„Ts ‘its ‘tsi ‘nako, Thought Woman, is sitting in her room
And whatever she thinks about appears…
She is sitting in her room thinking of a story now.
I’m telling you the story she is thinking.
Leslie Marmon Sliko „Ceremony“
Through the daily observation of social developments, phenomena, and local and global trends, one cannot help but gain the impression that what in occultism is referred to as a thought-form, servitor or servant, meme, tulpa, egregore, or thought construct has a predominant influence on almost every aspect of human life and activity, and that, accordingly, their influence, whether good or bad, is automatic, except in quite rare individual cases. Although the mentioned terms are similar, there are significant differences.
The reason for their strong influence on people is mostly not due to a weak or unstable personality, but rather because this type of influence is often so subtle that the average person fails to perceive the true state of affairs. An illustration of this is the experience of Dion Fortune, who, as a young woman of strong and fearless spirit, during a conversation with her then employer – one that was a kind of hypnosis and psychic attack – was so profoundly shaken that she was ill for full three years. She described this experience in her excellent book Psychic Self-Defense, which also contains recommendations on how to protect oneself from a magic attack.
Since thoughts and emotions are so closely connected, it rarely happens that we think without feeling, or feel without any thinking. This interaction of will, thought, and emotion creates energetic forms that have their own way of acting upon the environment in which they appear. A good example of this is the experience of telepathy. Information is transmitted on the mental plane in the same way that sound vibrations are carried through the air.
The cause of this, on the individual level, may perhaps be found in the micro-egregores and thought-forms of the family environment, that is, the environment in which a person grows up -where they acquire their earliest ideas about the world and knowledge that will, to a greater or lesser extent, influence the formation of their (sub)conscious in the future and, consequently, the quality of their life. It should be noted here that this must be distinguished from inherited archetypes from the collective unconscious, which can represent a powerful tool for overcoming life’s crises and which, by their nature, are egregores themselves.
It is well known in what kind of family environment the famous metaphysician Ernest Holmes, the founder of the Science of Mind, lived. Among other things, he wrote and lectured about the influence of thoughts on life. Although they grew up in New England, which is theologically very strict, his wise mother did not allow her children to grow up in the atmosphere of fear that the Church preached. After the service, his father would tell his boys not to believe in lies and that they had nothing to fear, referring to the torments of hell they had heard about. Had his parents allowed Ernest to absorb the egregore of fear, he might have needed years to resolve his inner problems before his advanced ideas could exert influence on the entire world.
Holmes taught that the Mind is one and that everything else is merely an aspect of It, while each of us uses a portion of it. Emphasizing the creative and spiritual power of thought, he held that the Infinite Intelligence, or Mind (or God), operates according to our beliefs. If we release destructive thoughts and replace them with constructive ones, we cooperate with the Mind and become co-creators of our own reality. Meditation, affirmations, and prayer help us in this process.
Of course, genuine trust in the functioning of the Mind is necessary. According to him, one should not pray for something, but rather declare it to be true, without the slightest doubt that it will be as we demand. In the ideal case, our thoughts and motives should be pure—that is, cleansed of influences which, deep within ourselves, we know are not good or genuine.
Within family egregores it may be the most difficult to resist the influence, especially when it is harmful, precisely because of the strong emotions among family members, as well as the desire for acceptance and belonging which are basic human needs, and which will often remain denied, scarce, or conditional within an unhealthy family dynamic. The greatest victims are, of course, children, as beings who are only beginning to form their consciousness and their understanding of the world. Such first impressions are so powerful that they can disturb a person’s entire life.
To free oneself, through the development of awareness, from unhealthy and irrational inherited thought-forms that one does not even recognize as foreign requires nothing less than a great deal of time and effort; therefore, instant solutions should not be expected. In contemporary techniques this is often called reprogramming the subconscious, because such patterns truly function like computer programs.
Some occultists speak of a mental infection or virus, referring to destructive thought-forms such as fear, aggression, and anger, which have taken root in our aura and, like viruses or parasites, act upon us.
So, what are egregores and what are thought-forms? The aforementioned connection of will, thought, and feeling leaves an energetic trace on the astral plane and creates forms which, depending on the strength of the action and the energy that is (or is not) invested in them, gradually fade over time.
Thought-forms remain on the astral plane for a long time after the physical object has been destroyed. Astral travelers know this well; for example, on the astral plane they may encounter objects, buildings, old furniture, and similar things that no longer exist in the physical world, yet their energetic imprint is still present. The longer something remains in one place, the stronger its thought-form becomes. After an object changes the place where it was located, the thought-form does not follow its movement.
For this reason, people who are very sensitive to these subtle vibrations often sense spaces and objects and intuit events connected with them.
