In my work, I explore the ancient occult concept of the egregore or collective thought-form and its continued relevance in contemporary life. One might not think of the systems that we operate in today as ritual in nature, especially those that utilize new technology. We may imagine cyberspace as the ultimate rational and objective realm where all things can be categorized, quantified, and monetized. However, it is a place saturated with ceremonial situations upon close inspection. Mary Douglas argues that much of the rituals of our lives take place outside of strictly religious institutions; I would consider the Internet no exception. In fact, it may be the primary mode of ritualistic discourse of our time.
The term Meme has colloquially been understood as comedic images on the internet. However, it originates from evolutionary biology as a term to describe cultural information that evolves by imitation and not biologically. Examples of these early memetic acts would be tools or cave drawing materials developed by passing down to the next generation, who would adapt them further. The internet does not produce these behaviors but does accelerate the speed at which these processes evolve. Carol Duncan suggests that modern art museums are temples operating the same function as their ancient counterparts only veiled by post-enlightenment assumptions. The key difference is within the user input of the internet space that arguably gives the viewer more access to control over cultural truths, more so than the temples of the ancient past and then the museums of the recent past. The computer mouse can be seen as the planchette with millions of hands simultaneously moving and shaping the cybernetic egregore. The emerging entities are beyond any one of us, but what can happen if the user purposefully sabotages the séance to spawn new mutant entities?
