that there is a possibility, but not necessarily probability. And it only becomes a probability under these conditions and that requires the individual undertaking has an understanding of their own mind and is able to apply the powers in their mind which is in theory what all these psychic and occult metaphysical schools or religions are about helping us understand the nature of our own minds our own life and apply those powers in healthy creative fashion But because we get sidetracked or distracted along the way, as we said earlier years and decades go by and realize this is what I signed up for. So people get scared because it's easier to buy into the party line join this and be part of the Illuminati or some secret brotherhood or rulers of the cosmos or Bodhisattvas

29:45 And your life will be fine, or you'll be good no matter what happens. Right Rather than actually looking at the hard reality of why you're not achieving what you want in life Why your relationships are crap all the time Sure Or why you have drug and alcohol problems Yes and to me this doesn't really affect the free will issue just to say that there are unseen forces out there I mean you can say yeah freewill in a world of just people it doesn't mean that people and groups aren't trying to influence you and sway you and get their hooks into you. You have to throw in the added ingredient of invisible beings as well I mean there's a lot of influence out there more than you can see, It doesn't mean that you don't have the freewill too

30:30 Go with one or go against another. It's just nature of the game, I mean it's not like you can avoid influence That's exactly it! That's the reality of it. Like astrology Some people are affected by astrology far greater than others Far greater And some people almost very minimal effect for some a tremendous effect It's like an insult I can walk right up to you and intentionally seek to offend you and then you may laugh it off and not care Other people, even the slightest thing out of order gets them up in arms.

31:07 Right, that's true. They're hypersensitized to be irate but that's an egregore you know you're trained to be that way That's the social control mechanism anytime You see something that you were told is wrong whatever that happens to be you're supposed to be upset And that's the whole point all of these things have to do with controlling your emotions because emotions are the psychic energy of life they're the psychic energy and motivation in anything we do We get up in the morning and go to work because we love something. We may not love what we do, but we love the benefit of what that will bring us whether that's money to have a good life and take a vacation or send your kids to college or going on the racetrack drinking and hanging out with prostitutes you love that! You get it? Do you understand? The emotional energy

32:03 that drives you to act, to achieve a goal. Nature doesn't care what that goal is it doesn't! That's your choice. That's about the beauty of living here in duality and in the terra firma. That's the freedom part but the more we do X Whatever that happens to be the more habits we develop, the more unconscious functions We develop and then they begin to dominate our life That's why you're told To separate yourself out and analyze and do all this stuff What's no different? You know you go to work And you have a bunch of folks you hang out with and like them. That kind of dominates your thinking in your attitude you Go to a church or some spiritual circle Or whatever that dominates it in some way

32:48 And then you go to maybe a political group and that dominates in another. And suddenly all these things bleed in, and that's when we stop having our own thoughts. That's when we stop having our own choices because we've opened ourselves too much influence. And then we got to walk away. You also, in the book flesh out the definition by saying that Egergors can also be the home or conduit for a specific psychic intelligence of a non-human nature connecting the invisible dimensions with the material world in which we live. You go on to say this is in fact the true power of the ancient cults and their religious magical practices. That's provocative!

33:36 You do talk about some in the book, but can you talk to us a little bit about a couple of these old cults you're referring to as examples? Well we can. I think any of them—the neo-pagans and the pagan revivalists who want to worship Hecate or Tawf or Apollo or something like this—the idea is that those beings are real entities, that they exist on some level. They're a real intelligence that you can communicate with just as we're talking on the phone. We can create a mechanism of communication, a psychic telephone line but it's more than just the telephone is a veritable transporter okay? We could move that intelligence from location in cosmos to location and cosmos even to the point of corporeality hence notion of thought forms or evocation to appearance those types of things

