Ideologies and Egregores

Hypothesis: Ideologies are autonomous, parasitic, non-material lifeforms.

I suggest that "ideologies" are "egregores", and have volition and self awareness; i.e. are sentient and intelligent. They're driven by self-preservation instinct like material lifeforms. They feed, reproduce, and adapt.

Definitions...

The word "ideology" is quite vague; the definition used in this article is a narrower one:

ideology (my definition)
- A set of irrational beliefs that are held for emotional and/or moralistic reasons.
- Esp. characterised by ignoring evidence and refusing or prohibiting discussion.

moralistic
- characterized by or displaying a concern with morality. - given to making moral judgments, especially in a self-righteous or judgmental manner.

I'm particularly talking about sets of beliefs which are unproven, unprovable or simply wrong, and irrational, and moralistic.

One might think to use the word "religion" here instead, but most irrational ideologies aren't directly releated to concepts of "God". They could be thought of as secular religions though, and modern religions are ideologies.

The concept of an ideology here is similar to the idea of the 'egregore'.

egregore
- (also egregor) is an occult concept representing a "thoughtform" or "collective group mind", an autonomous psychic entity made up of, and influencing, the thoughts of a group of people. The symbiotic relationship between an egregore and its group has been compared to the more recent, non-occult concepts of the corporation (as a legal entity) and the meme.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egregore

Richard Dawkin's 'Meme'...

meme
- is an idea, behavior, or style that spreads from person to person within a culture—often with the aim of conveying a particular phenomenon, theme, or meaning represented by the meme. A meme acts as a unit for carrying cultural ideas, symbols, or practices, that can be transmitted from one mind to another through writing, speech, gestures, rituals, or other imitable phenomena with a mimicked theme. Supporters of the concept regard memes as cultural analogues to genes in that they self-replicate, mutate, and respond to selective pressures.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meme

In Richard Dawkin's meme theory, he describes memes/ideas as almost having a life of their own. They can replicate - i.e. be transmitted between people. They can live in the minds of many people unchanged for generations. They can evolve and change to fit different environments. I don't think he would attribute volition to them though.

A meme is not necessarily an ideology, it could be just an idea, like "party in the park next Saturday", but it can be an ideology & vice versa.

Ideologies Reduce Intelligence

The essential problem with ideologies is they encourage ignorance. They stop people from thinking and from listening to their conscience. Of course, it also works the other way around. If people don't want to think or be conscientious they they will invent ideologies to justify that.

Pre-existing beliefs / "prejudice" make you less open-minded, and openness is correlated with intelligence. The thing that prevents people from accepting new information is their pre-existing beliefs.

It Ain’t What You Don’t Know That Gets You Into Trouble. It’s What You Know for Sure That Just Ain’t So
Mark Twain

Emotional Hooks

Moralistic ideologies aren't just intellectual ideas, they hook strongly into our emotions, and humans are primarily emotionally driven. People are highly social and have a strong instinctive emotional need to see themselves as being "good". People express ideologies as "virtue signalling" to the society they live in.

The belief that you are a "good person" goes to the core of a person's indentity and motivations, and the most successful ideologies supply exactly this framework of belief and so have access to the person's heart.

So we accept ideologies into ourselves, and they become an integral part of us: How we view the world & how we behave is determined by them.

For a person to break out of this ideology may be very difficult, perhaps like quitting heroin. They have to realise that their pride in themselves for "seeing the light of xxx" was misplaced, and give up the dopamine hits it provides.

This is psychologically equivalent to bereavement or betrayal, like the loss of a mentor of a good friend. If the ideology goes, it leaves a big gap and it may cause depression.

Emotions are the Water / Action / Power level of the Four Elements. Emotions carry a lot of weight.

Reproduction

Most ideologies behave as if they want to be replicated into other people's minds.

People who have ideologies like nothing better than to talk about them, and try to get other people to take on their ideas.

Sometimes "believers" will try to force other people to adopt their ideology.

Are they being driven by those ideologies to do this, by the will of the ideology itself?

There's no doubt that people are rewarded with "dopamine rushes" when expressing their opinions and from following rituals. The sense of having done good by "spreading the message" or being on the "right side of history" is a powerful drug. People strongly desire to be "good" and ideologies provide for that desire.

Parasites and Mind-Control

Parasites often control the minds of their hosts. A few examples: The 'horsehair' worm causes grasshoppers to drown themselves. 'Sacculina' is a type of barnacle that transgenders male crabs & makes them dance like females. Many humans have toxoplasmosis, a brain parasite which is known to cause risky-behaviour & motorbike accidents.

Ideas have a profound control over the behaviour of the people who host them. For the sake of an ideology, there is nothing that people will not do to further that ideology. One could argue that people are essentially puppets to ideologies, and ideologies drive the whole world.

If we consider the huge upheavals over hundreds of years caused by followers of the ideologies of Christianity, Islam and Judaism for example, there's no doubt that ideologies affect the world.

We could view the world as being a battleground for competing egregores fighting for control of humanity, by possessing the minds and bodies of their "believers" and making them fight each other. Thus people become little more than the puppets of the inhuman ideologies they have adopted.

Ideologies Are Like "Demons"

Perhaps this is what demons really are: Ideologies. Perhaps believing in them is what "spirit possession" actually is.

When someone decides to believe in "communism" because it makes them feel like a good-person, this then is a trade with the devil. You get to feel good about yourself, at the cost of giving away your "soul", i.e. your will. When you follow an ideology it dictates what your will should be.

Ideologies are then like demonic-gods controlling millions of people; dividing them, making them fight & kill each other, all for the sake of "psychic real-estate": Minds and bodies the ideologies can occupy.

Like "vampires" you have to invite an ideology in, you have to consent to it, to believe in it. They send their tentacles deep into brain & body controlling your emotions, making you their puppet. Your ideologies use you to spread them around all while feeding from your attention, blinding you to your real environment, and preventing you from ever learning anything that might threaten their home & food source.

In this scenario the world looks very much like a stage, with countless players acting out the commands of a smaller number of controlling demons / ideologies. People acting as the wind-up toys of living autonomous spirit-beings, which span a billion minds...

Ideologies turn people into "food for demons".

The Only Way To Win Is, Refuse To Play

Ideologies aren't necessary; we could live without them. They're just parasites, they do no good for humanity at all.

To remove physical parasites like fleas and ticks is just basic hygiene. To remove spiritual parasite is also just basic hygiene.

Spiritual hygiene is what's lacking in this world. Ridding oneself of parasites is essential if you don't want to be like a psychic flea-bag spreading misery wherever you go.

Drop all your beliefs and ideologies as if they were lice, or ticks crawling all over you and sucking your blood, because thats what they're like.