#Egregores

[panthera-dei]

I got another witchy FAQs question so I want to go ahead and share it.

This time, we're talking some basic chaos magic with different types of thoughtforms!

Please note that I am not an expert in chaos magic, nor do I consider myself a chaos magician, so feel free to (kindly) leave feedback or corrections as needed. ^^

Thoughtforms 101

Definition of Thoughtform: Thoughtform is a catch-all term from any entity that was created with or by human thought (conscious or otherwise).

Types of Thoughtforms: Common thoughtforms include sigils, servitors, thoughtform companions (aka tulpas), daemons, and egregores.

Sigils: Most folks who create sigils and use sigil magic probably don't think about sigils as a type of chaos magic or a thoughtform. However, sigils actually do fall into this category. Think of a sigil as being like a simple computer program that's powered by your mind. You give the program a basic function (such as protection or prosperity) and the magical "coding" of your intentions allows the sigil to carry it out.

Servitors: If sigils are basic computer programs, then servitors are robots. They're not sentient per se, as they still require the coding and programming that comes with intention and magical energy. Yet they're much more complex than a sigil and can carry out higher-level functions & multiple tasks (e.g., drawing in people to shop on your Etsy page for prosperity, or actively guarding a space or casting a magic circle for protection).

Thoughtform companions: The widespread term for this type is "tulpa," and creating/having one of these thoughtforms is commonly referred to as "tulpamancy." Since there's also a widespread controversy over these terms, I don't use them myself. I say "creating or working with a thoughtform," and I'll refer to the entity as a thoughtform or thoughtform companion. Regardless of the terminology or beliefs behind this category, they are defined as a separate consciousness created by the thoughts and actions of a human. The human is typically referred to as the "host," since the companion is typically treated as its own separate consciousness. These are fully sentient, autonomous beings with their own thoughts and feelings. They're generally created, either intentionally or not, as friends for the host (hence my personal terminology for them).

Daemons: This category is similar to a companion, but with a different origin and function. Daemons have been documented since ancient Greece, to my knowledge. A daemon is also a sentient entity, however, they are not created intentionally by the host (although they can be brought to the forefront by the human in question). A daemon is instead a conscious entity created by, and representative of, the human being's subconscious mind. They typically serve as helpers and mental guides for the human. They are not considered separate entities; instead, they're part of you.

Egregores: These are essentially the AIs of the thoughtform world. Whereas companions and daemons exist within the human mind, egregores are similar to servitors and sigils - created by the mind, but separate from it. Egregores are often made or manifested by a group of people intentionally for a purpose. E.g., a coven may create one as a guardian or a spiritual guide. They're also often created by accident from widespread symbols - for example, branding. And nations. Every time somebody posts a picture of the Starbucks logo, you're most likely feeding an egregore, according to one theory I've heard. Do I believe that personally? Not sure. (I do have an exact source for this one available on request.) As far as I know, egregores exist with varying degrees of sentience, power, and free will depending on the individual scenario (much like artificially intelligent computers & androids in science fiction).

Pop Culture Entities / Deities: These are often referred to as PCEs or PCDs. I prefer the former but I often use them interchangeably. Some folks prefer to be more specific. For example, Raiden from Mortal Kombat is considered a god in that series, so many folks would consider him a pop culture deity. Whereas Dean Winchester is *not* a deity in Supernatural - so he could be considered a pop culture entity instead. However, this is up to the preferences of the individual entity & practitioner.

Differences between PCDs and Egregores: Egregores are ALWAYS created, intentionally or not, by human energy and thought. PCDs, on the other hand, can have a mixed origin sometimes. Some of them may be pure egregores, manifested on purpose or by accident. Others may be preexisting spirits - often nature spirits that are aligned closely to the fandom content - that latch onto a fictional work as a power source, and eventually fuse with it. And then another theory is that PCDs are *all* preexisting spirits or even deities wearing a mask - so for example, folks with this belief would say that PCD Marvel Loki is just Loki appearing in a different form/aspect. I personally think that all PCEs have a unique origin and I try not to make any assumptions.

Where do I fact check you and/or learn more?: Unfortunately, it is *really damn hard* to find good, solid information on pop culture work because it's very new. And while there's *lots* of info on chaos magic, you have to be careful to check the reliability of the source, much as is the case with demonolatry sources. Fortunately, Tumblr is a great source to find other pop culture practitioners. I personally also have *some* sources available for these topics on request, I'm just too lazy to dig through my Drive right at this moment. :)

[embervoices]

Just watched this amusing video about the Elf on the Shelf accruing power:

https://www.tiktok.com/@pipercj/video/7178205093454695726

(Why is this not embedding properly?? It’s not accepting any version of the URL or the embed code block? Ahh, well... Anyway!)

