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[from http://home.fireplug.net/~rshand/streams/scripts/egregor.html ]

Subject: Rebel Angels
                                 
     The Fall of the Rebel Angels (detail)
     Pieter Bruegel the Elder c.1558

Egregor

     (c)  1998 L. S. Bernstein
     
    bernstein@mofet.macam98.ac.il
    
   (1) What is an egregor?
   
   An 'egregor' (or 'egregore') is not a word one would find in
   a dictionary or on the internet.
   
   Around the year 1985, I first came upon the word 'egregore'
   in The Magician, his training and his work, by W. E. Butler,
   Aquarian Paperback, 1982 (1959), p.155, where Butler writes
   that:
   
     "A clear idea of the nature of the magical Egregore, or
     group form, should be built up in the mind in order that
     the aspirant may understand what part he plays in the
     whole complex scheme, and thereby may know how closely he
     is guided and aided in his chosen work."
     
   [The mysterious head idol reportedly possessed by the
   Knights Templar, called the Baphomet, may have been intended
   as a representation of an egregor. RNS]
   
   Although I was familiar with the concept of 'group form' or
   'group thought form' from theosophical writings and from
   "magical" writers (such as Dion Fortune) I was not satisfied
   with the definition. Something in that word latched itself
   to my mind and made me investigate further.
   
   The word also appeared in The Magical Philosophy, by M.
   Denning and O. Phillips, Llewellyn Publications, 1978, Vol..
   IV, pp. 92-3, 95:
   
     "That deep level of racial and archetypal egregores...is
     termed the Collective Unconscious..." (.p.92)
     
   The word appears thrice more in the discussion on the
   ensuing page, #93. On page 95, however, we are introduced to
   a new term: "Watcher".
   
     "...the Watcher ... at the Threshold ... is not ... a
     valid archetypal egregore " (p. 95)
     
   The word also appeared in the French introductory booklet of
   AMORC, Maitrise de la Vie (p. 18:):
   
     " ... l'Egregore manifeste par la Roise-Croix constitue
     un idee-force ... Il est un champ d'energie cosmique ...
     "
     
   By that time I had a tentative idea that the "egregore" as a
   terminology is descended from the Golden Dawn activities.
   The founders of the Golden Dawn had claimed that they
   received a letter of authority from German Rosicrucians.
   Consequently I began to search published books that related
   to members of that Order or its upshoots, i.e. I. Regardie,
   E. Underhill, Dion Fortune, A. E. Waite. Nowhere did I find
   the term "egregore". However, I found a book by Eliphas
   Levi, The Great Secret, Thorson Publishers Ltd., 1975.
   Chapter 10, "The Magnetism of Evil" (pp. 127-136) has a
   multitudinous array of egregors (spelt without an "e"):
   
   Levi refers to the powers of nature and the cosmos as
   egregors. "These colossal forces have sometimes taken a
   shape and have appeared in the guise of giants: these are
   the egregors of the Book of Enoch." (p. 127).
   
   Levi later claims, discussing the planets; "...governed by
   those genii which were termed the celestial watchers, or
   egregors, by the ancients." (p. 129)
   
   Further on in his article he relates the egregor to the
   Kabbalistic Adam Kadmon ("that collective giant"), to the
   "Anakim in the Bible," and generally speaking to natural
   powers operating the world and to their analogies as they
   have been expressed in myths in various cultures. When he
   has done that, he says:
   
     "This is why we reject the mythology of the egregors
     finally and absolutely." (p. 130).
     
   The manuscript of this work had been finished in 1868 and
   was first printed in 1897. Levi, who had been trained as a
   Roman Catholic Priest, died in 1875. The founders of the
   Golden Dawn were acquainted with his writings. Levi himself
   was conversant with Rosicrucian ideas.
     _______________________________________________________
   
   While this was going on I began to look up dictionaries,
   first modern dictionaries and later Latin ones. Eventually I
   decided to learn Greek alphabet (which took me about a
   month) and look up a Greek dictionary. I found the word
   egregor at the Intermediate Greek - English Lexicon, founded
   upon the seventh edition of Liddell and Scott's
   Greek-English Lexicon, with reference to egeiro = to be
   awake, to watch.
   
