Wednesday

New Year Re-Solutions

Why not take a look at the word ‘resolution’ before you tie yourself up in knots trying to set yourself goals that you may not be able to meet?

Ironically, ‘resolution’ is directly derived from the Latin verb resolvere, which means to untie, unfasten, loosen, unbind, etc. It doesn’t mean to make your life even harder for yourself even if it’s in the name of health, fitness or goodness.

The prefix re- was added to the verb solvo by the Romans to further strengthen the meaning of loosening or unbinding. The prefix re- has two distinct meanings. On the one hand the prefix re- means ‘again’, on the other hand it implies ‘backward’ or ‘back.’

When the Romans affixed re- to the front of the verb solvo and developed the verb resolvo, they simply intensified the word itself. Instead of having a basic meaning of to loosen, now the word meant to loosen “again and again” OR to loosen the past. (thanks to www.babeled.com for the info).

So this New Year, what can you unravel rather than setting up? What can you clear rather than impose? What can you do to set yourself free rather than tying yourself up? This is a blue moon New Year’s Eve so it’s time to do something that you would normally do once in a blue moon. Don’t resolve to do or not do something that will be hard work. Re-solve instead to wake up happy each day.

‘Easier said than done’ you may say. So ask the Universe to conspire with you in this. It will do! Trust me, I’ve tried it and it works (not always but the vast majority of time). All you have to do is resolve every night to undo any angst from the day you have just lived and start again happy (or even happier). Bernie Siegel, the cancer surgeon, says ‘There would be no war if everyone lost their memory overnight.’

If you are happy it is easier to experience and offer kindness to yourself and to others. Seek ye first the Kingdom of Heaven (which is inside you, behind all the griping, kvetching and sadness). It will surface if you will unbind its chains. And you can unbind them. Let’s do it together. Altogether... ‘I re-solve ... that I may wake up happy tomorrow.’

Wishing you a peaceful, happy, glorious, prosperous, wonderful, wealthy, abundant, healthy 2010 in a complaint-free world.

With love and blessings,

Maggy

Sunday

The List.

This time of year is when children write to Santa Claus asking for what they want for Christmas. The angels of Earth (whether human or otherwise) have been carrying these messages for centuries and are expecting them.

In previous years I’ve encouraged you to write a letter dated a year from now telling of all the wonderful things that will have happened in our life in 2009 so, if you did that, check it out and see how much did come true.

Of course it’s a great idea to do that again if you want to – but this year, I’m going to suggest that you make The List to the Universe for what you want in the next year (and always). After all, if you don’t know what you want and don’t ask for it, then God and the Universe don’t know what to give you.

The List should be AT LEAST two pages long, written in longhand. That’s because it’s good to write and write and write to find out what you really do want — and to get past that childhood training of ‘I want doesn’t get.’ And it should be full of fantasy; seemingly impossible things as well as likely things — and it should also include everything that you currently have that is already perfect. Because you want that perfection to continue.

One other tip: to do The List you need to start from scratch. It’s no use wanting current things to get a little better or other people to change to fit in what you want of them as that can impinge on their free will. You have to ask for the basic For example, don’t ask for your boss to appreciate you; ask for ‘the perfect boss who appreciates me.’ Obviously this is difficult in a marriage or partnership as it might be scary to ask for ‘the perfect husband/wife/partner’ if you are worried that the current one can’t be that. But that itself is telling you something important...

Anyway, play with this and ask for all sorts of fun and exciting things. Once you’ve written it, just put it away somewhere and forget all about it until next December. Here are some examples from my list:

By the grace of God, this year, I would like:

A lovely warm house
Plenty of healthy and health-giving food
To wake up happy each day
To become steadily happier throughout the year
To be amazingly, delightfully wealthy
To grow my own blueberries
To be on Oprah Winfrey’s show
At least two wonderful foreign holidays that we can afford easily and enjoy thoroughly
To fly first class
To have time to take another driving holiday in Europe
To make a profit of 3000 a month easily and joyfully
To be inspired
To love and be loved by my wonderful husband more and more and more
For all our equipment to work easily and perfectly
To be safe
To be even more healthy
To become more slender without even trying
To feel relaxed
To let go of attachments
To meditate daily for at least half an hour
To be protected from all negative energies
To live on the edge of the perfect village in a stone rectory
My novel, published this year, to be a world-wide bestseller and attract an amazing film deal
The garden to be full of peonies
The chickens to lay every day
An even better relationship with my mother
To spend lots of very happy time with our friends
To go to Disneyland
To have the perfect Christmas 2009

Etc. etc. etc.

