Peacedog wrote:Trick,
Thank you.
FYI, the nearest conventional term for egregore is "group think", which leaves out a lot of the more poignant aspects of the phenomena. Read "The True Believer: The Nature of Mass Movements" by Eric Hoffer while keeping this concept in mind and a whole lot of things will begin to click. A slightly longer explanation of the role of the egregore can be found in John Michael Greer's book "Inside a Magical Lodge." That book gives instructions for how to build group workings and an esoteric organization from the ground up. It made much of what I saw in Asian monasteries make sense.
Please keep in mind the whole topic largely annoys me at this point. Just to get to where I am now, I find the fact that I had to spend the money I did, travel to the places I went, spend years of my life, and deal with the imbeciles involved ridiculous.
The reality is almost anyone can become a high end "enlightened" practitioner with about 2-3 years worth of, mostly, full time work when given access to the right methodology/technology. The fact that it takes most of us substantially longer is obscene.
Once someone "gets" how all of the meditative/yogic stuff works, barring their adherence to an ideology, it all becomes very mechanical. And that allows you to break down a variety of things very quickly. As a functional tool it allows you to master complete skill sets in about 1/5th the time it takes the general population. So that 10000 hour number drops down to about 2000 hours.
If you look at someone who mastered multiple skill sets in one lifetime, dig deep enough and you'll generally find a practitioner.
Also bear in mind that I've been dealing with all of this for decades, have developed my own opinions on things and can be a little cranky at times.
Things I understand today I understand I could have understood much early on on my way. Many choices I could say I regretted, but when looking back I can somehow see it was all part of a bigger learning process, an ongoing process. Even if finding “enlightenment” early on the way there will for sure be new experiences ahead.