"Thoughtform" demons versus "Pre-human demons"

As far as I can tell, E.A. believes that most of the demons in grimoires are just “thoughtforms” that were created by humans. But he also said that there are a few that do actually pre-exist humans. I am not terribly interested in the thoughtforms group because I don’t see how they could possibly be that helpful if they are just a product of the human race. I mean, me using them seems to be the same as me using myself. That doesn’t make sense to me at all. I would rather just spend the time finding real-world solutions to my problems than spending that time asking “myself” to help me. I am not at all interested in such an atheistic form of Magick. Does anybody have a list of those demons which pre-exist humans?

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I don’t, but in terms of the “thoughtforms” category, look up Egregores. Basically over thousands of years, thousands upon thousands of people have pushed their energy into the Egregore, which in some cases makes them gods and goddesses, they are not as useless as you may think.

I moved this out the Q&A thread because it seems like you want general comments, is that correct?

If you just want to address the question to E.A., please repost it in there.

Thanks! :slight_smile:

Remember you are the product of the human race, actually your mom and dad, are you useless? You’re saying spending time to ask yourself to help yourself is not what you want. Remember all this world is experienced in your mind, and for all you know you are the only one who exist, all others are just your thoughtforms.
Well that a little philosophy for you.
Don’t worry about if something is a thoughtform or not, make magick work for you, if you find some entity lacking, work with another, etc.
Maybe all gods/goddesses are thoughtforms, or maybe some are, or finally none are. Are you a thoughtform? Well from a hermetic perspective you are, don’t hate on thoughtforms :slight_smile:

Also, are the “pre-human demons” also thoughtforms? Just because they are pre-human, does it mean that humans were the only beings to have thought?

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Demons are not thought forms. They are real, objective entities. They have existed since beforehumanity, aand will exist long after we turn to dust.

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Why not use what has been proven to work? Even if the grimoire spirits are all human-created thoughtforms (which I doubt), they have been used for centuries successfully. IMO human-created thoughtforms or egregores are more likely to be able to help humans than pre-human entities because they can relate to human desires and needs better. Non-human is not necessary better or more powerful.

I agree with Catmackenna, there is verifiable proof that working with these “Demons” can cause change, you’re having doubts that they’ll be able to help, but maybe you’re not doing something correctly? Contrary to your belief, thought forms can actually be really powerful.

Right now I am in the VERY beginning of my personal attempts at magick. So I am open to accepting whatever works. I guess, philosophically, it seems odd that thoughtforms could produce any better results than positive thinking, productive behavior, confidence, schooling, etc. The reason I became interested in magick is because I wanted something that could bring me results that I could not obtain through ordinary means. Looking back on my time with the Santeria lady, all her rituals she had me do were just her way of giving me confidence. Nothing more.

What you are referring to is your own attempts at using your own mind to influence a situation. That’s all well and fine, and you can get good results, but now, imagine the following.

Let’s say that someone decided 1500 years that they needed XYZ, the same way you do now. Through positive thinking, he got that and he told some friends about it. Some got results, others didn’t, but the ones that did carried on experimenting. They would meet and discuss it, and they kept getting better at it. They told more people and more people came to try it out. A group mind was developed and it started to create a cloud of energy and power that was collecting the energy from the members of this group. More and more people join and the cloud of energy grows and grows, becoming bigger, stronger as more add to it. What they were then finding was that as more people got involved, more people were getting results. Someone basically just had say, “I’ll try it” and it sort of plugged them into this cloud of collective energy that was purely focused on the task at hand.

1500 years later that cloud of energy has been growing to such an extent that it has taken on its own consciousness, and it has become a god, or a demon, or some other spirit.

I met an interesting Russian man a few years back who spoke to me about Egregores and the belief of the shaman and shamanka in this respect. If they don’t feed their Egregore, and keep it happy, the Egregore will literally attack and physically harm them. Of course the biggest Egregore today is the Christian God. My old Kabbalah teacher once said to me, “God created Man in his own image and Man was so pleased he decided to return the favour.”

Catmackenna was quite right. If you want human related results, would it be better to go to a human created being or one that can’t relate to humans and our needs in any way?

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I agree that most entities are thoughtforms, though I don’t think that many of these were not nessecerily made by humans. I have reason to believe my own godform is a type of thoughtform made by something. The human race I think is almost certainly a race of thoughtforms made by something.

