Kimberly Steele

I have a going hypothesis that I have dubbed the LCD or Lowest Common Denominator Effect that goes a little something like this: any group of people that physically gathers with the intention of channeling spirits is subject to the lowest and worst person's astral state dragging the rest of the group down to its level. So yes, what I am saying here is that any given group that tries to channel spirits, including groups of Christians who worship in church, is subject to the lowest, scummiest, and worst-intentioned person dragging the group's egregore down into the astral gutter.

I am not sure how long the LCD Effect has been in play. I am going to guess it has been a very, very long time, but it does seem to have gained a great deal of ground in the last two hundred years. I think there are quite a few factors contributing to this phenomenon.

Three Strikes of LCD

1. This is not an easy time to be spiritual. That's the thing about our current Demonic Age: this is a difficult time to be spiritual or achieve any kind of spiritual understanding. People are more materialistic than they have ever been as a function of being at the bottom of a glacially long cycle and because of cheap petroleum wealth.

2. Holy buildings are not holy. Another contributor to the LCD effect is a lack of structures, both literally and figuratively, that help connect humans with the Divine. In his book The Secret of the Temple, John Michael Greer discusses how ancient temple structures all over the world were eerily similar and how they may have been conductors and transducers of a now-misunderstood form of energy. In his book, he offers a provocative speculation that perhaps ancient temple architects knew exactly what they were doing and perhaps they were able to channel the kind of energy that made both crops and human minds extremely fertile. Compare the brutalism of modern so-called holy buildings. They are sterile, unproductive places where the only miracle that occurs is the creation of wealth from the wallets of the gullible.

3. Our holy men and women are 90 pound weaklings. Yet a third reason the LCD effect happens is the absence of holy men and women with enough astral "lift" in order to overcome the LCD effect.

The Bad Apples

What tends to happen in an LCD situation is a group of people is spoiled by the "bad apple" and despite the best efforts of good apples, the bad apple turns the egregor into a mirror of his or her own septic self until the group either sinks down into the morass or disbands.

In the case of the vegan group I used to run, it was the second one. After going vegan in 2010, I ran a group for vegans for many years. We met at restaurants and ordered vegan options. I threw potlucks in my old commercial space. I showed movies, hosted bake sales, and generally spent a great deal of my energy trying to make veganism a thing in my local area the only way I knew how. The group was generally very good and we helped lots of people and animals, however, the LCD effect was a constant scourge. One of the first LCD creeps it attracted is someone I will call Creepazoid Chris. Chris decided I was the one for him despite my wedding ring and obvious married status. He took everything nice I said to him as an invitation. When he began suggestively texting me late at night, I told him to buzz off and blocked his number. He proceeded to stalk and harass me online. He was not the only person who came to my meetups hoping to find a date and turning his fractured affections towards me, the hostess. "Laura" wasn't into other girls, but she was a bad apple extraordinaire. Laura went to a restaurant meetup at a cheap, fast-casual place and proceeded to lecture everyone at the table about how the restaurant was in the wrong for not offering oil-free options. Laura's bad behavior ruined several of my gatherings, but by the time she had made herself an obvious pest, the fissures breaking the group apart were en route to dismantling it on their own.

I used to belong to a group of houseplant and garden aficionados online. I say "I used to" because the group has now been canceled by its leader. The founder/leader of the group hosted huge plant swaps at the local mall out of the goodness of her heart. Many of my rare houseplants and a few of my prized garden plants are from the few swaps I was able to attend. Though most of the group was a harmonious bunch of amateur botanists, there were a small but vocal cadre of drama queens who insisted that the founder was pocketing money from fundraisers. The leader's final message before disbanding the group was "I'm tired of breaking my back just to have people accuse me of being about the money; this has never been about the money".

In the past, I think it was easier for a charismatic and motivated leader to lift his or her group out of LCD-ville. I have a great deal of chutzpah and etheric energy, but when Creepazoid Chris and Laura entered one of my meetups, there was no way I could inspire the kind of power necessary for them to feel alienated. No matter what I did, they clung like boogers. I made rules to attempt to dissuade Creepazoid Chris, saying that my group was not for dating and mating and that anyone who sexually harassed another group member would be immediately booted. This worked about as well as you suspect it did. I wrote Laura a scathing message or three telling her to grow the hell up -- I highly doubt she took that advice.

Now take the average, medium-sized Protestant church in my area. Not only do they lack charismatic leaders, there is nothing holy about anyone in the congregation. One medium-sized Protestant church near me sports a Starbucks style café along with the usual worship band. One of their meeting rooms is larger in square footage than my house. The crass materialism of the place is glaringly obvious from the (huge) parking lot. Once you go into the building, it is quite clear they are not worshipping Jesus no matter how many Bibles they quote during service. Multiply the bland, uninspiring elevator music-scored bloviations of the Protestant pastor by a million and we begin to understand how the LCD Effect drags us collectively lower and lower still.