Arte Glamour
NB: This is an older article, previously published in 2017 - hereby re-worked under the auspices of a fixed star Vega talisman, and re-written in honor of the last of our 2023 Venus-Alphard-Leo summer.
Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Venus Verticordia, 1864-1868
On the topic of glamour magic, a lot has yet to be said.
Regarding its ethics - its uses, cultivation and employment - a witch I admired, made of wood and bone, once wrote: “Glamours are the magical equivalent of hallucinogens”. I will expand hereafter, but bear in mind this piece of writing has no desire to provide technics nor methods - it is, merely, a personal reflexion.
‘The witch he loved before the gift of Eve…’
A glamour (from the 1720 Scottish gramarye, meaning "magic, enchantment, spell") is, as the name suggests, a spell of illusion / delusion. It is, first and foremost, an image - a fantasy, a myth, a chimera or mirage - in one word : a fallacy or decoy. A dream. A vision.
A mask.
Although it can be cast on objects as well as more immaterial artefacts (there are, for instance, Sabbatic texts and grimoires protecting their secrets in such a way), a glamour relates mostly to an enchantment of the self, to bewitch others. As is most commonly understood nowadays, a glamour is a spell that changes the way one is seen and perceived by the world. It is the art of manipulating one’s appearance in sorcerous ways, to enhance our charisma, gild our aura, and generally to blur, confuse, or deceive another’s perception of reality.
There lies in glamours what makes something of the very essence of witchcraft - shifting one’s nature, altering it in a decidedly othering way - cue the iridescent glimmer reflecting on a serpent’s scales. Arguably so, nearly all magical acts, especially in the case of witchcraft deeds, are by default acts of manipulation. There is no shying away from that simple fact - it is a truth to be embraced.
But the goal of the glamour is the specific ensnaring or bending of one’s (perception of) reality, to the point of them actively rejecting the evidence of their own eyes and ears, all so as to leave a certain impression, or rather, a mark, on the onlooker’s mind. A glamour is a somewhat forceful form of witchery, battle and love magic combined - admittedly leaning more towards the lush, suffocating romance of Venus and Mars entwined. The rose and its thorns, the thorns and their rose.
Glamours change and manipulate - in doing so, they apply pressure. Thus a glamour is both a direct action, and a performance (that is, a facade that is reflexive). From seduction to invisibility, and from fear to awe, its sublime applications are many and diverse - a scope of possibilities, all of which being, as it were, not exactly moral.
‘That, ere the snake’s, her sweet tongue could deceive…’
Glamours are no self-love spells done in a bath by candlelight with an abundance of rose petals, milk and honey. A glamour is not soft, a glamour is not tender, a glamour is not even, truly, benevolent. It is about domination - for is that not what seduction, charm, and illusions are about ? Enticing, yes - but in order to make someone yield alike to thee - pouncing. Pounding. A heart inclined.
A glamour, then, is a mask. It is the Mask - the one that is like a truth to be donned.
To cast a glamour is an act of epitomization and embodiment : one must project a given ethos into the world. It requires an absolute control of one’s own image to command and compell others’ reception of it. Complete domination equals complete power.
To cast a glamour is the raw flaying (fraying ?) of oneself, in order to dissect the spirit of another. Benefits are entirely personal, shamelessly egotistical - luring, numbing a receiver’s vigilance, to sedate their awareness and influence their conscience. A quintessential distortion.
A successful glamour contrives another’s spirit by feeding it with a juicy lie it will happily digest, all too quick to absorb what it wants to see, rather than what is.
To do so means shedding skin to better embody - blurring the distinction between the Face and the Mask, for a Mask, if well worn, is none other than the Truth.
To cast a glamour, one must step on stage - be in representation - a living work of art. Ekphrasis - it is to embody the mimesis. The glamour is the shape, the shadow, the costume that one has to learn how to wear like one’s own clothing.
For a glamour to be efficient, one needs to be what they want to be. To not “wish-to-appear -as”, to not “wish-to-become” - but to be. And this means being a full-scale, real-size embalming, from illustration to demonstration.
Glamour is not a magic to be taken lightly, and as such, it is not, really, within the reach of the first person to come. Not everyone can, nor want, to disguise, conceal, gorge and replete oneself in the gray areas of what is not exactly lying or cheating, but equally not a deed of honesty and integrity. It is a technical form of magic because it is also energy-consuming at that - though, to the experienced practitioner, it can become as effortless as loosing sight of oneself altogether in balsamyrrhés dreams.
You have to focus all the intensity of your will onto the projection of the image, and to grasp the permanent maintenance of a vision that is true. This is not psychology.
You have to develop this image by stratification, on your body and face, and in your demise, your attitude, your language, your emotional and corporal intelligences. This is not superficiality.
The clothes you wear, the perfume, the makeup, the oils and smokes and mirrors - everything can help in the building process, in the donning of the role, in the development of the Mask - the complexity of which, layered and nuanced, making the spell all the more formidable, the web slimier, the knots harder to unwind.
The Mask requires a firm hand, and a firmer mind still to be held consistently, and from all angles, for an extended period of time. The spell is a sustained effort, and therefore a performance in the most literal sense of the term, for a glamour is always performative. What is said and desired is like that which is said and desired.
This mask you wear, you must wear it as a new identity. An armor that you forge.
Suffice now to act, move, speak, think, and be accordingly.
‘And her enchanted hair was the first gold’.
The appetite was slow to come, but when it did, it was flashy. Shiny. Baroque.
Distrust the Witch who knows the Mask, for its mastery is a weapon.
(Verticordia.)
A confirmed practitioner of glamour magic will make use of your integrity at their own discretion and pleasure - they will make you worship them, drink their words, or fall in love. With a light touch of the hand, they will slow your pulse down, and with the blink of the eye, make you forgive them for it.
Glamour magic could definitely inspire more awe and fear around than curses. Distrust the Witch who knows the Mask, for you’d be sorry to be naïve.
A good witch only needs a couple of artifices to produce a wearable glamour that is a decently shaped contraption, a mirror-device - an appropriate tool.
An excellent witch, however, needs none.
Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Lady Lilith (detail), 1866-1868