group mind / soul

This term has been considered to have a range of meanings, including the potential problem of ‘group think’ * , ‘swarm intelligence’, the consensus decision making of ‘collective intelligence’, the sociological view of ‘collective consciousness’, and – sometimes – the esoteric view of ‘Universal Mind’.

How I use this term is none of those meanings.

There is a view that all people are psychic to some extent. If they are not consciously psychic, then this will work at an unconscious level (I don’t use the term subconscious, as that implies something that is lesser than the conscious mind, and it is in fact potentially more powerful than most people’s conscious). That means that we are sensitive to, to varying degrees, the influences being radiated by other people. The overall influence of that radiated psychic influence, acting through most people’s unconscious, is what I term ‘group mind’.

Actually, there are two aspects to this:

·         the group soul, which could arguably be considered to be akin to the unconscious of a group, and is more difficult to change, but which I nevertheless attempt to do through my misnamed ‘group mind’ project;

·         group mind, which is more changeable, and perhaps equates more to the social mood of a group, and is the aspect I more often aim to change when meditating for peace.

I’ve recently come across this being described as ‘egregore’, with the word being attributed to Victor Hugo – see here * .

 * Please see here and my post "The Death of Wikipedia" for the reasons I now recommend caution when using Wikipedia.

As of the time this definition was written, I’ve touched on this idea in the following posts:

     Post No. Post No. 548: For Tonight's Meditation

     Post No. 440 The Magical Battle of Melbourne, Australia and Humanity