So I was reminded of a brief explanatory meme I created most of a year ago to try to illustrate something to some of my students who had asked :

Brief Differences Between Certain Types of Energetic/Psychic Constructs:

Thought Form: Object/Device, usually created by a single person  - Example: The Rose in the jar from Disney’s “Beauty and the Beast”

Servitor: Artificial Intelligence created by a single person or group - Example: Baymax from Disney’s “Big Hero 6″

Tulpa: Independent Entity created by a single person - Example: Vision & the Twins from MCU “WandaVision”

Egregore: Independent Entity created by a group, often whole cultures over time - Example: The Hogfather from BBC’s “Hogfather” by Terry Pratchett

(Note: I’m aware there’s a whole kettle of fish to be had on the topic of the word “Tulpa”. I wouldn’t say they’re a totally separate issue, and I did discuss them with my students at the time, they’re not within the scope of this little glossary meme.)

[crazyskirtlady]

what is digital talisman?

It is a visual key, like a sigil, a focus for magicka...

It is a photonic engine, like a candle or incense which when activated to you will push out energetic vibes...

It is a psionic program like an egregore, in that all who see it, even if they don't interact directly with it, help to power and push the energy further outward, empowering it and whomever has sympathetic connection to it...

[cuppakasha]

Goncharov (1973) is a goddamn tulpa and I'm here for it.

[wildjuniperjones]

I will point out that it's not really that there's a secret coven protecting the Supreme Court, it's an egregore.

There are, like, at least a dozen egregores in D.C., all delicately balanced and interprotective.

If you're not familiar with the term, the basic gist is the concept of the Supreme Court, the police, patriarchy, etc. is so powerful and deeply entrenched that it becomes a spirit of its own, with its own biases and will. You can't kill it, but you can supplant it. Weaken it. Disarm it. This is why hexing the Supreme Court will cause significant backlash to the unprepared - it's like an immune system for the body politic.

TL;DR: You can't hex the Supreme Court because their meme power is over 9000.

I am dying for tiktok witches to give me all the details on the governments secret coven of spellcasters employed to make sure that white people burning fruit can’t hurt any politicians with their psychic beams

[jbfly46]

I’ve been feeding data to the OG egregore known as the “Holy Spirit”, to then program the simulation we live in to give the uneducated neural feedback training, and I think the military thinks it’s all a quantum computer, when I just use the quantum computer egregore, which is stationary thanks to their paranoia, to yell at them (they only respond to negative feedback), and for basic computer functions to be used by the “Holy Spirit” (like copy & paste).

[teriel]

In this latest episode of the Magical Experiments Podcast, I talk about how you can modify existing magical entities you’ve created and share why and when you would want to modify them. I share a couple of personal examples of entities that I’ve created and modified and how doing these modifications improved the efficacy of their work.

Comment with the word entity and I'll send you a link.

[daimonpriestess]

Ashnikko - L8r Boi (Official Lyric Video)

[falling-drops-of-ichor]

My personal answer from a... weird standpoint thanks to how weirdly I exist & what I know as a result + what I know is: probably not?

I'm going to elaborate as best as my spoons will allow. Usual disclaimer of this being notably UPG/SPG.

Egregores can be made unintentionally largely because their origin is as a thoughtform even if they can become "actually biological" post-creation (or as the climax of their creation depending on your view of the process within context).

Every being has some sort of tie to something, and so while you are crafting living things and employing the aid of certain base concepts to consistently shape them... I'm not sure the chickens or the dinos would be egregores? Partially since there's a few definitions of egregores but they're largely along the lines of "a thing of some level of consciousness made through thought as a face of something" - take PC magic turning to , say, specifically the game Hades' version of Chaos for a with-the-times example: this version of Chaos as a specific independent figure would be created largely by the thought of them as a being and that emotional charge, leading to an egregoric Chaos From Hades 2 Supergiant.

Bringing chickens with unusual modes of reproduction the way you did, from what I remember of you discussing it, was more akin to general creation of a lifeform.

HANG ON. Have I been making egregores? Is that what lifeweaving is? The general agreed-upon definition of an egregore is an entity that has been formed unconsciously- without intent, basically. Although I know there have been experiments with people forming egregores intentionally(I've seen them in internet occult circles). When I'm lifeweaving I've been grabbing the energy threads from existing concepts(chicken, ungulate, etc.) and weaving them together to the point that they start self replicating and become self-sufficient. The process was inspired by the idea that life evolved when chemical reactions took place in such a fashion that they became self repeating.

