To make it possible for us to perceive and to comprehend things invisible, we are forced to conceptualize objects whose existence cannot be independently verified but can only be inferred from their observable influences, similarly to the way physicists infer the existence of subatomic particles. Take it as read, then, that outside the scope our physical perception there exist artificial entities generated by devotion, enthusiasm or fanaticism, traditionally called egregores. The word comes from Greek and means “the watchers.” Egregores are the beating hearts of all of the great currents of group or mass psychology, be they good or evil.

The mighty egregore of Christianity is identified by such titles as The Apostolic Church, Celestial Jerusalem and the Body of Christ. Islam, Taoism, Buddhism, Freemasonry and Protestantism with all of its minor and major sects all have their own egregores. Many people perceive these egregores as conduits to something sacred, holy or divine, but this is strictly a matter of opinion. Great political ideologies have their own egregores too, which are rather more readily identifiable as having a demonic origin, National Socialism and Communism (Bolshevism, Maoism) especially.

In these, there is not even the pretension of a divine blessing; therefore, there are only demons — creations of human will and imagination. Some scholars of the occult (there is such a discipline!) have theorized that all egregores are demonic because they are objectified projections of human desires which are, by their base, fallen nature, sinful. But if we wish to remain empirical and skeptical, in order to determine the nature of an egregore, we must look at its observable effects: “You shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? Even so every good tree brings forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree brings forth evil fruit.” (Matthew 7:16-20) This technique works for egregores big and small, objectified by symbols ranging from the crucifix, the swastika or the hammer and sickle down to various company logos and club patches. Egregores are everywhere, you see, and automatically suspecting demonic forces at play behind the latest viral TikTok video (a tiny and transient egregore) would probably mark you as some sort of zealot.

I hope that the foregoing discussion has helped establish that egregores are not imaginary or fictional but extant entities — just not directly perceivable. It is perhaps easiest to think of an egregore as an invisible force — like gravity, or electrical or magnetic fields — that is made apparent by its actions. It is best to avoid being too literal, but an egregore has a semblance of a body (being vested, to some extent, in physical objects), a mind (represented by various books and scriptures, sacred or not), and a purpose (to serve the needs of its community). It has key features that set it apart from other egregores. It has a will that it manifests on three levels: material (by controlling behavior), psychic (by inducing emotional states), and mental (by forming and perpetuating ideas). It feeds off the emotions of those who participate in it and fulfills certain expectations and desires of its creators and followers. In order to remain vital and effective, an egregore must maintain a certain number of members. Equally essential to maintaining its physical life is the regular and correct performance of certain rituals which reinforce the spiritual union of its members.

Absent these, an egregore becomes quiescent, but not necessarily dead, for egregores are notoriously hard to kill as long as their physical and intellectual manifestations remain intact. This is what allowed the Ukrainian Banderites to reconstitute, in some bizarre, brain-damaged fashion, some elements of German National Socialism, breeding a cohort of eager young Ukro-Nazi fascists (by now mostly dead). This is also what has allowed the Russian Federation to leapfrog over the undesirable parts of the Soviet experience (while celebrating the desirable ones) and to reattach the egregore of the Russian Empire, thus gaining an entire host of not just heroes but also martyrs and saints to serve as its inspiration and its protection, since along with them came the thousand-year-old Russian Orthodox Church — the other head of the Russian two-headed eagle (don’t ask which one).

To kill an egregore, it is most efficacious to use fire, which is commonly regarded as a purifying force. This is why books are burned rather than composted, used as mulch or fed to goats, and why witches are traditionally burned at the stake. Since egregores tend to become attached to certain buildings and sites, these have to be thoroughly demolished, leaving no stone upon a stone: “And Jesus said unto them, See ye not all these things? Verily I say unto you, there shall not be here left a stone upon a stone, that shall not be cast down.” (Matthew 24:2)

It can be equally difficult to free oneself from the clutches of a powerful egregore, purging it from your mind and your heart. Perhaps the simplest task is with casting out strictly demonic egregores, for “light drives out darkness.” This phrase is the key to combatting demons: once a demon is seen — that is, once the light of consciousness is thrown on it — it is automatically rendered impotent. More generally, liberating yourself from the influences of an egregore often requires much more than simply walking away and may involve thoroughly deprogramming yourself, as is done with destructive mind-control cults. The amount of emotional energy, social relationships, aspirations, values and friendship and family ties all combine to make it emotionally painful and difficult to extract yourself. To this end, it is helpful to have something to move toward: a plan, a new purpose and source of meaning is needed to fill in the social and emotional void. Depending on the degree of involvement, it can be a significant, life-changing event, similar to adjusting to life after the end of a career, or of dealing with the death of a partner, or overcoming addiction. The entire process may take several years.

