Free Readings – Myths and Reality

Part 1

Joke: “A lady walks on the streets and sees her GP walking towards her. She immediately figures out that this is the perfect opportunity to obtain a consultation, without having to pay anything. So she meets the doctor, greets him cheerfully and after doing a small talk for about a minute, asks him with her most charming smile on her face: “By the way doctor, I have recently such a terrible stomach pain at times, it cuts out right here. Since we are already talking, would you be able to prescribe me quickly something that would help me?” The doctor immediately understands where this is leading to and while smiling very politely, kindly answers: “Of course, Madam. Would you like to take off your clothes first, so I can examine you quickly?”

As you are probably aware we are living now in the Age of Aquarius. Those of you that are familiar with this concept know that approximately every two thousand years or so, the conditions on Earth change dramatically in order to reflect the new energies that will govern the Earth for the next great period (More information on this topic you can read in my article “The Age Of Aquarius”,). Such transitions are sometimes very stressful for people and can lead to all sorts of problems until the adjustment is finalized and people begin to fully live according to the increased energies of the new times. And indeed, many ordinary people, who do not even consider themselves to be clairvoyants, can testify that their life and their perceptions have altered to a great extent in the last few years.

First of all the speed of time has accelerated considerably. It happened more or less subtly over the last decade, but it is a fact. Although we think that we still have 24 hours in a day, in fact we don’t! An increasing number of people find the task of managing their time properly extremely challenging, simply because the rate with which the time flows today is much faster compared to what it used to be a few years, and especially a few decades ago. This is most apparent in the lack of time we have for reflection, stillness of the mind and meditation. How many people can say that they have enough time to switch off totally from the outside world on a regular basis and that they can dedicate a few hours to simply ruminate on the experiences that they had? And yet, such rumination is absolutely vital, since without reflecting on the past we cannot properly plan our direction for the future. The reality in which we live today can only be properly understood if it is put into perspective. In other words, in order to glimpse properly ahead to the line of time that we call “future” we have to compare the point of time, which we call “today” with the long line of experiences that we call “past”.

When such reflection and meditation is properly conducted, we can understand the substantial differences between our time and the time that was operative only about 20-30 ago, not to mention the periods of time that go back thousands of years. This is necessary in order to determine properly where we are now, i.e. where we are coming from and where we are going to, from an eagle’s (and not from an ant’s) perspective. When we take this stake, it becomes apparent that the changes occurring with us in our time have a lot to do with the enforcement on all levels (spiritual, mental and physical) of the new energies of the Age of Aquarius. The times have changed and everybody can feel it, and yet a lot of people just love clinging back to their old concepts and theories that have clearly outlived their purpose with time. One such concept is the idea, which many people formed a long time ago that any spiritual services should be given to other people for free.

The idea about the free readings and the free spiritual services stems from the wide-spread conception about spiritual workers, in which one is inclined to imagine them as representatives of enlightenment, love, unconditional compassion and self-sacrifice. We tend to believe that if those people are really spiritual, then they are supposed to be encompassing all the qualities described above and therefore they should be willing to give us their advice, services and help without expecting anything back in return, i.e. for free. Another argument in favour of the free readings is that the clairvoyant, clairsentient or clairaudient abilities that these people possess are in fact a gift from God and as such they should not be used to make a personal profit. Such gifts, one may think, should be used for the common good of all people, thus any person who possesses such gifts should not charge for them, but should offer his or her services for free. The people who support the notion of free readings may also argue that there are many poor people out there that need spiritual services, but simply cannot afford them. It sounds logical that requiring a payment for spiritual services is effectively depriving those poor people from the chance to have some form of connection to the spiritual world. And finally, there is the argument that involving payment and money into spirituality is essentially evil, as we know that most tragic and evil acts on this earth are carried out for money.

