Maggy Whitehouse

Prosperity Teachings of the Bible Made Easy - free chapter

2012-01-18T03:39:00.000-08:00

Here is a excerpt from my new book Prosperity Teachings of the Bible Made Easy.

This is available for pre-order on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk

Chapter Four Life and times in Biblicaldays.

© Maggy Whitehouse 2012.

It’s not easy to understand the Bible with a 21^stcentury mind. For a start, we bring so many of our beliefs and projections tothe contents. If we have learnt that God is cruel, we will see a cruel God; ifwe believe that God is good, we will justify or skip over any apparentopposition to that view. If we are Christian, we will read the Hebrew Testamentthrough very different eyes from those of a Jew, an agnostic or an atheist. Itis important to understand that we cannot remove ourselves and our beliefs fromwhat is thought to be the world’s best-selling book (six billion sold accordingto Bookseller World and countlessothers throughout antiquity). And if, as most of us do, we have specificbeliefs about money, wealthy people and authority, then we will be readingthrough those eyes also.

It is also important to realise that people in ancient timesdid not think the way we do. The people whose stories are being told did not comprehendour great cities with their rush-rush mentality. The population of Rome at itsheight was approximately one million people, about the same as 19^thcentury London — then the largest city in the world. And Rome is not where thestories take place. They happen in mostly rural societies where the night skywas regarded with awe and fables were told to explain the purpose and themeaning of existence.

People in Biblical times did not experience the news in theway we do. Details of events from another part of the country — let aloneanother part of the world — could take weeks, months or years to arrive. Therewas no entertainment such as books to read. In fact, even in cosmopolitan Romein Jesus’ time, ninety five per cent of the population could not read or write;if anyone needed to send a letter, they hired one of the five per cent, usuallya professional scribe, and the recipients the other end would hire another scribeto read the letter to them.

Even those who could read text did not do so silently as wedo; they read out loud so that others could share the information. That is howpeople were taught to read — the concept of reading quietly was unknown inRoman times or before. Romanvillas even had private reading rooms where the literate could read out loud tothemselves without disturbing the rest of the family. It was only in the timeof St. Augustine (354-430) that we hear about the first silent readingdeveloped, perhaps, from the requirements of monastic life

Without easy access to information, the only entertainmentsavailable once work had finished and supper was eaten were music or stories.And the music generally involved stories. So a travelling storyteller or holyman with new tales, teachings or ideas, most likely, would have been a verywelcome guest in a village. Of course, some of them might have beencontroversial and sent away with their tails between their legs but even thatwould be an event to be debated for months in places where very little othernews occurred.

This aspect of literacy is important in the discussion ofBiblical wealth as

Jewish religious teachings were preserved in sacred scrollswhich were written by professional scribes, just as they still are today in theTorah scrolls in any synagogue. Sacred work could not just be written out byanyone; it required an expert who would take a great deal of time and effort tocopy out the whole of the Sefer Torah(the first five books of the Hebrew Testament) and every version had to beperfect. It could take a scribe 18 months or maybe even more to complete onescroll, during which time he could earn no other living. Therefore, wealthybenefactors were required to pay for religious writings whether that paymentwas in kind or in silver or gold.

This applied to a certain extent in the Christian world,also, in that benefactors gave money to monasteries, where monk-scribes wouldwrite out beautiful, illuminated copies of the Bible. However this practice decreaseddramatically with the invention of the printing press in the mid fifteenthcentury. Also, the Christian scribes were men who had made vows of poverty,chastity and obedience and lived in celibate communities. In the Jewish world,the scribe, like the Rabbi would have been married, with a home and family tomaintain. This distinction is very important in assessing the differencesbetween the views expressed in the Old and New Testaments; the idea of acelibate, community life was very foreign in pre-Christian days where God’scommandment to “populate the earth abundantly andmultiply in it.” (Genesis 9:7) was taken very seriously. It still is by orthodox Jews. Inancient days, the exceptions were the inner circles of the Essenes who lived inJudea and a group called the Therapeutae who lived outside Alexandria in Egypt.

In early Biblical times, society depended mostly upon trade betweenindividuals. Money, as we would understand it, was rare. It was first used at all approximately 500 years beforethe birth of Jesus. So, in much of the Hebrew Testament times, no coins were used and peoplebartered goods instead. The aristocracies and royal courts used jewels andprecious metals as a form of currency but everyday people dealt with a morepractical form of exchange such as swapping one produce for another.

As societies became more and more influenced by Greek, andlater, Roman civilization, this like-for-like barter was replaced by weights ofprecious metals and then by coins. Generally in the Hebrew Testament, when an amount of silveror gold is given, such as 10 shekels of silver, this refers to the actualweight of silver, not 10 silver coins. Pre-weighed metal coins, which were given the same names asthe weight units, became a more convenient means of exchange as soon as travelbecame more commonplace and easier with the expansion of the Roman Empire.

Therefore, a great deal of the riches mentioned to in theOld Testament referred to a more general prosperity than a financial one. Signsof God’s favor were seen in happiness and health as well as in businessdealings. People as far back as Abraham and Sarah’s times were just asfrequently wandering cattle-keepers as they were tillers of the ground so theywould not necessarily have houses full of possessions in the way we do. In anomadic, rural society, your wealth was pretty much everything you could carryor herd.

However, in Genesis 13:2, Abraham is described as being “very rich in livestock and in silver and ingold” so he is being portrayed as an aristocrat among men in a society whereprecious metals were deemed as valuable as they are today and were often worn injewelry as an outer sign of wealth.

With the Roman conquest of Judea, money became much morecommonplace and was, quite possibly, associated with the hated invaders. Those whocollaborated and traded with the occupying force would also have been hated anddespised, as has been the case in every century since. Therefore it is entirelypossible that Jesus and his followers might have looked upon hard cash with ajaundiced eye.

However,this view does sit at odds with Jesus’ tolerance of, if not friendship with, taxcollectors. Thesepeople (as is often still the case) were disliked by their fellow men,especially the Pharisees and the scribes. Tax collectors to them were “especially wicked sinners” (Matthew 9:10-11;Luke 15:1-3; Mark 2:15). Reputedly, the collectors were allowed to gather morethan the government asked and keep the excess amount. Some of these taxcollectors were Roman but others were Jews.

Jesus set a startling new precedent by mingling with the Jewish taxcollectors. He ate with them (Mark 2:16), showed them mercy andcompassion (Luke 19:9), and he even chose a tax collector (Matthew) as one of hisdisciples (Matthew 9:9). Jesus even compared their willingness to repentof their sins with the arrogance of the Pharisees and scribes (Luke 18:9-14; Matthew9:11-13).

Jesus himself is customarily assumed to have been poor although, Iwould suggest, much of this is reading of the Gospels through the eyes of alater-developed Christian poverty consciousness (see chapter eight). Popularopinion certainly sees him as a poor, itinerant preacher, despite the factthat, in the Gospel of Matthew, it’s stated that the Magi brought himincredible wealth in the form of gold, frankincense and myrrh which were threeof the most valuable commodities of the time.

He was also fond of eating and drinking with his friends. “The son of man is come eating and drinking; and ye say,Behold a gluttonous man, and a winebibber, a friend of publicans and sinners!” (Luke 7:34) so, although it would appear that early Christianityembraced the ideas of poverty, chastity and martyrdom with fervor, Jesushimself appeared to like having fun and good food. His very first miracle wasturning water into wine so that there would be enough to make everything merryat the Marriage at Cana (John 2:1-11).

Much of the poverty consciousness that developed may havebeen due to St. Paul’s teachings and his acceptance of all-comers to the newfaith. Paul indicated strongly that he believed that Jesus would return verysoon and that both belief in him as Lord and a life of great goodness wererequired in advance of the Day of Judgment. There would be no point in amassingriches as it was all going up in smoke very soon.

In 1Thessalonians 5:2-11, Paul wrote: "For yourselves know perfectly thatthe day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night. For when they shall say,Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon awoman with child; and they shall not escape. But ye, brethren, are not indarkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief. Ye are all the childrenof light, and the children of the day: we are not of the night, nor ofdarkness. Therefore let us not sleep, as do others; but let us watch and besober."

Thestories of saints and holy people within Christianity have always emphasizedthat they walked away from both marriage and money; that martyrdom was seen asholy and self-denial sacred. This is still seen even today in allegations thatBlessed Mother Theresa of Calcutta believed that suffering would bring people closer to Jesus. The Lancet and The British Medical Journal have both criticized Mother Theresa and her staff for their failure to give painkillers. Sanal Edamaruki writing for RationalistInternational claimed that in her homes for the dying, one could “hear the screams of people having maggots tweezeredfrom their open wounds without pain relief” adding that Mother Theresa’sphilosophy was that it was ‘the most beautiful gift for a person that he canparticipate in the sufferings of Christ.”

So, again, we see differing views on worth orprosperity in interpretation of the Bible’s teachings. Jesus and those whofollowed him lived at a time of great revolution in social affairs — a changeas great as the invention of flight in the late 19^th century.However, we also see that Jesus did not automatically judge those who werewealthy — or even those who were thought to be misusing wealth by the generalpopulace.

You can purchase this book in physical form or Kindle on Amazon.com or or Amazon.co.uk.

The New Year Re-Solution

2012-01-04T09:06:00.000-08:00

As featured on Unity FM - Touching the Stillness with Rev. Paulette Pipe.

Click here to go directly to Maggy's website.

The most important thing to remember about New Year Resolutions is that the part of you that makes them is not the part of you that has to keep them.

The part of you that has to keep them is not, as a rule, remotely interested in the intention behind the resolution. It didn’t make the promise so it doesn’t see any reason whatsoever to remind you to keep it or support you in keeping it. It doesn’t want you thinner, fitter, smarter or more adventurous. Its entire purpose is to keep things the same as they were.

Why? Because you’re alive. The human ego’s job is just that: to keep you alive. It’s the part of our psyche that works with the tribe to keep everyone going and working together. So far, it’s been doing okay (you are alive aren’t you?). It’s really not interested in whether you’re actually happy or engaged in self improvement because both of those may threaten the tribe or make you an outcast.
The ego is all about ‘better the devil you know’ because the devil you know hasn’t killed you yet. It may have allowed you to be depressed or despairing, experiencing great highs and lows or just experiencing a gnawing low-grade unhappiness. It knows that those are the normal human condition — after all, that’s what it sees over and over again as ‘the truth in the workplace, the TV soaps and the media.

Pretty much everything in the media now tells us that everything has gone wrong and that there’s still a recession and there’s so much to moan about (and there are so many more smart appliances with which to spread the moans!).

The communal ego-consciousness is about expecting others to make it better, not about seeing that it is all a reflection of our own psyches. Even the 2012 Mayan calendar world transformation ethic is relying on it being an external incident that sparks the change.

We’ll do our bit by giving to charity (which gives us a temporary feel-good effect that the ego is happy with because it fits in with the tribe and it won’t last). We’ll intend to make 2012 better and we’ll start off consciously and with great hope. And sometimes we’ll make it. If the thing we want sorted is genuinely threatening our life, our relationship or our health, we may well summon up the courage (cour-age, of the heart) to persist and to achieve our goal.

And that’s the secret. The heart level of the human psyche, is also the soul-level. If we want, from the soul, to make a change, then we will have wonderful good intentions. But this level is the one that initiates rather than maintains. The ego is the one that maintains.

And of course, if we don’t make it, we have a wonderful weapon for beating ourselves up and getting ourselves right back to the starting point with even less courage to try again.

If you want to change life for the better this New Year, you have to work from heart and soul. And this can, truly, be the best indicator you can have to whether you really are working from the heart and soul. If you don’t find the discipline to achieve your goal, then you are not. You are still being run by the ego.

This is not wrong; it is not bad; it just is. But it’s very definitely worth knowing. So many people say they are ‘coming from the heart’ but the non-development of their lives shows that this is the ego deluding them. It likes doing that. The ego is very good at fooling you into thinking it’s your heart.

Working from the heart level means that you can, will and do apply self-discipline. Discipline or, in the Kabbalistic system Gevurah, is part of the soul’s formation. Spiritual growth is not comfortable and rarely convenient and you can’t do it without self-discipline.

But what you can do is engage with the ego. Then it will help you and that makes it much easier. Instead of joining that gym or going on the crash diet which will make you ‘perfect’ by Easter, try small, achievable everyday goals. Things that you can re-commit to every day rather than resent doing and then forget to do.

For example, perhaps you’d like to increase your knowledge of your subject or line of expertise. But you’d also like to be thinner and fitter. So how about you sit yourself down and talk to yourself kindly, so informing the ego instead of just imposing a rule on it. Firstly, thank it for keeping you alive up until now. Usually we shout at ourselves for being where we are but the ego’s done its job so it’s both daft and self-destructive to complain at it for doing what it was created to do.

Then, appreciate all that is good in your life ... every little thing from being able to have a cup of tea and go to bed in your own bed at night to being able to see and hear (actually these are not ‘little’ things!). Then think of four things you’d like to make a resolution about such as sorting out your work, getting a new job, research, slimming, exercise, five-a-day etc. etc. Then decide that every day you are going to do one of those four things, including the appreciations. So, you are going to either think of ten appreciations a day or take 15 minutes exercise or cut back on your food for the day or read an improving book or watch an instructional DVD every day.

That will be more like play and it’s much easier for the ego to agree. What’s more, you have to make a conscious choice which one which always engages the soul level. On most days you may find yourself doing more than one of the intentions. And even if you forget all day, you can still do ten appreciations at the end of the day and you still haven’t broken your promise to yourself. That will help you feel good about yourself and that’s the key. Help your ego to help you and to move at a pace that doesn’t feel threatening and you really could find a whole new you by Easter. Or, perhaps even better, you could be deeply at peace with the you that you are now.

Wishing you a wonderful, peaceful and plentiful 2012.

Reclaiming the miracle of Christmas

2011-12-02T03:06:00.000-08:00

'What the festival of lights really stands for today is a reaffirmation of hope, a renewed commitment to friendship and goodwill, and a religiously sanctioned celebration of the simple - and some not so simple - joys of life.' The Times of India.

The quotation above is about Diwali, the Indian festival of light. The festival celebrates the victory of good over evil, light over darkness and knowledge over ignorance. It’s almost exactly the same at the mystical root as the Solstice welcoming the new year and Hanukkah, the miracle of the lighting of the menorah in Judaism.

Never is this more important than when we think about Christmas...!

The trouble with Christmas is that it’s a bit like the phrase: 'When you’re up to your neck in alligators, it's easy to forget that the initial objective was to drain the swamp.'

This time of the year people start complaining about the expense and commerciality of Christmas. This year, with the continuing belief that there is something 'wrong' going on in the world's finances, you may be dreading the expense of Christmas. But to name something is to give it power, and what have we done? We gave the financial situation in the UK a cute, alliterative name – “the credit crunch.” Worldwide it’s 'the recession.' So we have made it real.

Don't doubt for a minute the power of humanity to make thing real - a truth is only a belief held by a certain number of people and passed on to others who, in turn, believe it. By believing it, we make it real.

Yes it may seem tough to change your mind in the face of such widespread external belief but it is possible. It is our choice.

Right now we have to decide whether to give 'the situation' more energy through moaning and complaining and believing what is said on the News or we can choose to look for prosperity, health and joy in the coming of Winter. By looking for the hope and the glory we can change the world from within.

It's not them who controls our lives, whatever we may have thought, it's us.

So perhaps the real secret of Christmas this year is to use the idea of a “recession” for good. To simplify something that has got out of hand ... this is the perfect time to say 'No!' to anything you don't truly want to do at Christmas. Commit instead to something that would have meaning instead of a season of angst and worry.

Only we can reclaim the miracles and mystery that have existed at this time of the year for thousands of years - way longer than Christianity has been in place.

I’ve often wondered whether, without women, Christmas might be a much happier (albeit slimmer and drabber) affair. It is horribly likely that, without the duty and fervour of women, the majority of blokes would probably be happy to pick up whatever’s remotely turkey-like that’s still in the local supermarket freezer on Christmas Eve, some beer and a bag of party poppers.

