Post a Comment On: Bruce Charlton's Notions

I have been re-reading Dion Fortune's Applied Magic - and thinking about her descriptions and discussions of 'thought forms'. These are essentially the same phenomena variously called elementals, egregores and dynamic archetypes. These hypothetical entities are generated by the pooled consciousness of a group of people, attain some kind of separate agency, and then act back to influence or indeed control that same group. 
So, a group of people whose attention is focused and motivated is posited to undergo a merging of thought to generate an entity that then develops 'a life of its own' such that - depending upon its nature and orientation - will then drive the group towards those goals (and by those methods) with which it was established. In sum: there is a reciprocal relation between group and thought form; and the though form depends on the group for its original form, energy and continued existence - but the thought form may develop in new directions and impose these on the group; and the individuals in the group are also subjugated to the thought form and cannot (or cannot easily or always) withdraw assent and membership. I will here assume that, if not an exact formulation, these thought forms are at least potentially real phenomena. 
In fact I am going to argue that the ability to generate thought forms was essentially universal among Men, at least until the end of the Medieval period in Europe - but that this was a phase in the development of human consciousness that has now dwindled to almost vestigial levels of power. This is because the ability to generate thought forms by group pooling of consciousness is double-edged; because it is also a vulnerability to control-by thought forms - directly a vulnerability to being controlled by an irresistible thought form; and indirectly to being-controlled-by the group in which an individual is participating. Which is to say that thought forms are experienced as overwhelming, universal (to the group), mandatory - and, in a word, as objective reality. Therefore, thought forms of this kind are what Owen Barfield - in Saving the Appearances - calls collective representations. 
Taking up the ideas of Owen Barfield (and Rudolf Steiner) concerning the 'evolutionary development of human consciousness; I am struck by how deftly this can be applied to the changing capacity/ vulnerability of humans to thought forms. In brief; I regard known history as one in which humans (at different rates in different places and among different peoples) are gradually losing the pooled consciousness that was at first natural and spontaneous; then became a product of ritual, symbolism, use of sacred texts and traditions etc - which can be understood psychologically as inculcating associations and building them among groups to reach the desired state of pooled consciousness. This then because the basic of social cohesion and purpose. Dion Fortune was writing as a 'ritual magician' active in the 1920s and 30s; and at that time it was still possible for selected and highly-motivated groups of people (i.e. members of magical lodges) to be trained in concentration, control of emotions, and the use of symbolism and ritual - to attain that pooled consciousness and generation of 'objective' thought forms, which had receded from the population at large. The thought forms might be positive and benign - as with the Hite magic Dion Fortune's Christian mysticism; or negative and malign (self-gratifying, and manipulative) - as with Aleister Crowley and other Black Magicians.  But generation of benign, positive, and overwhelmingly powerful thought forms by groups became more difficult and rarer though the twentieth century - and (I infer from my reading in the field, not from experience) had essentially ceased by the millennium. Nowadays, White magical rituals apparently have an as-if quality; more like attending a drama than being irresistibly affected by objective reality.And the same applies to Western churches. Whereas they once had the ability to generate positive thought forms that would then impose upon members - not this has waned in strength such that all the churches are overwhelmed - and have been re-orientated - by the mainstream globalist totalitarian ideology. 
What of this totalitarian ideology? Is this a thought form? If so, is it really weak? The answer is yes - it is a thought form and it is weak. The fact that the totalitarian ideology must command the attention and motivation of 100s of millions of people is precisely because the levels of attention and motivation are so weak. Yet people no longer experience this ideology as objectively real, and require a continuous and escalating level of media propaganda combined with exclusion of alternatives in order to make it effective. Furthermore, the content of the mainstream ideology is negative - it can only generate even minimal levels of motivation by inducing negative (sinful) emotions such as fear, resentment and despair. And - even so - these strategically-induced mega-mass thought forms are only temporarily effective, and need to be swapped around, and novelties introduced - every few months.   
What, then, is God's positive purpose behind this development of consciousness away from groups pooling and making thoughts forms? The answer is that the loss of pooling is a consequence of the increased autonomy of thinking: the greater potential strength of individual thinking. We are less passively controlled, because we are more actively generative. Less immersed-in what seems 'objective' because we are able to range across reality in the primary thinking of our divine-selves.  We are now more able to resist the influence of thought forms, and domination by 'the group' - and this works both ways - resistance to good group influences and evil. We choose and make that reality we live-by. This choosing is necessary - because we cannot pool with a group; and also, therefore, the direction of choice is also an unavoidable personal responsibility. Each Man now has the capability consciously to resist any and all external influences; to think 'for himself'; and therefore to become able to pursue his own unique destiny through this mortal life. 
This is possible, despite that vastness of negative global totalitarian thought forms - because these are low-density elementals, they are experienced as diffuse archetypes - that, at the point of impact upon us, are not able to exert the irresistible (and often unconscious) pressure of ancient thought forms. Now, exactly because modern consciousness is cut-off and self-conscious; the thought forms generated by our attention and chosen source of motivation, are unique and individually-tailored. Each person's positive, God-aligned, thought form is (by analogy) high in density, resistant to subverting influences, and in its motion powered by that which our deepest intuitions tell us is true, beautiful and virtuous.  An individual thought form can therefore work like a knife whose edge can penetrate through any amount of the toxic gaseous influences of mega-mass ideology. In other words; our positive personal thought form - when motivated by faith and harmonious with divine creation - can 'beat' a whole world of shifting negations.