But then in the grande scheme of things a created form is just the result of moving information from one place of existence to another where that information didnt previously exist and maybe mixing it with other information where the same processes occurred, is that really creating? Or is it just moving stuff around?

Most pre human entities are pretty good at understanding human desires. But a thought form doesn’t necessarily understand human desires better or worse than other entities. It would depend on its creation. Really, the spirits with the best understanding of human desires are humans. Specifically, dead folk such as ancestors, saints, and cemetary workers.

Important point.

I’m the odd one in my immediate family, for several different reasons, but recently when I connected with the Angel of Lost Things, I also managed to connect with a whole branch of family we thought were kind of lost, disconnected.

What I found out from them is that they have this, well, stuff (not to discuss other people’s lives and loves without permission) and anyway I really am, for all my fabulousness :o) the construct of the mix of genetics and preferences of these people who are my immediate forebears, and going right back up the ancestry tree!

I find that cool, because I view my life as a thing to be shaped and formed by me, so that parts of it are shaped and formed by the family I believe I chose to be born into isn’t some awful thought - but it means parts of me are formed by the combination of how these genes express in the world we have.

By " the world we have" I mean, imagine someone prominent in their field such as Steve Jobs, David Beckham, or Stephen Hawking, whose talents wouldn’t have found their fullest expression (and in Hawking’s case, they’d be dead) just a few hundred years ago.

So we exist and flourish and express ourselves according to the state of human culture and those things we inherited which can then shine in the state of technology and culture and availability of various resources…

My point is obviously that to some extent we’re all egregores, but we’re also manifestations of Source or whatever, doing its thing. If spirits are on that continuum, from created by a wish or to meet a human need, to primal expression of some force of creation, then so are we all.

What you are referring to is your own attempts at using your own mind to influence a situation. That’s all well and fine, and you can get good results, but now, imagine the following.

Let’s say that someone decided 1500 years that they needed XYZ, the same way you do now. Through positive thinking, he got that and he told some friends about it. Some got results, others didn’t, but the ones that did carried on experimenting. They would meet and discuss it, and they kept getting better at it. They told more people and more people came to try it out. A group mind was developed and it started to create a cloud of energy and power that was collecting the energy from the members of this group. More and more people join and the cloud of energy grows and grows, becoming bigger, stronger as more add to it. What they were then finding was that as more people got involved, more people were getting results. Someone basically just had say, “I’ll try it” and it sort of plugged them into this cloud of collective energy that was purely focused on the task at hand.

1500 years later that cloud of energy has been growing to such an extent that it has taken on its own consciousness, and it has become a god, or a demon, or some other spirit.

I met an interesting Russian man a few years back who spoke to me about Egregores and the belief of the shaman and shamanka in this respect. If they don’t feed their Egregore, and keep it happy, the Egregore will literally attack and physically harm them. Of course the biggest Egregore today is the Christian God. My old Kabbalah teacher once said to me, “God created Man in his own image and Man was so pleased he decided to return the favour.”

Catmackenna was quite right. If you want human related results, would it be better to go to a human created being or one that can’t relate to humans and our needs in any way?[/quote]

I understand the philosophy that is behind what you all are saying regarding Thoughtforms. I guess at the end of the day I am struggling against my Materialist, Empiricist background which says that humans are nothing more than atoms clashing together, etc. Because of that mindset, I have always viewed religion and spirituality as “someone/something” helping us as opposed to us helping ourselves. I don’t think that I will ever be able to get past that. It is deeply ingrained in my mind that that all of the spiritual world preexists humans. So, I will either just have to ignore the philosophy of Thoughtforms and simply try to utilize the tools or I may just have to reject the notion that these entities are Thoughtforms and just believe that they are all pre-human entities. BTW, not to be argumentative, but what is the rationale behind calling these demons Thoughtforms and not just pre-human entities?

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[url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eYImkzOrdjU]- YouTube
I like what Ben Quayn has to say about egregore vs pre-existing spirits, toward the end of this video.

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Thanks for your in depth response, Taokua. I do appreciate it. But at the end of the day I’m just not interested in an overtly atheistic version of magick. I am open to new ways of thinking of course, but at this point it seems prima-facia untenable to me. I reserve the right to be wrong though! I think I am just going to have to stick with the philosophical “starting point” that all demons, angels, etc. pre-exist humans and are here as the helpers of humans which are nothing more than entities that are limited to the 5 senses without the help from the spiritual world. Thanks again.