Maybe they’re right...We seem to run ourselves ragged with all the preparations to the extent that we overspend, over extend ourselves, over-complicate things and try to live up to some incredibly unrealistic standard of hospitality and catering...not to mention the horrors of some members of the family visiting —or events that we long outgrew but are still expected to attend—and make our children attend ‘because it’s traditional.’

Don’t get me wrong, I ‘do’ the whole Christmas thing – there isn’t a single part of the ritual that I don’t love. But it took me years to learn to re-engage with the magic that does make it such a special time of year – whatever your faith.

'But I can't have a simple Christmas because of the children,' you may say.

Perhaps the worst misuse of Christmas is the idea that ‘it’s for the children.’ In a way that’s true but only in the way that we too need to be children again in order to see the miracles and magic of Christmas in us. That saying of Jesus’s about having to become a child again to enter the Kingdom of Heaven is the answer. The ‘child’ is the part of us that expects miracles and magic. It’s also the ego – and for most of us, it’s been overwhelmed with ‘duty’ and ‘shoulds’ and other horrors for so long that it simply dreads the word ‘Christmas.’

It is the ego of the child that demands the same presents as everyone else. It's the ego of we adults that thinks that we have to give those presents in order to be 'good' parents. But what about giving an experience of spirit instead?

So what is this Christmas miracle all about? It’s about the rebirth of the real you; the peeling off of the outer layers that hide the gold within; the sloughing off of all the past year that you’d like to leave behind and a commitment towards creating a better, happier life.

You don’t have to be a Christian to see the wonderful, deep inner meaning of the Winter Solstice. Nowadays, we tend to focus more on the New Year as a new start to life (and use that for a guilt trip too!) but, in fact, it’s on December 25th that we have the first, visible evidence that the sun is returning and that spring will come once again.

From the day we first started appreciating the cycles of nature, humanity has celebrated the Solstices. The Winter Solstice heralds the coming of the Light; the return of the Sun—or the birth of the Son—and I believe that there is a deep primal need in our animal soul to celebrate it whether our busy, social, disbelieving selves deem it relevant or not!

The Winter Solstice is a kind of choice between life or death. We may know that the sun returns because it happens every year. But the ancient celebrations are just as much about our willing our own inner source of light to rekindle at this time as they are about the external sun.

The dark days of winter are when the roots go down and consolidate for new growth. One of my sacred rituals this time of year is planting prepared hyacinths which must be kept in the dark and cool for at least a month so that they can develop roots. Then, after Christmas, they will grow and give beautiful colour and scent to herald the often long-awaited new life of spring.

Nearly all the major religions have special symbolism around this time. It’s often said that the birth of Jesus was placed on December 25th because it was the ancient celebration of Saturnalia and that Christianity ‘stole’ a great deal of the pagan symbolism.

Two main theories compete about this - one claims that in A.D. 274, the Roman Emperor Aurelian inaugurated December 25th as the pagan "Birth of the Unconquered Sun" celebration, at the calendar point when daylight began to lengthen. Supposedly, Christians then borrowed the date and devised Christmas to compete with paganism.

But William Tighe, a church history specialist at Pennsylvania's Muhlenberg College, puts forward the exact opposite theory —that Aurelian created a pagan alternative to a date that was already of some significance to Roman Christians. Tighe says that the pagans-first theory only originated three centuries ago in the writings of Protestant historian Paul Ernst Jablonski and Catholic monk Jean Hardouin. Tighe acknowledged that the first hard evidence of Christmas occurring on Dec. 25 isn't found until A.D. 336 and the date only became a fixed festival in Constantinople in 379.

Whichever it was, there have long been a series of religious festivals going into—and out of—the darkest days and it’s a wonderful reclamation of Christmas to do something personal and spiritual to mark the ending of one year and the resurgence of the light in you for the coming year. Who knows, it might make the rest of the celebrations fun? And, even if you still think Christmas is going to be hell, perhaps one of this year’s resolutions could be to promise yourself that next Christmas you will actually do what you would like to do...

Christmas/Solstice rituals:

Plan a little time on your own – or with friends if they want to join you. Find something that represents the ‘old you’ of 2011 whether it’s something you’ve grown out of or something that represents a difficult time that you have gone through and then create a little ceremony of release (including burning the symbol if that is possible). Dress up in something you love to wear, light a couple of candles, and take a few deep, connected breaths. As you let go of the object, say something like ‘I release this representation of pain to the Light and move forward to my Higher Good.’

Then take a moment to ask your Higher Self, Guardian Angel or the Source of All to watch over you, protect and guide you to a happier life in the next year.

Fill an atomiser with water containing a few drops of refreshing aromatherapy oils such as lemon or grapefruit plus some Flower Remedies – such as Rescue Remedy, Walnut (protection from outside energies/help with change), Willow (dissolves resentment), Wild Oat (for uncertainty about your path in life) or Holly (anger and hatred) and spray around the whole of your home saying ‘In the name of the Source this room/house and all that is in it, is blessed, cleansed and filled with light.’

Make a prosperity wheel or dream board. This is a montage of all the things, experiences and happy times that you would like to draw to you. Instructions on my website (www.maggywhitehouse.com). This works by reprogramming the subconscious to look for what you want instead of what you don’t want.

Write a letter to a friend the other side of the world (or to someone closer if necessary - but someone with whom you only correspond infrequently - someone without email probably!). Date this letter 20th December 2012 and in it tell them of all the wonderful things that have happened to you throughout 2012. And invent everything you could possibly want from a perfect home, partner or job to living in the Maldives.

Don't worry about seeming grasping or greedy - that fear is probably what has held you back for so long. There is a reason why Luis Vuitton bags are made and houses and cars are built –so that people can enjoy them. And if you are wealthy, you can do SO much more for others. To think that you can't be rich because of the starving poor is an argument full of holes. If you are wealthy you can donate; teach and offer time to ensure that they too learn how to be prosperous like you.

And if you're now saying 'but my friend would hate me if I sent him/her a letter like that' then I’d suggest that you find a friend who wouldn't. And that's probably the best task you could set yourself this year - to be with people who allow you to be prosperous. If there's no one, then plan to send it to me, via Facebook, because I'll be SO happy for you!

The letter will work best if it's full of enthusiasm and acknowledgement of the good in your life. It's great if you can start off with something that you actually know IS going to happen. That gives you confidence.

Will it happen? Well, it's got a better chance of happening if you do write the letter than if you don't. If you put it away somewhere safe and forget all about it, the chances are pretty high that at least 60% of it will either be with you or on its way by the date you put on it. My letter last year came 65% true...no complaints about that!

Wishing you the perfect Christmas time...

How To Understand Your Soul — The Webinar.

2011-10-19T09:19:00.000-07:00

Six one-hour sessions to help you understand the interior levels of psyche, soul and spirit. With Rev. Maggy Whitehouse.

Six Monday evenings from 7^th November. 7pm GMT. Full details of each session at the end of this blog.

All participants receive MP3 recording and Power Point of each session in addition to attending the live seminars online.

To book your place, please email maggy@maggywhitehouse.com.

People often speak of 'Mind, Body, Soul and Spirit' but can you distinguish between these different levels within you?

If part of life isn't working, it's likely that aspects of the ego genuinely think that they are coming from the soul. Transforming this is vitally important for living a conscious, prosperous and happy life. It is also vital for understanding your own relationship with God. The soul is the pivotal point between heaven and earth.

Poverty, both physical and emotional, begins through neglect of the soul. As it says in the Coptic Gospel of Thomas: “If you will not know yourselves, you dwell in poverty and it is you who are that poverty."

Using wisdom from the ancient teachings of the Tree of Life, Maggy will explain the levels within us and how to make the turnaround we want in order to follow our heart (and soul)'s desire. Includes six interior journeys. Price: £55.

NB. Participants who are not able to attend the course live may still purchase it and send written questions for Maggy to answer each week. They will receive each session via email on the following day.

How to Understand Your Soul — course contents:

Session One

Ego - Self - Soul - Spirit - Source (God). How is each one defined according to Judaic mysticism?

What is the purpose of these distinctions?

How can we identify them?

How the Tree of Life can help us understand the levels within us.

How Astrology can help us understand the levels within us.

The Astrology of your Soul.

(all participants will receive astrological details of the Kabbalistic interpretation of their soul's formation on submission of their birth data).

Visualisation: The levels within you.

Session Two

What is the Ego?

The Vegetable Soul.

How the brain functions at the Ego level.

The importance of repetition.

The pros and cons of the Ego

Dissolve the Ego or transform it?

Visualisation: Visiting the Ego and the vegetable soul and learning how they support us or not.

Questions.

Session Three

What is the 'Self'?

The Animal Soul

How do we individuate?

What happens when we individuate too early due to childhood issues?

Truth and Beauty - the characteristics of our Self.

Visualisation: Visiting the Self and the Animal Soul and learning their timbre; colour; strengths and weaknesses.

Questions.

Session Four

What is the Human Soul?

What's the difference between Soul and Spirit?

The Kiss - where Earth and Heaven meet.

Discernment and Loving Kindness.

Good and Evil at the Soul level.

Visualisation: Visiting our Soul.

Questions.

Session Five

Spirit: what it is and what it isn't.

Angels and Archangels.

Good and Evil at the level of Spirit

Group Souls

Animal Souls

Visualisation: Contacting Spirit through the Soul.

Questions.

Session Six

How all the levels work together in a balanced human being - levels of 'Will'

Your Sun Angel

Your Moon (ego) Angel

Visualisation: The Inner Temple
God - your personal relationship

Questions and summing up.

Rev. Maggy Whitehouse is the author of Living Kabbalah, From Credit Crunch to Pure Prosperity, Prosperity Teachings of the Bible and Total Kabbalah. She has taught mysticism, Kabbalah and prosperity consciousness in the UK, Europe and USA since 1993.

Read about Maggy's books on: http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B00288YAXA.

For more information on Maggy's work please visit www.maggywhitehouse.com.

To talk to Maggy, please visit Soul Wisdom http://www.facebook.com/SoulWisdom

See Maggy on: http://www.youtube.com/user/MaggyWhitehouse

To book your place, please email maggy@maggywhitehouse.com.

The Faith and the Love and the Hope are all in the Waiting

2011-10-12T05:53:00.000-07:00

Last month I went on a weekend retreat at Worth Abbey — the Benedictine monastery featured on BBC TV’s The Monastery and The Big Silence.

We followed the monks’ services from Matins at 6.20am to Compline at 9pm and, whatever our religious views might have been, we all found a great sense of peace from the gentle rhythm of the sounds and the movements in the rituals that the monks have been carrying out for more than 40 years (Worth is a modern Abbey).

At every single part of the Divine Office, as it’s known, the eldest of the monks, Father Charles, was present in the monks’ stalls before each service and made his way out after the other monks. Father Charles is in his 80s and very frail. The first time we watched him moving so very slowly with his stick and hobbling out of the church on his own, several of us wondered why the other monks didn’t help him. No one, not even the youngest of the monks, offered him an arm or even waited for him.

But then, as we continued through the daily routine, Father Charles’s slow and creaky movements began to merge into the whole of the liturgy. At some of the services, especially the early morning ones, we were the only congregation in the huge church. There was no obligation to do so, but we all stood, respectfully, in our stalls and waited until Father Charles had left — a full five minutes after all the other monks.

Then, Lisa, one of our group missed one of the services and she told us that she had seen all the monks waiting just outside the church for their companion.

It wasn’t a case of not helping him; it was a case of respecting exactly who he is and allowing him to take his own perfect time without patronizing or hurrying him.

It reminded me of a shaman I met at the first ever New Age festival I attended. He gave me a reading and said, “Tell me, if you saw a blind man in the street fall over, what would you do?”

“Help him up,” I replied.

“Did he ask you?” said the shaman.

That made me think.

So often, we want to help other people because we think they are in trouble. But they’re not; and even if they are, perhaps they really, really, don’t want to be helped.

Perhaps they’re just where they are and that’s all there is to it. And perhaps they need us to respect that more than to offer our patronage; perhaps they are just not ready yet to move on; perhaps we interfere if we try to help without finding out first if they actually want our assistance.

As someone who has an in-bred tendency to jump into things without thinking, it was a wonderful reminded to ‘be still and wait’ just as it says in T. S. Eliot’s East Coker from the Four Quartets:

I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope 

For hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love, 

For love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith 

But the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting. 

Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought: 

So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing.

And if we, ourselves, should need help, then surely we must remember that, just like there are retreat participants and monks at Worth Abbey, there are people standing silently, respectfully in the darkness around you, aware and waiting to be asked.

The Songs of the Angels

2011-09-07T05:17:00.000-07:00

I know there have always been messages of love and life (and not just the sexy stuff) in the rock and pop worlds, even though I was a bit young for the sixties scene. But now, today, even in the middle of the scanty clothing and the writhing bodies, there is just as much a message of Divine love coming through to us as there always has been. Spirit will always get through somewhere — and given the British riots of August it’s wonderful to know that.

It’s not just in songs of course, it’s movies and books like J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter and Terry Pratchett’s incredible work. I recommend Terry’s Small Gods, and Nation to anyone who wants to know the nature of religion and how it affects us.

But back to the music — the angels of God are singing loud and clear to us and to our children. Yes, there’s lots of pain and grief and anger in the hits too but listen carefully and you will hear the music of the spheres. And often, it’s the video that transforms the song from something secular to the work of the Divine.

There’s an article here on my blog about Lady Gaga’s “Judas” and how it perfectly defines the pull of our animal soul (the Nefesh) and the human soul (Neshamah). “Jesus is my virtue, but Judas is the demon I cling to,” she sings wishing she were not continuously drawn to the ‘wrong’ man. The Jesus figure in the video is beautiful, passive and loving but Judas is an animal man of passion.

Like Lady Gaga, we long to embrace the love and truth represented by Jesus in the video but our lower nature is drawn to the excitement, the ‘hit’ and the sexuality of the bad boy, Judas. Here’s the article – the YouTube link for all the songs is at the bottom of this piece.

http://totallylookedafter.blogspot.com/2011/07/still-in-love-with-judas.html

Another song of spirit of 2011 is Katy Perry’s ‘Firework’ about the light’s being within us all and ready to shine as soon as we allow it. But the third song of this summer is the miracle one for me. It’s James Morrison’s ‘I won’t let you go.’

The key is in watching the video and both hearing and seeing the singer not as friend, boyfriend or lover but as God calling to us while we are lost in despair. I beg those of you who are literary to forget the triteness of the poetry and read the message.

And if you feel the fading of the light

And you’re too weak to carry on the fight

And all your friends that you care for have disappeared

I’ll be here, not gone, forever holding on.

The God figure seeks out the girl, who is in despair. She is lying, hopeless and careless of her life, in the middle of a road. As she lies there, alone and lost, she is slowly surrounded by humans (angels) who don’t know what she wants or whether to step forward or step back. They can’t impose on her free will and she is giving no sign. God, in human form (yes, you could say Christ) approaches her, asks nothing of her and lies down with her. All God wants is just to be there to hold her hand so that she can turn to It if she chooses to.

And because of God’s love, the angels can also respond.

Take a look (below).

And so the message this month is to watch for, and appreciate, the love of the Holy One in movies, in songs, in overheard phrases on the street; in the X Factor (truly!) and wherever there is a space for the angels to sing.

And if there is nothing there; no spark, no inspirational light, you know what? There’s you. And that’s exactly why you’re there. God is waiting to speak, move or sing through you, just as It has through James Morrison.

James Morrison I won’t let you go.

Katy Perry Firework.

Lady Gaga Judas.

The Four Faces of Jesus

2011-08-08T13:35:00.000-07:00

One of the great theological debates about the New Testament is ‘why four gospels?’ We know that many more were written, including the famous Nag Hammadi scripts with writings by the disciples Philip and Thomas and even one accredited to Mary Magdalene. These were Gnostic gospels which had a very different ‘take’ on the world – believing in the idea of ‘external evil’ as opposed to the ‘all creation is good’ teachings of Genesis and of Jesus’ time.

