GLAMOUR
“Glamour is likened to a mist in which mankind wanders, a fog that distorts all that we feel and contact, and which prevents us from responding to life clearly, or to the conditions that surround us as they essentially are.”
The emotional/astral plane is filled with a misty substance, into which we all mindlessly tune in on a daily basis; we tune in to these substances through our own individual emotional bodies. Those who are predominantly emotionally (and these are the majority) will respond with facility to glamour. As the fogs settle on our consciousness we are rendered powerless unless we learn to wrestle our way through it by clear thinking and flashes of illumination which alone can dissipate the particular glamours that holds us in sway; but even then, as we see it, full release from the substances of glamour is further complicated by other habitual feelings and emotional disturbances. It has been said by reliable sources that if humanity could see with the eye of intuition into the plane of the emotions, we would appear to be walking in a deep and constantly changing density of currents which hide and distort, and which swirl around each of the sons of men, preventing their seeing the LIGHT as it is. Glamour has little in it of the mental quality and is the major factor controlling the majority of people at this time.
The word glamour conjures in the mind and heart those ideas and feelings that are associated with privileged society, high fashion, wealth, material splendour and Hollywood status, and this is correct as far as physical plane glamour is concerned; we are, indeed, overwhelmed on an hourly basis by countless alluring advertisements depicting the grandiose lifestyles of movie stars, models, sports personalities, pop singers and celebrities who live and are influenced for the most part by the irresistible pull of glamour. But glamour extends much further than this, for it is steeped also in religion, politics, and all social institutions. The emotional reactions which we all emanate daily, build these substances of glamour, and it is through this continual mist of fog that we look upon a world already distorted, believing the unreal to be the real.
To partake in the beguiling substance of any forms of glamour (for substance indeed it is), requires a personal affiliation to those qualities and activities which motivate and maintain them. We are all influenced, and have been for millennia, by the many glamours that have been generated by humanity itself. The physical manifestation of glamour, as expressed in ‘high society’, for example, is but one of the many ways in which this deceptive force manifests and to which we have fallen prey; unaware of these traps, we unknowingly spend much of our life energy trying to emulate, in one way or another, those who have unwittingly succumbed to the hypnotic lure. We would do well to become more aware of the overwhelming power of glamour in its many guiles and of the miasmic effects it has on our consciousness; in so doing we may learn to guard against it and so dispel some of the ignorance created by it.
ILLUSION
“Illusion is regarded as misinterpretation by the mind. Strongly mental types are prone to illusion as their life activity becomes controlled by thought-forms of great potency.”
Individuals are tuned through their mental bodies to those mass thought-forms on the mental plane which are of a similar nature. Consider as an example the overpowering and brutal effect of those strong-minded and stubborn personalities who are in power today; and reflect also on the overall effect on humanity of those domineering characters who ruled in the past with an iron will. So many have lived – and still live today – under the ruling hands of misguided thought and tyrannical will! The world of mind is satiated with thought-forms created from the moment men and women began to wield consciousness on the mental plane. Thoughts of every degree and kind are created from the substance of the lower mental plane and are picked up daily by us according to our particular predilections. Only the cold, clear light of the higher mind, with its propensity towards reason and universal love, will clear the lower mind and the emotional body of habitual ignorance.
The full extent of our susceptibility to glamour and illusion is evident in our individual daily expression, for whatever transpires on the inner planes becomes a demonstrable effect in the physical world, the final point of manifestation. We need to remember that where mind and emotions (two distinct fields of consciousness and creativity) are deceived by the narrow confines of long-held beliefs and deceptive feelings, there the illusions of mind will cloud clear thinking, and the glamour of emotions will attach to specious sentiments and to those devious desires of the man-made world.
The immediate challenge facing humanity is the dissipation of glamour and the dispelling of illusion in which we have been immersed for so long. In the New Age which is speedily coming in upon us these longstanding deceptions will be dissolved step by step, as it is occurring even now, the evidence of which is observable in the extraordinary events taking place throughout the world. We are beginning to sense, even if only vaguely at the moment, the Guiding Hand of fundamental change in world-wide global events. Out of the present chaos will come a new and intelligent order – so long as we stand together in the place of light. Humanity is gradually waking up to its true role as creative interlocutor as it voices the collective discontent towards all that is no longer useful. The old established regimes must give way finally to that which is superior in spirit; it is all a matter of time – time being a series of physical plane events as witnessed by our collective consciousness. The question remains: How, then, may we assist in the dissipation of glamour on the emotional plane, and in the dispelling of illusion on the plane of mind, towards this end?
In relation to Glamour on the astral plane, the popular slogan says it all: “EVERY LITTLE BIT COUNTS”.
Each of us must come to that point of sincere loving in regard to the WHOLE. This may be achieved through:
1. A re-organisation of human values, so desperately needed at this time: those values which demonstrate through selfless service and loving human relations.
2. A deeper appreciation of life/love as it pours forth from each man’s heart, as opposed to that selfish and blind obedience to monied interest, inculcated by long-established regimes.
We will come to a point of clear seeing by the dispelling of erroneous thought-forms of illusion on the mental plane. This is effected through:
1. The development of right understanding, of the way of mind control over the unruly emotions.
2. The power of reflection, visualisation, altruistic prayer, and meditation.
3. The training of the mind towards reality by rightly interpreting that which is seen.
In the light of illumination in regard to glamour, and of intuition applied to the illusions of the mind, much will be accomplished in the dispelling of these deceptions which hold humanity in thrall.
We will surely be rid of glamour and illusion as the majority of us begin to see more clearly the facts as they stand, and so learn to act more purely as a channel for the higher Light.

