In New Age circles there is a great deal of talk about the subject of glamour. New Age groups, the esoteric and occult groups, fondly imagine, of course, that they are without glamour. They tend to see themselves as the most advanced groups in the world, above and beyond the glamours which beset ordinary humanity, and as particularly fitted to guide the rest of us into the same, blessed, glamour-free state in which they happily reside. This is one of the biggest glamours of these groups.
The Tibetan Master DK, who gave the Alice Bailey teachings to the world, has written that the esoteric and occult groups are the most glamoured of all the groups.
What is glamour? When we are asked what glamour is we can more easily answer, what is not glamour? There seems to be nothing which enters our mind, comes out of our mouths or concerns us in any way at all, which is not saturated with glamour. Glamour is illusion on the astral or emotional plane.
There are three levels of illusion, all pertaining to the personality. Illusion on the physical plane we call maya. On the astral plane we call it glamour. When it is on the mental plane, we call it illusion. The vast majority of us live constantly in a state of illusion, the result of not seeing reality as it is. Eventually, we come to an understanding that this physical plane world, our astral and emotional life and even our mental ideas are nothing more than illusions of one kind or another.
The real world, which we can only know through the development of soul consciousness, is something which we have to reach and experience through the practice of meditation and service. Through meditation we gradually form a contact and eventually an alignment between our personality self and our true Self, our soul. When this is established the soul can throw its light on to this illusory life, physical, emotional and mental, in which we have up till then lived.
That is what evolution is about. We gradually evolve out of the darkness of our illusions, physical, astral and mental, into the light of the soul, the true reality. Before this process of change takes place we do not see the harm that maya, glamour and illusion do to us and the world.
When we are in a state of glamour, of illusion, we are quite content because we do not know anything else. Our glamours, our illusions, are very comfortable for a long time. We have illusions, glamours, because they are comfortable. They help to bolster our ego, or denigrate our ego, depending on what we wish to do....read more....
