History

The first author to adapt "egregore" in a modern language seems to be the French poet Victor Hugo, in La Légende des Siècles ("The Legend of the Ages"), First Series, 1859, where he uses the word "égrégore" first as an adjective, then as a noun, while leaving the meaning obscure.^[1] The author seems to have intended simply to provide a word rhyming with both with "or" (gold) and "mandragore". It is not the only example of word creation by Victor Hugo.

Eliphas Lévi, in Le Grand Arcane ("The Great Mystery", 1868) identifies "egregors" with the tradition concerning the fathers of the nephilim, describing them as "terrible beings" that "crush us without pity because they are unaware of our existence."^[2]

The concept of the egregore as a group thoughtform was developed in works of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn and the Rosicrucians^[3] and has been referenced by writers such as Valentin Tomberg.

A well known concept of the egregore is the GOTOS of the Fraternitas Saturn