Given this rather thorough preamble, where, then, does the American egregore fit into the scheme of egregoric pageantry? The American state cult is rather threadbare and thoroughly derivative and non-genuine. Perhaps the only really successful symbol is the flag — a bit kitschy and pop-art but quite unusual and instantly recognizable — which is why it has become such a fetish, displayed in ways no other nation would ever dream of. It is also the flag that has the dubious distinction of being the most frequently burned at rallies and demonstrations around the world. Other state symbols an egregore could latch onto securely are unoriginal. The pyramid with the all-seeing “Eye of Providence” is Masonic (but a good candidate for a representation the American egregore itself, being, literally “the watcher”).

The eagle was borrowed from the Roman Empire, as were Washington’s various, architectural trappings, with the Lincoln Memorial a literal pagan temple to god Lincoln. But a cursory investigation of ancient history shows that the neatest analogy is of the United States as Phoenician Carthage, and certainly not Rome — a pirate outpost that survived through piracy and sea trade. The British Empire is then neatly equated with its precursor, the Phoenician Tyre (which is now in Lebanon). If you want to look for a modern-day Rome, look to Moscow. The Roman Empire relocated east to Constantinople under Emperor Constantine, where it thrived for another thousand years. After that it moved on to Moscow, which inherited the classical civilization of the Romei of Constantinople. That thousand-year period was known, in the west, as the Dark Ages, and this explains a bit of a blind spot westerners tend to have with regard to the medieval Roman Empire, which they refer to, rather inexplicably, as Byzantium.

What the American egregore clearly did not borrow from Rome was the legal system. Civilizations tend to rely on codified systems of law. The various articles of the codex may be subject to interpretation in specific instances, but these interpretations cannot become law. This was the case with the Code of Hammurabi (1755–1750 BC), the Roman Laws of the Twelve Tables or lex duodecim tabularum (449 BC), the Great Yassa of Genghis Khan (1206 AD), the Napoleonic Code (1804 AD) and the Criminal and Civil Codes of the Russian Federation in effect today. What the British and, in their turn, the Americans relied upon was Common Law which took as its source tribal, oral law. Such legal practices are still in use by non-literate peoples such as the Roma (Gypsies) and also by contemporary criminal gangs. This system operates on the basis of precedent — previous decisions made by the group in similar circumstances. If the case fits, precedent is used; if not, it is modified on the spot to suit.

In oral law, precedents only survive for as long as oral memory serves, keeping the system manageable. But the British, and then the Americans, did the unspeakable and wrote it all down. The result is a horrifically bloated legal system in which judges get to make laws and where the outcome of anyone’s case is largely determined by one’s ability to pay the bloodsucking lawyers. Add to this the curious fact that American officials believe in the extraterritoriality of their jurisdiction: they feel free to arrest people anywhere in the world, including people who have never set foot on US soil, to stand trial and be imprisoned in the US. What this means is that the final words of the Pledge of Allegiance, which schoolchildren in the US are required to recite regardless of their citizenship and which was traditionally accompanied by the Bellamy Salute, a.k.a. Nazi Salute (Hitlergruß) — “with liberty and justice for all” can quite reasonably be rephrased as “with servitude and oppression for all.” Which is probably why the flag that has the dubious distinction of being the most frequently burned at rallies and demonstrations around the world is the starry-stripey one.

If the American legal system seems mighty sketchy, then the American notions of history are doubly so. The American Revolution was more or less a tax revolt. The Pilgrims at the Plymouth Plantation were colonists and did not celebrate Thanksgiving (they did not even celebrate Christmas, being very strange sectarians) and certainly not with the local Algonquians who hated the colonists because they smelled bad and stole from them. Turkeys were not involved until much later, when the American Frozen Turkey Association decided that Thanksgiving was a good way to market their product. The American Civil War was certainly not about freeing the slaves and had everything to do with wresting the commodities market away from the British. The US involvement in World War II in Europe only started once it became clear that Hitler was going to be defeated by the USSR. The US involvement in Japan involved some very bloody island-hopping and bombing of civilians and culminated with dropping two nuclear bombs. These were inconsequential (Japan’s Kwantung army had already been defeated by the USSR) and were intended to send a message to Stalin. Stalin got the message and got Igor Kurchatov and Lavrenty Beria to build him some nukes, which they did in a great hurry. Just about every US military involvement since then has been pretty much a fiasco and the whole world knows it — but you won’t ever hear that from the Americans.

So what is the American egregore about, then? It is about three things: death, money and lies. Everyone is forced to use American money — the US dollar — and if they refuse, like Saddam Hussein tried to, or Muammar Qaddafy, then they get death. But look what’s happening now! More and more countries around the world are developing systems to circumvent the use of the US dollar and transacting business in their own currencies, which are increasingly digital and increasingly rely on cryptography and distributed ledger technology to make the transactions instant and very inexpensive. Donald Trump said that the loss of reserve currency status by the US dollar would be similar in effect to the US losing a world war. What he didn’t say is that this war has already been lost. The world no longer needs a reserve currency — any reserve currency, American or not. At the BRICS+ meeting in Kazan, Vladimir Putin looked incredulously at a mock-up of a BRICS paper currency and handed it to Russia’s central bank chief Elvira Nabiullina, who frowned at it. There won’t be any universal paper currency to replace the US dollar; it’s just not needed. And so, the reign of the US as a global financial parasite is nearing its end.