All the arguments above, supporting the idea of free spiritual services sound convincing and solid at first sight, however the main question arises: “Is there such a thing as free lunch?”. In order to answer it properly we have to put the things into perspective and we only can do this if we see the direction in which the human evolution is heading with time, starting with the past and moving into the future. We have to examine what are the basic differences between the spiritual workers that operate in our times and the spiritual workers that operated in ancient times. When we read the New Testament in those parts that describe how Jesus walked around Judea followed by his disciples and performed his healings and miracles we cannot find any passage, which will suggest that Jesus actually charged the people that he healed for his services. So, it is logical to assume that this was done without the exchange of money, although people provided him with shelter, food etc. So, why can this not be done nowadays? The reason is that the times have changed. Jesus lived in the Age of Pisces. The Age of Pisces is ruled by the mystical, cloudy and spiritual planet Neptune. Neptune rules religion, self-sacrifice and attainment to higher worlds through imagination. Thus, the whole period of time, marked with the birth of Jesus until present days was discernible by a world dominance of religion in all aspects of people’s lives. The keyword for people’s development during this period of time was faith and that was the driving force behind all major world events.

With the beginning of the Age of Aquarius, which started approximately several decades ago, the planetary ruler of the Earth became Uranus, which emanates completely different energy from his brother Neptune. Uranus is original, inventive and technically-oriented. He does not operate on the principle of imagination, but logic, intellect and rationalism. While Neptune says: “I believe”, Uranus says: “I want proof”, while Neptune says: “I will self-sacrifice for high ideals”, Uranus says: “I will implement the high ideals into technical tools”, while Neptune says: “I sense and feel”, Uranus says: “I think and reason”. So you see how totally different are these two planetary forces and so all conditions on Earth have been gradually changing in the past few decades in order to reflect this huge shift of the cosmic consciousness of our planet. With the rise of logic, intellectuality, technical inventions and the like, the primary driving force behind all major world events changed and so the faith was gradually replaced by the driving force of money.

We can observe this in any aspect of our lives. Every single product that we buy and every single service that we use, operate as a business in the new Age of Aquarius. Every single man or woman living on this planet needs a shelter where to live. They can either pay a mortgage to the bank or they can rent. In either case they deal with businesses. The lucky few that own their property still have to pay rates each year to the shire. The shire is again a modified, government form of a business. In contrast, people in ancient times did not necessarily have to do that. Today we cannot imagine a house without electricity, running water, garbage collection and so on. For all these services we have to pay separately to a number of government or private businesses.

In a spiritual form we do not need to eat in order to sustain ourselves, but when we are incarnated into a physical body this is an absolute necessity. Since we need food on a daily basis we need to pay to the businesses that provide us with food – supermarkets, restaurants, cafeterias and the like. We also need clothes; hence we pay to a number of other businesses in order to obtain those. We need to make a phone call – we pay the telephone company, we need to drive the car – we pay for petrol, we need a cup of coffee – we pay the coffee shop etc. The list goes on and on. It becomes quite obvious that our lives to a great extent revolve around spending money and connected with it is the necessity to make money.

If we compare our lifestyle today with the way people used to live in ancient times, we will see a huge difference. Although money did exist as a form of payment even back then, in the Age of Pisces money was not the primary diving force behind human’s behaviour. Back then a lot of people lived in closed societies, where they produced most of the services and products they needed for their survival. For example, people used to work on the fields growing crop or they had farms with animals. Because they lived in big families the combined efforts of all the members of the family were enough in order to produce the bread, the milk, the eggs and the meat necessary to sustain all the members of the family; they rarely needed to buy any other products from outside of their enmeshed mini-society. And even when this was absolutely necessary, they rarely paid for it with money, but rather using a direct barter – for example they exchanged one hen for a new shirt, or they exchanged two goats for a farm cart and so on. It is essential to understand this concept properly, because it is of paramount importance. The lives of the people in the Age of Pisces were not ruled by money as it is today, but by faith and religion. The souls of the people living at those times were strongly directed towards the spiritual and they rarely had time to notice the miserable (by our standards today) material conditions in which they lived

