This is the inscription above the entrance hall of the Chicago Tribune
Don't Give Me The Freedom Of The Press
I will give the Minister a venal house of peers.
He will get a corrupt and service House of Commons.
He Will Get The Full Blow Of My Patronage Of Office
He Will Have All The Power A Place Could Confer On Him
Buy Up Submission and Overawe Resistence:
But, with the Freedom of Press,
I Will Meet Him Unfazed.
The Mighty Fabric Of That Mightier Machine Will be attacked.
Corruption will be shook off its height
Bury it Under the Ruins of
What It was meant to protect.
-Richard Brinsley Sheridan
Richard Brinsley Sheridan captured the ethos of an entire industry in his words. The inscription looks more like an ode to the deceased today. The corporate media is mutated. It summons bizarre psychic entities instead of tracking the truth.
Media Egregores
Egregore is a concept that comes from the occult. It's derived from egregoroi in Greek, meaning "watchers". But the term can also be used to refer to a collective idea that is summoned by concentrating on the same patterns of thoughts News.
Collective consciousness is akin to a living creature, or a psychic being. The thoughts that are used to create egregores can influence and be influenced by them. We can perhaps see media manipulation in a new light if we compare the idea of an egregore with that of a egregore.
Media can be seen in its various forms as a way to direct collective attention. A sensational story, or viral campaign for example can direct public attention to a particular idea or cause. They coalesce to create a set of thoughts patterns called an egregore. They become dangerous when enough people adopt such thought patterns as truth.
This mass belief is a form of agency.
Monsters and Manipulators
The manipulation of media can be viewed as an effort to influence our collective perception. They use their conjurors to nudge a willing public into the direction they desire. It could be for a variety of reasons, such as to manipulate public opinion, promote products or achieve political power.
This isn't journalism.
They aren't using their brains when enough people act, think and talk in a particular way. Instead, they are submitting their cognition and agency to an artificial groupthink.
Our collective intelligence, or our understanding of the universe as a whole could be seen in a wider sense as an overlapping network of egregores that is constantly shaped and reshaped through ideologues.
Once, we called them journalists.
The "once" is a rough equivalent to the Sheridan epigraph that was used by the industry. He would have certainly welcomed the principles below:
- Find the truth no matter what.
- Never be afraid to speak the truth.
- Truth is a powerful tool to check power.
The activists who staff the J-schools say, "Oh my," the journalistic principles have just been warmed up over modernism. The social justice theory and critical theory suggest a different way to approach the enterprise.
Over time, the journalistic values that were once held dear by journalists and their trainers have been replaced with dark mirrors.
- Do not accept truths which contradict your ideological beliefs.
- Deform reality by narrative and spin.
- Your work should serve the power of all kinds.
As ideological brain viruses infect journalists' minds, they become zombies. Still, by applying those latter three anti-principles--even unwittingly--journalists become media manipulators.
And manipulators make monsters.
Good Egregores?
Since we are dealing with metaphors, perhaps it is useful to think of good egregores as Mark Stavish described at Theosophical Society.
Imagine an intelligent, well-mannered man who can concentrate is thinking of a great idea and giving it the form that he wants. Then he may find other men who share the same ideas or have similar ones, creating a group of people who think along the same lines, but with a slightly different format. Each of them would be drawing the same plan over and over again, with a pencil. It grows stronger, gets an astral body and is called an Egregor or collective entity.
Stavish says that the Russian esotericist, freemason Grigorii Ozipovich-Mebes and his acolytes revived this concept in books which penetrated Western minds.
We can also be good egregores, if that is what we want to do. It is important to use language that inspires us to work for truth and justice.
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