Those who are less sensitive are no less exposed to thought-forms to which they are constantly subjected, whether they are aware of it or not. Almost every person is influenced by the atmosphere of a place or an event where many people are present. Fashion trends that dictate uniformity are also a form of the action of such forms, as are social norms and expectations. These are often accepted unconditionally, without questioning whether they are truly what we want as individuals and what suits us personally, rather than what is expected of us. Many human lives are spent in similar illusions and delusions.
The same applies to egregores. Every person belongs to some egregore, that is, is a member of several of them simultaneously. First and foremost, there are family egregores, egregores of the profession we practice, egregores of the hobbies we engage in, books we read, and so on.
On the other hand, if we do not possess the quality of the thought-form with which we are in contact, it will not be able to influence us, or its influence will be minor. Accordingly, if a deliberately directed thought-form – such as one of hatred in an aggressive form – does not find fertile ground in the person to whom it is directed, the recipient will not be able to absorb it, and it will return much stronger to the one who sent it.
Likewise, it is often overlooked that spoken words, since they are preceded by thought, also create thought-forms. Of course, most words create weak thought-forms that fade relatively quickly, but if words are repeated in a certain order and with strong focus (for example, mantras or incantations), then such a thought-form will be strong and long-lasting and will influence the environment.
Therefore, an egregore is the collective thought-form of a group, that is, the aggregate form of the individual thought-forms of its members, while a thought-form is the product of an individual. It can be created intentionally or accidentally, but it becomes autonomous and its influence is undeniable. An egregore will exist as long as there are people who sustain it, though these do not have to be the same individuals, but rather people who share a common goal or purpose – people gathered around a certain idea or interest. After all, psychologists are well acquainted with the phenomenon of mass psychology, which is not easy to resist, often referred to as “herd” or “pack” behavior in large groups of people.
Egregores receive and transmit energetic information only at certain frequencies. This explains why not all people can capture their signals, but only those who are attuned to them. Each egregore has got several different levels, all of which have their own tasks and a specific range of action. The frequency level is characterized by the presence of standard thoughts, ideas, and patterns that are accessible to all people. The high-frequency level contains rare information accessible only to the “elite”.
Mostly amateurs operate at relatively low frequencies – people who are just beginning a task, such as students or learners, while professionals in their fields operate at higher frequencies. People gain the ability to access higher frequencies as they progress, and they cannot connect with absolutely all egregores, because if they possess no corresponding abilities, the connection is impossible.
According to Helena Blavatsky, such a form of thought-form is completely “unconscious unless it was produced by an adept who has a pre-conceived object to which he gives consciousness, or which has the appearance of consciousness derived from the adept’s will and awareness.”
A good example of this is again Dion Fortune, who, with her remarkable adept skills and together with the Brotherhood of the Inner Light, allegedly succeeded in defending England from Nazi attacks during the Second World War. They constructed the symbol of the Rose Cross on the astral plane every week and added power to it in a clear sequence.
William Walker Atkinson, a pioneer of the New Thought movement, viewed thought-forms in a manner similar to the Theosophists. According to him, thought-forms are closely connected to the human aura because they are built from the same substance as the aura, and they share the same properties, and even the same colors.
In Atkinson’s view, a thought-form is a special manifestation of mental activity on the astral plane that arises in the following way: a person has a strong desire, feeling, or idea that is naturally charged with the dynamic power of their will. This triggers a series of strong vibrations within the auric body, which gradually transform into a powerful circular center of interaction between thought and will, located within the highly cohesive substance of the aura, which is strongly charged with that person’s prana – the life energy or vital force.
In some cases, these thought-forms within the auric body survive only for a very short time and then gradually fade, while in other cases they may survive and almost independently exist for a certain period, exerting a strong influence on other people who come into contact with the person.
Thought-forms can become so strongly charged with prana and the mental energy of a person that the aura will eventually expel them, after which they may travel through space and influence the auras of other people until their initial energy is exhausted. They contain the vibration and life force of the person, and in extreme cases they practically become semi-living elemental forces with a relatively short lifespan. The phenomenon is similar to light that continues to travel through space long after the star from which it originated has been destroyed, or to heat that remains after a heating body is turned off.
As for form and appearance, thought-forms vary greatly. Some are wave-like or in the form of a series of waves, resembling concentric circles in water. Others take the shape of a cloud that gently rotates, or sometimes more strongly, or the shape of a ring of smoke spiraling in rotation.
In cases where thought-forms are sent by an explosively strong emotion, they may indeed take the shape of a bomb that explodes when it comes close to the person to whom it is directed. This can surely be felt by anyone in the presence of an energetic speaker, or a powerful singer.
When a strong desire, persuasion, attraction, or similar force takes the form of a thought-form, it may appear like an octopus, literally pulling the person toward the one who is sending such thought-forms. Of course, awareness of the strength of one’s will to resist such influences is crucial.