However, in the Age of Aquarius almost every single aspect of our lives is ruled by money and denying this fact would be imprudent and foolish. If we state today that we can simply ignore the power of money and that we can disregard it and rise above the powerful force that it exercises on us in every single aspect of our lives, then we are simply fooling ourselves and we are not in touch with reality. Anyone who believes that he or she is so spiritual, and/or so enlightened that money has no effect whatsoever on their lives and that they can simply disregard this area of their lives altogether, acts like an emu, which hides its head in the sand. Only few very wealthy people can say that they have overcome to a certain extent the sheer necessity to make money or to be cautious about how they spend their money. Even then they have to know how to invest and manage their money properly in order to keep the cash flow coming, which is a prerequisite of their sustenance.

While it is clear that the power of money has become the primary driving force in the life of people in the new Age of Aquarius it is still possible to use this force positively. So instead of hiding away from the problem, or not acknowledging the problem altogether and/or living in denial, we have to do exactly the opposite – we have to study the problem, gain more understanding about it and resolve it with the power of our intelligence. In the beginning of this article we stated several arguments that are used by the supporters of free readings and free spiritual services. The first of them was that if somebody is really spiritual, they should be an embodiment of enlightenment, pure love and compassion and therefore we can expect them to do things for us for free. This probably could hold true back in the Age of Pisces, but it is a totally outlived concept today. Even if we imagine that the most enlightened spiritual being lives on the Earth today, incarnated into a human body, the very nature of the physical reality on the Earth will force him to pay bills in order to sustain his physical body, unless of course we imagine that he lives somewhere isolated in the forest, wearing a fig leaf and eating fruits from the trees!

Thus, the very idea of practising whatever type of service for free, (including the spiritual services) into the epoch in which we live today is obtuse. The reality of living into a physical body demands that we pay our bills on every step of our existence in order to simply be able to exist. Thus, even the most enlightened spiritual being living on Earth in a physical body will need to pay for his or her accommodation, electricity bills, food, clothes etc. At the times of the ministry of Jesus, people provided him with shelter, shared their table with him and so on, which is again a form of payment. Today this is done by the exchange of money – cash, checks, credit cards, EFTPOS and the like.

So if we assume that some extremely enlightened, spiritual being is incarnated into a physical body today and lives among us, then we have to acknowledge the fact that he still has to pay his bills. As a highly evolved being he will be able to perform excellent work by healing people, work as a medium, astrologer, clairvoyant or giving people directions in life. However, if you do not pay him for his services and expect him to do this spiritual work for free, then he has to find himself a job in order to sustain himself (possibly as a waiter or a dishwasher). Then when he comes back home tired at the end of the day from a full day’s work, he won’t be able to give you your free reading, which you so much desired in the first place, because he has to rest and prepare for another long day at work tomorrow. Or, if you want him to do what he does best (i.e. giving readings, consultations and helping people) then you have to pay him for his services in order to support him!

In other words, spiritual services have to be regarded and treated just the same as any other services and businesses. Any business depends on its customers and can only survive when enough people pay for its services, and so spiritual services operate exactly on the same principle. If you need them, you have to support them. Otherwise they will die!

More about the rising need of spiritual services in the New Age of Aquarius and how to discern which of them are positive and which are negative you can read in part 2 of this article.

Part 2

In part 1 of this article we outlined some of the major arguments, raised by the supporters of the so called “free readings” and then we took a brief journey in the history in order to see clearly the differences between the present Age of Aquarius and the completely different social and economic situation in the previous Great Ages. On the basis of this comparison we concluded that in our present Age almost every human activity operates as a business and in this sense its survival greatly depends on its cash flow. Spiritual services essentially make no difference between any other human activities and service providers and as such should also be regarded, operated and run fundamentally as businesses. It is a well known fact that every business depends on the support of its customers and can survive only if enough customers are paying for its services. Therefore we concluded that since in the new Age of Aquarius the need to obtain spiritual services among people will become more and more evident, they have to support those very spiritual services, just the same as they support any other businesses in order to keep them operating, thriving and blooming.

