Meta-Animals, Thoughtforms, Egregore

When I was a college student at Hiram studying Physics, I was struck how improbable it is that numbers and algorithms are able to describe and predict natural phenomenon. I began probing the concept that there's something else out there. I was attracted to "The Ideas" of Plato, which served as a formal introduction to the concept of thought forms. Roughly at the same time, the concepts of emergent properties worked their way into the popular imagination. I started to see how the two concepts were complementary. The idea of emergent properties could serve as a sort of skeleton for thoughtforms.

Scientism is the dominant view in Western thinking today, that is, that Physics explains all, that the interaction of particles and forces causes everything. From the scientist's point of view, consciousness must arise from matter and really not be any more mysterious or any less mechanical than the operation of a computer. My instinct, though, is this interpretation is simplistic and wrong and that thought forms, or the more musical sounding term egregore offers an alternate and more compelling explanation for the relationship of consciousness and the material universe.

The term egregore has its roots in The Book of Enoch, and found new usage in the occult revival of the 19th century. My interpretation of the concept is that thought forms, the egregore actually exist, that is, they have an independent existence from human beings but that they arise from our consciousness. We have a symbiotic, or perhaps simultaneous co-existence.

This concept can be broadened, or maybe given a more technical spin if we think about a new idea: the meta-animal. That is, an organism that arises from a group of organisms. One very familiar example is the state, which rises from the people of a nation. A biological example is a slime mold, which is a colony of cells that behave as an individual creature. (See slime mold problem solving as an example of emergent behavior.)

The concept of the meta-animal, though, differs from the orthodox notion of  "the state" in that this meta-animal has an independent consciousness and an independent will from its members. It is a thing that emerges from the sum of the parts.

I very recently realized that when you look at an animal, or at consciousness from an information theory point of view, it becomes possible to imagine ways to detect these creatures and discern this flow of information within a meta-animal. How one would do this is not apparent, or obvious, so this is undoubtedly a long term project.

Regardless, the concept of the egregore or a meta-animal is intimately tied to mythology; the egregore, the thoughtforms are the gods.