Make this your Christmas present to yourself this year — the right to discover what you want and to ask for it.

Wednesday

Get Inspired!

There's a wonderful new internet venture called the Get Inspired Project run by a lady called Toni Reece who is interviewing one inspirational person per day for 365 days.

I'm delighted and privileged to be 'Day 35' and you can hear Toni's interview with me on The Get Inspired Project

A good idea to listen rather than read the transcribed text as there are some fun US/UK transliterations there.

Don't forget to read/listen to a good few of the other interviewees, particularly the wonderful Barbara Winter.

Thank you Toni. I think what you are doing is totally inspiring.

How to Manifest a Beagle

I’ve always been a beagle girl; no other dog (sorry, hound) will do it for me. The first one arrived when I was nine and they’ve been showing up pretty regularly since then.

Interestingly, I’ve only once ever had to pay for one. This is pretty good prosperity – a thoroughbred beagle can cost up to £800.

The first two were the family dogs so they came, like me, as part of the package. The first one I got, after Henry’s death (the legendary Didcot who became the first dog from the USA to UK on Passports for Pets) cost me £400 but that was fine. Her love was for sale and I wanted it!

When Didcot died I grieved as only a dog-loving softie can. I needed to grieve before considering getting another dog — and I couldn’t afford one at the time, apart from the fact that I was working three days a week at the BBC and landing a puppy on Lion wouldn’t have been fair.

I did register on a beagle breeder’s site saying that I’d be interested in a puppy in about a year’s time as a kind of affirmation that I would be able to afford one then.

In the meantime, as a part of my morning meditation I would imagine myself holding Didcot on my lap, stroking her and remembering just how her fur felt and how it lay on her body, inhaling her scent, seeing how lovely she was in her prime at about seven and feeling the weight of her, the way she would lean on me for a cuddle and enjoying a whole doggy fantasy experience.

I did this for about two weeks and found great comfort in it. Yes, sometimes I would cry too but it was better to get that bit of emotion out rather than suppressing it. Then, one morning as I was actually doing my beagle meditation the telephone rang. I let it be but the lady calling started leaving a message on the answer phone about beagles so I picked up and it was the breeder that I had registered with. She said she had a prospective owner for one of her puppies drop out at the last minute and, although I’d said I didn’t want a beagle right now, she’d wondered if I would change my mind.

It was tempting but unrealistic so I told her so. Then she said, “Would you consider an older dog?”

When I asked her what she meant she said that she had a seven year old bitch who had been a show dog and then a breeding bitch.

“I always try to retire them to loving homes so that they can be cosseted and have a wonderful old age,” she said. “Would you be interested?”

“How much is she?” I asked cautiously.

“Oh, free of course!” said the lady. “I’d never charge to get one of my girls a good home.”

So, Puzzle came to us two weeks later, a dear, sweet, loving girl of seven years old. She came because the Law of Attraction saw that I was focusing on loving a beagle of that age … so it had to give me one.

Puzzle died eight weeks ago and I’ve been doing a similar meditation about her. I suppose should have known better!
Lion and I thought it would be best to wait before getting another beagle; I’m doing a lot of travelling and, to be honest, Puzzle was always my dog. She was okay with Lion but not much of a companion and she’d sulk in my office if I went away. We didn’t want a hound as old as seven as we only had six years with Puzzle — but we weren’t sure whether we wanted a puppy or not.

“I’d just like a dog that loved me,” said Lion.

So — yes, you’re ahead of me! The phone rang 10 days ago and it’s the Master of the Warwickshire Beagles. They have a little bitch who won’t hunt and they need to re-home her. This was totally out of the blue. We had spoken to a huntsman from the pack when they were displaying at a country show three years ago! We’d said we’d be willing to go on a list for potential owners for re-homed hounds.

So Destiny Beagle (yes, I know, I know!) arrived on Saturday. And she and Lion are already joined at the hip. She sleeps in his office in the day (Puzzle slept in mine) and he walks her (I walked Puzzle) and she follows him everywhere (Puzzle – oh, you’ve got the idea).

A bit of me’s going ‘hang on a minute — I’m the doggy person’ but actually it’s perfect. I’m the one who’s travelling; he’s the one who asked for a dog that loved him. And she’s an absolute delight.