If US financial parasitism is almost over, then what about the second pillar of the American egregore — death? Here, we are nearing the end of the US reign as well. The Yemeni Houthis have been able to shut down the Red Sea and the Suez Canal to all but Russian and Chinese shipping, US protestations and military strikes notwithstanding. The two US proxies — the Ukraine and Israel — are both losing badly, unable to achieve any of their military objectives in spite of lavish US military support. Observing these developments, countries around the world are losing their fear of the United States.

The third pillar of the American egregore — lies — has to do with American control of mass media, including Hollywood, newspapers, broadcasters and the rest. This pillar also seems to be cracking: most recently Jeff Bezos, the billionaire owner of the Washington Post, declared that people’s lack of trust in mass media is becoming a major problem. Indeed, most Americans, especially the younger ones, do not pay attention to American mass media, preferring to get their information from independent web sites and bloggers. Reacting hysterically to this development, the US government has become involved and has done all it can to block Americans’ access to foreign news services that provide a more truthful perspective on current events and alternative points of view.

The American egregore is clearly in trouble: nobody needs it and nobody fears it any more. What’s more, the sacred ritual that is required to rejuvenate the egregore, held every four years, is failing for the second time in a row. This is, of course, the presidential election. The ritual has nothing to do with democracy, since the two candidates, one of which is chosen at the end of the process, are virtually identical except for largely irrelevant bits of social policy such as abortion and chemical castration of children: they are both inevitably pro-war, pro-financial oppression, pro-Israel and, as a matter of tradition, anti-Russia. The selection of one over the other is based on rules that make the determination based on a vanishingly small proportion of the electorate, making the vast majority of the votes simply throwaways.

But there is a difference between the Republican and the Democratic camps and only time will tell how relevant or important it is. This difference is with regard to the care and feeding of the American egregore. The Democratic side has been most careless about it. During the last election, they pushed through a candidate who spent most of the campaign hiding in his basement and who then spent most of his term on vacation. During this current election, when it became obvious to all that their candidate was non compos mentis, he was simply shoved aside and replaced with a candidate who did not win any primary ever and who doesn’t seem to be all there mentally either. Such untraditional practices are most damaging to the American egregore.

The Republicans, on the other hand, seem to be doing all they can to rescue the American egregore from fading away. Trump’s mantra of “Make America Great Again” cannot possibly relate to the financial or the economic state of the country since no president has the authority to undo decades of financial mismanagement, economic damage and military incompetence. The US is bankrupt and will in due course need to be dissolved as normally happens to bankrupt corporations, with its international creditors walking off with anything left that’s of value. No, MAGA is all about restoring, to whatever extent possible, the tattered image of America’s greatness — of its egregore.

To this end, Trump’s campaign has employed a cast of characters to shore up each of the three pillars. The war pillar is to be shored up by his running mate J.D. Vance, who is a former military journalist — not quite a warrior, and to make up for his lack of valor there is also Tulsi Gabbard whose combat role involved an office job at a logistics center in Iraq, but still… The money pillar is shored up by Elon Musk, the richest man in the world, ahead of Jeff Bezos and Larry Ellison. And the pillar of lies is shored up by Tucker Carlson, who is perhaps the most popular media personality in America at the moment. If this cast of characters can’t manage to make the American egregore great again, at least as an object of imaginary past worthy of nostalgia, then nothing can.

And what of the other side, the Democrats? Egregores, being astral beings, do have bodies of sort — astral bodies, in the sense that one can actually be taken over and inhabited by an egregore, allowing it to act out its ritual role in public. This is the essence of public rituals such as the inauguration, the state of the union speech and other such events that are essential to the maintenance of the state cult. It is somewhat like putting on a suit; emperors would put on crowns, mantles and take up orbs and scepters. Presidents don’t have any special attire or symbols of power but are expected to act presidential, mouthing presidential platitudes in a presidential manner.

And it just so happens that to serve as a proper medium for the US egregore one has to be a man. The founding fathers were all men; the presidents were all men. Furthermore, they were all white men except for one (who was half-Kenyan) and all Protestant men (except for one, Kennedy, because Biden doesn’t count, being non compos mentis and on permanent vacation). Take it any way you like, but the American egregore has a penis. The astral body of the American egregore, which is now 235 years old (counting from George Washington’s inauguration) is much too old a dog to be taught new tricks (or given a sex change operation) and so is unlikely to be a good fit for Kamala Harris. If elected and inaugurated, she is likely to suffer an egregoric wardrobe malfunction, if you will. This will be obvious for all to see. The queen will stand there naked, as any little boy would be able to point out, and no amount of hysterical cackling will be able to cover up the fact that the American egregore is missing, possibly dead.

[Hat tip to Mark Stavish for the many insights from his book “Egregores”.]”