   As I turned to egeiro (Root EGER) (I am transliterating into
   English) I found the following definitions:
   
     A:
     (1) to awaken, to wake up, to rouse.
     (2) to rouse, to stir up (example: stir up the fight)
     (3) to raise from the dead (N.T.)
     (4) to raise or to erect (example: a building)
     
     B:
     (1) to keep watch or vigil (Il)
     (2) to be awake (Hom.)
     (3) to rouse or stir oneself, be excited by passion
     (Hes., Thuc.)
     
   Clearly this word had many interpretations. Obviously it was
   connected to watching and wakefulness. It was obvious that
   at least some of the references I quoted above knew of its
   meaning as well as its source (Levi, as will be shown
   below).
   
   Since Liddell and Scott mentioned the New Testament, I then
   moved on to A Concordance to the Septuagint, ed. E. Hatch,
   first published 1897, Clarendon Press edition, "egregoros".
   
   The Concordance brings two citations of the word egregoros,
   together with the Hebrew equivalent = AYR (Hebrew letters,
   "ayin", "yod", "reish"). The word in Hebrew is pronounced IR
   or ER.
   
     (1) Lamentations, 4:14: "They wandered blind through the
     streets, polluted with blood, so that none could touch
     their garments."
     Hebrew text .
     
   The Septuagint translated "blind" into 'watchers"; instead
   of Blind the Septuagint translators read Watchers .
   
   Lamentations 4:14, according to the Septuagint, should be
   read thus:
   
     "Watchers moved through the streets, polluted with blood,
     so that none could touch their garments."
     
   The word AVR is spelt "ayin", "vav", "reish". The difference
   between the letters "yod" and "vav" is a tiny half a
   millimeter length of stroke. There could have been a scribal
   error somewhere, especially as the word IR or ER had become
   rather extinct as a terminology, probably from the third
   century C.E..
   
   (The Vulgate translated "blind" = "caeci" . Daniel 4:10 is
   translated in the Vulgate as "vigil").
   
   The second reference from the Septuagint is from Daniel,
   4:10, 20,
   
     Daniel 4:10,: "...and behold, a watcher and a holy one
     came down from heaven."
     
   According to the Septuagint there are two Greek versions to
   this sentence: Codex A (Sinaiticus) writes egregoros but
   Theodosion writes "eir".
   
   According to Andre Lacocque, Le Livre de Daniel, commentaire
   de l'ancien Testament, Paris, 1976, there are two versions,
   one "paraphrastique" (paraphrasing ) and the other "suit de
   pres le texte" (follows the text). The book of Daniel is the
   only biblical one where the Greek of the Septuagint is
   replaced by that of Theodosion, who adhered to the Hebrew
   and Aramaic text...(pp. 22, 64).
   
   It is clear that Theodosion considered "eir" a special
   concept or terminology and decided not to translate it into
   an ordinary Greek adjective. He probably thought it would
   lose its significance in such a translation.
   
   Now that we know that a Watcher is an egregor, and that an
   egregor is an "eir", which in Hebrew would be AYR ("ayin",
   "yod", "reish") we turn to the Hebrew and English Lexicon of
   the Old Testament, with an appendix containing the biblical
   Aramaic, based on the Lexicon of Wm. Gesenius, Oxford
   Clarendon Press, 1907 (Gesenius died in 1842).
   
   Here we come to the end of our search. According to
   Gesenius:
   
     AYR (he writes ir, not er) = "n. m. waking, or wakeful
     one, i.e. angel."
     
   The root of the word is Syrian, in Hebrew it would be "er",
   plural form "irin" (Daniel, 4:10, etc.).
   Gesenius then continues: "c.f. Charles - Enoch..."
   
   Thus, the mystery is solved. An egregor is an angel,
   sometimes called watcher; in Hebrew the word is ir, and the
   concept appears in The Book of Enoch, edited by Charles
   (that would be 1 Enoch).
   