Sometimes, however, we hear the argument that there are many poor people out there that need spiritual services, but simply cannot afford them. It seems logical that in this case we should provide these poor people with free spiritual readings in order to “help” them. However, the truth is that no one can help another if the person for whom this help is intended doesn’t want it. And indeed, very often it is the case that the people on the low income simply do not want spiritual help for various reasons. Partially the reason for it is that these people do not fully understand what spiritual services are all about or simply they are not ready yet to receive this kind of help. In either case the issues should not be forced.

I would like to take the liberty to illustrate this concept with an example of my practice. About a year ago following my successful presentation about astrology in the Psychic Development Association of Australia, I was invited to conduct a similar seminar in front of Homeswest residents, who live compactly in high density blocks of flats. As we all know, Homeswest tenants are considered low income earners and for this reason I decided to make the entry fee just $2, which amount was barely enough to cover my costs for printing out brochures, producing slides, renting an overhead projector and so on. Nearly 600 brochures were printed and distributed among the residents of this place, but on the day of the event nobody actually turned up. One of the organizers of the event, who was also the president of the resident’s committee, was totally bewildered by this 0 % attendance. He could not understand why everybody was constantly complaining that nothing ever happens in this place, but once they were given the opportunity to come for an interesting event as this one, nobody turned up. Later on he was told by some of the tenants that they did not come because $2 was too high a price to pay for an entry ticket.

This example clearly demonstrates that it is not the actual dollar value that we associate with certain spiritual services that matter, but it is a question of priorities and how we arrange them in our heads (consciously or subconsciously) in order of importance. For instance, most of the low income Homeswest tenants were smokers and considered $7 – $8 as a normal price to pay for a packet of cigarettes, but at the same time they were convinced that $2 is too high a price to pay for an astrology seminar. The same thinking pattern applies to the bottle of spirit and all the other “small pleasures of life” that they were addicted to. When people are certain that they do not need spiritual services, then any price seem high.

On the other side, a few months later I organized another astrology seminar, this time in Sheraton Hotel, which is one of the most upmarket venues in Perth. The seminar was presented on a very professional level, including audio and video slides, computer graphics, demonstrating the movements of the planets and digital data projector on a big screen. The price for the entry tickets was not $2, but $45 and nevertheless I had a full room of participants, who turned up promptly for the event.

From these examples we can conclude that when people are consciously or subconsciously convinced that spiritual services are at the bottom of their priority list that any price seems high, but when they have spiritual services at the top of their priority list then any price seem low. It follows that it is not the spiritual workers who should provide their services for free to the public (because this is a fiction and cannot be provided professionally in real life), but the public should get their priorities right and position their spiritual needs on the top of their priorities list . And we can see that this trend becomes more and more obvious in recent times.

For example, let’s leave for a minute the very low income earners and turn our attention to the middle class Australians. A lot of these people indulge themselves in a ritual, which is called “going out on a weekend”. Normally middle class Australians go out at least once a week with their boyfriend, girlfriend, husband, wife, family, friends or whatever the case may be. A lot of these people have established the need for themselves to go out, because this is their way to unwind, relax, have a few drinks, enjoy a nice conversation and simply have a good time. Normally, people go out to have dinner in one place or another. It is a common knowledge that spending anything between $40 and $60 per person in a restaurant is quite acceptable. Nobody believes and expects to receive any lunch or dinner for free, right?