So, how to manifest a beagle: two minutes a day totally immersed in the sight, sound scent, and touch of a beagle. The Universe will bask in your joy and deliver.

How to manifest anything else: two minutes a day totally immersed in the sight, sound, scent, feel and taste of it, delighting in it so much that it’s actually totally unimportant whether it comes in the future because you are in love with the experience of it NOW.

If it happened to me once, you could say it was a co-incidence. But twice … ? I don’t think so.

Have a glorious November.

Monday

The Law of Attraction and Grace

The one thing that has often concerned me over teachings about the Law of Attraction is the question of Grace. Grace being the gift of mercy, love or healing from what appears to be an external Source whether or not it is merited.

Of course there are many religious interpretations of Grace but this is the most frequently used that I can find.

The Abraham-Hicks teachings tell us that the Law of Attraction works whether we believe in it or not and it’s my experience that Grace also exists whether we believe in it or not. The question is why it turns up when it does and why it doesn’t when it doesn’t.

I think that Grace is real and palpable: that it is both from within us and without us – in that it is the love and mercy of our Higher Selves, our Soul Group and Spirit, all intrinsically part of our incarnate selves — and that it is offered whenever we need it.

I think that Grace is continual; available at all times and in all places. But we have to allow it.

How do we allow it? The same way that we allow all other things, we let go of some tension within so that a previously invisible door can open.

This last month I’ve been grieving for my dear, lovely dog who died at a good age. On top of that there were five other family and old friend bereavements too (not to mention a rather interesting series of astrological transits) and although I applied all I could think of that I know to ease the different aspects of grief, from Bach Flower Remedies to homeopathy, to EFT to crying my eyes out at friends, there was one aspect that was completely perplexing me.

Since all this happened, my life has become infinitely more prosperous from the point of view of career and finances even though I have been feeling unhappy.

In theory, feeling bad should attract more feeling bad… and on a lower emotional level that was true. But on a different level, I was totally in the flow.

Don’t get me wrong here — I believe that the sadness of grief is fine and right and pure ¬— but it also doesn’t make you feel good. And the Law of Attraction says that like attracts like.

You could say it was because I was allowing friends to comfort me instead of being the capable one in charge – but if you knew my best friends they’d soon tell you that I don’t generally bother about being the capable one with them – poor sods!

Was it because the process of letting go of the dog — and the people —was a deep form of allowing despite the grief?

Was it because I had given her/them so much time and attention while they were alive and now there was space for other things?

Was it because the dog (in particular) was a representation of a phase of my life which had also ended (that seemed likely with all the other deaths and the fact that people from the past have been turning up in my life for mutual completion and closure at the very same time).

Or was it because, every day, when I felt like crying, I asked for help? Help from God/Source, whatever you want to call it. I returned to prayer with a need that I had forgotten when I was feeling good. The prayers were simply ‘please help me,’ because nothing I was doing for myself — or the aforementioned loving friends were doing for me — seemed to have any lasting effect, so that was really all there was left.

It was probably all those aspects combined but, inside them, there seems to have been something even deeper. Instead of taking control of my own healing I was giving it up for a greater force than the one-time, incarnate me. And that greater Love was cherishing me and moving me through the surprises and the pain uncovering all kinds of gifts along the way – from new book contracts to offers of other wonderful work and loving reunions.

And I also think that it was also because I have been asking for many months now to be shown if Grace truly exists, whether it can come despite our angers, fears and our tendencies to harness the Law of Attraction for negativity. Ask and it is given.

I’ve seen and heard of stories of Grace in the world but I needed to experience it inside myself so that, instead of calling it luck or fortune or Law, I could know it for the unconditional love that it truly is.

I finally allowed Grace to reveal itself clearly while I was lying in the bath one Friday night, when I was totally exhausted after a week of events and spiritual ceremonies. I had had an incredible month but I felt depressed, sad and a little guilty.

I just said, ‘Please help me. I don’t understand,’ and had a gentle realisation: an idea that I might do something I had never even considered doing; and had never heard anyone else suggest. It just seemed totally right.

I did it there and then and all the pain left. Wholeness flooded back into my heart. Even more, I knew that Grace exists; always has existed and always will exist.

Is it part of the dynamics of the Law of Attraction? Yes, but at the very least it is a mutual above and below process of opening up the channel within yourself to that extraordinary Universal Escrow of Love that is yours by Divine right.

