Ye Watchers and Ye Holy Ones
When I was studying the cosmology of Wicca, one of the most fascinating concepts to me was that of the egregore, or “group mind.” When a group of people gathered for a common purpose, particularly if it were spiritual in nature, their collective psychic energy would begin to coalesce into an organic form of transpersonal consciousness that would remain silently present in the midst of the group’s activity. The egregore would be located in a particular place, typically where the group gathered for its ceremonial work. The more focussed and adept the group was at raising energy, the more powerful the egregore became. It was seen as a sort of psychic bank, into which those who are magically gifted could invest their energy for the benefit of the group as a whole. Eventually the egregore would exert its own influence on the group, shaping and directing the group’s ongoing sense of identity, purpose and mission.
Egregore comes from the Greek work ἐγρήγοροι (egrḗgoroi), which means “watchers.” If you love hymnody half as much as I do, you already see the fascinating thread I want to follow here; for in 1906 an Anglican layman named Athelstan Riley wrote Ye Watchers and Ye Holy Ones, a lovely hymn that celebrates the communion of saints in glory (and which repeats the word “Alleluia” a whopping twenty-six times). The first stanza goes like this:
- Ye watchers and ye holy ones,
- Bright seraphs, cherubim and thrones,
- Raise the glad strain, Alleluia!
- Cry out, dominions, princedoms, powers,
- Virtues, archangels, angels’ choirs:
- Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia!
It’s basically a run-down of the nine celestial choirs of angels, as originally formulated by the greatest of the early mystics, Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, who wrote around the year 500 CE. The idea basically is that the heavenly host is arranged hierarchically (yes, it was Pseudo-Dionysius who either coined or immortalized the word “hierarchy” both to describe the ranking of angels and the ranking of church authority) in nine choirs. But Riley calls the entire bunch of them “Watchers” and “Holy Ones.” So what is that all about? (more…)
