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Editors’ Blog

New Reading Group: Soliciting Interest in the Subject of “Consequential Reality”

By
  • Brigid Burke
 |  29 Dec 2021
AK Rockefeller, "Half-Rome," CC BY-SA

Brigid is interested in starting a reading group next Spring (March/April 2022 time frame) on what she calls “consequential reality”; an explanation follows:

I started thinking about the idea of a “consequential reality” in January 2020. The first event that got the wheels turning was the January 6 attempt to overthrow the U.S. election, and the assault on the Capitol. Every one of those involved was absolutely convinced of some kind of conspiracy against Trump, and in spite of the verified authenticity of the election, a false rhetoric and appeal to mass psychology created an unbelievable real world event. We see a similar championing of such fictions with anti-vaccination rhetoric and conspiracy theory groups like QAnon.

The second item of interest was an episode of a television show called Kindred Spirits, featuring Amy Bruni and Adam Berry of Ghost Hunters fame. The episode was entitled “Zombie Boy”; in a nutshell, a weird recent haunting at a Massachusetts museum caused Amy and Adam to make up a fake story about this alleged entity, and told the story out loud in the house as though it were true. When they investigated a few hours later, their recorders and other equipment picked up voices and actions that matched the fake story they created—even Chip Coffey, the medium, picked up on it from a thousand miles away. Their conclusion was that the entity was an “egregore” or thoughtform, a collection of intensified thoughts and feelings that act like a real intelligence, rather than any sort of disembodied spirit. So, the question is posited—can reality be created out of falsehoods? Can fiction become fact, or at least “true” in some sense?

To start exploring the question, I came up with a short list of books related to this idea that is likely to be expanded:

  • Faith in Fakes by Umberto Eco
  • Egregores: the Occult Entities that Watch Over Human Destiny by Mark Stavish
  • Hiding in the Mirror: the Quest for Alternate Realities by Laurence Krauss
  • The Case Against Reality by Donald Hoffman
  • The Psychology of Conspiracy Theories by Jan-Willem van Prooijen

If anyone is interested in a reading group addressing this subject, please send Brigid a message via Infinite Conversations or use the contact form to send us an email. You can also join the Readers Underground to start a conversation on related topics, and you will be invited to participate when the group begins.

Assistant Editor:
  • Marco V Morelli

Filed Under: Blog, Culture (Transformation), Mythos, Noetics (Mind/Spirit), Philosophy (Eteolegeme) Tagged With: consciousness, hyperstition, ontology, paranormal, theory of mind, weird

Brigid Burke

Brigid Burke is the host of the Chthonia podcast, and the proprietor of Chthonia.net. She writes articles, fiction, and poetry dealing with the darker aspects of human behavior and the esoteric world. Her fiction has been published previously in Writin …

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4 Comments

Metapsychosis is a project of Cosmos Cooperative, a creative co-op for people with “visionary tendencies”—artists and scientists, writers and designers, tree-huggers and technologists—lovers of truth, goodness, beauty, and life in worlds upon worlds… It’s a big Cosmos, right? Visionaries of the world, unite! Seriously, this is supposed to be fun. Help us create a better Cosmos…

Unless otherwise noted, all rights are reserved by the individual authors. Other website content is licensed under Creative Commons: Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)

  • Books
    • Plenum: the First Book of Deo
    • Masks of Origin
  • Groups
    • See You in Our Dreams – Reading Performance Group and Social Dreaming Experiment
    • Visionary Voices: Sri Aurobindo’s Savitri
    • Synthesis of Yoga Practicum
  • Podcasts
    • Chthonia – Worlds of the Dark Feminine
    • Writing Off the Deep End
  • Events
  • Meta
    • About
    • Authors
    • Submissions
    • Contact
    • Donate
  • Subscribe

Metapsychosis is a project of Cosmos Cooperative, a creative co-op for people with "visionary tendencies." Learn more at Cosmos.coop »

  • Cosmos Cooperative
  • Journal
  • Books
  • Conversations
  • Social
  • Join the Co-op

Metapsychosis is a project of Cosmos Cooperative, a creative co-op for people with "visionary tendencies." Learn more at Cosmos.coop »

Unless otherwise noted, all rights are reserved by the individual authors. Other website content is licensed under Creative Commons: Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)