Our country and much of the world is currently in thrall (enslaved) to a large number of powerful glamours. When I say a “glamour,” I am referring to a type of delusion that occurs at the level of being in which cognition is mixed with emotion. Most of our waking experiences are characterized by cognition (thoughts) that are mixed with emotions.
Glamours are incredibly dangerous because they function by inviting someone to feel powerful, especially in relationships to others, while simultaneously stripping those in thrall of their actual power. I want to give you an example of one of the most powerful right now and invite you to become aware of its operation and to reject it when it invites you to give it your power while pretending to give you power. Glamours are defeated by awareness and an act of will in which you reject it.
Let’s talk about the glamour of Cynicism: Cynicism is pervasive, but let’s look at it in the context of politics. It is the attitude that everything is rigged, so there is no point in trying, or if you are going to try it will be in some grand protest that is not actually a strategy. The cynical person believes that they see the putative “truth” because they are intelligent and that they are more intelligent than anyone who “doesn’t see it”. Functionally, cynicism becomes an “identity marker” of intelligence and a way to justify feeling superior to other people. Because people who are intelligent tend to value their intelligence, there is pressure from this glamour to verify one’s intelligence by becoming cynical
So, the glamour of cynicism removes masses of people from actually working to make a meaningful difference in their community, which is what politics is, while simultaneously enabling them to not feel any responsibility for improving things. Instead there is a self-amplifying feedback loop that absolutely disempowers those who are under the thrall of this glamour while increasing their own deluded sense of status as “intelligent” people. The more things go to hell, the more self-righteous they feel believing they have been vindicated as being “correct” while being blind to the fact that their role is significantly causal.
Additionally, those who are working for change are dismissed and disempowered as being either polyannas or sell-outs, and are written off as either not intelligent or not strong enough to accept the “cold, hard truth of the world,” or they are not pure enough. And, again, this particular glamour appeals to and infects an extraordinarily large number of truly intelligent people whose talents and abilities to make change are effectively neutralized. If I were Sauron trying to devise a spell to put humanity in thrall and spread my corrupting shadow over the world, I couldn’t do better than the glamour of cynicism.
The next time you find yourself invited by the Glamour of Cynicism to give it your power so that it can give you an illusion, I invite you to do this instead. Choose hope and stay engaged. This is not a naïve statement. I do not passively “have” hope because I think the world is good. I choose hope, over and over again, every day, so that I can have the real power to help make the world good. And then I go, and I do the work that I can.
If you are of a magickal persuasion, here is a ritual to dissipate cynicism from the group mind. https://theophaniadcdotorg.files.wordpress.com/2018/09/dispelling-glamour-ritual.pdf