34:27 But another example would be within Amork. Harvey Lewis talked about having the vision of an entity or a spirit, or being amorkas and you see the same thing in the Mormons. The founder of Mormon Church had a vision of a being that revealed itself to him and revealed things to him so you have these revealed religions all the time Of course, Muhammad supposedly had Gabriel talk to him. But we don't know what these beings are! I mean we're just told after the fact and you take it after several hundred or thousand years that okay this is what they are but we don't really know so then movement begins around it and feeds energy into it and what does that energy? It's primarily the energy of life which is emotions

35:13 But in some instances we see the energy of life is also what the light is in the blood So you had a lot of blood sacrifices back in ancient period too And like the words of any modern politician don't always take them at face value Don't always take him at face value. Yeah, and it's also like politics all religion or esotericism is vocal That's why these massive worldwide movements in order to become worldwide and massive because of the differences in times, places and cultures become increasingly homogenized. And in order to maintain that homogeneity either dilute it that is they have to go to most common denominator lowest common denominator for connectivity or they have to become control mechanisms

36:08 We know we have talked to a lot of gas about the driving force between a lot of secret societies are easter terry orders being an ethereal been kinda like you mentioned and a lot of the time. That seems to be the case you write about her medic order of the golden dawn as an example in your mention it's ever gore or what they call the link, their connection to this overarching spiritual entity and that adepts can rise to the portal grade. And this entity, once accepted into the body is impregnated into the adept for life or until they shut it down." Wow! I mean that seems like a pretty serious commitment. Well all you have to do is look at baptism as what baptism is

36:56 At the conference this weekend, we had Stephen Davies who some of your listeners may know from his work on the Gospel of Thomas. But he spoke about spirit possession in early Christianity which is I believe a title one of his books and of course the notion was that Holy Spirit it's a spirit form of spirit possession that comes into the person if not just an idea then you only see that spirit possession anymore in believe in the Pentecostal churches That's the only place where you really see the notion of it And they're marginalized of course for whatever reason. And you see that notion of spirit position where else? In voodoo, right? You see it hinted at, hinted like in Servants of the Light, you know, where Dolores Ashcroft Malicki who I did an interview with years ago and it's a very lengthy one can read it online, talks about her contact so this fully contacted mystery schools whatever that means

37:57 What is this contact? Does it take over the leader, does it overshadow them. We see spirit possession in Tibetan Buddhism all the time even though its not talked about as such because its sanitized for western consumption You know, these white non-practicing Jewish and Catholic converts might not take too well to giving their trust funds up once they find out what's really going on. This is a very real thing at least within that viewpoint I'm not saying it actually happened. I think that's the view of what's actually happening in many instances so I'm gonna put that qualifier on it That's the nature of it you take this into you because it's the power of the Holy Spirit that gives the power of healing

38:43 Raising the dead and doing all these things. Well, how does that happen? Well a baptism hmm yeah it's interesting and sometimes you look at an organization and on the surface They've got a lot of PR out there but then you look at some other things they're responsible for like, the Catholic Church and all the sexual scandals as well as hiding Nazi gold and that kind of stuff. And you start to wonder what kinda entity really is at the top of this thing? Like what am I feeding? What kinda energy is going into this collective group? Sometimes it's hard to really know

39:23 Well, I think that your question is a good one but it's also not a question of entity but entities. People struggle for control why do we think is any different on the invisible? Ah that could be true for sure if it's as above so below and as below so above why are we thinking that somehow it's different you also have the factor that you say some of these entities can grow to a point that they take on a life of their own and they kind of become independent You have that in the mix to you have the possibility that there is a power struggle on the ethereal plane to gain control of a certain groups energy and also add the factor that sometimes. A being might grow and say you know what now we're gonna go this direction, it's just its a lot to try to take in and parse through. What is the perfect example of that not just how spiritual movements and give christianity as example but I'll get three of them

40:22 You know, if we look at Christianity in its earliest days to about a hundred years later. We see it's strongest in terms of this spirit presence and the miracles and the reception of the Holy Spirit In the first century, the first hundred years And then it begins to flatten out homogenize Okay? We see the same thing...we'll talk about Amor Amor built 108-year cycle into itself as self destruction you know, when is it strongest? It was strongest from about 1915 to about 1965. It was really strong up until about 85 too and then as the one grand secretary said to me it was on a downward cycle and then we see the schism of 91 and then of course from 91 now it's flat. It's like old soda water