However, there were other non-Gnostic gospels that were also rejected including The Infancy Gospel of Thomas, The Gospel of the Egyptians and the Gospel of the Hebrews.

It is very unlikely that the four Gospels selected for the New Testament were picked at random. There had to be a rhyme and reason – and something that would be useful for us to understand today.

Irenaeus writes in Adversus Haereses:

The Gospels could not possibly be either more or less in number than they are. Since there are four zones of the world in which we live, and four principal winds, while the Church is spread over all the earth, and the pillar and foundation of the Church is the gospel, and the Spirit of life, it fittingly has four pillars, everywhere breathing out incorruption and revivifying men. From this it is clear that the Word, the artificer of all things, being manifested to men gave us the gospel, fourfold in form but held together by one Spirit. As David said, when asking for his coming, 'O sitter upon the cherubim, show yourself '. For the cherubim have four faces, and their faces are images of the activity of the Son of God. For the first living creature, it says, was like a lion, signifying his active and princely and royal character; the second was like an ox, showing his sacrificial and priestly order; the third had the face of a man, indicating very clearly his coming in human guise; and the fourth was like a flying eagle, making plain the giving of the Spirit who broods over the Church. Now the Gospels, in which Christ is enthroned, are like these

This idea four aspects or four worlds in prominent in the Jewish mystical tradition. Nowadays, we’ve all heard of Madonna’s studies into Kabbalah, a form of Jewish mysticism. But Madonna’s Kabbalah is a 16^th century re-write of a very old tradition which, in Jesus’ time, was known as Merkabah.

Merkabah means ‘chariot’ and the name comes from the book of Ezekiel. The tradition itself dates back to Abraham.

One of the beliefs in the Merkabah tradition was that we humans exist at four levels – physical, psychological (or soul), spiritual and Divine. Each of those levels is represented by an element – Earth, Water, Air and Fire – and we draw on all of them at different times according to how we are feeling.

If the Gospel writers knew of the Merkabah tradition, then choosing four Gospels could be a way in which Jesus’ story could be told at these four different levels – literally, allegorically, spiritually and mystically.

For those who were happy with the overview of the story, then all the Gospels could be woven together in one narrative – as in a Nativity play with both the shepherds and the Magi appearing in the same story or in a Passion Play with Jesus saying ‘My God, why has Thou forsaken me?’ and ‘Father forgive them, they know not what they do,’ in the same scene.

But for those who were looking for a deeper significance, or who were familiar with the esoteric tradition of the time, the four Gospels would provide a feast of different interpretations – and a much deeper knowledge of our own selves at the same time.

As metaphors for human development, Matthew represents the physical Jesus, Mark the psychological (soul) Jesus, Luke the spiritual Jesus and John the Divine Jesus.

Matthew represents the Earth world of ‘reality.’ Matthew writes of earthly power, tribe and leadership, including the importance of the right ‘bloodline’ in the family. He also highlights the physical concerns and challenges of everyday life on earth and refers to Jesus’ physical kingship as Messiah. Jesus’ birth is told with the emphasis is on Joseph’s genealogy and Joseph’s views, on the visit of the wise men with their physical gifts and King Herod’s fears over the birth of a physical King of the Jews and the consequent slaughter.

Here, the temptations before Jesus in the desert are all physical: turn stones into food, put his life in danger to prove that God would save him and the offer of the kingship of the world.

Mark represents the psychological world – the soul’s world. This element of Water demonstrates how fluid our thoughts and feelings are. It is at this soul level that we can choose whether or not to be separate from animals (the ‘wild beasts’ in Mark’s Temptation story) in that we can become aware of free will. It is through the soul that we decide to act for good or for evil. Jesus’ temptation in Mark is a choice between his baser self and a higher level of consciousness where he may be in touch with angels.

Luke writes of the Spiritual world represented by the element of Air. Luke is a very feminine account of Jesus’ life that strongly features his mother and his female friends. It contains nineteen stories about women as compared to four or five in all the other Gospels. Doing so emphasises that this is the Spiritual perception of life – women’s place in the physical and tribal worlds were deemed unimportant in the Jewish, Roman and Greek worlds of Jesus’ time but, at the spiritual level, the feminine in Judaism was deeply respected. The Shekhinah or Presence was the name given to the feminine aspect of God and it was believed to be present in all married women. In fact, without a wife to light the candles, a Jewish man could not perform the sacred Sabbath Eve service in his home on a Friday night. (In the Midrash – a commentary on the first five books of the Bible – it says that when Isaac married Rebekah ‘The light came back into Abraham’s tent for the first time since Sarah died.’

Luke’s Gospel focuses on Mary’s visit to Elizabeth; on how Mary feels; how she wraps her baby in swaddling clothes and lays him in a manger.

The emphasis is on family, marriage, communication and it works in tandem with Matthew’s tribal aspects, balancing masculine with feminine. For Jesus’ temptation in the desert, it offers the same challenges as in Matthew, but in a different order which is very relevant. Jesus is told to command stone to be turned into bread; given the opportunity to rule the world and ordered to challenge God to save him by throwing himself off the Temple in Jerusalem.

In Matthew, he replies with answers from the written (physical) law and in Luke he takes a different stance, replying with God’s own authority at the Spiritual level.

John’s Gospel does not tell of any temptation; at the level of development he is writing about, humanity would have transcended worldly needs. This Gospel is the Divine World represented by the element of Fire. It tells of direct experience of God. There are no parables, similes or allegories: it is Jesus telling us straight.

The Passion

For Matthew and Mark the crucifixion is full of anguish. Luke and John are focused on the mystery and the importance of a Divinely inspired right of passage.

The Synoptic Gospels write that the ‘veil of the Temple was rent’ when Jesus died. In an ordinary death, Jewish mystics taught that the veils of the two lower worlds (Matthew and Mark) are opened to let the soul though to the spiritual world. In the case of a Messiah, all three lower veils (Matthew, Mark and Luke) are opened to give direct access to the Divine.

In Matthew, the earth quakes, the rocks are rent and bodies rise from the graves; in Mark, darkness comes down during the crucifixion and in Luke the Sun is darkened.

In John there is no physical reaction to Christ’s death but there is immediate emphasis that the next day is the Sabbath – the holy day of the Jews – and that Jesus’ body must be taken down because that is a day of Divine contemplation and sacred rest.

In the lower worlds of his body and psyche, as represented in Matthew and Mark, Jesus is depicted as crying out at his betrayal – his physical and psychological bodies reacting as any ordinary man would. My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?

In Luke, Jesus is able to see his crucifixion as impersonal. There is no judgement of it or other people’s behaviour. Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do …, into thy hands I commend my spirit.

In John, the crucifixion is represented simply as a necessary evil on the way to new life. Without Jesus’ acceptance and acknowledgement of death, resurrection cannot occur. Jesus gives completion to his mother by giving her into John’s care and gives himself willingly to death purely as the next stage of his development as a Divine being. It is finished.

Looking at the Gospels at these four levels teaches me that I react to life at different levels myself and that comfort and happiness come from focus on the spiritual and Divine thoughts, not the daily grind of pattern and habit. The four levels of passion are also useful as tools for forgiveness. They teach me that as long as I focus on the physical or emotional pain, the harder the process is. To see the wider picture and to realise that other people probably had no idea of the level of pain they were causing with their actions is the greatest step to healing as it takes the issue out of the personal. Finally, to accept that the task is all done and dusted – whatever happened is over and in the past and it is my choice whether to call it up again and again or to let it go, once and for all – simply to die to the problem. To die to the problem means that resurrection to a new life truly will happen – even if it’s only in my mind.

From Credit Crunch to Pure Prosperity Chapter One

2011-07-29T03:36:00.000-07:00

Chapter One: The Credit Crunch and the Law of Attraction

“The only thing we have to fear is fear itself -- nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.” Franklin D. Roosevelt said these immortal words in 1933 at the time of the Great Depression.

How right he was. Whenever we are told repeatedly that there is a problem, particularly a problem with something that carries as much emotional weight as money, we are bound to feel afraid. It is the human Ego’s natural response to negative outside stimuli. But, in the modern world, fear itself is the root of most of our problems. Fear – or adrenalin – was designed to make us either run away or to attack. Both of these are appropriate reactions if we are faced with an angry grizzly bear. Both are totally inappropriate if we are dealing with intangible matters such as love, happiness – and money.

Money is intangible? Yes indeed. Money only exists in the mind of humanity. It is less “real” today than it ever has been. When we first invented money it was a token of something tangible such as a sheep or a precious metal. Nowadays, mythical amounts of energy pass between bank accounts with the validation of a piece of plastic. Mathematics keeps a score but nothing of true value actually changes hands any more. The value is all in our minds.

One person on BBC radio who was discussing the 2008 credit situation said, “It turns out that all this prosperity we’ve been experiencing is only based on imaginary money!” He sounded really angry. But if the money was imaginary in the first place, then the problems with the money must also be imaginary. If it’s all imagination, then it’s up to us to choose what we want to imagine.

Can it really be that simple? Yes it can. But simple isn’t the same as easy.

First we need to work out why we got to think that it was complicated.

Thanks to the DVD of The Secret, the teachings of Abraham and many other best-selling authors and spiritual mentors, the idea of the Law of Attraction has become widely known. It works on the simple principle of “like attracts like” or “birds of a feather flock together.”

The idea of the Law of Attraction may only recently have become mainstream but it is not a new discovery. It is at the heart of the Hindu principle of karma (what you put out comes back; what goes around comes around) and it is evident throughout great religious texts including the Bible. Deuteronomy chapter 31 verse 19 puts it quite succinctly: “I call Heaven and Earth to record this day on your account, that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses; therefore choose life, so that you and what you sow may live.”

Judaeo-Christian mystics have also always taught what we would now call the Law of Attraction as a way of understanding how life works and how to lead a happy and prosperous life; they just didn’t call it by the modern name.

The Law of Attraction is immutable. It means that we attract into our lives the things with which we resonate. All of life is vibration and what you think and feel dictates the level of your personal vibration. When we feel good, we have a high vibration and when we feel bad, we have a low vibration.

It follows that if thinking about having a new home, a good job or a wonderful relationship makes us feel good then we need to maintain that level of vibration to attract what we want. Lowering our vibration with thoughts of lack puts us out of alignment with anything that could bring us joy – and therefore it cannot show up in our experience.

Those of us who focus on love, prosperity and happiness attract exactly what we are thinking about – and those of us who worry, fret and beat ourselves up attract more reasons to become upset.

But how can I be attracting it if I don’t want it?

The Universe, the Source, the Chi, the Creative Force, God, whatever you want to call it does not recognise the word “not” as in “I do not want this.” When we say, “I do not want to be broke,” It only hears the emphasis (and the vibration) on the idea of being broke.

You can test this out for yourself by thinking of how much you don’t want to be in financial trouble or something else that you don’t want that would upset you. If you observe your thoughts, you’ll see that if you dwell the not wanting of a subject for just one minute, more negative and unhappy thoughts start to seep into your mind about the likelihood of exactly what you don’t want coming to pass. You get to feel worse and worse – and your vibrational level drops.

It is the same for happy thoughts too – think happy things and more happy thoughts come. But for reasons that we will examine throughout this book, in the modern world, thoughts of prosperity seem to be harder for we humans to access. Certainly they are harder to find when there is already a negative thought entwined within our mind.

Since the advent of New Thought Churches such as Unity, founded by Charles and Myrtle Fillmore in 1889 and the world-famous The Power of Positive Thinking by Norman Vincent Peale, first published in 1952, the idea of affirming a positive thought to create a better situation has become a basic principle for those interested in creating a better life for themselves. To affirm good for one’s Self, such as saying, “I am healthy, wealthy and wise,” is intended to re-programme the mind instead of letting it habitually focus on negativity, which leads to a low vibration.

Affirmations work – to a certain extent. They work when they do not oppose any deep inner belief or when the desire to change our life is so powerful that we feel it in the core of our being. When my first husband died and my media career as an expert on China hit the impasse that was Tiananmen Square in 1989, I was desperate enough to engage in the idea of positive thinking for the first time. I tried affirmations and found that they bought great relief. I was in such pain that I was desperately seeking anything that would help so I threw myself into the work of changing my thoughts.

However, once I began feeling a little better, the impulse faded away as my internal opposition set in. I began to think that I probably shouldn’t be too happy as it would be disrespectful to Henry’s memory; it would look as though I wasn’t grieving and I had to grieve if people were to believe that I had loved him. And it would just be preposterous to appear be happy when I was a young widow or when my whole career had gone down the pan. People would think I was crazy! I didn’t have such resistance to the idea of earning a living – after all, my Ego thought, if I was miserable enough I was bound to earn money wasn’t I?

It’s this kind of inner programming which is at the root of our habitual negative thinking and which can so easily scupper efforts to make our lives better. It is known as resistance and it is very powerful. Resistance must never be underestimated or discounted. That way it gets to win. And if it wins, we remain unhappy and broke.

In my case, my unhappiness was such that my subconscious mind felt the situation to be verging on a threat to my survival. If I died, my subconscious would die too. Therefore, it did not put up resistance to something that would rekindle the desire to go on living within me. Once that had been achieved, any more was unnecessary and could make me a target for the derision or even hatred of others. That’s the point where resistance kicked in.

Here’s an example of how our mind works:

“I want to be prosperous and happy.”

I don’t have enough money; I don’t have enough money. I didn’t have enough money when they said everything was economically sound; I’m going to have even less now there’s a crisis. What I have got will be taken away.

“I want to be prosperous and happy.”

I want doesn’t get…I can’t ask to be prosperous when there are people in trouble. Other people would hate me. It’s not fair; I never get what I want. I hate money. Why does it always have to be about money? I’m a good person. I do my best. No one appreciates me. I’ll probably lose my job in this credit crunch. It’s not fair.

“I want to be prosperous and happy.”

I don’t have enough money; you don’t have enough money. It says so in the paper. It says so on the news. We don’t have enough money. I don’t like not having enough money. You don’t like not having enough money. I must listen to the people on the radio who are complaining about them so I won’t feel alone in this. So I won’t have to blame myself. It’s always “them.” It’s their fault. They did this to me. They did this to us. We must shout against them and make them change things so that it’s better for us. There’s nothing I can do for me but I can shout about them.

By the Law of Attraction we have put out three positive desires of wanting happiness and more than thirty negative desires about lack.

Don’t doubt for one minute that the Law of Attraction will respond to that ratio. It’s not a conscious force that thinks “They don’t really mean all that complaining; all they mean is the good stuff.” It can’t do that. All it can do is give us an exact mirror of what we think and feel and with that ratio of negative to positive thoughts, our vibration cannot be at the level of prosperity.

The so-called credit crunch (I won’t give it capitals because that gives it a proper name and names are very powerful to the human psyche) came about through just such a process. We created it through toxic thinking.

Toxic Fashion

For years, the world’s economy has been expanding with more building, more services, more goods to be purchased. And marketing (the modern-day magic) has thrived through teaching us by repetition that we must have this product or that concept. For example, people in the Western World have spent millions of pounds taking up carpets and laying wooden or laminate floors because they were told that those were the fashionable floors to have. Both kinds of floors work; it’s just marketing. In the same way, we have all recently changed the design of our spectacles to suit the fashion where the previous style worked perfectly well. Fashion creates desire within a tribal society that wants to be seen to be up with the pack leaders.

But in the four or five years before the economy did its downturn, people were starting to say, “This can’t go on. Houses are too expensive. I can’t afford to buy. My job isn’t paying enough for me to buy all the things that I want to buy. I will feel better if I have a Luis Vuitton bag but I can’t afford one. Oh, never mind, I’ll get it on a credit card. Now I can’t pay my credit card off. It’s not fair. Look at all those wealthy celebrities. They can afford Luis Vuitton and I can’t. I can’t pay my bills; I don’t have enough money to keep up. I must keep up. My friends all have designer handbags so I need my Louis Vuitton. In fact, I need a Chanel bag now because Felicity has three designer bags. I can’t afford it; it’s too much.”