The forms are almost infinite, since every combination of thought and feeling creates its own shape, and each individual has their own particularities in this regard; there are also geometric forms of extraordinary beauty. As for color, they will have the same colors as the aura, though weaker and less mixed with others.
Annie Besant and Charles Webster Leadbeater provided perhaps the most extensive study of thought-forms in their 1905 book Thought-Forms. They wrote that every precise thought has a dual effect – both as a radiating vibration and as a floating form.
The vibration expresses the character of the thought but not the subject itself, which occurs, for example, when a person radiates strong spiritual energy and devotion, which may be felt by another person who is receptive. The floating form is a strong and precise thought that has gathered energy from the astral and mental planes and has temporarily become a kind of independent being.
Besant and Leadbeater distinguished three types of thought-forms:
- Those that take the shape of a person. For example, when a person strongly wishes to be in a certain place, they will create a thought-form in their own likeness that appears at that location.
- Those that take the form of some material object. For example, when we think of a friend, we will have an image of that friend in our mind. When a painter paints, he has in mind the idea of what will appear on the canvas. When a writer writes about characters, he also has a conception of them, and it is not uncommon for authors to admit that, after some time, their characters themselves determine the further course of the narrative, which is completely different from what the writer originally had in mind. This happens because literary characters are thought-forms that have been given life by playful nature spirits or, alternatively, by some “dead” artist who had a better solution for continuing the work.
- Those that have their own distinct form and express their qualities in the surrounding matter. This group has outlines that are natural to the mental and astral planes, and most of them represent emotions as well as thoughts. The thought-form of love and the desire to protect our loved ones will literally create a guardian angel within that person’s aura, not because of a conscious or deliberate act of will, but because such a thought-form follows a blind impulse. Whether the intentions behind thought-forms are good or bad, there must be material within the aura of the person to whom they are sent that corresponds to those vibrations; if it is absent, the forms will be rejected.
Therefore, the best protection is having pure, good, non-violent thoughts and a pure heart. Anger and fear weaken us mentally, physically, and spiritually.
The book also contains illustrations of various thought-forms, especially those of the third group, as well as forms produced by sound.
Finally, there is also the term tulpa, which originates from Tibetan Buddhism and refers to a “phantasm” or object created by the mind. In the translation of the Bardo Thödol (Tibetan Book of the Dead), the term “thought-form” is used.
The French researcher and theosophist Alexandra David-Néel wrote about her experience of successfully creating a tulpa, although it allegedly escaped her control and it took her a full six months to get rid of it. David-Néel imagined a lama who would be “short in stature, plump, and cheerful.”
After several months of practice and ritual, she supposedly succeeded in creating him in that form, but to her dissatisfaction, he began to change. He acquired a sinister appearance, caused her trouble, and resisted her attempts to dispel him. The situation escalated when he became visible to other people as well.
This and other similar experiences were described by Alexandra in her influential book Magic and Mystery in Tibet.
While reading her experiences, I remembered the confession of a friend who once, during a difficult period of his life and feeling lonely, imagined a girl in great detail while walking through the city and wished to meet her on a bridge he was heading toward. As he approached the bridge, to his astonishment, a girl completely identical to the one from his imagination was walking toward him. Halfway across, he became so frightened that he did not have the strength to meet her, so he turned back and continued along another path.
Among contemporary occultists who write and work on this topic, the most comprehensive is John Kreiter. He described the process of creating a servitor, that is, a temporary thought-form designed to perform a specific task by drawing an analogy with moving through a room to take a glass of water from a table.
Looking more deeply at that simple action, we realize that it is in fact complex, yet we perform it perfectly without thinking about all the muscles that must be activated to carry it out. With logic and intuition that would put any modern computer to shame, the inner consciousness can organize all the necessary information and tasks into perfect order and move us through space to satisfy our desire.
The technique of creating a servitor is similar in the sense that it is natural and happens with ease. By “ease” it is meant that our inner consciousness will work without the natural need to worry about how complex the given task is, though not without effort, because, like everything we do for the first time, it requires a little time to understand how it functions.
And, as Ernest Holmes once wrote, reflecting on the theory of obsession and mental influence: “The day will come when people will choose the thoughts they allow to enter their minds as carefully as they now choose the food they eat.”
REFERENCES: „Thought Forms“, Annie Bessant and Charles W. Leadbeater, 2005, e-book
„The Science of Mind“, Ernest Shurtleff Holmes, TarcherPerigree, LA, 2010
„The Mahatma Letters to A.P.Sinnett“, transcribed and compiled by A. Trevor Barker, Theosophical University Press, Pasadena, California, 2021
https://www.patheos.com/blogs/betweentheshadows/2018/10/egregores-semiotic-ghosts/
https://www.kristenawestart.com/post/egregores-thought-forms-tulpas
https://vamzzz.com/blog/thought-form/
https://occult-world.com/tibetan-thought-forms/