   AYR - also means city. (In modern Hebrew, ir - city; arim -
   cities).
     _______________________________________________________
   
   (2) Interim conclusions
   
   We have now made a full circle with circumstantial evidence,
   leading us to wonder whether a group of people, in the
   second half of the nineteenth century and the first half of
   the twentieth century, a group that was somehow connected to
   the Rosicrucian mysteries, was also dealing with Enochian
   secrets. It is obvious that they knew of the Book of Enoch,
   the manuscript of which had been brought to Europe in the
   18th century; they had classical education and could read
   Greek. Still, the secret (whatever it was) must have been a
   very well-kept one, for the only ones referring to Enoch are
   Eliphas Levi, prior to the foundation of The Golden Dawn,
   and the writers quoted above - after the demise of The
   Golden Dawn. Of the Golden Dawn itself we know they
   reorganized the system called Enochian magic, based on the
   activities of Dr. John Dee (1527 - 1608).According to the
   Enochian Magick Reference Document , which is well
   documented, Dee referred to his system as "angelic". It was
   the G. D. members who named it Enochian. Of John Dee it has
   been claimed that he was the "founder of the Rosicrucian
   Order, the protestant response to the Jesuits" (About Dr.
   John Dee).
   
   An additional question left unanswered is whether Dr. Dee
   was aware of the word egregor in the sense of a
   watcher/angel from the Book of Enoch. I have not learned his
   system, but as far as I know it contains four Watch Towers
   with designated governors, or angels. Generally speaking,
   the word "governor" in Dee's context is translated into
   Hebrew as "Sar" SAR (the letter "shin" vowelled as "sin" and
   the letter "reish"), when it is retranslated it would be
   "arch" like "archangels (Greek "archon" also translated as
   'Prince'). This type of angel, the archangel, appears in the
   Book of Enoch, and the "Sarim" in there are called "Irim" as
   well.
   
   What is even more amazing is that the Dead Sea Scrolls refer
   to "towers" protected by angels. During a discussion of
   angelic names, M. J. Davidson, in his Angels at Qumran
   (Sheffield Academic Press, 1992), explains that "The group
   of four archangels, Michael, Sariel, Raphael and Gabriel are
   called by Syncellus (1.En.9.1) 'megoloi archanggeloi'.
   (Syncellus in his time distinguished between 'mere'
   archangels and 'Mega' Archangels). The same list occurs in
   1QM9.14-16, where the shields of the towers are to be
   inscribed with these four names." (p.326).
   Davidson explains that in the Qumran Community, the war
   between The Sons of Light (the Qumranites) and The Sons of
   Darkness (all outside the sect) ... "is to be conducted with
   acute awareness of the place of the angelic world in it....
   1QM 9.10-16 provides details on battle formations which
   involve four 'towers' ('Migdalot') which are apparently
   units of soldiers with specifically long spears and
   shields.... On each of their shields is written the name of
   one of the four archangels." (p.228).
   
   At this point in the article I would like to point out that
   most of this research was done in the l980's, before I was
   connected to the internet. As I have mentioned before, the
   word egregor simply latched itself on to my mind in a truly
   occult fashion. I was very happy to have solved the meaning
   of the term, being a native Israeli English teacher who gets
   annoyed by recalcitrant new English words, and who is not
   afraid of dictionaries. It was only in 1997, when I was
   linked, that I realized there was a large community on the
   net who were discussing this exact terminology. They were
   kept in ignorance because, in the polite words of Benjamin
   Rowe "as an obscure subject, it has not rated a great deal
   of attention from scholars and publishers".
   
   The internet is mentioned here since it presented me with an
   additional puzzle concerning Dr. Dee and modern occult
   milieu, the former being the elusive Liber Loagaeth,
   otherwise known as Liber Mysteriorum Sextus et Sanctus,
   dictated to Kelly and Dee by the angels (according to the
   Enochian Magick Reference Document), and the latter
   Lovecraft's Necronomicon - "The Call of Cthulhu" (1926).
   Both texts deal with the Old Ones and both are reminiscent
   of the myth of the Fallen Angels. Lovecraft claimed to have
   based his Necronomicon on a Manuscript of the Liber Loagaeth
   but later he retracted his claim. This is in conformity with
   my assumption that the topic of egregors was "top secret"
   among operating magicians at the beginning of this century..
   Somehow the mysterious Liber Loagaeth manuscript disappeared
   (how did it come into Lovecraft's possession ?) while
   Lovecraft denied ever having come into contact with it.
   