And at the same time, the politicians and the economists have been saying, “The bubble has to burst; it’s all going to end in tears; the expansion’s too much” and journalists have been looking (as journalists do) for the negative stories.

In 1993, British newscaster, Martyn Lewis launched a "good news" campaign suggesting that the constant diet of crime and catastrophe that the News feeds to us was unhealthy and should be counterbalanced by positive stories,of happy outcomes. The press – and much of the public - heaped scorn upon him and Lewis lost a lot of work. The simple truth is that good news is no news because our Egos are more comfortable with the bad.

Nowadays, with extraordinary levels of complaint, criticism and toxic gossip skidding across the internet and a culture of blame, we are harnessing the Law of Attraction magnificently. The trouble is that we are activating it in a way that cannot help us to thrive.

Luckily, the natural state of this Universe is abundant; it is predicated towards good. It that were not the case, we would have imploded with the advent of television soap operas. But enough is enough.

How We Create “Truth”

We create everything in our own lives and the irony is that we create nearly all of it by default; simply by reading or listening to the views of others and believing them.

Strangely enough, it is belief that creates truth not the other way around. So if a number of people believe something, it becomes a truth. Enough people locked into the idea that there was a financial problem for it to come into being. But the good news is that it doesn’t have to be that way. Each one of us can create or resolve a financial issue completely on our own.

Yes, of course, it’s easier if everyone else goes along with us but prosperity is a very personal thing. As long as you can raise your vibrationary level and work at the level of the Soul, not the Ego, then the outside world’s affairs don’t have to affect you at all.

Then, if you prosper, you can teach others how to do it too.

At the moment, I am more prosperous than I have ever been despite what would seem to be an outside problem. But I have had two great credit crunches of my own in the past, one of which was in line with the outside world’s thinking (the dot-com crash) and the other of which was entirely personal.

In fact I’ve used the knowledge and techniques in this book to bring me back to prosperity from widowhood, divorce, business crashes, a failed emigration attempt, loss of home, career and the beliefs that I was stupid, inadequate and unworthy of love, happiness and money.

I’m still learning – this is a life’s work. But hopefully, by using this book as one of your guides in creating a happier life, you can take a few more short-cuts than I did.

You don’t have to be affected by the outside world; it is all about you. Your choices, your vibration and your energy. And not choosing is just as much a choice making a conscious decision. Those who don’t choose, rise or fall with the state of the world because they are working from the Ego state. Those who do choose are coming from the level of the Soul. It is the Soul which has the ability to step up and over everyday conditions. But in the secular world, we barely know let alone understand the difference between Ego and Soul.

If you’re not comfortable with the idea of Soul – the immortal, totally human aspect of each of us – you can substitute the idea of consciousness or Self. What is important is not the terminology but the ability to think and act consciously. It is perfectly possible to live a prosperous and comfortable life no matter what the outside circumstances might be. And that is not a selfish thing to do. Those who prosper inspire others and by learning how to live an abundant life you can teach others to do the same.

After all, no one will ever come up to you and say, “Do tell me, please – what is the secret of your failure?”

Thank you for reading!
You can purchase From Credit Crunch to Pure Prosperity by clicking on this link: Amazon.com in book or Kindle format. Or in an e-pub from my website.

HeartWork - Are You Ready To Commit?

2011-07-28T06:34:00.000-07:00

This is the time for inspired businesses; for spiritual companies; for working from our soul level.

I’ve been blessed enough to follow my heart’s desire as a career for the last 20 years, writing and teaching on the Spiritual Laws of Prosperity, Kabbalah and Soul Wisdom.

However, along the way I’ve fallen flat on my face many times mostly because I didn’t have companions in the Work to help and advise me where I was going off-course. The advice I got was from people in conventional businesses who didn’t ‘get’ my purpose. As the poet Rumi says: "When setting out on a journey do not consult someone who has never left home.”

Sometimes I was too proud to ask for help or was too busy trying to help other people to give myself time to receive. I’ve been too arrogant to go to workshops which could have helped me; I’ve been resentful when things didn’t work out instead of being grateful for the guidance that I was going in the wrong direction.

And I see others doing just the same as I used to do while covering it over with a layer of pretty pink fluff, and saying ‘I’m going with the flow’ or ‘it wasn’t meant to be’ and pretending that all is well when what should be a thriving holistic business is failing. So often the issue is just about being half-an-inch out of line with your true path — but that half-an-inch makes all the difference.

If we simply go with the flow we are subject to the vagaries of the river and can get smashed into rocks. One of my great spiritual teachers, Z’ev ben Shimon Halevi, taught me that it is vital to row one mile an hour faster than the current. That way, you can see the rocks coming and navigate round them. All this means is to stay awake and see the patterns forming in your business so that you can make the appropriate changes that will enable you to thrive.

Among the many things I have learnt is that you need commitment to prosper in your own work. Commitment involves discipline and it’s likely that many of us desired to start our own business or work in complementary therapy because we wanted to get away from the traditional ‘You must do this or that in the way the company dictates’ idea.

It can be hard to discipline ourselves to do daily meditation; to continue to grow so that we can serve our clients better; to understand what our own blocks to abundance may be. But the problem with saying, “I’ll do that one of these days” is that one of these days never comes.

Another big source of resistance is about receiving. We give and do without realising that by constantly taking charge and pushing, we block off the Universe’s ability to give to us.

To transform this, we need companions on the journey who will hold us accountable. That’s why the Mastermind group idea is so useful. This was made popular by Napoleon Hill in his classic Think and Grow Rich back in the early 1900s. In a Mastermind group, participants support and challenge each other to create and carry out goals, brainstorm ideas, treating each other with honesty, respect and compassion. If we work together to create and thrive in our spiritual business then we draw the Universal Mind in to help us as well.

Your peers give you feedback, help you brainstorm new possibilities, and set up accountability structures that keep you focused and on track.

The only trouble with a Mastermind group is that often people just get into ‘cosy chat’ mode and much of the potential benefit is lost. That’s why, together with the Tree of Life Magazine, I’m setting up the HeartWork Group. Our aim is to light a pure flame underneath our local holistic businesses; to be authentic, to hold each other accountable and to strengthen and develop our purpose and our prosperity.

We’ll be holding regular weekly meetings in Moseley, Birmingham, all aimed at helping you to thrive in the work you love. Each one will include regular and spiritual marketing ‘dos’ and ‘don’ts’ talks and visualizations as well as a Mastermind session. The first meeting, on Wednesday 1st February is FREE.

The course will also include:

Learning what is unique about your business: to succeed in the plethora of Holistic businesses, it is vital to specialise.
Why it doesn't matter if you are not fully healed; it may help clients relate to you.
How to state clearly who you are and what you do
How to ask for what you want.
The levels within you that will inspire or resist your goals

Come and join us and together we can build our passion into successful businesses that will help the world to prosper as well as ourselves. Booking is essential so please email me on mw@treeoflifepublishing.co.uk or call 0121 449 0344 to book your place.

Tips to help your holistic business thrive:

·      Discover your Unique Selling Point. What is it about you that infuses your work? Clarifying that to the Universe will help it to support you.
·      Start each day with an affirmation that you and your work will be inspired and inspirational.
·      Continue to learn. The willingness to refresh your knowledge shines through you.
·      Understand your prosperity issues. There is a free one-hour MP3 on the Spiritual Laws of Prosperity on Maggy’s website.
·      Bless every phone call that comes in before you answer.
·      Appreciate each and every client.
·      Add value: put your clients’ names up on Silent Unity for extra help and support or put them on your own regular healing list.
·      Meditate. Not only is it relaxing, it tells the universe that you are willing to receive.

Details of the HeartWork Course:

HeartWork: Helping you make a success of the work you love.

A five-week course on practical inspiration in holistic business with teaching and discussion. Facilitator: Maggy Whitehouse author of From Credit Crunch to Pure Prosperity.

Includes Mastermind sessions.

Introductory evening: Wednesday 14th September. 7.30pm. (FREE).

Venue: Moseley, Birmingham.
Course dates: Wednesdays 28th September, 12th and 26th October, 2nd and 16th November.

Cost: £95.

Please book your place in advance. Email: mw@treeoflifepublishing.co.uk or call 0121 449 0344.

Why Everybody Else is More Important Than You.

2011-07-28T04:18:00.001-07:00

I’ll own up immediately. I think I’m pretty important. Certainly more important than the guy who’s on the phone trying to sell me something I don’t want and didn’t ask for.

And so do you. You almost certainly think (in secret at least) that you are more important than me. Your views matter and are probably better than mine. You know exactly how important you are and sometimes it’s really annoying that other people don’t.

But here’s the biggest secret to doing good business. You have to know that everybody else is more important than you.

It’s no good trying to sell them what you want them to have; you have to find out what they want and how best to get it to them. Then they’ll buy happily because they feel loved, special and looked after.

But even more than that, to succeed in your own business, you have to be sincere. It’s not about flattering with your teeth gritted, it’s about finding something genuinely to appreciate or admire in the other.

Greet them with pleasure, smile, even if you’re on the telephone. Let them know that it has made your day that they got in contact. If they’re in front of you, hold out your hand; if you like what they are wearing, say so. But don’t automatically assume that they want you to hug them. When you auto-hug you are doing what you want and saying that the other person’s view is not important.

If they’re cross or upset, it’s about acknowledging their feelings and telling them that they are perfectly justified instead of just defending your position. If you can’t actually apologise, you can tell them that you are sorry to see them so upset because then, at least they’ll have been heard.

If you’re sincere in your appreciation of the importance of others. Then they will appreciate you. And your self-importance will like that.

Here’s an example: I recently facilitated at the wedding of two dear friends. They wanted a particular service format which I thought was ... um ... well, let’s just say it wasn’t “me.” But look, there’s me being important again! It was their wedding. My opinion had nothing to do with it.

So I had a think and wondered exactly what it was about that service that I was resisting and how I could turn that around in service to them so I could be the priest with integrity that they wanted me to be. And the answer was simple: it was a generic service. No matter how beautiful it was, it wasn’t about them.

So, what I did do was help them to make the wedding unique to them — I gave them some examples of how to draw their own differing religious heritages into their chosen service; some actions they could do and some sacred texts they could honour and they were thrilled. They felt (quite rightly) important. Together we melded the service they wanted into something even more special that made them feel acknowledged, unique and special.

So remember, everyone thinks they are more important than you. And if you want to serve them, you have to admit that they are right. And if you can do that, it will turn out perfect for you too.

Still in Love with Judas...

2011-07-28T04:17:00.000-07:00

God can surprise you from the strangest places. I’m a bit too middle-aged to be on the Lady Gaga bandwagon but one day I turn on the TV and there she is, still in love with Judas. But this a new take on Judas: a hard-riding bruiser of a hell’s angel on a Harley.

Here's the video from YouTube.

Now I’ve been writing about Judas — as bad guy, good guy, misunderstood guy, essential-part-of-the-story guy — since 1994. And suddenly a 25-year-old pop superstar blows my socks off by supplying a link that had been missing in all those years.

“Jesus is my virtue but Judas is the demon I cling to...” Those words might be truer than most of us might like to admit.

Judas is the metaphor for the bad guy — we all know that — the one who held the disciples’ purse; the one called the thief, the one who took 30 pieces of silver in return for leading the guards to Jesus; the one who betrayed his friend and master with a kiss.

He’s our resistance to spiritual growth, to financial prosperity, to following our truth. He’s the one who makes it easy for us to help others as an excuse not to have time to honour our own spiritual path (that’s theft from ourselves). He’s the one who makes us think that we’re not good enough to do our own life’s work and helps us negate others who are trying to do theirs ... He’s the one who often keeps us poor because we’re ‘too good’ to have to sell our work to others.

Perceptions over Judas and money are some of the biggest obstacles that a spiritual teacher raised in a Christian society has to face and overcome if they want to make a good living from healing, teaching or developing an holistic business. I’ve been teaching the Spiritual Laws of Prosperity for 16 years now and

Judas is right in there as a powerful subconscious spiritual reason why money is seen as negative; hard to ask for; somehow not kosher. You don’t want to seem greedy after all — aren’t you here to help people not charge them...?

This is what Charles Fillmore, founder of Unity Church, says about Judas in his Twelve Powers of Man:

“Judas governs the life consciousness in the body, and without his wise co-operation the organism loses its essential substance, and dies. Judas is selfish; greed is his "devil." Judas governs the most subtle of the "beasts of the field" — sensation; but Judas can be redeemed. The Judas function generates the life of the body. We need life, but life must be guided in divine ways. There must be a righteous expression of life. Judas, the betrayer of Jesus, must in the end be cleansed of the devil, selfishness; having been cleansed, he will allow the life force to flow to every part of the organism. Instead of being a thief (drawing to the sex center the vital forces necessary to the substance of the whole man) Judas will become a supplier; he will give his life to every faculty. In the prevailing race consciousness Judas drains the whole man, and the body dies as a result of his selfish thievery.”

In the Judaic mystical tradition of Kabbalah ‘life force’ refers to the Sefira or circle called Nezach or “Victory.” Nezach is the source of our creativity, sexuality, activity — and of our addictions. Negative Nezach seeks the “hit” of another coffee, chocolate, drug, sexual partner, gossip or episode of our favorite soap opera. Positive Nezach keeps us powered until we achieve our goal and stand up in our truth.

I knew all this — but it wasn’t until the Lady Gaga video that I recognised this negative other side of the ‘life force’ in Judas. The character in her Judas video is a fighter, a drinker, a womanizer but still horribly attractive as only the bad boy can be.

This Judas aspect, when healthy, is the part of us that forces us to step up and out into the light. The one that makes us show up in our true glory. We need positive Judas. We need that power and animal force. Without Judas, we wouldn’t have the resurrection and perhaps no Christianity at all.

I’m not convinced that Judas was the bad guy. Apart from his name being just a little too convenient (meaning “of the tribe of Judah” or “Jew”) and the fact that the betrayal isn’t mentioned once in St. Paul’s writings, which are the earliest we have, there is a possibility that he could be an added-in character. There’s no evidence of a crucifixions in Jerusalem of anyone called Jesus anywhere near the Biblical time and there are no contemporary written references to Jesus at all. Until 1961 when a tablet was found in Caesarea, there was no historical evidence for the existence of Pontius Pilate either. And here are no legal records of his administration — no papyri, no rolls, no tablets.

So, to make the story stick and to send this glorious message of hope around the world, the story-teller in me thinks we might need some back-up — and what better than a good old-fashioned baddie who gives us someone to blame at the same time as making the story believable?

For a resurrection story to have credibility, back in those days as well as in ours, there has to be evidence that somebody died first. And there’s enough speculation nowadays about Jesus not actually dying on the cross but bolting to India or Glastonbury (or somewhere equally unlikely) to demonstrate that people are looking for the Occam’s Razor in any scenario. “It would make more sense for him to have been still alive than to resurrect.” Of course it would, but great stories — and even great myths — are not about common sense. They’re about miracles!

For anyone to believe that Jesus was resurrected, in first century Judea, his death had to be public and undeniable at that time. How easy would it have been for those who hated him to have stabbed him in a back street or poisoned him while he ate with friends? Then any claim of a miracle could have been pooh-poohed with ease.

The killing had to be carried out in public at a time when people were in Jerusalem to witness it and Passover was the one festival that everyone attended. You could get away with missing out some of the sacred times in Jerusalem but, unless you were sick, pregnant or the one deputed to stay home to mind the flocks for the village, you went to Jerusalem for Pesach.

We do have reason to believe from the Gospels that Jesus knew full well what was going to happen; he tells Judas to hurry with his mission and waited around in the Garden of Gethsemane when he could easily have vanished quietly. He also asks the disciples to stay awake and watch with him but they sleep. If they had stayed awake psychologically they might have seen that the kiss, which is seen as the final insult, might have been a genuine greeting between friends with a sad but important mission.

