The idea is that such egregores are sustained by the mental energy given to them by their followers — through worship, devotion, sacrifice, etc. — and, in some cases, become so powerful that they effectively take on a life of their own and come to possess those who come under their influence. This is especially salient in the case of religious cults.
In one part of the book, Stavish talks about how each city, community or nation has an egregore that protects it and maintains its cultural coherence, and that this is the real reason why city states performed religious rituals to local deities in the ancient world — people were made to empower their city or nation's egregore through their ritualized sacrifices, even if they themselves didn't understand the deeper meaning behind their actions. Curiously, when Rome's Vestal Fire was put out by followers of the desert cult, the Empire would soon collapse thereafter.
In ancient times, it was customary to empower your city's egregore through sacrificing animals such as bulls and goats and offering prayer to a patron god or goddess. However, in modern times we like to think of ourselves as more civilized and less superstitious, so instead we contribute our mental energy to our city's egregore by different means such as by fanatically supporting its professional sports teams. Football (soccer) is now the de facto religion in many European countries.
Now this brings me to something personal. When I was a little kid my dad used to take me to see our football team located in a town some 7 or so miles away. I had a season ticket and would render my fanatical support for the team week in, week out, for several years. While I'm not as interested in football as I used to be, now being far more into MMA, I still have love and admiration for our local football team and wish for it to do well.
What is interesting is that I'm always treated well and have mostly positive experiences in this town, as though its egregore somehow favors me and looks out for my wellbeing. Anybody who has read my posts will know that I utterly despise the UK and tend to have negative experiences there as a social misfit; however, this one particular town is a big exception — here (and I'm actually here in this town now) I constantly feel loved and energized while having mostly good experiences with the people.
I therefore theorize that my devotion to the town's egregore through passionate support of its football team has gained me its favor and predisposed it to giving me good experiences.
@Winston always tells me about how he has nothing but bad experiences in Taiwan, how the Matrix is always sabotaging him, etc. But, if this egregore theory has some validity to it, maybe the Taiwanese national egregore has it in for him for all the smack that he's been publicly taking about the country for decades. Conversely, maybe he could persuade the Taiwanese national egregore to give him better experiences by making peace with it and offering his devotion in some form.
As for the way in which egregores could theoretically work, if our reality really does function like an information processing system or simulation that is rendered in a symbiotic relationship with consciousness as some interpretations of quantum mechanics suggest, or if the very fabric of reality is indeed malleable and shaped by dominants that are informed by collective beliefs that literally determine the limits of possible phenomena and experiences as parapsychology pioneer Charles Fort argued, then it is easy to see how collective devotion could create a localized mental energy matrix that is capable of influencing how you might experience a particular location.
I'm curious as to what @publicduende thinks of the above theory and whether it reflects his own experiences.