   However, according to information on The Necronomicon, Liber
   Logaeth was not dictated to Kelly. The Latin text came to
   Dr. Dee's possession while he was at the court of Emperor
   Rudoph II, in Prague. Parts of the Liber Logaeth are
   available at Al Azif: The Manuscript Liber Logaeth.
   
   The Necronomicon page above also refers to "the fabulous
   city of Irem" .
   
     "Irem is very important in Arab magick. 'Irem Zhat al
     Imad' (Irem of the Pillars) ...was probably built by the
     Jinn under the direction of Shaddad, Lord of the tribe of
     Ad. The tribe of Ad, according to legend, was a race
     roughly equivalent to the Hebrew 'Nephilim''....In Arab
     legend Irem is located in the Rub al Khali...- 'the empty
     Quarter' [which] ...refers to the VOID and is the same as
     AIN in the Kabbalistic traditions....Modern
     archaeologists have identified ruins at Shisha, Oman, as
     those of Irem, better known as the lost city of Ubar."
     
     The name Irem is too close to comfort to the name IRIM
   (egregors) or ARIM (cities) in Hebrew (it can also be
   'spelt' Erim - awake - in the plural form), especially as
   the Liber Logaeth (I checked the Logaeth for IREM, not the
   Necronomicon) deals with fallen angels.
   
     "Imad" is "Amood" (Hebrew), a pillar. It comes from the
   Hebrew verb AMD - 'to stand' - AMD .
   
     "Jinn" in Arabic is "devil", an oriental kind of devil as
   in "Aladdin and the Lamp".
   
     ("Majnun" in Arabic means "crazy" (bedeviled ?). )
   
     "Ad" means 'eternity' or 'forever' in Hebrew ( AD )
   
   Thus, Irim, the city of the Nephilim is again linked with
   the Book of Enoch, since the Nephilim, according to that
   Book, were the sons of the Irim (the egregors).
   It is also linked with Sitchin's theory of the aliens who
   built ziggurats ("Zhat" ?) as landing sites. If I wished to
   speculate, I could rephrase and say that according to Arab
   Legend, the city of the ever-wakeful ones, had tall landing
   and taking off sites (pillars, ziggurats), which were built
   by an immortal tribe.
   
   Moreover, the name Cthulhu, could refer to the Hebrew root
   KTL = KTL ("kof", "tet", "lamed") which means to 'kill', in
   battle and, or, other such unsavory circumstances. Thus,
   Cthulhu would be the name of a mighty and lethal (KaTLani)
   warrior.
   
   It must be pointed out, however, that the Liber Logaeth
   abounds with many other strange names. I would like to
   suggest, therefore, three possibilities:
   
   (1) The similarity of the names Irem and Cthulhu to Hebrew
   is accidental;
   (2) Dr. Dee received those names by channeling and scrying
   from incorporeal entities;
   (3) An excerpt or a manuscript of The Book of Enoch was
   available to Dr. Dee.
   
   Since I prefer the third possibility, which again connects
   me to the Book of Enoch, I ask myself again whether Dr. Dee
   had some kind of version, or excerpt of Enoch in his
   extensive library.
     _______________________________________________________
   
   (3) Was there an excerpt of The Book of Enoch in Dee's
   period ?
   
     "The Book of Enoch is among the important Jewish
     apocalyptic books of the Second Temple. It was considered
     part of the scriptures among the Christians until the
     third century C.E. and Enoch is mentioned in the New
     Testament (Jude, 14) as a prophet: Later it became
     apocryphal and as the years went by it was lost. It was
     preserved only in the Ethiopic Church."
     (Mikra Encyclopaedia, Book of Enoch - Hebrew).
     