Everybody understands that in order to enjoy a nice meal in the restaurant, the owner has to make substantial expenses before our dinner is put on the table. He has to pay rent for the place, has to purchase tables and chairs, has to equip the kitchen etc. He also has to prepare the menus, has to hire a chef and waiters, has to buy products from the market, has to cook them, serve them, wash the dishes and at the end he has to declare all his income and pay tax on it. Thus, we understand that from the $60 we pay for our meal, probably as much as $50 goes towards the expenses, while only $10 remains as profit. While most people understand this concept quite well, they still have difficulties when it comes to spiritual services, although the principle is in actual fact the same.

In order that let’s say a natal astrological chart is produced, the astrologer first has to acquire the skills to interpret the chart correctly. We are talking about many years of preparation, during which time thousands of hours and thousands of dollars are spend for education, study, practice etc. Then, similarly to the owner of the restaurant the astrologer has to pay rent for the office, equip the place suitably, purchase computers, printers, professional astrology software, consumables, and so on. Then in order to promote the business and to advertise new services or seminars, thousands of dollars has to be spent on adverts in magazines, newspapers, radio and so on. The list is endless. At the end, tax is deducted from any profit that is made, which effectively leaves the profit margin not too far away from what we calculated for the owner of the restaurant.

The difference, however, is that while most people have established for themselves the need to attend restaurants every week or so, they still do believe that it is not really necessary for them to read their astrology chart or use any other spiritual services. And while this may hold true for some people, in fact nothing can be further away from the truth for the large majority of people. The point is that the new Age of Aquarius simply demands from us to become more spiritual. This call of the times is absolutely evident in every area of our lives. It is necessary to look just 20 years back in time to see what people’s attitude towards astrology and all the other spiritual services was back then and what it is today, to be convinced that there is a huge difference. And this is just the beginning of a process, which will gain momentum much more in the very near future. If people 20 years ago had to hide from the public eye before consulting an astrologer, today they consult him openly on a more or less infrequent basis, when they strongly feel the necessity to do so, but in the near future they will consult their personal horoscopes on a monthly, weekly or even daily basis in order to plan their time scientifically and to reduce the wasted “swimming against the tide” energy to zero. People will learn how to ride on the top of the planetary tides in order to obtain the best results in their lives, according to their major life goals, which are clearly outlined in their personal, natal charts. People will not get married, have children, purchase houses, move locations and so on before scientifically consulting the stars about the feasibility of such moves.

Once again, this does not mean that astrology and the other spiritual sciences are going to deny the people their free will, but it will provide people with the tools to make informative and wise decisions about their future. It will tell them where they can expect to end up if they make one choice or another. It will tell them what their strongest points are and what their weak spots are, so that they can work on them and improve. It will inform them about what is the best time to take action and when is the time to simply cool off, ruminate about the past and sensibly plan the future.

The number of people that are convinced today that they really need astrology and the other spiritual sciences as a valuable tool in order to live successfully their lives is growing rapidly. In due course people simply will know that they need this knowledge and simply can’t do without it. The very few who decide to remain ignorant about the powerful planetary forces that shape their lives will realize very soon that they simply cannot afford to remain unaware about these forces because this will cost them too much wasted effort and energy. Sometimes such unawareness will lead them to wasting their whole life, which is too high a price to pay in order to remain blissfully ignorant.

Astrology and the other spiritual sciences can easily reveal to people what are their major life goals and tasks. Some people who have their list of priorities reversed spend thousands of dollars for restaurants and going out for example (as mentioned above). At the same time these people consider just a small fraction of the money they spend for transient pleasures too high a price to pay let’s say for an astrology report. If they could only understand the real value of the priceless information that such report contains about what their real life purpose is, for example, they would quickly change their minds. But if they decide to remain stuck to having their “pleasures” at the top of their priority list, the result is often a waisted life. What these individuals do not know is that once they have missed the chance to fulfil their real life purpose they have to start everything all over again in their next life, this time, however, at much more miserable circumstances. The waste of time is one of the “spiritual crimes” which is karmically punished most severely.