Pilate gives Jesus as many chances as he can to be acquitted but Christ won’t take them. He’s determined to fulfil his destiny.

Paradidomi, the word translated in the New Testament as ‘betrayed,’ is just as accurately translated as ‘handed over.’ There is a distinct difference in energy between the two meanings. Paradidomi would be just as accurate if the text made it clear that Judas was under orders to do what he did.

I know I’m not the first to suggest this. Ironically, in Nikos Kazantzakis’s The Last Temptation of Christ, his scenario of Judas as the good guy who did Jesus’ will in handing him over was drowned out by the furore over sex and Mary Magdalene but it’s not a new theory by any means.

In my first novel, The Book of Deborah, I made the heroine Jesus’ cousin and Judas’s wife; someone who loved Judas deeply and understood his motivation. In my latest, The Miracle Man, I made Judas a female PR guru believing entirely that her X Factor judge Messianic client would resurrect and organising an on-air assassination at the Super Bowl in order to demonstrate his divinity.

In Lady Gaga’s Judas video, Jesus is beautiful but sad and passive; Judas is active, aggressive and sexual. We yearn to love and comfort Jesus but we are drawn to the lower beast that feeds our senses. Most actors will tell you that they would rather play the bad guy; they are just so much more interesting.

In Kabbalah, Jesus represents the Neshamah, the human soul; Judas, as the Nezachian life-force, is the Nefesh, the animal soul which can support or corrupt the Neshamah according to its level of health.

So what is Judas to us? The scapegoat for a start. The scapegoat in Judaism is a goat laden with the sins of the people which is driven out into the wilderness. The sins have all gone; good-oh. We can get on with our lives then.

This animal Judas is the inner voice that says “You’re right and the others are wrong.” He’s the “It wasn’t my fault; they made me do it.” He’s the “another drink won’t hurt.” He’s also the “hit” of going to workshop after workshop and reading book after book without actually applying any of the principles so you live life on a rollercoaster of hope and despair. He is very clever, very subtle and every betrayal of self that there is. Judas did not betray Jesus; Jesus chose to die and to resurrect. Judas betrayed himself — whichever of the scenarios you follow.

And that’s the greatest truth that Judas can teach us. No one betrays you except yourself. No matter what the other does to us, it is our acceptance of their blame or accusation that hurts us. It’s our choice whether we apply the self-discipline to become the person we were truly meant to be or run with the excuses and betray our soul.

“If you bring forth what is within you, what is within you will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what is within you will destroy you.”   Gospel of Thomas.

Maggy talking about 'Kabbalah Made Easy' at the official launch - Watkins Books in London.

2011-06-30T03:32:00.000-07:00

The Spiritual Laws of Prosperity. Chapter One.

2011-06-10T10:29:00.000-07:00

Here is Chapter One of The Spiritual Laws of Prosperity by Maggy Whitehouse. Now available on Kindle and in alternative e-book format.

Chapter One….On Happiness and Misery.

‘I don’t think of all the misery, but of all the beauty that still remains,’ Anne Frank.

'Regardless of how many boats you send to other shores or how many ships arrive upon your shores, you, yourself are an island, separated by its own pains, secluded in its happiness.’ Kahlil Gibran.

Unhappy people cause all of the trouble in the world.

Unhappy people spread sorrow and grief like influenza, whether it’s small-scale within their homes and families or on an enormous scale like war. No truly happy person could ever find themselves in a situation where they were even partially responsible for a war.

Happy people don’t get into debt. Having been horribly in debt I know through experience that the one thing guaranteed to get you out of debt is following your bliss and being happy. That’s a big one, I know. Debt is like disease – not only have you got to deal with the thought-forms that got you into the situation in the first place, you have to deal with the physical reality too.

I got into debt by denying that I was unhappy. I allowed a feeling of low-grade misery to pervade everything without even knowing that I was doing it. In my case the main culprit was pride. I wasn’t going to admit that I might have made any wrong decisions so I wasn’t going to allow myself to put them right.

It didn’t hurt much; after all, I was fairly used to being miserable. Most of us are. We think it’s normal. The debt mounted up because I was seeking happiness but I was seeking it externally and, dammit, that never works!

It is our right – and our spiritual calling – to be happy. Because happiness too can spread like influenza. The word ‘influenza’ simply means ‘influence’ it doesn’t have to mean anything bad.

Unhappy people often find a small amount of happiness helping other unhappy people to feel better. But truthfully, you can’t help someone be happy unless you know and understand happiness yourself. Anything else is a temporary relief rather than true healing. It may be a bandage for the soul but it is reliant on the person who tied the bandage to return and help again. That leads to co-dependency and that can never bring happiness.

Ultimately, it’s our own unhappiness that we need to sort out. It would be easy to say “Who doesn’t want to be happy?” but the truth is that most of us are so busy trying to make everyone else happy that we don’t notice the yawning breach inside until it starts yelling through a broken marriage, a broken leg or a broken heart. And then we say, “But I took care of them!

But I was a good husband/wife! But I did my best!”

One clue on whether we have unacknowledged unhappiness is whether we are willing to be alone or unoccupied. The French physicist Blaise Pascal wrote: “I have discovered that all human evil comes from this, man's being unable to sit still in a room.” Given that when Pascal lived, in the seventeenth century, there was no TV, very few books to read – certainly very few novels – no telephones (let alone no mobile phones) and no DVDs, imagine how little distraction there was from people’s own thoughts. Nowadays we have so much to distract us; so many things to do that we can run around in ever-decreasing circle doing ‘urgent’ stuff to hide our discontent. Often, we are completely oblivious to what we are doing or how we feel underneath because we never have quiet time that would give our pain a chance to talk to us.

This may seem to be an odd way to start a book on the spiritual laws of prosperity but it is unacknowledged feelings of unhappiness that cause us to get out of sychronisation of our own abundance in the first place. If we can just learn to identify and value our own happiness; to pursue it; to allow it and to revel in it, then we will prosper. We have to; it’s Universal Law.

Abundance abounds

This planet is a naturally abundant place; it works. Every day the sun comes up; the Earth turns, the winds blow, the clouds form and drop the rain, the seasons come and go. Yes, things change – ice ages come; heatwaves come; there are earthquakes as the planet sneezes and scratches itself. But they are all in the natural order of things.

The main thing that causes any of these events to speed up or go out of synchronization in any way at all is because we humans are unhappy.

This planet is a living being; it is affected by our thoughts and feelings as well as what we do. The nature of the Universe is that it is supported by love; by joy; by appreciation. That’s why angels sing to the Creative Force – not because It demands their allegiance but for the sheer joy of assisting in the process of creation; of experiencing the expansion of the Multiverse.

Luckily for us, abundance abounds and every moment of love or happiness is a hundred-thousand times more powerful than every moment of discord. If that were not the case, this planet would have self-destructed within a year of the advent of soap operas on television.

What we do physically also has an effect. But happy people don’t over-consume; don’t abuse drink or drugs, don’t live on junk food; don’t follow fundamentalist regimes; don’t try to control other people’s beliefs. All of those are ways to placate the howling of an unhappy ego that has to drug itself or needs to belong to a tribe in order to feel remotely safe.

Happy people don’t hate money or the wealthy people who seem to have what they have not. Happy people are just happy. And guess what? They have enough of everything – enough to be able to give stuff away as well.

It’s how we react to others’ good fortune or how we react to stories of therapies that cost a lot of money that are the tell-tale signs as to whether our own, personal, money situation is trying to get our attention and point out to us the unacknowledged pain.

Money Talks

As I was writing this book I talked to an elegant Ayuvedic doctor about Reiki healing. This lady, who appears calm and relaxed, had a complete hissy fit as soon as Reiki was mentioned. She was still angry at how much Reiki used to cost ($10,000 for Mastership about 20 years ago) and threw all sorts of accusations at the system itself which were all associated with her own negative views about money. When I said that sometimes Reiki training is now sold for practically nothing she said, “Well it’s useless anyway. I wouldn’t consider having it.”

There wasn’t going to be a positive answer in her mind or even a consideration that perhaps sometimes Reiki training was good and other times it was not so good. And yet, she would never for one moment have believed that her issue was with money itself – and about the fact that she had once wanted to train as a Reiki healer and hadn’t had the money to do it. Had she been a truly happy person she would have let the matter go. She wouldn’t have been at all bothered at how much people paid to learn Reiki – or whether it worked or not. It would have been up to those people to decide for themselves.

Our wounds always show up when it comes prosperity. Or to be more accurate, when it comes to money. Then the pain shows clearly – both in how we think and speak of money and those who have it. And it shows too in how money responds to us. Money, as you know if you’ve been to any of my workshops, is totally imaginary. It is a means of acknowledging exchange invented by humans. Once it was a token of an amount of gold kept in somewhere like Fort Knox. As the pieces of paper denoting payment moved around, the actual gold was sectioned up appropriately. Now, there often isn’t even a piece of paper – and there is certainly no gold behind it.

Money only exists because people believe in it.

When we have a crisis of faith about money, it vanishes into the ether.

If you believe in what the world tells you about money, then you will experience what the rest of the world is experiencing. If you know that it is purely energy and that you are honour-bound by your duty as a human being to focus on happiness, then the external world can have no detrimental, financial effect on you at all.

Wow. That’s something isn’t it?

It’s easy to say of course. It took me years to achieve it. And even when it is achieved, there are times when you may forget for a moment, a day or a week, how to be happy. Shit happens, as they say. It’s how we react to it that matters and none of us alive on this planet are immune to death, loss or dramatic change. But once we understand that we are meant to recover from the pain; meant to seek joy; meant to come through happier than ever and meant to be prosperous at all levels, even the difficult times are bearable. The Jewish proverb made famous by Abraham Lincoln, “this too shall pass” encourages us to make the most of every happy moment and to realize that the nasty times will also fade away.

The only reason that most people in holistic work attract difficult times is because of the low-grade misery that we don’t even notice. After all, we know about positive thinking; we know about the Life Force. Surely we should be happy and prosperous? But the Law of Attraction must respond to our thoughts and feelings and even a slow build-up of negativity can result in quite a surprising landslide when the tipping point is reached.

In the Beginning…

A certain amount of low-grade misery is trained into us in early childhood. When we first emerge into this world we are beings of pure joy who let the world know very clearly when we are not being treated as we think we should be! But pretty soon we learn what behaviour is acceptable and what is not and that we can’t please all the people all of the time – but that we should keep on trying. We must let them be selfish and have what they want but we must not be selfish ourselves. Some people turn into rebels and ostentatiously do what will make them appear strange to others (which can lead to unacknowledged loneliness) and others become people-pleasers (which can lead to unacknowledged resentment).

We all have a basic make-up – a blueprint if you like. I use astrology to assess a person’s blueprint although I always try to make it clear that we all have free will. We have the ability to overcome our astrology with consciousness; it’s simply the default position.

So we all have a default position – and we have training from our parents, teachers, brothers and sisters, outer family and our peers. We learn very young what behaviour is acceptable and what is not and what gets us attention. Getting attention is generally perceived as being a good thing by a healthy psyche as it means we are likely to be fed and looked after. For a psyche damaged by abuse, whether physical or psychological, getting attention is generally perceived as a bad thing.

As our ego – the lower part of our psyche – is our natural, everyday thinks-on-automatic self, is designed to protect us it will reinforce our survival instinct. Therefore, if we are repressed and we never became the pianist/actor/singer we wanted to be because we had to do what our parents and siblings needed us to do, we are likely to dislike other people who are successful. It’s called projection and it’s rarely conscious.

We also have a subconscious ‘place in the tribe’ – the pecking order if you like. Until my husband and I had chickens I didn’t realize that the pecking order was a definite and powerful thing. To start with, Wiz was the lead hen; she was the one with the most feathers (they are ex-battery hens) and the most adventurous. Then Fan became lead hen because she grew stronger fastest. But then she hurt her foot and both Wiz and Phyl (previously the bottom of the heap) leapt up the food chain and bossed her around.

My husband summed up the kind of childhood both he and I had with the story of how when he went to a friend’s house he was instructed not to be selfish and to watch what they wanted to watch on the TV and not to ask to watch his favourite show. But when the friends came round to his house, they were encouraged to watch their favourite show because they were the guests… If you can relate to that in any way, it could be a root cause of poverty consciousness.

Religion and Belief

We become miserable because we are trained to think that we don’t matter and that deep inside we are alone with our fears our faults and our resentments. We believe that our limited experience of ourselves (reflected back from other people) constitutes our whole nature. And somehow, we are wrong.

Even if you aren’t a Christian, if you were raised in a nominally Christian country, you will have been encouraged to fear some external being called God who sacrificed His own son because of our sins. We don’t remember that somewhere within us resides a supreme being of peace; we fear that God is out there and if he’ll do something that mean to His own son what is he going to do to us?

Belief in a totally external God can only lead to fear and despair. Even in the New Age where we speak of Source, Chi, the Universe, Goddess or Unity, we are slightly avoiding the issue. We don’t speak of God because we fear him. We can deal with Source because it is neutral and has no Gospel. We see God as the external judge. And Jesus of Nazareth was someone who lived a life of poverty and who gave his life for others. If we want any love from God, we must do the same.

Oh ouch.

I’m not a big fan of St. Augustine but he hit the nail right on the head when he wrote: ‘Our whole business in life is to restore to health the eye of the heart whereby God may be seen.’ That’s the real God; the great Joygiver who wants nothing more than our happiness. Not the nasty, mean brute that we have come to believe in from misunderstood scriptural teachings perpetuated by a priesthood that doesn’t understand itself — and sometimes doesn’t even believe.

In the last century in particular, with the advent of worldwide news and science we have lost the idea that we are naturally happy and abundant beings. We think that happiness is somehow a matter of chance, such as winning the lottery. Or that we have to work hard to earn enough money and then we will have suffered enough to deserve to be happy. Or that if we take care of everyone else at the expense of ourselves, then we will deserve to be happy.

But you can’t get to happiness on a road filled with suffering. The Law of Attraction doesn’t work like that.

Luckily people like Esther Hicks with the Teachings of Abraham, Eckhart Tolle, Louise Hay and Deepak Chopra are here to remind us but if you, like me, have layers of trained thinking to dissolve you may have to make an effort to rediscover your own happiness. Not a painful effort; not something which is a struggle but what Liz Gilbert in her wonderful book Eat, Pray, Love (Penguin) calls ‘diligent joy.’ We have to re-member our happiness.

The idea of this book is to address the great spiritual laws of this planet – all of which are aspects of the Law of Attraction – in the hope of helping the inner child in us all to understand that we have a right to strive for happiness. It is not a selfish inclination; it is not ‘wrong’ it is our spiritual duty.

There are examples from Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Shinto, Hinduism, Atheism – you name it, it’s got teachings on how very, very important it is to harness the Law of Attraction (though it’s more usually referred to as the Law of Karma). That darn Law works whatever we do so we might as well turn it to our — and our loved-ones’ —advantage.

Oddly enough, if you examine all the spiritual teachings of the world (including the ones that initially make it look as if God is a total bastard) you’ll find that they are originally intended to be guidance as to how the Law of Attraction works.

As the great prosperity teacher Dr. Catherine Ponder, author of The Dynamic Laws of Prosperity (DeVors) and dozens of other books, writes, it’s not so much ‘fear of the Lord’ that is the beginning of wisdom. It’s ‘fear of the Law.’ And before you say ‘I don’t think we should be afraid of anything,’ I bet you would be afraid of a raging fire! The Law of Attraction is just like fire. It is a wonderful servant but it will rampage out of control unless we learn how to live happily. And surprisingly enough, the world’s spiritual laws will help us to do just that.

Perhaps, however, it is easier to explain that the Hebrew word used for ‘fear’ in the original Old Testament quotation is yirah which also means ‘awe,’ ‘respect’ and ‘reverence.’

I am very happy to live with awe, respect and reverence for the Law of Attraction. It is so simple and so pure. I hope this book will help you feel the same way.