   According to Michael A. Knibb, The Ethiopic Book of Enoch,
   Oxford U. Press, 1978, "Regrettably we have no information
   concerning the circumstances in which Enoch was translated
   from Aramaic into Greek nor of the presumed date of
   translation ... fourth to sixth centuries ..." (p. 27)
   
   According to Matthew Black, The Book of Enoch - or 1 Enoch,
   Leiden, E. J. Brill, 1985, "...no one seems to doubt that it
   was a Greek vorlage which the Ethiopic translated, with or
   without the help of a copy of the Semitic (in my view
   Hebrew) original." (p. 4)
   
   According to J. T. Milik, The Book of Enoch, Aramaic
   Fragments of Qumran Cave 4, Oxford, 1976, "The altogether
   incontestable terminus ante quem falls in the year 164 BC,
   the date of the composition of the Book of Dreams which is
   closely dependent on the Book of Watchers." (p. 24)
   
   Prior to the modern research of the Book of Enoch, hardly
   nothing was known about it, while "the short Greek excerpts
   in Syncellus, covering 6.1-10, 14; 15.8 - 16.1, provided the
   only source of information we had". (Knibb, p.1.)
   
   Georgius Syncellus wrote, at the beginning of the 9th
   century (808-810) a chronography of the earth, from the
   first day of creation to the year 284 C.E. Syncellus used
   The Book of Enoch as part of his sources, though, according
   to Milik, not directly: "It will be remembered, however,
   that he [Syncellus] was acquainted with the Enochic writings
   only through the works of the Alexandrian historians
   Pandorus and Annianus (around C. E. 400)." (Milik, p. 5.)
   Fortunately for us, Syncellus' sources were based on the
   "Book of Giants". As a result, the Greek excerpts that
   survived supplement the Ethiopic text.
   
   The Chronography of Syncellus was translated into Latin
   already at the beginning of the 9th century, together with
   the Chronographies of the Confessor (752-818) and others by
   Anastasius, surnamed Bibliothecarius, who, after having been
   cardinal and anti-pope and thrice excommunicated, became
   papal librarian under Hadrian II and John VIII. His literary
   energy was great, especially in translation from the Greek.
   (A History of Historical Writing, by J. W. Thompson,
   McMillan Co. USA, 1942, p. 207).
   
     "Anastasius was one of the few people in the west who
     knew Greek..." (p.174).
     
   However, the Latin version of Anastasius, which is called
   Historia Tripartita or Chronographia Tripartita and which
   was used in the West does not refer to the fallen angels,
   since Syncellus was used as a source only from Roman times.
   
   Knibb claims that a Latin translation of the entire Book of
   Enoch may have existed at one time, and brings, as a
   reference, two examples, one of which from the 9th century:
   
     "En.1.9, the passage quoted in Jude 14f., is quoted also
     by Ps. Cyprian and Ps. Vigilius. The latter seems to have
     taken the passages not from Jude, but from the Book of
     Enoch itself ..."
     
     "... In 1893, M. R. James discovered a fragment of Enoch
     in Latin in a 9th century British Museum manuscript ..."
     (Knibb, p.21, and notes #43, #44)
     
   Between the 9th and 15th centuries, as far as I know, there
   is no evidence that the Book of Enoch was used, directly, or
   through quotations, not to mention the expression egregor in
   Greek or in Latin.
   
   Milik writes that "The existence of a book of Enoch kept by
   the Abyssinian church among the sacred books of their bible
   had been known in Europe, in a vague way, since the end of
   the fifteenth century" (p. V). He does not bring reference.
   
   Pico Della Mirandola (end of 15th century) heard of Enoch:
   "It is probably of this type of work that Pico is thinking
   when he says that his practical cabala has nothing to do
   with the wicked magics going on under the names of Solomon,
   Moses, Enoch or Adam, by which demons were conjured by bad
   magicians ... from Pico's Apologia." (Giordano Bruno and the
   Hermetic Tradition, Frances Yates, U of Chicago Press, 1964,
   p.107 and note #2).
   