[jasper-pagan-witch]

Jasper's Servitor/Thoughtform Resource Post

last updated: October 29, 2024

Please note: The biggest difference between a servitor and thoughtform is the level of sentience (or perceived sentience). A servitor is not sentient, while a thoughtform is. Determine it as you will.

Also, a disclaimer! Even if I don't find a source particularly helpful, you might get more out of it than I did! I just like to categorize and sub-categorize things.

Tumblr Posts I Find Helpful

How to Make a Servitor by viadescioism: A rather straightforward guide on servitor creation.

Creating a Thoughtform by windvexer: A decently lengthy guide on thoughtform creation.

When Creating Thoughtforms by witchesalleyway: A little reminder about picking the shapes of your thoughtforms.

Technowitchcraft - Thoughtforms by aceswitch: A post with the idea of using a USB drive as the "body" of a servitor/thoughtform to allow for future edits.

Egregore by trustmepink: An extremely short post defining what an egregore is. Great for being introduced to the word and concept, though there's not much meat in the post and the sources/helpful links are a bit questionable.

Sigils: Scribbles to Forget or Spirits to Remember by witchofsouthernlight: While not about servitor creation, this is about reusing sigils for specific goals and how those can be spirits in an animist perspective. A really neat post overall and useful here because of the way that servitors are often tied to sigils.

Entity Creation Worksheet by jasper-pagan-witch: Adapted from Creating Magickal Entities, but altered to a decent extent so it's more helpful to me personally.

Servitor Design Template by ritual-and-chaos: Adapted from Servitor Magick, extremely straightforward with an explanation. A great alternative to my adaptation of the template from Creating Magickal Entities.

Chaos Magic: Servitors, Thoughtforms, and Godforms by trollkunnig: Incredibly in-depth and detailed when it comes to servitor creation, but since OP deactivated, the links in reference to the godform parts are broken. Damn the loss of information on the Internet!!!

Destroying Your Thoughtforms: by viadescioism: A fairly detailed (if a little wall-of-text-y) post on the destruction of the thoughtform, with a guide in case you didn't build a kill switch/phrase into your thoughtform to begin with.

Thoughtforms: Theory & Ethics by spiritvexer: A good companion post to the thoughtform destruction one above, giving a few alternatives to total destruction for the thoughtforms when you no longer need them.

Thoughts on Thoughtforms by spellsandwoo-woostuff: An insightful read into another approach to thoughtforms as OCs or writing muses given life rather than spells given sentience.

Basics of Servitor Creation and Implementation by majokkid: Part of majokkid's Magi Praxis series, this goes over the basic steps of servitor creation in a way that is straightforward, easy to understand, and works well even beyond magical girl-aligned practices.

Books And Websites I Find Helpful

Condensed Chaos: An Introduction To Chaos Magic by Phil Hine: While this is a chaos magic 101 type book, it has an incredibly robust chapter on servitor/thoughtform creation. It also has the benefit of talking about chaos magic more broadly to give you more context for servitor/thoughtform creation. You can find my initial thoughts on it here. APPLICABLE PAGES: 106 to 125, under the chapter name "Chaos Servitors"

The Forty Servants, The Four Devils, and The Grimoire of The Forty Servants by Tommie Kelly: Two pre-made servitor systems that are incredibly in-depth and, in my opinion, quite fun to use. There's a little bit of plug-and-play applicable here.

Magickal Servitors: Create Your Own Spirits to Attract Pleasure, Power and Prosperity by Damon Brand: It is effective, straight to the point, and actionable. But interestingly, it's incredibly combative towards chaos magic, which is where servitor/thoughtform creation sprung up to begin with. You can find my initial thoughts about it here.

Tumblr Posts I Find Less Helpful

Creating a Servitor and Creating a Thoughtform by witchy-oates: These guides aren't bad, but they really seem to focus on the fear that a servitor will spontaneously develop sentience, which I generally disagree with.

Is Your Spirit A Thoughtform? by elysiumconjures: A lengthy questionnaire and list of red flags that an entity you're interacting with might be a thoughtform. Personally I found it frustrating to read, but the list can at least guide beginners who are still learning discernment techniques to figure out what to look for.

On Telling The Difference Between A Thoughtform And A "Real" Spirit by creature-wizard: The counter-post to the above one, though you kind of need to see both perspectives to fully appreciate creature-wizard's wonderful counterpoints.

Distinguishing Imaginary Friends, Thoughtforms, and Spirits by spiritconnect: Another post about deciphering whether what you're talking to is a thoughtform or some other kind of entity.

