Written by Merlin of Merlinsforge — philosophical essay
Abstract. This essay examines the conceptual cluster formed by egregores, elementals, and reality tunnels. Bringing together perspectives from analytical psychology, philosophy of mind, and metaphysical interpretation, I argue that collective mind-forms (egregores) operate as persistent patterns of intentionality that shape perception and social practice through mechanisms analogous to framing, attention bias, and—where speculative models are instructive—quantum-entanglement metaphors. Elementals (and psychogones) are analysed as focused operators within the field of collective intentionality; the notion of a „reality tunnel“ is treated as a phenomenological description of the cognitive partitioning produced by strong egregoric structures. The essay aims to maintain philosophical rigor while situating these phenomena within a conversational framework suitable for theory and praxis. (Keywords: egregore, reality tunnel, collective intentionality, Jung, quantum mind.)ContentsIntroductionDefinitions and theoretical originsPsychological and sociological dimensionsElementals and psychogonesQuantum metaphors and consciousnessPractical implications & magical praxisConclusionReferences
Introduction
Contemporary discourse about collective belief, group identity, and the shaping of social reality increasingly borrows language from both technical social science and older hermetic traditions. Terms such as egregore and elemental occupy a liminal space between history of religion, occult praxis, and everyday rhetoric. In parallel, the popularized idea of a “reality tunnel” names the phenomenon whereby a social or psychological frame narrows perception and selectively amplifies congruent information. This essay synthesizes these ideas into a coherent conceptual framework that is philosophically defensible and analytically useful.
My approach is philosophical in orientation: I seek to define terms carefully, to situate them in relevant literatures (especially Jungian psychology and theories of collective intentionality), and to evaluate metaphysical claims with an eye toward methodological modesty. Where speculative analogies (notably from quantum theory) are invoked, I present them as heuristics for understanding entangled patterns of attention and agency rather than as literal physical assertions.
Definitions and theoretical origins
Egregore: a working definition
The term egregore (from Greek egrégoroi, „watchers“) historically appears in esoteric and occult literature as an autonomous group entity formed by sustained collective attention (Campbell, 1973; Wilson, 1977). For the purposes of this essay I define an egregore as a relatively stable pattern of collective intentionality: a set of practices, narratives, affective tendencies, and communicative feedback that together function as an organizing field shaping members‘ perceptions and behaviors. This definition emphasizes functional effects (persistence, boundary-maintenance, selective attention) rather than postulating sui generis metaphysical beings.
Elementals and psychogones
In occult taxonomy, elementals are task-directed entities consciously created and maintained by practitioners; psychogones or „larvae“ are analogous structures formed unconsciously through persistent emotional or cognitive patterns (devised in modern occultism and later popularized in esoteric writings). Conceptually, both can be modeled as localized substructures within a broader egregore: semi-autonomous nodes of attention or intention dedicated to particular functions (protection, memory, compulsion).
Reality tunnels
The phrase reality tunnel (popularized in countercultural discourse) names the phenomenological effect produced by strong cognitive and social framing. As a description of experience, it is congruent with findings from cognitive science on motivated reasoning and confirmatory bias (Kahneman, 2011). Philosophically, a reality tunnel is best understood not as an ontological division of the world but as a first-order description of a patterned perceptual field produced by distributed cognitive and social mechanisms.
Psychological and sociological dimensions
Analytical psychology, especially the work of C. G. Jung, provides resources for thinking about collective structures that are neither reducible to individual minds nor to simple social aggregation. Jung’s concept of the collective unconscious (Jung, 1969) suggests the existence of shared psychic contents—archetypes—that shape imaginal life across individuals. Egregores can be read as socio-historical instantiations of archetypal patterns: they are historically situated, affectively charged, and maintained through ritual, narrative, and institutional reinforcement.
Social scientists studying framing, norm formation, and moral psychology describe mechanisms by which groups stabilize belief systems: repeated communicative acts, institutional incentives, signaling practices, and punishment/reward dynamics all contribute to the durability of a group’s worldview (Lakoff, 2004; Sunstein, 2009). These mechanisms explain how an egregore exerts a reality-tunnelling effect: discrepant evidence is de-emphasized or cognitively reinterpreted while confirmatory signals are amplified.
The practical upshot is that “group minds” are best modeled as dynamic feedback systems: attention concentrates on particular narratives and practices, which in turn bias perception and behavior so as to reproduce the narratives.
Importantly, the formation of psychogones—affectively charged micro-structures such as compulsions or recurring nightmares—can be traced to individual-level processes (trauma, repression) that, when shared, scale into social patterns. The distinction between unconscious formation (psychogone) and conscious construction (elemental) is thus analytically useful: it is one between emergent and designed nodes within the larger field.
Elementals and psychogones
When a practitioner deliberately constructs an elemental, the operation typically follows three phases: specification of function, sustained attention/ritualization, and periodic maintenance. In social terms the elemental is analogous to any designed institutional subunit: a committee, a myth, a symbol system dedicated to a circumscribed task. The magical language frames these processes in imaginal terms (visualization, sympathetic correspondences), but the underlying dynamics—resource allocation of attention, ritual reinforcement, symbolic anchoring—map directly onto cognitive and organizational psychology.
