What was the excommunication of the Gra for? It was to prevent idolatry.


Today we have idolatry.Glamour.

Glamour is an illusion, originally a magical spell of concealment.

Glamour, in most of its modern applications, conceals the ordinariness of someone and makes them appear, in turn, godlike . This is the clue here. We probably have never met any gods.

 However, the Gra was aware of what some groups are doing.
 Their leaders appear with a glamour that makes them appear like gods. We cannot, of course, get too close, or the illusion will break; but the glamour itself bespeaks some kind of knowledge of the gods would be like.

Glamour offers us a glimpse into another world, more perfect than this one, and for that moment, enchantment swirls around us. And then it is gone again. 

This experience does not carry us out of the world, like mystical transport, but it involves its own kind of ecstasy and exaltation nevertheless -- the "leaping up" origin of the latter term even fits, precisely, the behavior that was evident, for instance, during the first tour of the Beatles in the United States, when fans, mainly female, bounced up and down in their excitement, eager for the darshan, , the numinous appearance and magical charisma (, "grace".




That is it seems idolatry is more common today than is usually thought. When people give to other people the honor due to the gods and attribute powers to them that belong to the gods --that is a kind of idolatry.