Exercise One:

Set your intention.

‘Tomorrow is a new day, you shall begin it well and serenely.’ Ralph Waldo Emerson.

All spiritual practices include ritual that signify a drawing in, or down, of good. Ceremonies of some kind have been conducted by humanity since the beginning of time and many of them are so old that it seems that the angelic forces, the Universe and the Earth know them by heart. You only have to start one of the services I facilitate in the independent sacramental church into which I am ordained and I am almost drowned out by the chorus of energy that knows, supports and builds the aim of the ritual.

Rituals set an intent and, if your intention is to become happier and more prosperous then it’s good to have a regular practice that enforces that idea in your mind and in the annals of the Universe. Throughout the book there will be ideas and exercises for you to follow but the most important of all is the idea of the Law of First Intention.

Even the Bible starts off with ‘in the beginning.’

Start the day with a prayer of intent. It doesn’t have to be any more than, ‘Let this be a good day’ or ‘I want to be happy today.’ If your first conscious thought to the Universe is one that moves you forward towards your desires it can start to get a momentum going.

Simple things are best as they won’t over-challenge you.

If you read The Little Book of Prosperity you’ll know that I started to wear the perfume called ‘Joy’ when I was getting divorced. At first the irony of that amused me and then I realized how reinforcing it was of what I wanted. Now I have a bottle of ‘Joy’ on my work desk and the first thing I do on sitting down at my desk in the morning is to dab my neck and wrists with Joy. Then I light a tea-light candle and, if the desk needs tidying I put it into a little more order.

If I do that before I open my computer to write or to check my emails, I have set a clear intention that I want the day to be joyous, spiritual and organized.

What intentions can you set for your day? Whatever it is, it needs to be done with consciousness. Know you are doing it and why you are doing it.

Hint: if doing something that used to make you feel good has lost its power, or even makes you think ‘why hasn’t it happened yet?’ the energy has changed and you need to find something new to do. Changing and updating simple rituals is important. The great and ancient ones don’t need it so much because they are built on a structure that builds energy towards a positive goal. Simple rituals need to work for you now.

The Love of Money...

2011-06-02T09:59:00.000-07:00

I've just come across another blog (via Neale Donald Walsch's FaceBook page) that quotes the alleged Biblical phrase 'The Love of Money is the Root of All Evil.'

I've studied the spiritual laws of prosperity for years now - and written books and taught workshops all over the world. I even went to Birmingham University for a year to study New Testament Greek to try and work out the actual teachings of Jesus about life, soul, spirit - and money. I'd be the first to admit that my Greek is pathetic but I can, at least, recognise Greek words...and 'the love of money is the root of all evil' just isn't there.

The Bible — including The New Testament — is actually a prosperity workbook. It just needs to be looked at with clearer eyes. Nowhere in the world (in my opinion) is there a better instruction on how to become more prosperous than in a clear interpretation of the Old Testament tithing system (and no, it doesn't say give the first ten per cent of your money to charity!)

That teaching is explained on an earlier posting here on my blog

But let's look at this 'love of money' error. It's important if you're struggling with the idea of 'good people shouldn't be wealthy.'

Nowhere in the New Testament does it actually say (in Greek) that love of money is the root of all evil. It says 'obsession over money is a root of all the crap in your life' (the word is kakos which means just what it says). The word for 'evil' used everywhere else in the NT is 'poneros.'

The full quotation from St. Paul’s letter (1:10 Timothy) is: "Having food (diatrophe - sustenance) and raiment (skepasma), let us therewith be content. But they that would be rich (plousios - of possessions) fall into temptation and a snare and many foolish and hurtful lusts which drown men in destruction and perdition. For the love of money is a root of all evil' (kakos); which, while some coveted after, they have erred from faith and pierced themselves with many sorrows.

The word translated as 'love of money' is philarguria and it does mean love - but a more practical translation would be avarice or obsession over money. Paul is trying to make it clear that focusing on financial wealth over all other things can be harmful to the soul. However, he doesn't say that money should be hated or despised. The word translated as 'evil' is an appalling translation. The word used for 'evil' in the whole of the rest of the New Testament is 'poneros.'

Here, the word is 'kakos.' Kak. Crap.

So Paul is saying 'obsession with money is A (not the) root of all the crap in your life...’

It's also worth noting the words for food and raiment ( diatrophe and skepasma ) mean 'a sufficient supply of that which nurtures and sustains us' and 'all the coverings, clothing, shelter etc'. that we need including sufficient for the four pilgrimage trips taken to Jerusalem for the festivals.

So, basically, he's saying 'if you have enough for your mortgage, your bills, the utilities, clothing, transport and four holidays a year, don't seek after money for its own sake... or you could be in danger of losing your focus and making your life suck.'

I don't think many of us would disagree with that.

If you want to know more, please go to my Pure Prosperity website. There's free webinar that talks about tithing and how to loose the bonds that tie our egos up about money. And there's also a six part, thorough and detailed workshop webinar on the Spiritual Laws of Prosperity which should put you straight on Jesus' teachings on money.

For many of us, Christianity was the sword that went in over poverty consciousness — so it's important to clear those misconceptions and move on so that we can help others to prosper too.

Thank you. Have a wonderful day.

The Law of Attraction 101.

2011-05-31T04:19:00.000-07:00

Top Tips: The Law of Attraction 101.

Have you ever wondered what that Law of Attraction that's talked of so often in Spiritual and Holistic circles might be about? Here's a beginner's guide.

· Whatever you think about you begin to create in reality. This is the Law of Karma in action – what you put out you get back. What goes around, comes around. Nowadays it’s known as The Law of Attraction — similar vibrations are attracted to similar vibrations.

· This is often thought to be a ‘New Age’ thing but it’s very old — and a definite part of the Judaeo-Christian teachings. The Gospel of John starts with, ‘In the beginning was the Word.’ Our words are our thoughts in action and they create reality. Deuteronomy 30:18 sums it up: “I call heaven and earth to bear witness on your behalf this day that I have placed before you life and death; blessing and cursing. Therefore choose life that you and what you sow shall live.” We are choosing what to think every second — even if that choice is not to choose and to react as we have done every day before. If we think the same thoughts today as we already have, our life will continue exactly as it is. That’s fine if you like your life…

· How you feel about your thoughts or words is the key. If it is a good feeling then you are attracting something that you want in your life. If it is a bad feeling then you are creating something that you don’t want in your life. However, if you repeat something endlessly such as the phrase ‘I’m sick and tired,’ then your subconscious starts to programme it into the ‘beliefs’ section of the brain and it begins to manifest. It’s slower that way but most of us have been saying the same old negative statements for 40 years or more…

· Think of the Law of Attraction as being like having a Martian standing at your shoulder with authority to give you everything you want. It doesn’t know your language or how you operate and all it has to go on is to observe the things that get your attention.

· The Universe does not recognise a negative. If you are focusing on not wanting something such as debt or sickness then all the Universe sees is the subject matter you are focusing on and the intensity of the feeling around it. It then creates more opportunities for debt or sickness for you. That is what it truly believes you are asking for. You’re a human being so you are a child of the Creator so you must know what you’re doing – right?

· You cannot erase poverty, war, sickness or terrorism by fighting them, pushing against them or being angry or upset about them. All you are doing is giving more thought and emotion to the subjects and making them stronger. Thought=energy=manifestation. March for peace; seek a cure; study prosperity – turn your mind to the solution instead of whining about the problem or thinking that ‘they’ should sort it.

· You have to balance giving with receiving. If you are a continual giver, the Law of Attraction just gives you more opportunities to give which can leave you exhausted and resentful. Then it will give you more opportunities to be exhausted and resentful. If you are prepared to value yourself by taking time out and giving yourself treats, the Law of Attraction understands that you have value too. You can’t get happy, healthy or wealthy by over-giving because you are putting out the signal that you are not willing to be nurtured yourself.

· If you have problems not giving, remember that for you to be able to give, someone else has to be able to receive. And other people have the right to be as giving and generous as you are. So the greatest gift you can give a loving person is to receive what they want to give you. That includes receiving from God.

· Take comfort if you are going through a very difficult time and find it very hard not to be upset, hate or be angry. Quantum physicists teach that positive thoughts are 150% stronger than negative ones. This is a Universe based on wellbeing. The sun rises each morning; there is abundance everywhere. That prosperity abounds has to be true otherwise the planet would have imploded by the end of the first season of Eastenders.

· It requires less than ten minutes a day for a person, even one experiencing trauma, to turn their life around through positive thought. You will see first results in less than a week.

· Every positive thought, with joyful emotion, automatically creates another thought if focused on clear concentration for just 17 seconds. The same is true with a negative thought.

· Two full minutes of concentrated positive thought with joyful emotion are as powerful as a full day’s physical work towards that goal.

· One minute’s resentment towards the driver of a 4x4 car does more harm to the planet than that car or its driver is contributing in a full day. If this planet is polluted is it because our negative and polluted thoughts have become things. Adding anger and blame makes it worse not better. BP could only pollute the Gulf of Mexico because we also pollute our minds and bodies with rubbish that destroys healthy cells. As above, so below. As within, so without. If we clear up all the war in us, then the external wars will end too.

· Remember, one more positive and happy person in the world contributes more towards world peace and prosperity than a hundred angry letters to the newspapers.

As Elizabeth Gilbert (author of Eat, Pray, Love, now a movie starring Julia Roberts) wrote:

“All the sorrow and trouble of this world is caused by unhappy people. Not only in the big global Hitler-'n'-Stalin picture, but also on the smallest personal level. Even in my own life, I can see exactly where my episodes of unhappiness have brought suffering or distress or (at the very least) inconvenience to those around me. The search for contentment is, therefore, not merely a self-preserving and self-benefiting act, but also a generous gift to the world. Clearing out all your misery gets you out of the way. You cease being an obstacle, not only to yourself but to anyone else. Only then are you free to serve and enjoy other people."

Click HERE or free prosperity help and advice (including a one-hour FREE MP3 on the Spiritual Laws of Prosperity, and to sign up for Maggy’s free monthly prosperity articles.

Like Attracts Like...

2011-05-27T09:58:00.000-07:00

If you understand the Law of Attraction, ‘like attracts like’ makes sense. For those who believe that opposites attract (as in magnetised fields), it doesn’t.

I think it is true but it can often appear to be untrue. I was a ‘good girl’ when I was young and was always attracted to dangerous men. But the attraction came because, underneath, I secretly wanted to be dangerous myself. I just didn’t have the guts back then.

But I normally make a bit of a face when people say ‘You remind me so much of my friend Sue — I must introduce you; you’ll love Sue,’ because both Sue and I usually don’t like each other that much. Along with that goes ‘You’ve written this book so you must read that book.’

Most of this is projection. If I like it, I think you must like it too because that adds validation to my opinion. Or I’m trying to show you that I’m as smart as you and that if you want me to think you’re smart, then you must read the books or appreciate the people I appreciate.

The ego is very clever like this. In the holistic and spiritual world it uses ‘spiritual speak’ very cleverly to show superiority while appearing terribly learned, positive and enlightened.

But what spirit snobs don’t realise is that if energy fields are too far apart they repulse. There is nothing more annoying than someone who refuses to see any negativity whatsoever in the world when you are grieving the loss of a loved one or animal or you’ve got toothache. Okay, to the spiritually savvy it’s not a bad experience; it just is what it is. But sometimes, if you’re going through it, it surely feels like a negative experience. And having someone come along and tell you how good it all is can be horrible.

Yes, I know — you attracted it (here we go — see what I mean?). But whatever the other person may or not be attracting with their energy does not mean that you have to be the agent for their karma.

I’d go out on a limb and say that to be overly positive when someone is grieving, furious or depressed is actually abusive. And if you are capable of being that unfeeling then perhaps you are not quite as enlightened as you think you are.

Many years ago, my cousin was made redundant from a job he hated. He was all misery and fear. I was all bright and vibrant from having read Louise Hay’s You Can Heal Your Life and I wrote him a letter all about how this was an important new phase for him and a wonderful thing to have happened.

As I walked to the post box with the letter, something flashed into my eyes. I’ve no idea what it was but it was like a camera flash going off in front of me. It disoriented me and left a sharp image in my eyes for some minutes.

Fortunately I stopped to consider what had happened and I realised that I was just about to do exactly the same to my cousin. He wasn’t ready, willing or able to be told that what had happened to him was wonderful. I didn’t send the letter.

In later years I realised that my cousin had been attracting more difficult things to him and that my letter would have been a part of that. He expected people to be arrogant and abuse him and in my arrogant spiritual superiority I was actually walking into his need to be hurt and upset. Thank God for the angel with the flash bulb.

Just this last week I posted a question on my Facebook Prosperity Page. A friend of mine’s dog was dying and she was feeling down. So I asked for people to offer tips for what they did to help them on difficult days. Two people posted that ‘there are no difficult days. Everything is perfect. It’s all good.’

Yes. They’re right on a cosmic level. But was that kind? I don’t think so. It’s great to be positive of course; but it’s a case of ‘where’s the loving kindness?’ It is not kind to try and push someone to an energetic level that they are not ready for. It is not kind to tell people that they just have to think positive when their hearts are breaking; it is not kind to tell them that there are no difficult days when they are obviously having a terrible time. That is an ego trip to feel superior no matter how dressed up in ‘I’m a spiritual person and I can help you,’ it may be.

The Jewish mystical tradition tells us that ‘loving kindness is greater even than truth.’ At times like that, it behoves us to shut up, offer a comforting arm, a cup of tea and to listen. If we can’t hold our own energy level while the other pours their heart out then we need to do more work on ourselves (yes, I’m still working on that too). It’s fair enough to offer some sensible ‘this might help’ advice, some flower remedies or homeopathy but please don’t tell people that what they feel is wrong.

If you were so genuinely enlightened that you had no difficult days whatsoever, then you would be at Buddha level and you would be love incarnate. You wouldn’t even consider imposing your views on someone else because you wouldn’t see any error or fault in them; you’d just see their innate perfection and allow them to be. Just to be.

So please, just think before you spout your spiritual wisdom. We’re all trying to raise our vibrational level but we all have to do it at our own speed.

All lasting and productive spiritual work comes about from steady, continual baby steps. The best way to raise our levels of prosperity and happiness is to spend as much time as we can with those people and those situations that are stronger and brighter than us — but not too strong or bright. Then we can grow easily, steadily and consistently and maintain that progress.

Wishing you a June that is just a beautifully bit better than you think it’s going to be...

The Barracuda

2011-05-26T09:38:00.000-07:00

I’d given up all hope of getting married by the time I met Henry Barley; I was 32 and although I had had a couple of serious long term relationships nothing had finally 'clicked.' We met while I was filming a railway documentary in China of all places, even though we had been born less than a mile from each other and he went to school with my brother.

Henry fell in love with me when he saw me rescuing a hedgehog in a Chinese market. It had been bought for someone’s supper and I bought it back and took it out into the countryside to set it free. I fell in love with him because he noticed; and helped me to do something that the rest of the film crew thought was daft.

We had a paradise wedding in the Seychelles four months later, at the beginning of 1989, and both believed that life would follow the path of happy ever. I didn’t even mind that I lost my job – my expertise was all about China and the events of Tiananmen Square in 1988 had made China a no-go area for journalism. But five months after our wedding, Henry was diagnosed with terminal cancer and he died in my arms one year, 16 days after our wedding.

I ran away to Australia for six weeks while I tried to face up to it. At the time I had no spiritual or holistic knowledge and it was unbelievably tough. It seemed like my whole future had been removed.

My friends Peter Seccombe and Sarah Douglas were on a year’s Sabbatical travelling the world and we arranged for me to fly out to spend two weeks with them and then to go on and stay with an old friend from my TV days who had emigrated to Sydney.