Psychogones, by contrast, lack intentionality at inception. They arise from repeated affective patterns: persistent envy, paranoia, or sexual longing, for example. Because psychogones stem from repression and repetition, they are often parasitic upon the subject’s psychic economy and can produce symptoms that, in group contexts, become contagious (e.g., moral panics or mass hysteria). Recognizing this parallel allows pragmatic interventions: reframing, supportive exposure, and ritual unbinding can serve as therapeutic or social instruments to dissolve maladaptive micro-structures.
Quantum metaphors and consciousness
Contemporary philosophers and some theorists of consciousness have entertained the possibility that quantum descriptions might speak to features of cognition and perception (Hameroff & Penrose, 2014; Bohm, 1980). I insist on methodological caution: invoking quantum mechanics does not license naive physicalist claims that equate egregores with particle states. Rather, quantum theory offers metaphors—entanglement, nonlocal correlation, and contextuality—that can be heuristically informative for thinking about distributed intentional systems.
Consider entanglement as an image for tight informational coupling: beliefs and practices within an egregore become correlated across dispersed agents such that a change in one locus rapidly reshapes expectation states elsewhere. The metaphor helps illuminate why some shifts—rituals, prophetic narratives, or highly visible defections—can have outsized systemic effects. Yet the metaphor stops short of establishing ontological identity: it is a model for relational coupling, not a physical explanation of consciousness.
Philosophical accounts that treat consciousness as an emergent phenomenon of complex systems (Millikan, 2000; Tononi, 2008) may better accommodate the social-level phenomena considered here. If consciousness depends on integrated information or systemic complexity, then persistent collective structures—egregores—could host distributed forms of proto-intentionality without committing to panpsychism or to literal group-minds possessing personhood.
Practical implications & magical praxis
If an egregore is a stable pattern of distributed attention and intention, then changing it demands interventions at multiple levels. I offer a three-tiered model:
- Material/Communicative Level: Deliberate reframing, corrective information, institutional reform, and persistent counter-narratives to shift incentive structures and public attention.
- Imaginal/Feinstofflich Level: Rituals, visualization practices, and collective imaginative acts designed to reconfigure symbolic anchors that sustain the egregore (akin to public art, ceremonies, or counter-rituals).
- Existential/Developmental Level: Practices aimed at altering the epistemic stance of participants—education, contemplative disciplines, or transformative experiences—that change the way agents process disconfirmatory evidence.
These levels correspond to the methods you already summarized: material critique (framing, fact-checking), imaginal manipulation (visualization, NLP-like techniques), and deepening of consciousness (experiential shifts, enlightenment-like transformations). Each level has limits and ethical considerations. For example, deliberately manipulating an egregore—whether for benign reform or coercive control—raises questions about autonomy, informed consent, and social justice. A philosophical ethics of collective-intentional engineering is therefore necessary.
On a praxis level, individuals can practice meta-awareness: identifying the contours of their own reality tunnels, testing counter-evidence in safe contexts, and engaging in dialogic practices that expand epistemic openness. Groups can design rituals that deliberately cultivate pluralism and reflexivity rather than insularity. These are pragmatic steps that respect both psychological mechanisms and moral constraints.
Conclusion
Egregores, elementals, and reality tunnels are conceptually distinct but mutually illuminating ways to think about how collective attention and practice shape subjective and social worlds. Read philosophically, these notions contribute to ongoing debates about collective intentionality, the distributed architecture of cognition, and the ethics of social engineering. When treated with analytic clarity they become powerful heuristics for both explanation and responsible praxis.
While speculative metaphors from quantum theory can encourage useful reimaginations of social coupling, they must be used conservatively and reflexively. A rigorous project on egregores should combine historical scholarship on esotericism, empirical work from social and cognitive psychology, and careful philosophical analysis of mind and agency. Such an interdisciplinary program can keep the intriguing language of occult thought in productive conversation with contemporary theory without abandoning methodological standards.
— Written by Merlin of Merlinsforge
References
- Bohm, D. (1980). Wholeness and the Implicate Order. Routledge & Kegan Paul.
- Campbell, J. (1973). The Hero with a Thousand Faces (2nd ed.). Princeton University Press. (Original work published 1949)
- Hameroff, S., & Penrose, R. (2014). Consciousness in the universe: A review of the ‚Orch OR‘ theory. Physics of Life Reviews, 11, 39–78.
- Kahneman, D. (2011). Thinking, Fast and Slow. Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
- Lakoff, G. (2004). Don’t Think of an Elephant!: Know Your Values and Frame the Debate. Chelsea Green Publishing.
- Millikan, R. G. (2000). On Clear and Confused Ideas: An Essay about Substance Concepts. Cambridge University Press.
- Sheldrake, R. (1981). A New Science of Life: The Hypothesis of Morphic Resonance. Blond & Briggs.
- Sunstein, C. R. (2009). Going to Extremes: How Like Minds Unite and Divide. Oxford University Press.
- Tononi, G. (2008). Consciousness as integrated information: a provisional manifesto. Biological Bulletin, 215(3), 216–242.
- Wilson, R. A. (1977). Cosmic Trigger I: Final Secret of the Illuminati. And/Or Press.
- Jung, C. G. (1969). Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious (Collected Works Vol. 9, Part 1). Princeton University Press. (Original work published various dates)
Note. The bibliography above is intentionally interdisciplinary and includes both canonical works in depth psychology and contemporary theorizing in consciousness studies. If you require a strictly humanities-only bibliography (history of religion & esotericism) or additions in a specific citation style for submission, I can provide those variants.