Creating the Egregore & Embodying the Spirit 

The Sovereign Order of the Mystic Knights of St Mary Magdalene, while embodying a vast number of similarities with the Knights Templar, is not itself a Templar Order. Many members of the Order belong to modern Templar Orders, and some have expressed memories of past Templar lifetimes, the current Grand Master included.  However, the original Knights Templar order created a powerful egregore that assists all who align with it and serve humanity as they did. The founding members of The Sovereign Order of the Mystic Knights of St Mary Magdalene have felt and embodied that egregore throughout everything that we have done. So, the below article seems as applicable to our Order as it is to any spiritual order, whether Templar or otherwise. Within any spiritual endeavor, authenticity is an absolutely essential aspect. The following is an adaption of an extract from his book credited below. 

"If one is interested in joining a modern Templar order and would like to be sure of its authenticity, it should be related to whether the order in question not only advocates but practices the ideals of the founding fathers of the original Order. Unless one is interested in pure historical research, what good would it do to know that a particular order has a genuine parchment showing that it descended directly from Jacques de Molay if the order in question was only a benevolent society or a group of men whose main interest was to dress up from time to time with capes and swords? A real seeker would want to know whether the order was a living embodiment of the Templar spirit in words and deeds. Is it an organization where service to humanity and to the planet is the main interest in the life of its members?

It can be said that the authenticity of a Templar order is dependent on the degree to which that order has been able to link up consciously with the egregore or group mind of the Eternal Order of the Temple. Any group which manages to live the Templar tradition will discover the keys which will enable it to contact the egregore of the Order of the Temple as it has been expressed through the original Templars and through all who have followed in their tradition, whether they have called themselves Templars or not. This is not an easy task because to build up sufficient energy to make contact, a dedicated group must live the Templar life in a very intense way, with all the allied sacrifices of time, money and personal ambition which a genuine warrior of the spirit must make. This is particularly true for the initial group who begin the attempt.

The egregore is a kind of group mind which is created when people consciously come together for a common purpose. Whenever people gather to do something, an egregore is formed, but unless an attempt is made to maintain it deliberately it will dissipate rather quickly. If the people wish to maintain it and know the techniques of how to do so, the egregore will continue to grow in strength and can last for centuries. An egregore has the characteristic of having an effectiveness greater than the mere sum of its individual members. It continuously interacts with its members, influencing them and being influenced by them. The interaction works positively by stimulating and assisting its members but only as long as they behave and act in line with its original aim. It will stimulate both individually and collectively all those faculties in the group which will permit the realization of the objectives of its original program. If this process is continued a long time the egregore will take on a kind of life of its own, and can become so strong that even if all its members should die, it would continue to exist on the inner dimensions and can be contacted even centuries later by a group of people prepared to live the lives of the original founders, particularly if they are willing to provide the initial input of energy to get it going again.

If the egregore is concerned with spiritual or esoteric activities its influence will be even greater. People who discover the keys of tapping into a powerful egregore of a spiritual or esoteric tradition will, if they activate and maintain such an egregore, obtain access to the abilities, knowledge, and drive of all that has been accumulated in that egregore since its beginnings. A group or order which manages to do this can, with a clear conscience, claim to be an authentic order of the tradition represented by that egregore. In my view this is the only yardstick by which a genuine Templar order should be measured.

Only someone who has a spiritual vocation and experience can know whether a group is spiritual. A living tradition must be able to change its adherents and to make them more aware of spirituality in their daily life. The tradition of the Order of the Temple is a living force, and it will continue to influence the more evolved members of the species as long as they exist."

This article has been adapted from the book "The Templar Tradition in the Age of Aquarius" by Gaetan Delaforge.