A Short Guide to Thoughtforms by thewitchofbucktown: Longer than it promises, and I personally don't feel like referring to all deities as thoughtforms is something that works with my understanding of things at this time, but not a bad post considering it was written 11 years ago. Plus, OP hasn't deactivated, which is really hard to find in servitor/thoughtform resources.

Servitors: A Basic Guide to Artificial Entities by tinyrosemarysparrows: While this is a very detailed guide with some interesting and unique approaches to servitor creation, the author dropping back to "destroy if it even blinks wrong" (not that much of an exaggeration) makes me hesitant to recommend it fully, hence its placement down here. The post even says you can reprogram servitors but still recommends immediate destruction for every little thing, so…it's not really how I roll.

Books And Websites I Find Less Helpful

Creating Magickal Entities: A Complete Guide to Entity Creation by David Michael Cunningham, Taylor Ellwood, and T Amanda R Wagener: I hated this book so much. Out of everything in here, I found only four things that were actionable and that I could use. Every single author here was pretentious as fuck and took forever to make their damn point. This could have been an email. You can read more of my complaints here. The three parts that I found most interesting can be read in these Tumblr posts of mine: Servitors as Links; Energy Store-House Entities (ESHEs); and Servitor Biographies.

Protection & Reversal Magick: A Witch's Defense Manual by Jason Miller: I can't fucking believe I'm putting a Jason Miller book here. And look, I can't say this entire book is helpful because I haven't yet finished it, but the section on artificial spirits created for magical offense and defense? Probably one of the best sections on servitors/thoughtforms I've read in a non-dedicated book in a while. Just be aware that his tone of speech is deeply annoying, and this book of his leans more Hekatean. But because I have not finished reading this book, I cannot recommend this book fully. APPLICABLE PAGES: 119 to 146, under the chapter name "Spirit Guardians and Servitors"

Hands-On Chaos Magic: Reality Manipulation through the Ovayki Current by Andrieh Vitimus: I hated this book. I hate this book. I will hate this book. It's deeply frustrating and there's only so many times I can keep writing "stop citing a white woman on hoodoo" in the book itself before I just start eating the pages. That, and many similar problems, are why I do not find this book helpful on the whole despite how in-depth it goes in its three chapters on servitor creation. The author also refers heavily back to Condensed Chaos by Phil Hine, so that's required reading before you even pick this up. Personally, I'm just not impressed. APPLICABLE PAGES: 287 to 339, under the chapter names "Creating Entities with Energy and Information", "Giving Form to Concepts and Ideas", and "Advanced Practicum on Entity Creation"

Jasper's Miscellaneous Bullshit

Jasper's Guide To Energyforms by jasper-pagan-witch: A little glossary of how I, personally, use the terms you've seen speckled throughout this post.

The Modal Commander Servitor by jasper-pagan-witch: A Magic: The Gathering Commander format approach to creating a kickass servitor that can change and adapt as easily as swapping out cards.

Atronachs, Ash Guardians, and Quick Notes on the Less Common Atronachs on @the-college-of-whispers: Want a quick look at how Jasper from 3 years ago approached the idea of elemental Daedra as entities, both created and summoned? These three posts are for you.

@jasper-and-the-forty-servants: Remember how I was talking about the plug-and-play part of the Forty Servants above? Yeah, that's what I do over on this blog. My favorite two are, hands down, Falco Spara, Pactweaver as the Protector and Dina, Soul Steeper as the Healer.

GOFLOWOLFOG and Fotamecus: Two servitors/egregores that I and people close to me have had incredible experiences with. Hell yeah to both of them.

Mesperyian: Tumblr's very own Greek goddess egregore. An excellent study in the power of multiple people taking something and running with it. (Her original story can be found here, by the way!)

[the-real-list-of-ominous-threats]

tell me your pronouns or so god help me I will

legitimate question what pronouns would you guys diagnose me with based off vibes

[heartnosekid]

EGREGORE - an egregore (also spelled egregor; from French égrégore, from Ancient Greek ἐγρήγορος, egrēgoros 'wakeful') is a concept in Western esotericism of a non-physical entity or thoughtform that arises from the collective thoughts and emotions of a distinct group of individuals.

a concept stimboard for 'egregore gods' for anon!

🕯️-📜-🕯️ / 📜-🕯️-📜 / 🕯️-📜-🕯️

[isuckmorethanjustblood]

the pagan urge to work with the mothman

[alchemy-of-spirit]

Darth Maul Tarot

Part two

(Totally printing these off at my local Walmart for $5🫡)

[sadraccoon061]

Some Egregore food since he wasn't in the latest chapter.