41:12 But, of course they have that cycle. You see Yogananda with his Self-Realization Fellowship he said in his writings and this is a hundred years from now you won't recognize this and you'll have to start it all over from scratch What happened after his death? We think that this is just a matter people vying for control but its more than that there's invisible forces as well at work So you see, I think it was Swami Kirananda. He went off and started his own thing. He's a very nice fellow and he has been very successful at it. And then he died a few years back. Then you have the Self-Realization Movement which many people recognize is not the same as it was even in the 70s or 80s. I was in it nearly eighties. It was wonderful! These movements... there's a cycle that works here so those who are interested in cycles of astrology can begin to look at this too

42:05 And as you look at planetary cycles, then you're looking at planetary intelligences. Okay? Planetary entities, planetary deities or whatever you want to call them not just abstract ideas but that's very real energy intelligence and matter and that work. I love it! The good example here of movement of growing and taking on a life of its own The name escapes me at the moment. I think it was the Holy Order of Man, but i'm not certain they were a wonderful new age movement extremely popular. I think they even had a successful commune and then in the 70s or early 80s they all just converted to Eastern Orthodoxy

42:51 No one saw that coming. But I understand why, if you look at now Eastern Orthodoxy is extremely popular in the United States conversion to orthodoxy is extremely popular among many in the occult and esoteric movements particularly as they grow older and they want something that is stable it has a mystical element to it that they can relate to but there's example of they go from this whole new age cycle to boom orthodoxy Right and it I like when you talk about that in the book with different secret societies and esoteric orders that there seems to be a life cycle of life cycle two ideas just as there is two people there is.

43:30 a peak, a prime. You know we say people are in their prime and then a slow fizzle out and that's the same it seems on the ethereal plane in the realm of ideas and In life so It's really not that hard to conceive of when you think about it all is just there is a lifecycle to energy And there is uh an ebb and flow to potency And you mention egregores in the book in the context of families who build up a lot of wealth or power over generations and point out the importance of ancestor offerings as a means to strengthen the energy of your own family name.

44:10 And I think that's a pretty powerful idea. We sometimes think a lot about the elite and these Rockefeller Rothschild DuPont Windsor families, and sometimes we get a victim mentality of well they're so far ahead in the game and they've made all the rules and were just fucked but you know what? The reality is maybe we should use some of these own tools to Build some energy potency around our own family name. We should probably dust off the old family crest too if we can, but how would we use this knowledge to our own families advantage? Well that just did modern esotericism is a sad joke at the shadow of itself even in the modern era

44:52 It has fallen so far from self-realization and self actualization, meaning action. Actualization means action and doing stuff to just a pitiful vacuum of left wing politics and victim mentality that's what it's fallen into that's why its so impotent That's why most modern spiritual movements are shadowy collectivist doctrine is the nature of it. That's why the religions have done it Christianity for the most part doesn't have anything that's white orthodoxies a thing they go to because that still has some warmth to it Most of these movements just the Methodist Church, the Episcopal church Picket church anyone what are they? They're just social action movement. That's all their concern with and the Unitarians or the worst

45:43 They're a sad joke when it comes to actually being universalist. As even the 12-year old said to me, everyone's welcome here as long as they're not conservative. You know there were few other words too, as long as they are not straight but you know when a twelve year old can notice this is that obvious? This is all they become and people tell me the same story now they left the church because they just tired of being preached about politics No action, no real self action, no self development In fact, I can think of several Unitarian churches where the people in charge were certifiably mentally ill. Now, I want that to sink in talking about spirits. You're letting someone who is diagnosed with a mental illness be your essential spiritual guide? Okay! I mean... Mental illnesses to be treated but not to be followed

