Could an Egregore effect rewrite history?
Could an Egregore effect rewrite history?
In Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman a sort of Egregore effect is described in both The Sandman story “Dream of a thousand cats” and The Sandman: Overture, in which if a thousand souls dream the same thing at the same time that thing becomes manifest, even retroactively, re-writing history to accommodate reality so that thing was always true.
One subject in the field of parapsychology that has always fascinated me is the notion of Tulpa and Egregore. Egregore is the notion of something becoming manifest because of a strong collective belief. Tulpa is similar but it’s from an individual. Sometimes people online use these terms to describe the creation of an imaginary friend with realistic traits or possible psychic phenomena attached, implyng that the entity had become self-aware and manifest.
The concept of belief being strong enough to make something manifest has always interested me ever since I discovered the notion in The Real Ghostbusters animated series where the collective idea of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson caused them to manifest as self-aware ghost-like entities. This was an Egregore concept in a childre’s show but I did not know the term yet.
The term Lycanthropy can be used to mean the condition of being a werewolf (a lycanthrope) or the belief that one is a werewolf. The term is interchangeable in its use because the belief can be strong enough to manifest apparent physical transformations such as enhanced strength, ferocity, heightened senses, and excessive hair growth. By the technicality of belief causing physical symptoms, yes, werewolves are real. It’s similar to pseudocyesis (False pregnancy) where the belief or want to be pregnant is so strong that it causes physical manifestations such as distended abdomen, missed periods, and hormone changes.
Another pop culture example of a Tulpa effect is how the has-been horror actor character, Peter Vincent, in the 1985 Fright Night movie convinces himself that he is the hero he always pretended to be in movies, and in doing so, he genuinely becomes that hero. This manifestation of self-creation or self-reinvention is (in my opinion) another type of Tulpa effect.
I do not believe that Ouija boards are innately evil. Ouija boards, pendulums, and automatic writing are often subconsciously controlled by the ideomotor effect. But a strong belief that these things are evil could trigger a Tulpa or Egregore effect. it’s popular to think Ouija boards are powerful and evil portals even though they’re just glossy cardboard with the alphabet printed on it.
So how do we know the Egregore effect hasn’t already re-written our reality many times over by now?
Here’s a hypothetical example. I have always found Count Dracula to be the scariest of the classic monsters and I think part of that has to do with the fact that he’s tied to a real historic figure. The real Vladislaus Drakulya (many alternate spellings) AKA Vlad the III of Wallachia AKA Vlad Tepes (The Impaler) was a real Voivode (Prince) of what is today Romania.
In many depictions of the vampire Dracula the notion is that he was the historic figure but came back from his grave as a vampire.
But what if there was no historic figure? The original Dracula novel by Bram Stoker is written in such a way to suggest an historic background. The novel is written in a quasi-realistic epistolary novel, the literary equivalent of a “Found footage” horror movie.
What if the collective idea of Dracula was strong enough to reach back through time and create the historic figure he’s “based” on? (I know that distinction is debated since the connection was a last minute addition to the novel).
Let’s humor the idea for a moment that the collective belief was strong enough to literally re-write history to accommodate it. What if Vlad the Impaler is the result of an egregore effect from modern collective minds altering reality in the past?
The Egregore (in theory) would be strong enough to make him have existed but probably not strong enough to make him an immortal, blood-drinker, with the power to control the weather and transform into animals. And this would be because though the collective belief is strong, so is the collective skepticism. Balance and counter balance.
Now that’s just an example but is the concept of Egregore strong enough to re-write history? With collective belief and manifestation we’d never know it, because to us that thing believed in, was always that way. Maybe, because of a “glitch” this is where some Mandela effect false-memories come from- a possible hiccup in the revision of reality.
Anyway, it’s just a theory. But nevertheless we should be thankful that there are enough people doubtful of blood drinking immortal shapeshifters to keep ol’ Vlad in check.
