In
this article, the esotericist Harold Waldwin Percival explains that nature
immerses people within the illusion of matter until humans have developed
enough to awaken from that spell.
The soul is an eternal pilgrim, from the eternal past, and beyond, into
the immortal future. In its highest consciousness the soul is permanent,
changeless, eternal.
Desiring to detain the soul in her domains, nature has provided for her
immortal guest many varied vestures which she has cleverly woven together into
one body. It is through this body that nature is enabled to throw her glamour
over the soul and to dull the understanding. The senses are the magic wands
which nature wields.
Glamour is the magic spell which nature casts about the soul. Glamour
causes beguiling many-colored phantoms to attract, bewildering tones of melody
to charm, the fragrant breath of perfumes to allure, causes sweet pleasures
which gratify the appetites and stimulate the taste, and the soft yielding
touch that starts the blood tingling through the body and entertains the mind.
How naturally the soul is beguiled. How readily ensnared. How innocently
it is enchanted. How easily a web of unrealities is spun about it. Nature well
knows how to hold her guest. When one toy ceases to amuse, another is cunningly
proposed by which the soul is led ever deeper into the meshes of life. It continues
to be amused, occupied and entertained in a continual round of change, and
forgets the dignity and power of its presence and the simplicity of its being.
While imprisoned in the body the soul gradually awakens to the
consciousness of itself. Realizing that it has been under the spell of the
enchantress, appreciating the power of her wands and understanding her design
and methods, the soul is enabled to prepare against and frustrate her devices.
It tempers itself and becomes immune against the magic of the wands.
The talisman of the soul which will break the spell of the enchantress
is the realization that wherever or under what-ever condition, It is permanent,
changeless, immortal, hence that It can neither be bound, be injured, nor
destroyed.
The glamour of the wand of touch is feeling. It is the first and last
which must be overcome. It brings the soul under the sway of all sensations.
The openings through which nature works are the skin and all the organs of the
body. This sense has its roots deeply seated in the mystery of sex. In the
wonderful statue of Laocoon, Phidias has portrayed the soul struggling in the
coils of the serpent which has been thrown up by the spell of the wand. By
looking steadily at the talisman the serpent begins to uncoil.
Another of the ways by which the enchantress enslaves is the tongue, the
palate and the appetites of the body, which come under the spell of the wand of
taste. By looking at the talisman the soul makes the body immune against the
intoxication of taste, and allows only what will keep the body in health and be
sufficient for its needs. The wand of taste then loses its glamour and the body
receives that nourishment which the inner taste only supplies.
By the use of the magic of odors nature affects the soul through the
organ of smell, and so bewilders the brain as to allow the other senses to
steal away the mind. But by looking at the talisman the influence of the spell
is broken and instead of man being affected by the fragrance of nature, the
breath of life is drawn.
Through the ear the soul is
affected by the sense of sound.
When nature wields this wand the soul is charmed and enraptured until
the talisman is seen. Then the music of the world loses its charm. When the
soul hears the harmony of its own motion all other sound becomes noise and this
magic wand of nature is forever broken.
Over the eyes nature throws a glamour by the touch of her wand of sight.
But with a steady gaze at the talisman the glamour disappears, and color and
forms become the background on which the soul's own reflection is perceived.
When the soul perceives its reflection on the face and in the depths of nature
it contemplates real beauty and is invigorated with new strength.
The wresting of the wands from nature brings to the soul two other
wands: the knowledge of the relation of all things, and the knowledge that all
things are One. With these wands the soul completes its journey.
It is not pessimism to look at the illusions of life if done for the
purpose of understanding its deceptions and the glamour of the world. Were this
all that could be seen the vapors and darkness would be impenetrable indeed. It
is necessary for one who is searching for the real to first be dissatisfied
with all that is not real, for when the soul would perceive the real in life it
must be able to distinguish the unreal.
When the mind is wedded to and controlled by the action of the senses,
glamour is produced and the faculties of the soul are aborted. Thus come into
existence the vices: the brood of anger, hatred, envy, vanity, pride, greed,
and lust: the serpents in the coils of which the soul writhes.
The ordinary human life is a series of shocks from infancy to old age.
By each shock the veil of glamour is pierced and riven. For a moment the truth
is seen. But it cannot be endured. The mist again closes in. And strange, these
shocks are at the same time made bearable by the very pains and delights that
produce them. The mortal continues to float along on the stream of time,
carried hither and thither, whirled into an eddy of thought, dashed against the
rocks of misfortune or submerged in sorrow and despair, to rise again and be
borne through the chasm of death to the unknown ocean, the Beyond, whither go
all things that are born. Thus again and again the soul is whirled through
life.
The body in days of old was accepted as the revealer of the mysteries of
this enchanted world. The object of life was to understand and realize each revelation
in turn: to dissipate the glamour of the enchantress by the consciousness of
the soul: to do the work of the moment, that the soul might continue on its
journey. With this knowledge the soul has the consciousness of tranquility and
peace amidst a world of glamour.
(Word, NY, vol 1, February 1905,
p.193-196)
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