46:35 Sometimes it seems like a fine line between mental illness and some type of clairvoyance or spiritual connection. Well, this wasn't clairvoyant through spiritual connection. This is nothing but whining and complaining so you know what it is by the fruits That's the other thing I said early in the beginning What were you promised? What do you get? What if the gap between them and if the gap is too big It's time to get out See, this is just common sense. This isn't rocket science! This isn't even mysticism! Okay? This is learning how to observe and if you really want to be clairvoyant You have to learn how to observe Enlightenment Is about observing reality as it IS Not as we would like it to be As IT IS And you can't begin to change your situation until you recognize it for what it IS You're in an abusive relationship

47:33 That's the reality. You submit yourself to these terrible experiences and only you can get yourself out of it, whether it is with an individual or a family or group. Now you recognize that and make changes. You are poor because you're lazy not because of the environment in which you live. Your environment is okay but someone else may have a different environment but they are not you You refuse to get up and go to that job. I know that job doesn't pay well, you feel insulted by those wages but it's a beginning, its'a start and you can begin to do something with it. Sitting there feeling sorry for yourself doesn't help

48:14 Well that's the point that i think a lot of listeners here are at where they've started to recognize this kind of magical world view this alternative paradigm from anything they saw in public school or were taught along the way. And so they're like, okay well if this is the framework of reality. If ideas are real and egregores are real and you know this is... But it takes work! This is the thing. It takes real effort You have to stay focused on it and not give up. And this is where the parasites kick in Do you understand? Yeah I mean it makes sense if your not controlling yourself someone will

48:52 Someone will, that's right. You can't just do it for five minutes a day and then go sit at the water cooler and complain to your friends or have little coffee clutches with your girlfriends or go to the bar and drink with your buddies in complaining you have to stay focused on the goal And that is what wealthy people do That is what enlightened people do They stay focused on the goal That is what successful people do You may not like their goals but that is not the point Nature doesn't care It's not about what you like or dislike in others, it's about what you're doing for yourself. So if you want to take your family crest and use that as the sigil and the talisman, that's for YOU to do! That's how you can call in those ancient powers of elemental powers into your vitality, into your life, and purify your family line But it's not the responsibility of the Rockefellers to do it...or the Kennedys

49:47 or of anyone else that you haven't heard of but has a lot of power. It's not their job, you may want them to, you may like them too if you see that falling into the trap of the egregore That someone is going to save you No one is coming to save you Harsh but true! No one...that it Now doesn't mean there isn't gonna be help along the way There are people like you who are gonna put the word out There are people like me who are gonna put the word out But Jesus only helped those who came to him for healing. He didn't go out of his way looking for trouble The good Samaritan didn't go out looking for people to help and save Mm-hmm he helped who was right in front of them And what we've done is we've created a context where we think it's our job to go out and save everyone, and it's not because you can You can only do for another what you can do for yourself So if you don't have enough self awareness then

50:43 Well, that's all you can do. You can only do to the degree of your self-awareness and no more And the more you fortify yourself The more you work on yourself The more things you're equipped to handle when they do come your way and you can take better care Of those people that you do care about your friends and family because you have cultivated enough strength and enough resources That you can Help the people that you want to help Exactly. And I think you know, you touched upon something we didn't really talk about in the book and maybe I should write something about this. I did a little bit in one essay and it's about the family line, the influences of the ancestors have on us through genetics. Mm-hmm. People don't realize that the reason we're here today is because all our ancestors survived

51:29 Yeah that's a very powerful idea i think about that sometimes as weak as i might feel has house caddy is like and be i am the product of many many people who survive much harsher environments and that's inside. So bring it out put yourself under stress test yourself initiation esoteric initiations about stress in testing, It's about overcoming fears. It's not about a safe environment, anyone who offers you safe initiation is a liar or fool. Any initiation that you really have is going to be dangerous and difficult in the trigger moment in modern parlance if initiation doesn't trigger you then you weren't initiated, you were ripped off. So you have a great idea there people go out there create your family crest if you don't have one

