Egregores, Mobs and Demons | with Jordan Hall & John Vervaeke

In this conversation with Jordan Hall and John Vervaeke we discuss the meaning and implications of "egregores" as described by the recent two articles on the Symbolic World Blog by Daniel Townhead and Kenneth Florence as well as in the book "Meditations on the Tarot" by Valentin Tomberg. The question of egregores is part of our ongoing discussion about higher beings, collective intelligence, distributed cognition and principalities.

We also discuss our current world, our language as a secular culture, what a solution to the meaning crisis will look like and artificial intelligence.

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Timestamps
00:00:02 - Coming up next
00:01:15 - Intro music
00:01:40 - Jordan's terminology
00:03:08 - Background for this discussion
00:04:11 - Where Jordan is coming from
00:05:25 - Where John is coming from
00:06:24 - "Egregore" & bottom-up/top-down
00:08:21 - Again, where Jordan is coming from
00:09:01 - "Headless" beings
00:13:27 - Self-destructive/parasitic structures
00:19:25 - Demons in iconography
00:20:46 - Decomposition at the level of the mob
00:25:26 - The fringe of hyper-beings
00:28:38 - A bureaucracy that's too strong
00:31:58 - The demonic hierarchy
00:37:50 - What is evil?
00:39:22 - Selling your soul
00:42:21 - A virus
00:45:48 - We can see these patterns now
00:49:18 - We’ve lost our language around these beings
00:51:29 - Zombie Christianity
00:54:24 - How long have we been here?
00:58:50 - What can we do?
01:14:26 - Being in relationship with what is real
01:33:56 - Artificial intelligence
01:40:31 - Prayer

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My intro was arranged and recorded by Matthew Wilkinson.

[johnvervaeke]

I realize I have made a mistake. I thought the word being used was aggregore which is an entity emerging out of aggregation. The word being used has an etymology form awakening. However my point still holds as it is generated in a purely bottom up fashion. I apologize for my mistake. Integrated entities vs aggregation was something I have studied a lot and so, while that literature is completely relevant, I was mistaken about the term being used. I apologize.

[justinjohnson]

I’m a plumber trying my very best to follow along with this. Watched the whole thing and didn’t discern nearly half the information here. I’ll rewatch it until it makes sense. Thank the three of you greatly for having this discussion and sharing it with all of us.

[brendonlake]

Probably the most insightful discussion of this topic I've heard because it's not secularized but recognizes the spiritual.

[joshualovelace]

59:35 During the Kairos of Middle Earth:
“I wish it need not have happened in my time, " said Frodo.
"So do I, " said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”

[RodrigoMera]

Hard to follow yet it gave me flashes of insight... I feel this stuff is a top level academic discussion. Good to have you here on yt.

[christheother]

So glad to have found this. I had despaired that intellectuals would be of no use in this battle ( so frequently they are part of the corrosive ooze ) but here I find the opposite with great progress being made. An underlayment of courage and hope make all the difference.

[TheDonovanMcCormick]

Every time you two do a video I’m like, man I want to watch this, but my brain is too tired. Ten minutes in, every time, it’s at full attention eating whatever is on the menu. Y’all do another one with Paul too, he’s the best moderator for thoughts and conversations to blossom.

[kateescobar]

" Avoid the sorcerer's apprentice thing at all costs" is for me the quote of this wonderful conversation. Many thanks to all three participants. Totally awesome.

[krisymar]

This talk is mindblowing. For me, this info is the missing puzzle piece ive been searching for. Thank you for this great work

[FaithEncouragedTV]

These videos cause me great joy/sadness. Joy in that there were whole moments of this video that I understood and enjoyed. And sadness that there was so much more that I am simply not capable of grasping. This leads me to be stretched to know "more." Thank you for this exercise. My mental muscles are sore and will probably require a few days of recuperation. 🤫😏

[iananderson]

As a young man seeking modern wisdom, and coherent, elastic dialogue, I can't thank you three enough. Even if i have to stop the video every 2 minutes to try and fully understand whats being said, I love it!

[tygersoul]

I usually don't have to replay something someone said a second time in order to understand it, but I would like to paraphrase the first clip at the very beginning. "Our collective consciousness drives us into the certain future of whatever it is we are focused on. If we remain in our lower nature and stupidly focused on things that may not benefit us in the long run, like creating sentient AI, those things could potentially destroy us."

[justadog-headedman]

Sorry for the double comment, but I want to express that I can relate to John`s struggle, when he said that he wanted Plato for instance, to have a place. I say this because I also struggled with trying to find a place to Sages from Eastern religions, considering that that kind of response that sometimes one sees "everyone who is not a Christian is worshipping the Devil", just does not make sense for me, because I was basically carried to Christianity by these Eastern Sages. The way I made sense of it is through the notion of the narthex in Orthodox churches, which is an intermediate place in traditionally designed churches between the world and the nave, where worship takes place. In the narthex you would have figures such as the Greek philosophers for example.

The way I view it is that the proper way to relate to a figure such as the Buddha or Plato is through the idea of the narthex, this intermediate space between the world and the place of worship.

[djschneck]

This is one of the most interesting conversations I have ever heard. Copious amounts of respect to these 3.

[climbingmt.sophia]

The distinction between curiosity and wonder kept coming up here for me. The parasitic process is attempting to "have" the territory and only can expand via curiosity. The hyper agent engages with wonder toward the infinite.

Also, the power of Dialogos portrayed here is unlike any I have seen before. Combined with a radical and profound humility embodied by all three participants, what emerged was glorious. In answer to John's questions of how to properly participate in the Kairos, it seems to be embodied here.

[lmcp]

I loved this conversation! It did stretch my brain and caused a dictionary search, but that’s all good growth. I have listened to the Js ( John, Jordan, Jonathan, and Jordan ( I call you guys the 4Js) discuss several times and it is always an interesting, enlightening, stretching and strengthening brain yoga

[lfannaly]

Love hearing more people are becoming aware of Tomberg and his work...MOT is one of the most deep and enlightening spiritual texts ever written

[sheilaeisele]

The phrase "trying to attach ourselves to a good" stood out for me. Like the pursuit of happiness, it has that sense of a "false god". I kept hearing the quote from Luther: "Your god is that to which your heart clings, in which you place your trust." If we invest ourselves in whatever we hope will secure the good we're pursuing, rather than seek to deepen our trust in life and in our relationship with all-that-is, then we are in a reciprocal-closing relationship pattern.

[justadog-headedman]

This was an amazing conversation. Very insightful, I particularly enjoyed that part where John expressed his struggle with his practice and Jonathan`s response to it. My reservation with John`s practice is similar to what Jonathan said really. You simply do not know what exactly you are dealing with. Aside from the rightful criticisms, one thing René Guénon was essential in my own journey was highlighting the existence of these subtle "residues" or this intermediary space where much of the modern "pseudo-religions" are dealing with, spiritism for instance, which I was exposed in my childhood. Guénon's book on spiritism is very insightful into highlighting the dangers of engaging with this subtle realm in a way which is not properly ordered. I think the idea would be that in the context of a church, you can engage in that space in the proper way, depending on the church of course. With this I have in mind Eastern Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism, for instance, as compared to the modern manifestations of Christianity.

[PaulVanderKlay]

Is Jordan disparaging Clippy??!! Do animated paperclips have feelings?? :)