Glamour~

Introduction

The word ~glamour~ is used in all esoteric books and teaching to cover the conditions which are differentiated under the words maya, illusion, and glamour itself of which very little has been written or taught. 

Glamour,  is of more ancient standing and of earlier emergence than is illusion. It has little in it of the mental quality and is the major factor controlling the majority. The objective of all training given on the Path of Discipleship and up to the third initiation is to induce that clear thinking which will render the disciple free from illusion and give to him that emotional stability and poise which gives no room for the entrance of any of the world glamour. This freedom becomes possible when there is in the aspirant no personal glamour, and no deliberately self-induced response to the determining factors which have produced glamour down the ages.

The subject of Glamour falls into certain broad generalisations such as:

I. The Nature of Glamour.

II. The Causes of Glamour.

III. The Dissipation of Glamour.

There are four phrases which have for long been bandied about among esotericists. They are: glamour, illusion, maya and the expression, the dweller on the threshold. They all stand for the same general concept or some differentiation of that concept. Speaking generally, the interpretations have been as follows, and they are only partial interpretations, and are almost in the nature of distortions of the real truth, owing to the limitations of the human consciousness.

~Glamour~ has oft been regarded as a curious attempt of what are called the "black forces" to deceive and hoodwink well-meaning aspirants. Many fine people are almost flattered when they are "up against" some aspect of glamour, feeling that their demonstration of discipline has been so good that the black forces are interested sufficiently to attempt to hinder their fine work by submerging them in clouds of glamour. Nothing could be further from the truth. That idea is itself part of the glamour of the present time, and has its roots in human pride and satisfaction.

~Maya~ is oft regarded as being of the same nature as the concept promulgated by the Christian Scientist that there is no such thing as matter. We are asked to regard the entire world phenomena as ~maya~ and to believe that its existence is simply an error of mortal mind, and a form of auto-suggestion or self-hypnotism. Through this induced belief we force ourselves into a state of mind which recognises that the tangible and the objective are only figments of man's imaginative mind. This, in its turn, is likewise a travesty of reality.

~Illusion~ is regarded rather the same way, only (as we define it) we lay the emphasis upon the finiteness of man's mind. The world of phenomena is not denied, but we regard the mind as misinterpreting it and as refusing to see it as it is in reality. We consider this misinterpretation as constituting the Great Illusion.

~The Dweller on the Threshold~ is usually regarded as presenting the final test of man's courage, and as being in the nature of a gigantic thoughtform or factor which has to be dissipated, prior to taking initiation. Just what this thoughtform is, few people know, but their definition includes the idea of a huge elemental form which bars the way to the sacred portal, or the idea of a fabricated form, constructed sometimes by the disciple's Master to test his sincerity. Some regard it as the sum total of a man's faults, his evil nature, which hinders his being recognised as fit to tread the Path of Holiness. None of these definitions, however, give a true idea of the reality.

Generally speaking, these four expressions are four aspects of a universal condition that is the result of the activity—in time and space—of the human mind. The activity of ~Minds~. Ponder on this phrase for it gives you a clue to the truth.

The Problem of Illusion lies in the fact that it is a Soul activity, and the result of the mind aspect of all the Souls in manifestation. It is the Soul which is submerged in the illusion and the Soul that fails to see with clarity until such time as it has learnt to pour the light of the Soul through into the mind and the brain.

The Problem of Glamour is found when the mental illusion is intensified by desire. What the Theosophist calls "kama-manas" produces glamour. It is illusion on the astral plane.

The Problem of Maya is really the same as the above, plus the intense activity produced when both glamour and illusion are realised on etheric levels. It is that vital unthinking emotional ~mess~ in which the majority of human beings seem always to live.

The Dweller on the Threshold is illusion-glamour-maya, as realised by the physical brain and recognised as that which must be overcome. It is the bewildering thoughtform with which the disciple is confronted, when he seeks to pierce through the accumulated glamour of the ages and find his true home in the place of light.

The above are necessarily only generalisations, and the result also of the activity of the analytical mind, but they serve to embody a part of the problem in words and to convey a definite thoughtform

Only the intuition can dispel illusion. If you can overcome glamour in your own lives and if you can, therefore, comprehend the nature of illusion you will help in

a. The destruction of the dweller on the threshold,

b. The devitalising of the general maya,

c. The dissipation of glamour,

d. The dispelling of illusion.

Glamour, as we have seen, is of more ancient standing and of earlier emergence than is illusion. It has little in it of the mental quality and is the major factor controlling the majority. The objective of all training given on the Path of Discipleship and up to the third initiation is to induce that clear thinking which will render the disciple free from illusion and give to him that emotional stability and poise which gives no room for the entrance of any of the world glamour. This freedom becomes possible when there is in the aspirant no personal glamour, and no deliberately self-induced response to the determining factors which have produced glamour down the ages.

Maya is the result of both glamour and illusion. It connotes, when present, an integrated personality and therefore the capacity to tune in on mental illusion and astral glamour. Where this condition is found, the problem of the disciple is one of the greatest in the world. What constitutes the prime difficulty of any disciple is the fact that the battleground of his life involves every aspect of his nature. The whole man is involved. Technically, the word MAYA should only be used in two cases:

1. In reference to the united glamour-illusion to which a man who is in integrated personality responds.

2. In speaking of the limitations of the planetary Logos of our planet.

Ancient theologies in modern garb, fixed presentations of half truth, the wild thinking of various world groups, and many similar emanating sources have—down the ages—produced the world of illusion and those mental states which have held humanity prisoner to wrong concepts and thoughts. So many are these thought producing illusions that the effect in the world today has been to cause a general division of the human race into varying schools of thought (philosophy, science, religion, sociology, etc., etc.), into many parties and groups, all of them coloured by an analogous idea, into groups of idealists fighting each other on behalf of their pet concepts, and into tens of thousands of participants in group mental activity. These are today producing the world literature, through which the world platforms are coloured; by their means the world leaders are inspired; and they are responsible at this time for the mass of experiments in the field of government, of education, and of religion which are producing so much of the world unrest, and consequently so much of the world illusion.

