September 5, 2026
Forever ago in internet years—a portion of the internet I had found myself in during COVID was taken by discussion of “egregores” or conceptual entities which exist as a nonphysical mind. One such example would be America (or the concept thereof) which exists in the minds of people, has people act in ways which protect it and further it, and has distinct material effects despite not being a physical entity itself. However, as we all left our houses, we became more normal. As an aside, this was mostly post-rationalists discovering the end result of materialism + consciousness (see Nagel). There is nothing new under the sun.
However, as long as one does not go off the rails with it, this concept is a fairly convenient shorthand for describing certain sets of phenomena. One such case is mental disorders. In Crazy Like Us, Ethan Watters describes culturally-bound mental disorders which spread to different ones via trade. Perhaps these sets of ideas arise from the material changes when a country plugs into global trade. Watters’ description of anorexia nervosa in Japan is particularly apt, in which the refusal of food was associated with grief in pre-western Asia (or religious ecstasy in pre-modern Europe), and the specific nervosa subtype only came into being with modern advertising and awareness campaigns—the modern association with weight and intake being the main cause of this phenomenon. Egregores are another possible model of this process.
I struggle with discussing obsession from the inside. Almost like a compulsion, as if one’s mind is overtaken by an outside force unconcerned with the well-being of the body it inhabits. There is an I, but immobile, stuck as an observer as one makes the wrong choice again and again. Or even more insidious, that the I is now so twisted such that their vision of reality begins to correspond with their self-harming action. Illness is the most visceral version of these collective beliefs, but any self-perpetuating thought may take the same pattern. A job may not serve the best interests of a worker; despite this, daily exposure to the same set of ideas that they must be in their position will perpetuate an act of self-harm. As people are natural imitators, any genuinely-held belief will perpetuate itself. For larger concepts, imagine any self-perpetuating political system by those it harms, for they cannot conceptualize an alternative.
This framing is helpful. In a disordered or concept-based viewing, we tend to treat individual symptoms (of a disorder, ameliorating negative externalities, etc.). An egregore-based framing allows us to target the spread of an idea. If there are transmissible ideas, we can stop them. If a core belief can prevent you from finding alternatives, why not create a transmissible idea which prevents the concept or possibility of acting on behalf of a malignant thought? As always, though, we ought to be careful with the ideas we choose to believe.