52:25 Make sure it's balanced, meaning has all the qualities and elements to it. Make sure that you understand that you will have to undergo challenges to make this happen You're not going to lift 100 pounds without first being able to lift 50 or 90 So you're gonna have to work at this Not gonna lift 200 without being able to do 100 so all of this is work And people who are willing to do that Who accept the fact that you were dead man walking So just go ahead with it and do what you're going to do, and don't be concerned with other people's opinions. Just make sure that what you're doing is actually beneficial to you in bringing joy and happiness into your life, and move forward! This whole book is about that—about learning how to balance relationships so that you can build the life you want and not be sucked into these parasitical relationships by groups... mostly by groups

53:18 Amen. And I never like to make these conversations about me, but let's take this podcast for example We have tens of thousands of listeners all focused on the same kinds of ideas week after week Hanging in there with me for years in some cases Have we likely generated an egregore? Is there any way to really know could this collective group focus more intention on creating a spiritual ally to further our causes and improve our successes Sure you have. And you just have to recognize what are the subtleties of that egregore? In the beginning, you focused a lot on this kind of crazy conspiracy stuff and I say crazy because not all conspiracies don't exist... they do! But the fact is so what?! I had one relative who was obsessed with these conspiracy theories and i said to him

54:12 You know, the same thing I said to George Hansen who wrote the book The Trickster and the Paranormal. A book everyone of you listeners should read. He was the only person that i'm aware of that actually worked in the 80s as a full-time employee in psychic research at both Princeton and Ryan Research Center so all this can be true let's assuming everything you've said to me is true So what? Then what? Do you understand you've done all this energy for all this and all you've done is make yourself crazy It's true. So my point is the rules of the road are over the temple of Apollo Delphi in ancient Greece, it was inscribed with the injunction know thy self. It was not inscribed follow the party line or save humanity from itself or fill whatever blank happens to be in there if what you're doing is helping you to know yourself then that's great

55:16 If it is taking away from your ability to have self-realization, that is knowledge and then self actualization the ability to do something with it. Then you have to reconsider that relationship Well said. Hmm, well I thought this was really fascinating man! I'm sure people are going to be really jazzed up about it you wrote a great book before we go please take some time to tell them about your other books and maybe a bit about the Institute for Hermetic Studies Everything can be seen on Amazon. We've got 25 or 8 or 30 books on there depending, you know many monographs from our course of instruction study guides for a self-guided study course that we have unfolding the rows principle one in that but words of my teachers is the overall guide that will take you all the way through and tell you what to do at self pace so you can do it at your own pace then there's light on the path which is a four year course we ran on alchemy

56:14 That's again a study guide, so you have to look at the syllabus and the footnotes in there and you can work yourself through that self-paced course at your own leisure. And all of the books are referenced back to one another so you'll know how to use them if you get those books. But Egregor is probably the most important one along with when we need to get a new edition or edit it because we had so much trouble getting it out was Between The Gates That's probably one of the most important books out there, and I don't say that lightly. But that's about lucid dreaming astral projection in the body of light in Western esotericism. That ties into what we were just talking about. And The Institute, we have some online material at YouTube but we also have a conference once a year

57:00 which on Hermeticism related topics and this is not your average hermetic conference where you're going to come in and there's going to be another class on how to read the Tarot or basic astrology. We don't do that, we cover the ground that is not being covered which is how Hermeticism, Astrology, Alchemy Kabbalah interface with all these things we just talked about How does this interface? In the media? How is the media presenting it? How does this interface with psychic research and the people who are authorities in psychic research, and who can tell us about what was going on or is going on in government ideas behind UFOs and paranormal phenomena. So we're working with all these different diverse groups how does this interface with as you said one presentation spirit possession early Christianity academic research so were trying to show a mechanism of these activities and to get this they just have to subscribe to our blog Vox Hermes