What is needed therefore at this time, are thinkers who are training themselves in that mental attitude and one-pointedness which is divorced from the danger of a negative receptivity and is responsive, at the same time, to the higher intuitional inspiration. It is mediating interpreters of ideas that are needed and not mediums.

The emotional types respond with facility to world glamour and to their own individual inherited and self-induced glamour. The bulk of the people are purely emotional with occasional flashes of real mental understanding—yet these are very occasional, and usually entirely absent. Glamour has been likened to a mist or fog in which the aspirant wanders and which distorts all that he sees and contacts, preventing him from ever seeing life truly or clearly or the conditions surrounding him as they essentially are. When he is a somewhat advanced aspirant, he is aware of the glamour and occasionally sees in a flash in what direction truth for him may lie. But then again the glamour settles down upon him and he is rendered powerless to release himself or to do anything constructive. His problem becomes further complicated by his consequent distress and his deep disgust with himself. He walks ever in a fog and sees naught as it truly exists. He is deceived by the appearance and forgets that which the appearance veils. The emanatory astral reactions which each human being initiates ever surround him and through this mist and fog he looks out upon a distorted world. These reactions and the surrounding aura which they constitute blend and merge with the world glamour and fog and form part of the miasmas and unhealthy emanations for which the masses of men, for millions of years, are responsible.

In Lemurian days, glamour and illusion were relatively unknown from the human standpoint. There were no mental reactions and but little emotional response to environment. Men were largely instinctual animals. Glamour began to be found in Atlantean days, and since that time has steadily precipitated, until today when the Hierarchy looks at humanity it appears to be walking in a deep and constantly changing density of currents which hide and distort, and which swirl around the sons of men and prevent their seeing the LIGHT as it is. This is all the more obvious when it is remembered that the other kingdoms of nature are relatively free from glamour and illusion. 

In our race, the Aryan, the world illusion is gathering weight and slowly emerging into recognition in the human consciousness and this is a real point gained, for that which is recognised can then be intelligently handled, if the will to do so exists. Today illusion is so potent, that few people whose minds are in any way developed but are controlled by these vast illusory thoughtforms, which have their roots and draw their life from the lower personality life and desire nature of the masses of men. It is interesting to remember also in connection with our Aryan race that these thoughtforms draw their vitality also from the realm of ideas, but of ideas wrongly intuited and grasped and forced to serve the selfish purposes of men. Their forms have been brought into activity by the steadily growing creative power of mankind, and have been subordinated to the wishes of men, through the use of language with its power to limit and distort. The illusion is also precipitated more potently than would otherwise be the case by the effort of many devoted idealistic men to impose these distorted thoughtforms upon the mental bodies of the masses. This constitutes one of the major problems with which the Hierarchy today has to concern itself; it is also one of the first factors which  has to be considered in connection with the Path of Discipleship.

The whole problem concerns itself with the use or misuse of force or energy, and the understanding that:

1. That average man, in everyday life, and the aspirant upon the Path of Probation or Purification, works with the forces of life on the three planes of human endeavour, plus the principle of life itself.

2. That the disciple begins to discriminate between the forces and energy. Upon the Path of Discipleship he begins to work with Soul-energy. This eventually dominates the forces.

3. That the initiate works, upon the Path of Initiation, with energy and learns to distinguish between the energy of life, the energies of the Soul, and the forces of the phenomenal world.

Another point also should be emphasised here and that is that the nature of these forces and energies, and their use and control have always to be realised and worked out in full consciousness upon the physical plane. Theory must become fact, and the battles which take place on the subtler levels of the astral and mental planes must be realised in the brain consciousness. It is there that the application is made.

As these realisations and inner activities become practical parts of the disciple's life and their consequences become clear to his perception in waking consciousness, they form in time part of his quality equipment. He is in reality integrating and synthesising experience in the three worlds and becoming a Master through conscious mastering. He grasps the fact that all that appears and all that happens is due to the circulation and constant mutation of force.

He discovers then how these forces interplay in his own experiences and nature, and grasps then the fundamental fact that only those forces which he himself can use and master in his own life as an individual can be employed by him in group activity and be used in the dispelling of the world glamour. It might be expressed in illustration thus:

1. Through alignment and subsequent contact, the intuition is evoked, awakened and used. This is the great dispelling agency, and pours down from the plane of the intuition (the plane of buddhi) through the Soul and the brain to the heart of the disciple.

2. Through alignment and subsequent contact, the energy of the Soul is evoked, awakened and used. This is the great dissipating agency, and pours down from soul levels (the higher levels of the mental plane) through the mind to the brain of the disciple carrying illumination to the astral plane.

3. These two types of spiritual energy work differently upon the forces of the personality, and their purpose and activity have to be realised in the brain consciousness of the disciple as he works upon the physical plane.

4. Then and only then can the light of the intuition and the light of the soul return to the astral plane through the conscious effort and the dynamic intelligent will of the serving disciple.

Ponder on these points for they outline your way and your service....

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