In the future most people will be aware of these spiritual truths and will employ astrology to navigate through their lives wisely and intelligently just like the navigator of the ship is using the compass and the other apparatus on board in order to arrive at his destination. And whoever states that astrology is denying the people free will and choice in life is in the position of a fool who states that it is the compass that is ruling the direction of the ship and not the navigator that is using it!

In this article we established that in our present Age of Aquarius the need of employing astrology and other spiritual services is becoming vital, while in the near future it will simply become an integral part of everyday life. In the final third part of this article we will learn how to delineate between the real spiritual workers and the false prophets that are already flooding the spiritual market.

Part

In part 1 and 2 of this article we outlined some of the major arguments, raised by the supporters of the so called “free readings”. After that we took a journey through history in order to see clearly the differences between the present Age of Aquarius and the completely different social and economic situation in the previous Great Ages and we made the following observations:

The new Age of Aquarius simply demands from us to become more and more spiritually aware. On the basis of this, spiritual services cannot any longer be regarded as a luxury or something what we can or cannot afford every now and then. They become simply an integral part of our everyday life and it is more and more evident that they are a need, just as any other need we have on the material plane. As we need clothes, food, house etc. in order to sustain our physical bodies, so in the Age of Aquarius we need spiritual services in order to sustain our soul and spirit.
It is not the actual dollar figure which we put on the spiritual services that matters, but it is the acknowledging of our needs and putting them in the correct order of priorities. For example, a person who has his priorities reversed will regard $60 for a spiritual reading a high price to pay, but may think for instance that shoes for $200 is a low price to pay. For a strongly materialistic person any price for spiritual services will seem high and for a spiritual person any price will seem low.
In contrast to the previous Great Ages, in the Age of Aquarius everything is revolving around money, including spiritual services. Thus, if we need them (and it is evident that we really do) we have to support them. Every successful business depends on its customers and thus we have to vote with our dollars in order to sustain the good and positive spiritual workers.
Let us elaborate a little on the last sentence and try to understand what it exactly means. We already mentioned that today everything is controlled by the power of money and we simply cannot disregard this powerful force. Whoever states that he is so spiritual that he can rise above the pressing need to sustain and support the physical body is simply not facing reality. Thus, instead of trying to hide away from reality and deny the overwhelming power of money that rules most aspects of our everyday lives, it is much better to study how the market operates and what it requires us to do in order to abide by its laws on one side and at the same time remain spiritual on the other.

The problem is that reconciling these two energies is sometimes extremely difficult. It is like reconciling the black and white or the day and night. And yet, it is possible to do precisely that. By mixing the black and white we can obtain a new colour – i.e. the gray with all its different shades, and by combining the day and night we can witness beautiful dawns or sunsets with their splendour of stunning colours. We are living in an epoch where we have no other choice any more, but to do exactly that – reconciling the opposites.

The market operates on the principle of satisfying people’s needs. When a need for something arises, almost immediately a new business will appear which will promote a satisfaction of this need. When enough number of people purchases the product supplied by the business, it becomes profitable and thrives. If there are not enough people to support the business, it is either forced to raise its prices or it eventually dies out. Unfortunately, any big mechanism that takes into account only the dollar figure and the profit, without taking into account the moral side of the social life is destined to bring to humanity great disasters. The reason for this is that people are often driven at large by their dark side and order services that are disastrous as for themselves as individuals, but also for the environment and to the humanity as a whole. From a marketing point of view, however, only the dollar figures are taken into account and thus often the most insidious businesses are regarded as good.

There are many examples for that – cutting of rain forests, polluting the air, water and soil, inhumane killing of animals and so on just to mention a few. All this happens because the big businesses involved in such practices are not concerned by the moral implications of their actions, but are driven only by the profit figures. If we happen to have a society, where there would be strict moral codes behind every action, this wouldn’t be the case and we can see that many years ago people managed to live under such norms. The power of money back then was not so strong to override the moral and spiritual principles that ruled people’s lives. However, today since money is almost totally ruling all spheres of human relationships and the whole social life, this is something very difficult to do. So what can we do as individuals to counteract this?