Your welcome- I appreciate the comment, not sure why felt the urge to post-as my posts usually seem off the conversation. I was starting to comment upon different places they arise from- and differentiating that… and the initial idea mixed in, about how what you where seeing as Atheistically, I think some others are them-selves wanting to bolster ‘their-Atheistic’ view… just my view.


<edit: Exec Summary of above post- “I agree it makes a difference, what you are “Contacting” and it is worth the effort to determine… not once, but each time.”
[What worked to Contact a Power once, may not some other time… and sometimes you have them just arrive… think of it like a ‘pal’ dropping by cuz they heard you have an issue… -not a pal/ie some’one’ you’ve gotten to know, and it may be “hyjacked” by a pretender at any time, but sometimes you may just not Recognize… <i.e. politeness yet cautious… or “trust and yet verify” … each Working is a learning…>

[quote=“jboy, post:17, topic:5779”] But at the end of the day I’m just not interested in an overtly atheistic version of magick.

Thanks again.[/quote]
Cheers

Just to note another angle- imagine that this post could have been generated by you (you typed it in, and then “forgot” you wrote it, to then find it and assume this was typed-sent from another-person to you…

vs a Computer script could assemble a response msg/post… and you could assume this is from another person…

-or- this msg could be from ‘me’ …

(that is the relevance of the “puppet” analogue… I think it actually triggered from the Sock-puppet term… <from Socket…?>

  • So above doesn’t mean assume all aren’t from a Being… nor that they aren’t… Imagine you put up a notice on all the BulletinBoards (physical papers-posted, also online) in your area saying, “I need help on a project XYZ… come by and help me to ABC.” … who will respond? (actually strangers randomly seeing… anyone that knows who you are? are you a known-rep to Entities?)

    -will none show up… or will some shady-chars?


Just a req in the dark… where is the msg directed, “who is listening?”

More for the questions- to illuminate your viewpt (see/ “sense” beyond-through what you sense… in the same way you read “vibes” or your ‘sense’ of a person- not once, but on-going… You may have an Entity arrive “looking” just like the known Being …but its actually a shadow… is there “anybody home”? or is it an echo-an empty shell?
Also- contrarily, if you sense a strange, unrealistic seeming Contact… yet it could be an Entity- a Power directly, or using some interface… (Interface, pattern, puppet- like of a Skype call, the “video image” and the connecting data-electronic flow… the Person on-each-end is separate and without that Skype call, no contact… (but a Skype call could be just a video recording being played…? even if it seems to respond to you… )

anyway- not sure if the above adds to clarify my first response, or not- seems I might still not have been clear in that pt, thus trying again. -luck

^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^

In regards to Materialistic “Empiricist” … actually can one have “empirical” evidence that no swans with black feathers exist? (i.e. see BlackSwan Fallacy)… tie that with random events [“pigeon-superstitioun” (see Mr. Nobody)], meaning-making impulse.

Or, Empirical is only believing what you directly perceive, interpretations based-upon that are-not.. and you can't "directly perceive" that something doesn't exist... [you can only perceive something that does, and can interpret that you don't seem to have seen XYZ.. but to conclude- therefore I 'have low confidence-in' XYZ existing.. is 'not' Empirical.. 

especially not to declare ‘this is how things work’ (edges, are implying a 'not, thus trying to assert proof perceived as something not-existing… which, again, can’t be perceived… only if something exist.

What about non-physical entities (the word demon has so much baggage) masquerading as egregores? How would you even know? Surely it must happen.

There is no way to make a list of the pre human demons/spirits. Technically speaking, there are thought form versions of these already existing spirits. Also, the thought form versions of these demons are extremely effective. Think about it, you have thousands of people practicing magic, pouring all of their energy into the idea of these demons and spirits. The human mind Is honestly the only tool a serious magician really needs, so yeah.(sorry if any (or all)of that didn’t make sense I’m kind of falling asleep)

Thoughtforms are not “atheistic” they are energies that were created by people. We made personalities of them, we gave them a body… and they started to exist. Magic is actually only about thoughtforms, we create energies that manifest in our lives. My opinion is, every spirit is a thoughtform, thoughtforms are nothing atheistic.