The causes producing world glamor can be divided into three groups: [105]

1. Planetary causes.
2. Causes initiated by humanity itself.
3. Causes induced by any individual person which are, nevertheless, founded and based in the two above groups of conditioning factors.

a. Planetary Causes. These causes are two in number and beyond your finite comprehension. I only state them and ask you to accept them as reasonable speculations and possibly accurate hypotheses:

1. Causes inherent in substance itself. The atoms of which all forms are made have been inherited from an earlier universe or solar system and are, therefore, tinged with or colored by the results of that great creative manifestation. The effects produced in that expression of divine existence constitute predisposing factors or initiating causes in this solar system and planetary life. These conditioning and inherited factors cannot be evaded. They determine the nature of the life urge, the trend of the evolutionary unfoldment, and the innate tendencies which all forms possess, such as the capacity to grow and to unfold, to orient the type and to express in time and space the archetype or pattern, and to outline and determine the structure of the kingdoms into which science divides the natural world. These are but a few of the innate, inherent characteristics of substance itself, inherited and conditioning our present manifestation of divine life.
2. The life or manifestation of the planetary Logos, the "One in Whom we live and move and have our being," is determined by His Own Nature. To us, that great Life embodies perfection and the qualities which distinguish Him are those to which we direct our highest [106] aspiration. But, from the angle of Those Lives Who are ahead of Him upon the cosmic path (I speak symbolically and in terms of human experience) He is among the "imperfect Gods." These imperfections, hindering unfoldment or the perfect expression of divine energy when brought into conjunction with the inherited qualities and biases of the substances through which He must express His life, His purposes and intentions, produce the "seeds of death and of decay" which characterize our planetary evolution in all the four kingdoms in nature. They create the obstacles, obstructions and hindrances against which the soul in all created forms must struggle, gaining strength and understanding thereby and eventual liberation.

These are the two major planetary causes. They cannot finally deter the soul from emancipation but they can and do hinder and delay. It is useless for men to speculate upon these hypotheses with their present inadequate equipment and type of brain. Nothing would be achieved and you would be none the wiser.