57:58 They can find that on Blogspot or they can just send us an email at info at hermetic institute dot org and we'll send them a nice form letter back with all sorts of information in it. Very cool. I saw some info about last year's conference on the website, is there a date and location for this year? Well this year just ended this weekend. 2019 just ended last weekend and i'm already working on next years so it'll probably be the last weekend in April And are they usually on the east coast that's where we have them that's where we are We've got a lot of people flying from the west coast now Of course, we're willing to do activities but

58:39 people got to sponsor it. So, well it's a reality in this field is quite fascinating everyone wants someone to fly out of the West Coast but okay well that means you organize and get people together will help you work through through it and we'll help you do that and that's important part of interfacing and growing up learning how to organize events and play well with others very important and paying your own bills is a very important part in this field We have a great program and at some point hopefully we'll have the ability to record some of these events and make them available, but at this time that's not happening. Right on!

59:22 Well, this has been a lot of fun. I also was going to mention you do say on the website in terms of the Institute for Hermetic Studies, the goal is to promote the study of esoteric knowledge all out in the open maintaining no orders degrees societies or secrets and I think people would like to know that little detail seems like you're one of the good ones but thanks a lot for your time man really provocative stuff keep doing what you do and take care out there thank you very much I appreciate it And good luck to everyone listening. Abra-cadabra and hallelujah, good people of the digital landscape! How about that? Dipping our higher side toe back in the deep and rich esoteric waters of The Occult I was really psyched about an Egregore interview with Mark and it didn't disappoint It seems somewhat inevitable that Egregores will be created when people collectively focus on things

1:00:20 It's not the only way, but that does seem to be a surefire way to breathe some life into the astral plane. We've talked so much about how ideas can be real we've talked a lot about filtering things down from the etheric layer of reality The concepts of the muse I mean this is all in the recipe that is our reality It reminds me of another book, but I've actually tried to work out an interview with Mitch Horowitz about his book The Miracle Club. And i haven't been able to do it but the book is good regardless and His Miracle Club Is a call for readers who take a certain time of day and consciously send good vibes To the others who read the book in a sort of loose arrangement? And I think that's a great idea! I asked a little bit about our egregore

1:01:16 It'd be nice if maybe he come and talk to me in my dreams and thank me for the life-giving essence in which we gave him. But I'm just saying, I think there might be some potential there of course were all listening this at different times but maybe right now or anytime you're listening to THC just put some brain power out there to say When anyone downloads a THC episode, yes you hear a great show but you're also subconsciously downloading the collective intention of the group to manifest our desires. To remove obstacles from our lives. To attract the things we want and always in alignment with the greater good imagine The frequency of these episodes being pure high potency intentionality

1:02:09 and subconscious success juice. And as you listen, you're wishing all the other listeners well and even if we don't know each other, we can will ourselves to sync our energies with the collective well-wishes of all of us. I understand these things are more potent when you don't think about yourself but we can jailbreak that by putting our good vibes into the collective audience into the audiophile as a whole and then just being in that audience, and then just listening to that file. I'm obviously no expert but think about that now and anytime you listen to a Higher Side Chats episode in the future it doesn't take much. I'm not asking you to make a pentagram or draw some sigils or craft a talisman just yet Just simple well wishes that we all move into the lives we see in our dreams And maybe

1:03:09 Maybe after tens of thousands of people do put in a little conscious attention you might say holy shit I did get that promotion. I did find my perfect co-pilot for life And if anything like that happens, do let me know we should probably have a forum thread about it and I think We already do feel a bit of kinship around this digital campfire Talking about ways we've been kept down talking about things that have been kept out of our education And maybe we have been doing that. Maybe this is the first time I've put a fine point on it, but why not? I'm really too ignorant of this whole thing to try and direct something formal But on a casual basis visualize the waveform of these higher side audiophiles being so damn full of good vibes and potent positive energy that you can feel it Work yourself up a little bit when you're about to press play