One way of improving the current situation is by voting with our dollars for businesses that are beneficial, useful and do not harm the environment. We may not be able as individuals to change the current social-economic structure, but we can start supporting only the businesses that are beneficial and we may choose not to support businesses that are damaging. For example, we can go and buy a cheap body lotion or face cream from Coles or Woolworths that is full of chemicals and animal products, or we can spend a little bit more money in order to obtain a product from a healthy shop, which contains only natural products. By doing this we will support the right business for the right cause. When eventually enough number of people recognises this fact, the companies producing the cheap, but harmful and unhealthy products will shrink their profits to a level, where they will simply cease to exist, while the company producing healthy and natural products will thrive and increase its production.

This tactic applies to absolutely every area of our lives. We have to start thinking very carefully where we spend our money and for what cause. Buying the cheapest stuff on the shelf does not mean that you will be actually better off. By doing this, very often we are perpetuating bad production practices and are ultimately putting our health at risk. Think about every purchase you make as an investment in your future and well-being. Do we need to buy cheap tomatoes, which are pumped up with pesticides and chemicals (in order to grow fast and look good), or can we better invest in our health by buying organic ones? Do we need a cheap meal in a fast food outlet, which contributes to the appalling state in which millions of animals are kept and slaughtered, or we can spend few extra dollars for a healthy lunch? Do we need to take this extra trip with the car, which will take its little toll on the global pollution, or can we better walk, take the bus or maybe cycle? These are the questions which every single person on this planet should ask him- or herself before reaching for the wallet and make the next purchase. This is especially true for people who call themselves spiritual and who purchase and read magazines for spiritual enlightenment such as “Universal Mind”.

The same approach of careful selection should be adopted, when selecting what spiritual services we are ready to pay for. It is a well known fact that the spiritual market is flooded with all sorts of people, some of whom are really spiritual, some of whom are even not remotely so. This area of the market is still highly unregulated and thus almost anyone who wants to portray himself as a new prophet, or Messiah, or anything of this kind is free to do so. All that is needed is some good imagination, pleasant personality and good marketing techniques. Those who possess these qualities can develop and push to the rapidly developing spiritual market almost any “spiritual” product imaginable. In recent times we are witnessing that there is such a variety of spiritual services and some of them are marketed with such an amazing turn of phrase that one becomes really suspicious about what these people are actually doing on a spiritual level. Are they actually doing anything or are they simply finding nice, catching phrases that sell?

Just listing briefly through NOVA magazine (I picked this one at random, but the same applies for many others) we can see people advertising services ranging from TFT, EFT, PLT, Energetic Science, henna art, shadurshan kriya, Luxor Light, Aura Sprays and so on, just to mention a few. More fancy names of spiritual services are also emerging every day. Maybe some of them are quite legitimate, but how can we see the difference? As a general guide, services that need to be described in such an elaborative and impressive manner imply that they need some sort of boosting for the real lack of meaning behind the words or they simply want to increase their sales on the expense of the fancy name.

The beautiful words do not always describe something of real value. Sometimes, this is simply another marketing technique. The person who wishes to obtain quality spiritual services should learn how to distinguish between what sounds nice and beautiful and what is of a real value. As an example I was quite puzzled one day when I visited one of Perth’s famous restaurants and read their menu. One of the items was listed as “Cappuccino of forest mushrooms concoction”. I called the waiter and asked him to forgive me for my ignorance, but to explain what exactly this item on the menu was. The waiter was pretty straightforward to me and said that this was basically a mushroom soup, but it was described in the menu in this fancy way because it assumed that people’s interests would be ignited and this would boost the sales. Needless to say the fancy name of this otherwise quite simple product was coupled with a double price as well!