My flight took me into Cairns in the Northern Territory and I arrived two days before Sarah and Pete could get there – in the days before mobile phones and the Internet liaising on an exact date with travellers was a pretty tough call. That first night I went tentatively down to the hotel bar; I was very aware of being not normal; grief had set me somehow about half an inch out of my skin and everything looked and felt wrong wherever I was. I had a constant feeling that if I stepped out in front of a bus and it didn’t stop, I wouldn’t have minded. I certainly wasn’t paying very much attention to life. I didn’t see the point in anything.

It was my birthday the next day so I went out to the Barrier Reef to do some snorkelling. I had been planning to wait until Sarah and Pete arrived but there are only so many circuits you can make of a town when you’re miserable.

The ship that took us out was crowded with Japanese tourists so I could hide quite neatly in the crowd. I did listen to the announcements on where to swim and where not to go.

‘Just avoid the deep water,’ said the announcer. ‘You’re perfectly safe in the shallows and we keep an eye out for you. No one’s ever been hurt in the shallows but you must stay there because there are sharks in the deep water and two divers were killed by an eight-foot barracuda only about six weeks ago. That guy wasn’t within 20 miles of here but it’s best to be sure.’

Into the water we all went and I floundered around for a while, hating it. My mind wasn’t relaxed enough to deal with all the shouting, giggling and photograph-taking all around me. What did I do? Yes, of course I swam round the boat. I had completely forgotten what the announcer said.

The barracuda was right there; lurking. It was enormous, with great black marks like portholes down its side and teeth that made me shiver. It was side on when I first saw it but it flipped in less than a second to face-on and came towards me so fast it was like a blur.

It is true that time slows down in a crisis. I remember the terror – and I also remember thinking very clearly ‘I want to live.’ Until that moment, I hadn’t been sure.

A Voice cut in to my thoughts very clearly ‘Swim forwards and make as much noise as you can. When you get near, hit it on the nose. If it turns, poke its eye with your thumb.'

So I did the complete opposite of what instinct wanted me to do – swim away as fast as possible - and obeyed the Voice without thought. I swam straight at the barracuda, yelling under the water.

It flipped away.

I lay there and watched it; it watched me. Impasse.

The Voice spoke again.

“You can swim backwards,” it said in a kind of resigned tone. I’d never, ever thought of that. I did so, keeping a sharp eye on the barracuda which didn’t move. In less than a minute I hit the side of the ship, hard. Still the barracuda didn’t move.

Being a journalist – and afraid that no one would believe my story – I took a photograph with my underwater camera. The Voice sighed.

‘Get out of the water?’ it suggested.

I turned and swam round the ship as fast as I could. Out of the water, I vomited with fear and shook like
a leaf.

I didn’t tell anyone on the ship; I was too scared of being told off and there was no one else who was about to be as stupid as I had been. But as I sat, wrapped in my towel, shivering, I knew: I wanted to live. Henry’s death was not the end of me and I would survive.

I have the murky, slightly out-of-focus photograph of that barracuda on the desktop of my computer to look at whenever I’m feeling small or scared. It helps.

My path took me where I’d never expected. It turned me into the luckiest woman on the planet. For the last 15 years I've been teaching prosperity consciousness and Kabbalah. As my Life of Miracles has included riding on the back of a Bengal tiger, widowhood, redundancy, making TV documentaries, swimming with dolphins, having my life saved by a brave Chinese security guard, emigrating twice in 11 months, a gloriously happy marriage, having sixteen books published, living a wonderfully healthy and wealthy life and being really rather happy...I've tested all this prosperity work to the full.

I'm also proud of the TV documentaries I made about China, about once being told that I made the best chocolate cake in all of Montana, being a radio presenter for three different radio stations, editing an holistic magazine and the fact that I got my beloved beagle, Didcot, back from America on Passports for Pets before it was possible to do so (and I did it legally).

But most of all, I appreciate the joy of living peacefully, prosperously and happily with Lion, the best, kindest and funniest love of my life, in a lovely house surrounded by trees in the Midlands of England.

If you'd like to know more about me, please visit my website.

To read about my books visit Amazon.

Holy Water and Blessing of Objects

2011-05-16T07:01:00.001-07:00

I'm asked quite often how to cleanse spaces, whether they are at home or the office. So here is my Church's recipe for Holy Water and the blessing we use for spaces. It works — there are many other ways of blessing a space also so you should choose the one that resonates for you. If the Christian symbology doesn't work, then it's not for you and that's fine...

The wording says 'priest' but you are the priest if you are saying the prayers.

The Blessing of Holy Water

Fill a jug with water and place about a tablespoon of salt in a small bowl.

Where there is a + make the sign of the cross with your hand over the salt or the water.

Over the salt say the following:

I cleanse you, creature of salt, by the living God, by the holy É God, by the omnipotent É God, that you may be purified from all evil influences, in the name of the most Holy One, who is lord of angels and humanity, and who fills all the worlds with his majesty and glory. Amen.

I pray to you, O God, in your infinite loving kindness to stretch forth the right hand of your power upon this creature of salt, which I É bless and É hallow in your holy name. May this salt bring health of mind and body to all who are touched by it, and, wherever it is used, may every power of adversity and every illusion or working of evil be driven forth, and abide not; through thy Christ, the lord of the elements. Amen.

Over the water say the following:

I cleanse you, creature of water, by the living É God, by the holy É God, by the omnipotent É God, that you may be purified from all evil influences, in the name of the most Holy One, who is lord of angels and humanity, and who fills all the worlds with his majesty and glory. Amen.

O God, for the helping and protection of humankind, you bless the water set apart for the service of goodness; send forth your light and power upon this element of water which I É bless and É hallow in your holy name. May those who use this water be empowered with all goodness, and may everything sprinkled with it be made holy and pure, and guarded from all assaults of evil, through thy Christ, the lord of the elements. Amen.

Cast the salt three times into the water, in the sign of the cross, saying:

Let salt and water mingle together in the name of the É Father and of the É Son and of the Holy É Spirit. Amen.

Omnipotent creator, whose spirit breathed upon the face of the waters, and whose splendour shines throughout all creation, have regard for this your creature of salt and water, and pour upon it the radiance of your É blessing and hallow É it with the dew of heaven; so that, wherever it is sprinkled and your name is prayerfully invoked, there may your protection be established, and there may your Holy Spirit abide; you who live and reign with son, in the unity of the same Holy Spirit, ever one God throughout the ages of ages. Amen.

Blessing of Objects in General

Over the object –

Priest - In the name of God, I exorcise all influences of evil, and lay upon them the spell of Christ’s holy church, that they may be banished and driven forth from this [here name the object to be blessed], which we are about to dedicate to divine service. In the power of the É Father, and of the É Son, and of the Holy É Spirit. Amen.

The object may now be sprinkled with Holy Water and censed with blessed incense.

THE BLESSING

Priest - Let us pray.

Priest - O God you are the perpetual source of all existence, in the mystery of your boundless love, you continually breathe your divine life into the Universe, we pray you to rest the hand of your power upon this [here name the object to be blessed], which has been purified by various means, and to fill this creature with heavenly É grace and É blessing.

Grant that whosoever shall use [‘see’, or ‘wear’, etc.] this [here name the object to be blessed], may be enlightened in heart and mind, and serve you in all good works; through the risen Christ, our Lord, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God throughout all ages of ages. Amen.

Boundaries, Protection and the Authentic Self.

2011-04-28T09:50:00.000-07:00

The ‘me’ section of Gwyneth Paltrow’s excellent blog, Goop, has a feature on boundaries this month. It poses the question: “Why is it important to have personal boundaries and make sure they are not crossed”

There are some fascinating answers from Gwyneth’s regular contributors (which I’ll leave for you to peruse) including the very valid theory that if you are your authentic Self, you don’t need any boundaries. It struck a chord with me this month as that’s exactly what has been coming up for me.

I have a colleague who is entirely firm (if not a little strident!) about people not needing psychic or spiritual protection if they are balanced. Certainly any stray negative energy would think twice before pussy-footing up to her ... but just how balanced and authentic do you have to be not to get boulversé every now and then? I know I still check for negative energies and cleanse my aura regularly and I need to do so. And I can still be knocked for six by something unexpected. At least I could before my visit to my homeopath today... Muah-ha-ha-haaa

I think that we can be as authentic as humanly possible and still have holes in our aura that even the most loving people will poke (in fact, it’s their job to do so). Having learnt on a long and sometimes challenging road how to be prosperous and then how to be a teacher of prosperity consciousness, I certainly used to need boundaries around the question of money. For years I needed to avoid looking at images that would make me feel unhappy with my own situation. I kept away from events where I might feel less than prosperous and I didn’t dare look at celebrity news in case I felt resentful.

If you look carefully at most of the nay-sayers who have complained about the British royal wedding on 29th April, you can see that it's mostly issues about 'the taxpayer footing the bill for people who think they're important to have fun.' It's all projection around prosperity.

As I grew more abundant, I found that I didn’t need as many of these boundaries. I didn’t necessarily have that much more money than before; I just felt better about my situation. As soon as I stopped feeling such lack of worth in myself, other people’s physical or spoken expressions of wealth did not poke at me in the same way. Now I’ve written a whole novel (The Miracle Man – O Books) about the multi-billion-dollar celebrity world and the place of a Christ-figure within it. I’m quite happy with the concept of people (including me) having oodles and oodles of dosh and doing whatever they like with it.

But once I was over the prosperity issue, the hole-in-the aura just started turning up elsewhere. I created a situation where my professional writing work was criticized as somehow being ‘wrong.’ The critic was someone I loved and admired and that one took a while to heal too.

However, it alerted me to the fact that either holes in the aura can move or that it’s just one hole — the self-worth hole — manifesting in myriad ways to heal us at all levels. And I looked back over my life to previous situations where I’d been knocked flying to see whether that theory held water.

What I found will sound so simple to you but it blew my socks off: I realised that I had set up every single painful situation myself. Sometimes it was done at a deep subconscious level and at other times more obviously. Here are some examples.

I didn’t take any notice when my first husband told me he had had a malignant mole on his head; it never occurred to me that it would ever come back.

I forgot to query the fact that the bibliography section of one of my books wasn’t in the proof copy — I assumed that the publisher didn’t need it proofed.

I never for one moment assumed that the famous married older man who kept asking me out to dinner when I worked in TV actually fancied me; I thought he was just lonely in a new city until the day he made his move and I offended him deeply with my surprise.

I told myself I was being selfish when I didn’t want to turn my beautiful chapel and workshop room into a bedroom for an extra person who needed a place to stay for a couple of nights. I got away very lightly on that one which was a very good sign of recovery. But the error was still pointed out to me with an auric poke — albeit very gently.

What’s more, each of these taught me a valuable lesson once I was over the self-immolation and blame. They taught me that it was time to step up and own up and quit blaming anyone else.

In essence it all comes down to self-worth. If you value you, then others — and the Universe — will reflect that value back to you. And if you have self-worth, you don’t need protection or boundaries. You are inviolable.

There will almost certainly be areas where you value yourself more and areas where you value yourself less. But we can use the negative experiences to plot the ‘value map’ in our respective auras. Take a look — you’ll soon see the patterns.

‘But what about Jesus?’ you may say. ‘Surely he had self-worth, and look what happened to him?’

Yes indeed. But I believe that Jesus chose to walk into the valley of the shadow of death to fulfil his destiny. Great souls can do that. The way to tell if someone has walked with head high and open heart into what appears to be a terrible situation is whether they are at peace with forgiving those who harm them. Jesus definitely chose; he had three opportunities to walk away and each time chose to stay.

‘No one can make you feel inferior without your consent,’ said Eleanor Roosevelt. I don’t think that Jesus felt inferior for one second. And you can only feel inferior when there is a lack of self worth.

Well, what a surprise — money issues are about worth too ... so if your issue is financial, then there’s a hole in your aura trying to tell you something about your worth. Where is it that you do not value yourself? Where is it that you think others are more important than you are? Where are you not following your soul’s deepest desire? It will show itself to you (again and again), never fear. That’s one of the unsung jobs of the angels — to poke us in our wounds until we finally notice that it’s us not them.

Father, forgive them. It’s true that they know not what they do. How can they? They just walked into the hole in your aura.

So whoever or whatever is poking you, whether it’s the Royal Wedding, Simon Cowell, Donald Trump, Barak Obama, Katie Price, talent shows, soap operas, banks, ‘fat cats,’ politicians ... bless them and let them go. It’s not them; it’s you.

The Hawaiian technique ho’oponopono has a big piece of the answer. When you can say ‘I love you, I’m sorry, please forgive me, thank you’ to the person poking at that hole, you are threading the needle for a beautiful and effective darn that will hold your worth together for the rest of your life.

Tithing 101 - or Inspiration, Celebration, Everybody Else...

2011-04-11T02:10:00.000-07:00

Spirit and Destiny featured my take on the Biblical teaching of Tithing this month. Here are more details on how and why this works so well.

Most people think that tithing is a Biblical command to give the first ten per cent of your earnings to charity. However, the system was invented to harness the Law of Attraction. It does address an order of giving when money comes in – but it is emphatic that this is in order to bless you and to bring prosperity back to you.

The word “tithe” means one tenth but in ancient days a tenth did not necessarily mean a tenth of all your income – because most people didn’t have an income! They dealt in trade and, as a general rule, a tenth was one whole thing – as in one whole chicken, one whole sheep, one fig, one cheese. In the modern world, it can mean one whole banknote or one whole coin. There’s no need to fear that you will be asked to give more than you can afford. One penny or one cent is a good first step in tithing. You can build up to the more traditional ten per cent if you want to (but only if you want to).

The order of tithing is simple:

1 Spiritual Tithe (Leviticus 27:30)

2 Celebration Tithe (Deuteronomy 12:6, 17-18; 14:22-27).

3 Charity Tithe, (Deuteronomy 14:28; 26:12) every third year only.

In the modern age, it means give 1/ towards Spiritual Inspiration. 2/ for celebration/gifts for yourself and 3/ to everybody else – including paying the bills.

In this way, you show the Universe your priorities. You want firstly inspiration (ideas and blessings to make your life happier), secondly fun and festivity and thirdly to be prosperous enough to pay your dues and help others.

How most people practise this form of tithing is to have a couple of attractive bags or boxes; one for the inspiration tithe and one for the celebration tithe. They place a little bit of money in the boxes first as soon as it comes in. That money can then be saved up to buy something special or spent immediately – the important thing is that it means you have taken power and are stating to the Universe that you expect a life of prosperity and not debt or fear.

Most people actually think that it's important to put charity or bill-paying first but, if you do that, then the Universe puts other people before you too — and will continue to do so. Focus on bills and you will receive more bills; focus on the world being in need and the world will continue to be in need. If you put inspiration first then you will find very swiftly that there is always money to give to others/pay the bills and to help the world from a place of prosperity and strength, but if you give to others/pay the bills first then there's never enough left for you...

Although the Bible talks about the first ten per cent being given to the Temple priests, this was because they were meant to be the source of inspiration to the populace. The priests did not have time to work for a living or tend flocks as they looked after the people’s religious needs. Nowadays, most priests are paid wages – and they may not be your source of inspiration. This is the key – what inspires you? What takes you closer to your own personal relationship with Divinity? Is it a book you’d like to buy? Is it a workshop you’d like to go to? Is it an inspirational teacher you’d like to hear? That’s where to put your money – and your angels and guides will give you more opportunities to be inspired in return. It may take you a few weeks to save up for what you want but the money is there, in the box or the savings account, telling the Universe clearly what your priorities are.

The celebration tithe was, originally, intended for people to be able to travel to Jerusalem for the great festivals four times a year. Everyone would all travel together as an extended family, or even as a village and, while in Jerusalem they would eat, drink, make merry and arrange marriages.

But the Old Testament is very clear that if you can’t get to Jerusalem you should spend the value of the tithe on a feast (including strong drink!) so it’s a clear message to have fun.

When I was stony broke I turned my life around with this system. At the time I could only afford to put 50p/$1 in each of the pots at a time but that did mean that I felt more abundant than if I didn’t have any hope whatsoever of getting a book to help me, a treat for supper or even a bar of chocolate.