1:04:09 Because the theatrics seem to have an effect as well. And you can just know in your own mind without a doubt that you're bringing that power into the rest of your day, your week... whatever! I think it's a nice low-maintenance way to test these theories. I didn't really expect to go on this tangent but hey we're here now and i'm putting in the mental sweat for you guys hopefully you're doing it for each other as well and just give it a little thought, in THC episodes from now on it can't hurt. But as far as this episode goes man I did think it was pretty unique and it got me thinking something we sort of glossed over that I did like from the book was the Tibetan doctrine of refuge. I think Mark did talk about it but not by that name but it's the idea that most people

1:05:06 start developing themselves by putting their faith in a text or a historical doctrine, say the Bible. And then once you familiarize yourself with a system then maybe you move your faith to just your individual teacher who you know and Then once you've dealt with that for awhile You finally moved to just faith in yourself! You shed the training wheels or the egregore of the system and all that baggage that's attached to the group, and eventually you can just take what you need fold things of value into your own personal worldview or religion. And then maybe you are a bit more guarded from those collective thought forms that maybe aren't so good for ya! Or contain all sorts of things that you weren't aware of Look at Catholicism Can little old yous positive intention? Or coins on the collection plate really unravel... The negative energy with THAT group

1:06:07 I think the damage is done, but what do i know? Just food for thought. Maybe literally... But in higher side news we had a joint session last night where Shaman Janir joined me for the whole two and a half hours and we took calls and had conversations with listeners on everything from water alchemy and UFOs to Bigfoot and the occult underpinnings of the unjustice system It was a lot of fun, and as always it's archived on the Plus site under bonuses with all the others. The joint sessions are always on the 20th or 25th of the month whichever isn't on a weekend at 7pm Pacific Time and you can find the link an hour so beforehand across social media or on the Plus website it looks like June's joint session will be on the 20th and one day before the summer solstice So there is that

1:07:01 I also just wanted to remind you that the new website is still coming. It's going to combine the free and plus sites, and really just update the whole aesthetic and technical infrastructure, and be more modern and attractive to new people. That's the hope make us look professional! And maybe you could put that intention out there for me? That this transition and implementation is smooth as silk and it causes Plus Members to multiply beyond our wildest dreams. Why not? I think we'll all know if it goes smoothly or not, so there's really no getting around it That said of course If you liked the first hour today the second hour with Mark is a lot of fun We got into Zenith Corporation, Zenner Cards and Telephone Telepathy Disney's Influence in Egregores Grant Morrison & The Invisibles Lovecraftian Egregores

1:07:58 plant and mineral alchemy, Israel Regardi's experience in practical laboratory alchemy spiritual hygiene and ritual purification. That I thought was interesting the idea that soldiers can't really come back into the community without some kind of purification ritual we used to have parades for returning troops you've seen the pictures that kind of positive celebration Actually is very important for their mental health and their transition back into the group think about how soldiers are today they're. Largely broken abandoned by government and community an on the streets begging for change or try not to put a gun in your mouth feeling alone it's an ugly reality but it does seem to be the experience a lot of those people feel and,

1:08:56 While I'm not a big supporter of the military or violence or imposing the empire's will around the globe, there still should be some redemption? Or sense of reintegration. I don't know but i thought that part was really interesting and we also talked about how to determine if you have an entity attached to you or your home and Robert E Howard A wide assortment of diverse topics as always and I really loved the alchemy topic You know this, but see when a guest comes to promote a book we are going to talk about that book largely. But in the PLUS show I got to ask about some of Mark's previous work which has at times been about real mineral alchemy and so that was really a fascinating section to me but you know the drill sign up for PLUS support the show you love and improve your own life maybe now moreso than ever

1:09:57 Do check out Mark's book on Egregores if you're interested in hearing more and when you see his catalog of work it's hard to not be impressed. So lucky us for getting him here, and I'll see you soon with another very wild and interesting ride on the higher side! I've done my part your move Egregores Tulpas and other free-range thought forms roaming around the infinite... Your fucking turn. I see your mind, high sized barrel and out of it to do the time. I ain't gonna take no proving round. And I can't stand putting me down. Eyes on you eyes to your mind. The highest size barrel on you and out of it to do the time.

1:13:22 you