   After the fall of Constantinople, (1453 C.E.) many texts of
   the Roman and Greek culture reached the West. On the other
   hand, the legend of the angelic uprising was known in the
   east of the Empire. A Bar Hebraeus (1226 - 1286) wrote an
   extensive chronography on the subject:
   
     "...Therefore, according to what time hath brought, I,
     having entered the Library of the city of MARAGHAH of
     ADHORBIJAN, have loaded up this my little book with
     narratives ... from many volumes of the Syrians, Saracens
     (Arab), and Persians which are preserved here....
     After Adam came Seth his son. In the time of Seth, when
     his sons remembered the blessed life (which they had led)
     in Paradise, they went up into the mountain of Hermon,
     and there they led a chaste and holy life, being remote
     from carnal intercourse; and for this reason they were
     called IRE , meaning watchers and sons of Alohim. ...
     After Seth came Anosh his son ... although he submitted
     to marriage, he was not neglectful in pleasing God, and
     he did so more than those who chose a life of virginity
     and who went up into the mountain of Hermon, but who did
     not abide in their covenant. ...
     ...And in the fortieth year of Yard [biblical Yared]...
     the Sons of God, about two hundred souls, came down from
     the mountain of Hermon, because they had lost all hope of
     a return to Paradise. And because they lusted for carnal
     intercourse with women, their brethren the sons of Seth
     and Anosh despised them, and regarded them as
     transgressors of the covenant, and they refused to give
     them their daughters. And because of this, they went to
     the children of Cain, and took wives, and begat mighty
     men of names ... notorious for murders and robberies.
     Moreover, they set up over them the first king, a man
     whose name was Samyazos.
     ...The ancient Greeks say that Enoch is Harmis [Hermes ]
     Trismaghistos ..." etc.
     (The Chronography of Bar Hebraeus (1226-1286), translated
     by E. W. Budge, 1932.).
     
   Thus, it is obvious that the legend of Enoch was assimilated
   in the Orient (and in the Slavonic world as well - there are
   Slavonic translations).
   
   As far as the west is concerned, direct quotations from
   Syncellus could be found at the Chronography of all Times,
   the Thesaurus Temporum. This one was compiled and edited by
   Josephus Juste Scaliger (1540 - 1609). It is written in
   Greek, which I do not read. The book I saw was Reproductio
   phototypica editionis 1606 Thesaurus Temporum, Lugduni
   Batavorum, 1606.
   
   Dr. Dee who knew Greek (he would write notes in Greek in his
   diary) died in 1608. However, his "angelic" activities took
   place in the last decade of the 16th century. Nevertheless,
   in the light of the proximity of dates, it cannot be ruled
   out that he had seen, read or owned a Chronography or a
   manuscript quoting the Greek Syncellus.
   
   The Thesaurus Temporum was finally translated into Latin and
   published in 1652 ("Prodiit Parisiis a.1652, Typis Venetis
   revisum a.1729).
   
   The Latin Chronology says:
   
     "Canon Chronicus...ad Georgii Syncelli Chronologiam...
     Anni a mundi conditu
     1000 primus egregorum descensus
     1058 egregororum ad filias hominum profectio secunda
     1077 Egregogorum manifesta transgressio
     1123 Enoch nascitur (Enoch annus 1)..
     1420 Diluvium futurum Enocho revelatur (Enoch anni 298)
     1487 Enoch transferatur in paradisum (Enoch anni 365)
     1642 De Enoch anni non emplius loquitur Georgius. Noe
     nascitur, 1643 Noe annus 1.
     
   It is obvious from the above that even though the
   Chronography is very concise, the word egregor is rather
   extensively used in its context. The translator, Goar, did
   not change egregor into "vigil".(from Greek into Latin). He
   also claimed that he used for his translation Scaliger's
   compilation as well as a Codex Palatinus by Syncellus, #246
   in the Vatican Library, "Romae, Anno 1637" (p. 72)
   
   In conclusion I would venture to suggest that Dr. John Dee
   could have come into contact with a version of the Book of
   Enoch; a Slavonic version perhaps, or the Greek excerpts by
   Syncellus. It would also account for the great secrecy under
   which this term was both kept, and preserved. Although the
   Irim, the egregors, are angels on both sides of the camp -
   fallen angels as well as faithful ones . This may not be
   quite so clear to a lay reader, or even to an occultist or a
   mystic, in our times, not to mention the religious
   atmosphere of the 16th and 17th centuries.

     Egregore Definition Compilation
        A list of definitions from Gnosis article, "The Templar
   Tradition: Yesterday and Today" plus other Web links
   
     SATURN GNOSIS: the real Fraternitas Saturni
        How to incarnate an Egregor? Homunculise it! (by
   Barbara Weiss, Ottmar Domainko, & P.R. Koenig)
  
EOF