Nowadays, I often use part of my spiritual tithe to buy a great bunch of white lilies for my chapel both because it's dedicated to St. Gabriel (who is patron of white lilies) and because just seeing those lilies inspires me. It’s entirely personal what inspires you. The festival tithe ensures, at the very least, that there is always a bottle of champagne and a pack of smoked salmon in the refrigerator.

Of course it's fine to use your spiritual tithe as a gift for others who inspire you but if you want to be prosperous, you will only be inspired by people who are already prosperous themselves so be sure you distinguish between giving from true inspiration and giving to support or help someone. That’s the third tithe, not the first one.

The tithing system is incredibly powerful. It tells the Universe what is important in your life. And it truly does work with 50p/$1. Of course you can give more if you want and you will want to as your financial prosperity increases.

There is also a fourth tithe in the Old Testament – the Sabbatical tithe. Every seventh year the land was rested and all debts forgiven. The land lay fallow so that it could replenish itself, and the people lived from the grain stock from the previous six years. They could do that because they were using the Law of Attraction to ensure that there would be abundant grain.

The forgiveness of debts is a lovely idea too. No one took on a debt for more than seven years – and although they were expected to make every effort to repay it, if they could not, the amount was forgiven and forgotten as part of the seventh year.

Nowadays, some of the more prosperous countries are forgiving Third World Debt. That can only be a good thing – and it’s evidence that this is primarily a good and abundant world, even if it takes us a little while to get round to the idea.

For those whose money goes directly into the bank, and whose bills go out via direct debit, all you have to do is go consciously into your bank account on the Internet when you know the money has gone in, and move some to new, named accounts. With online banking you can have as many current accounts as you like so if you have one called Inspiration and one called Celebration - or Play - or Delight. If you move money to them as soon as you consciously can, you are still sending a clear intent to the Universe that this is how you want your life to be even if you don't get there before the direct debits. You can either save the money for wonderful things, or spend it immediately; that's up to you.

Tithing works with time and attention as well. I seem to have a small farm to manage in the mornings nowadays so I make sure that I offer up a prayer of appreciation and have a handful of blueberries or some other treat before I feed dogs, cat, chickens, fish and anything else that may have moved in. It’s very simple but it shows the Universe my favoured order of life. I only have to forget and feed the others first and something always comes up to make it harder for me to take care of myself later in the day. Once you start this kind of work the Universe pays close attention and your guides/angels truly believe that you know what you are doing.

In the same way, when I open my computer in the morning and the emails come in, I always read the Abraham-Hicks inspirational note first, then the www.tut.com inspirational note, then any messages from friends and only then any work or financial emails. On some days that is still a challenge but it really makes the rest of the day flow much better.

It works too if I get stalled for any reason during the day or am over-thinking something. Stop; open a book of spiritual guidance (I have three by the desk) and read it and then have a treat — a biscuit, some grapes or a chocolate or perhaps I’ll get up and walk round the garden. Then my mind will have cleared and I can get back to whatever it was that was creating resistance.

Have fun with this. That's important. If it becomes a heavy duty then it will no longer work. The whole idea is that it is to lighten our attitude towards money and life so that the flow of abundance can strengthen to us and through us. And if you find this works, then please teach it on.

HEARTWORK. Using Spiritual Marketing to build your Heart's Desire into a successful business. Six-week webinar series with Maggy Whitehouse

2011-04-07T04:06:00.000-07:00

HEARTWORK. Spiritual Marketing To Build your Heart's Desire Into A Successful Business.

This six-week webinar seminar with Maggy Whitehouse will help you transform your work into a business that can prosper both you and the world. It is both for those who don't want 'a proper job' but who want to bring spiritual gifts to humanity and for those who simply want to find the work that is also the joy of life.

When you follow your heart, you step out of the conventional world-view. What you are offering may be a pearl of great price — but most people shop more for food than they do for jewelry. Therefore, there is an important blend to be made between inner work that expands the soul, draws clients for healing and offers abundance for the heart and outer work that creates products to support cash-flow and everyday prosperity. Getting this meld just right is the secret to a successful holistic business.

Maggy's spiritual marketing and prosperity work is highly recommended by Joe Vitale, author of The Attractor Factor and Zero Limits.

Starting Date: Monday 2nd May 2011 for Six Weeks.

Price: £50. Enquiries: mw@pureprosperity.com

But don't worry if you're late — this webinar will also be available as a series of MP3 downloads.

This six-week course is a magical blend of holistic and conventional business sense and marketing that is simple, practical, spiritual – and fun. What’s more, if you do it, it works. However, it’s important to understand that it won’t necessarily work in the way you expect it to. This brand of marketing gives the Universe permission to prosper you from all different directions as you do the work you were born to do. Yes, there will be direct returns too but understanding just how the Universe’s angels of prosperity will work with and for you is vital.

Maggy trained in conventional marketing with Dr. Roger Holdom, former Head of Marketing for BBC Radio 2 but was never comfortable with the aspect of ‘push, push, push.’ However, she has melded the aspects of conventional marketing which are simple and reliable with her own prosperity work in order to create a programme that is an holistic and effective blend of inner and outer work.

Maggy is the author of 16 books on prosperity, Kabbalah and other aspects of spirituality, including five spiritual novels. She is an international workshop leader, therapist and healer and lives and breathes the spiritual marketing techniques that she would love to share with you now.

Please note that all of these seminars contain visualisation work, therefore this is not a course suitable while driving or operating machinery.

Part One. Monday 2nd May

'The Pearl of Great Price' — following your heart's desire in the workplace.
How spiritual marketing differs from conventional marketing.
Common subconscious resistances that scupper us, how to recognise and overcome them
When is it pushy and when is it thorough?
Before doing it, align with it
Why if it’s not fun, it can’t work. How to make it fun instead of duty
Why the Universe won't do it for you
Spotting the signs of what works and what doesn’t
What is your vision?
Commitment to yourself and to your work

Visualisation: Rooting yourself into the energy source and dissolving the blocks to self-nurturing

Part Two. Monday 9th May

Self-esteem and marketing
Know what you don't want — and what you do
Is this the work you were born to do? How do you know?
Do you know who actually wants what you are offering? Why would they want it? How can you draw them to you?
Your Unique Selling Point. What it is and how to find it
Why the business you start may not be the business you end up with
The Cosmic Chief Executive — sharing power and learning to listen to the divine advice
The Universe as your Personal Assistant
How to charge fairly and well

Visualisation: Mending the vessel and clearing ancestral curses. This visualisation will help with issues where money comes in - but flows out immediately.

Part Three. Monday 16th May

Clearing your space — cleansing your work space and creating a vacuum to draw clients
Setting the example — where is the benefit of what you offer to others in your own life?
Personal and spiritual growth as a daily activity
The Free Lunch — swaps and exchanges
Fair bartering
Learning to receive
Attention-getting devices. Special offers and campaigns.
Multiple streams of income
The power of repetition
The power of prayer

Visualisation: The Tree of Abundance meditation to contact the Cosmic Internet

Part Four. Monday 23rd May

Setting yourself up for the day; taking care of you so that you can nurture others
The power of images
Creating an altar for your business
Tithing — time and money
Adding value. Healing resources that can support you and your work with clients.
Get therapy! Not only does that support your energy, it also creates a circular flow of money
Addressing financial beliefs and issues
What are your goals? Short term, medium term, long term. Do they align?

Visualisation: Who are the clients you want?

Visualisation: How you want your life and work to be next year and further in the future?

Part Five. Monday 30th May

Networking — what works and what doesn’t
The Internet: Social networking online and how to do it with integrity
Leaflets and business cards, the dos and don’ts
Pushing against, complaining and bitching. We all do it sometimes ... but we have to learn to stop
Supporting each other. Letting others point out what they see that may be blocking you
Freebies — when they work and when they don’t
Eliminating toxic giving
Understanding the Law of Allowing
Cosmic correction — letting the Universe hone and improve your services for you

Visualisation: The Inner Temple. Visiting your inner guidance for help in action, contemplation and allowing.

Part Six. Monday 6th June

Establishing yourself as an expert
Setting your vibrational tone
The Internet: websites, blogs, spreading the word
Radio and TV
E-courses and webinars
Tip sheets
CDs and MP3s
Articles and Letters to the Editor
Cosmic Ordering
Becoming visible in your community

Visualisation: Taking on the Wings of the Morning — mind-meld with Sachiel, angel of financial Prosperity, good fortune and kingship.

Dates: Monday 2nd May for Six Weeks. Price: £50. Enquiries: mw@pureprosperity.com.

HOW TO BOOK: Either email Maggy on mw@pureprosperity.com or send her a message on Facebook. You will then be sent a PayPal invoice for £50 and details of how to log on to each webinar.

Thank you. We wish you prosperity, health and joy.

Prosperity Teachers

2011-04-04T05:44:00.000-07:00

If you are looking for a qualified Prosperity Teacher in your area — for a personal session, for a talk or for a workshop, please contact the following people. They are listed alphabetically in order of area.

Birmingham

Denise Cunningham. Email: deecunningham1@btinternet.com

Deborah Lovell.
Deborah is an holistic body worker and NLP coach originally from a corporate background. She currently provides Reflexology and Aromatherapy and life coaching, prosperity mentoring to women and men to experience a more enjoyable life.
After many years involved with emotional release techniques Deborah incorporates tools from the Sedona Method and the Journey to help individuals live a happier life with more abundance & bliss.
She is a trained coach and has studied mentoring, counselling skills and uses over 10 years experience to conduct workshops around the UK and 1 to 1 sessions by phone or face to face.
Email: Deborah@be-holistic.co.uk

Co. Durham
Havovie Bomanji.
Email: bomanji@btopenworld.com
Skype ID: Havovie
Tel: 01388 814777 and 07971 886335.
Havovie is available for both individual or group sessions and will also travel to meet clients as well as talking on Skype. She was a qualified dispensing optician, but after living overseas In Pakistan for a few years embarked on her own international export business which she ran successfully for seven years.  She has considerable insight and empathy for Asian women's issues and is currently writing a series of Angel books for children. Havovie also leads workshops in Dubai and Pakistan.

Essex

Lesley Kempster
Email: lesleykempster24@btinternet.com
Tel: 01371 850645.
Lesley is primarily a Child Behaviour Counsellor with extensive experience in counselling both children and parents. She is available for individual and group sessions.
1 Stores Cottages, Shalford Braintree CM7 5HH.

South London (Croydon)
Winniefred Carneiro MA.
Tel: 07952 753 916 (m). 0208 656 7869 (home). Email: angels.renaissance@hotmail.com.
Winniefred is a Psychotherapist, Metaphysical Counsellor, Healer and Complementary Therapist working in an eclectic and intuitive manner in private practice since 1997. She is a licenced workshop facilitator who works with individuals and groups putting into practice many different philosophies. She is available to see clients in Croydon and London and will travel by arrangement to outside areas.

South London (Epsom)

Eleana Needham: eleananeedham@hotmail.com

Warwickshire

Brendan Johnson: thenicepeople@outsidetheasylum.eu.
Call 07779 247175, or 01926 854585 or Skype Brendan_m_johnson.

Brendan is a coach, counsellor, and Interfaith Minister who is happy to work with clients face to face within a reasonable distance of his base in Kenilworth, or by phone or Skype anywhere. He is passionate about helping people to fully realise their potential.

Becky Jones: beckie.jones@yahoo.co.uk

Tel: 01926 854585; Skype: becky_jones_
Location: Kenilworth, Warwickshire
One-to-one phone or Skype counselling by appointment, quarterly workshops from Autumn 2011 and subject to sufficient demand, an ongoing support / networking group. May travel to clients by agreement.

Becky has been enquiring into the spiritual aspect of Prosperity for some 3 years since she first met Maggy and was inspired by its obvious potential for working at the roots of our relationship with the Divine. Since then, she's been training as an Interfaith Minister and Spiritual Counsellor, ordained in July 2011.

West Midlands (Stourbridge)

Sue MacLusky.

Sue is a certified ‘Laughter Yoga’ teacher, advanced Massage/Bodywork trainer and Holistic Therapist and a freelance writer. Tel: 07810 578 075. Email: suemaclusky@gmail.com

West Midlands (Walsall)

Ronnie Ryder

Ronnie is an experienced Tutor who has taught adults for many years. She majored in Psychology and is pracices in Reflexology, Aromatherapy, Indian Head Massage and Swedish Body Massage.

Ronnie specialises in helping people with prosperity wheels/dream boards and is happy to do both individual and group sessions. She lives on the border of North Birmingham and South Walsall.

Tel: 01922 615847. Email: ronnieryder@hotmail.co.uk

Worcestershire.

Barbara Palmer.

Email: barbarapalmer@waitrose.com

Value for Money; Value for Life.

2011-04-04T05:19:00.000-07:00

Let’s start by defining “Value” (OED): Value: c.1300, from Old French value "worth, value" (13c.), noun use of fem. pp. of valoir "be worth," from Latin valere "be strong, be well, be of value."

Now let’s take a look at a couple of quotations:

"Is devotion to others a cover-up for the hungers and needs of the self, of which one is ashamed? I was always ashamed to take. So I gave. It was not a virtue. It was a disguise" — Anaïs Nin.

“There are many insidious ways that we betray ourselves. Self-sacrifice is one of the most popular ones for women because it’s condoned by society. ‘What a good woman you are, offering yourself up on the altar of self-abuse.’” Sarah ban Breathnach.

When are we offering “good value?”

When we are strong and well, that’s when.

How do we stay strong and well? By valuing ourselves.

This last month I spent more than four hours on the phone listening to people with problems who wanted free help and advice for situations that had been building to crescendo in their lives for months and perhaps even years. They had reached the end of the rope and were in dire need and picked up the telephone to ask for me.

And I listened and gave advice. For free. Even though I have deliberately put enough information on my Pure Prosperity website to help anyone start turning their life around including a one-hour free webinar. Even though I have trained prosperity teachers to run groups and help others. There are four years of articles here on my blog, not to mention You Tube videos and a free Facebook Fan Page for prosperity issues.

Did I offer them value? Heck yes. In doing so, did I value myself? No. Even after all these years, I fell down the trap of self-sacrifice. Darn!

February and March have been busy months with weekend workshops, webinars and up to four nights a week teaching as well. That was fine; in fact it was great fun. It would have remained fine without that all-too-frequently missed series of last straws. So now I’m sitting on the sofa, wrapped up in a blanket with a cough and a cold simply because I didn’t know when or how to say “no.” Completely and utterly my responsibility.

In a small way, by listening to their woes and allowing them to dump their negative energy, I was doing exactly what they had done to create their own situations — going one step too far (and then another) before stopping and taking care of myself. And it’s the series of small things that creates the big things...

“So why are you writing your prosperity article now?” You say (quite rightly). “Why are you doing something else for free?”

Good point.

Firstly, I’m doing it because I love writing. I love writing. If I were shipwrecked on a desert island, I’d write a novel in the sand and carve another in the rocks. This is my passion so it’s one way I value myself. When I’m writing, I don’t answer the phone at all.

Secondly, I’m doing it to take a stand. And I’d love you to consider taking the same stand too. I’m doing it to say to me (and to the world), “Enough is enough!”

There is enough free advice out there for anyone (just look at the Abraham YouTube videos; just look at Byron Katie’s Work; just look at my work). If you want any further advice, then book an appointment with a therapist and pay. That way you know that the person you book with values his or herself — and they know that you value yourself enough to commit do doing something for yourself. And if you don’t have the money, start learning the commitment to yourself by starting the search online and actually doing some of it instead of asking another to do it for you.

It’s called discernment; self-discipline; self-respect. For you. And for them.

Is it called ‘selfish’? Probably yes, by some. But anyone who accuses you of selfishness will be the one who needs to learn this art for his or her self too. If anyone tells you that you are selfish, tell them “No, I am valiant.” (defined as "stalwart, brave," originally "be strong," from Latin valere "be strong, be well, be worth, have power, be able,"

You are worthy; you are strong; you are well; you have worth.

Value it.

Value for money.

Value for Life.