It is very important that the reader learns how to select the spiritual services that are of real value and how to avoid those that are intended for high profit without much actual result (or even worse – which are outright harmful). As we said earlier, it is very important that we give a good thought each time before we reach to our wallets in order to support the right services and eliminate the mumbo jumbo. As a secretary of the Psychic Development Association I frequently receive phone calls from people who want to know precisely this – the phone numbers of spiritual workers who are worthy and genuine, because of the many bad experiences that they had before. I know no other better source of wisdom than the Bible when it comes to difficult questions like this. Let us see what it says in this regard:

Be wary of the false prophets who come to you in the guise of sheep while at heart they are voracious wolves. You will know them by the deeds they do. Do people gather grapes from thorns, or figs from thistles? So every healthy tree bears good fruit, but a rotten tree bears defective fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can bad tree bear good fruit. Every tree that fails to bear good fruit is felled and thrown into the fire. Similarly you will know people by the deeds they do. Not every one who says to Me, “Lord, Lord!” will enter into the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. Many will say to Me on that Day, “Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name and in Your name cast out demons and in Your name do many wonderful works?” Then I will frankly say to them, “I never knew you. Get away from Me, you evil workers.” (Mathew, 15-23).

The Bible once again is giving us the exact answer to the pending questions that we have today in our lives. Not only that, but it gives us also a practical advice on how to distinguish between the good spiritual workers from the malevolent ones. It tells us that we can recognise them by their deeds or the fruits they bear. To translate this into a modern language we have to look at the results that the spiritual workers produce in the souls of people in which they come into contact. Because their work is spiritual, the fruits that the Bible is talking about are also of a spiritual nature. These are the actual changes that happen in the souls of the clients, which obtained one spiritual service or another. If a spiritual worker is simply driven by making a profit he cannot bear a good fruit (he cannot produce favourable changes in the souls of his clients), because inevitably he will have to make so many compromises in his work that he will end up doing evil. Conversely, the one who is assisting in promoting the will of the Father in Heaven will find the correct path. In modern language doing the will of the Father in Heaven is nothing else but assisting in the positive development of the human Higher Self, because this is the primary task for all of us in the Age of Aquarius.

Ultimately, only the individual can help himself on his spiritual path: the spiritual worker is simply assisting in this process. People who believe that they can be miraculously cured from diseases or who believe that they will find easy solutions through ordering one kind of magical service or another, will inevitably fall pray into the paws of the evil spiritual workers. Only through real hard work on the self can one achieve real spiritual growth and redemption. Benevolent spiritual workers acknowledge this fact and inform their clients about it; malevolent spiritual workers on the other hand are interested simply in their profits and will try to hold on to their clients for as long as possible, making them pay on a regular basis. Ultimately, the one who orders the service has to recognize that the real strength lies only from within. It is quite OK to order the services of spiritual workers for assistance, because they have more experience and can guide the individuals on their path. However, if the client simply expects miracles or easy answers without any hard spiritual labour on the self, then they are only perpetuating evil spiritual works and ultimately wasting their money (if not even paying for the harm that has been done to them). And what happens at the end with these people is also well described in the passage, which we cited from the Bible.

To end up my article on a more positive note I would like to say that doing the work on the self is not so hard a task, once a person embarks on a really spiritual road. All assistance will be given to her or to him. All that is needed is for the person to say “I am in!” and then in a really mysterious way the good spirits will ensure that he or she meets up with the right spiritual workers and at the right time (and hopefully at the right price, of course). Always when we seek, we are given the answer. Problems arise only for those who do not have enough faith, who are too scared to look squarely and honestly at themselves and who are not prepared to put some real effort on their road for spiritual growth. These are the ones who are inclined to seek easy solutions to their problems in life. The bad news for them, however, regardless of the amount of money that they are prepared to pay to all sorts of spiritual workers who promise anything for money, the road to a real spiritual growth lies only from within.