The channel is one that you may not normally open and sometimes it takes an emotional event for you to find it. But it is there even in the darkest times and Grace waits within your Higher Self, doing all she can in the meantime to help you find her.

You don’t have to believe in Grace but if you ask her to help you, she will. Just ask her to show you how to open that particular door instead of barging around to find it yourself.

The Universe will show us how … as long as we remember that it’s not always up to us; we are in a divine partnership. We ask, Grace gives, we allow her to show us the way.

May you be safe, may you be happy, may you be healthy, may you live in ease – and with Grace.

Prosperity and Selfishness

At last Saturday's Spiritual Laws of Prosperity workshop the old fear of being prosperous being selfish reared its ugly head. It's such a guilt trip that we have taken on - along the lines that everyone else I love can do well (and I'll help them) but it would be wrong and selfish for me to be wealthy.

And yet, secretly (of course) we feel envy when the others do succeed and we face yet another false dawn of hope and disappointment.

Here's the bottom line: You can't help anyone else to prosper unless you can demonstrate prosperity in your own life.

There's no merit in wearing yourself out running after others until you run out of steam. That would be like giving someone a lift to a town 200 miles away without checking that you had enough fuel in your car. If you aren't whole and full and happy before you try and help another you will end up running on empty and, the odds are, they'll get cross with you for not being able to finish what you started!

The only way for the whole world to overcome poverty, hunger, war and hatred is for us to address those issues within ourselves. If they cannot exist in us, then they cannot exist elsewhere. Similarly, the poverty within us is reflected in the world outside.

So, prosperity consciousness is the very opposite of selfishness; it is the most unselfish thing you can do. For if you are truly prosperous you can teach others to prosper too.

Wednesday

The Spiritual Laws of Prosperity

This Saturday is The Spiritual Laws of Prosperity workshop in Birmingham, England.

Prosperity is the ability to be happy — physically, emotionally, spiritually - and financially – whatever the external climate.
All poverty is first experienced in the soul: it is through making peace between ego, self and soul that we can live a truly abundant life.

This workshop will teach you how to align yourself with the spiritual substance that flows to us all and offer techniques for understanding and releasing the fears and thoughts of lack. that so often surround money, finances, and hopes for happiness.

It will include visualisation and exercises that are simple, practical and effective.

It is good to be both spiritual and abundant – how can we possibly help others to prosper if we ourselves live in fear of lack?

Date: Saturday 26th September 2009. Cost: £50

Location: Moseley, Birmingham.

Time: 10.30am to 5.30pm.

Contact Maggy on: 0121 449 0344. mw@pureprosperity.com

From my book, The Spiritual Laws of Prosperity:

All poverty is first experienced in the soul Sarah Ban Breathnach.

The great American mystic Joseph Campbell said you could tell the focus of a society by the height of its buildings.
Up until a century ago, churches and temples were the tallest buildings. Then administration took over. Now our great monuments are dedicated to commerce and economics.

Everyone faces his or her own issues with money but those on a spiritual quest have the harder task as they seek to make peace with the issue of God and Mammon. In simple truth, there is no conflict: the Source is the source of all including financial prosperity — but that is not what we have been taught.

Money was invented by humanity; it is a purely imaginative thing fuelled by belief. We have come to see it as a source of evil, inequality and a power in its own right and we have lost the ability to understand it as a natural resource responding to peace and trust at the soul level.

As a teacher of prosperity consciousness for more than a decade I see many clients who are paralysed by fear over money issues. This is not the feeling of fear — that is a passing sensation from the ego — but a deep, soul-based emotion that is ingrained, perhaps even over lifetimes.

The great spiritual teacher, Louise Hay, once responded with a sharp intake of breath when I told her I taught prosperity. She said she would rather teach relationships any time over prosperity as people had so much resistance to it.

The main issue is this: if the soul is activated, as in the spiritual seeker, it must seek union with the Divine. And for century after century (in the Christian world at least), religious teachings have been interpreted to imply that the holy and the good must be poor. Mix this up with aeons of wealth within the Church itself and the promise of ‘jam tomorrow’ — in heaven if you’re good enough and don’t complain — and you have the basis of mixed and contradictory emotion in the soul.

Each human soul knows that it is precious and rare and sacred to the Divine. And yet the teachings of holiness appear to say that it must experience lack in an abundant world. The modern ego is trained not to be selfish but it is rarely taught to be self-full in order to support the soul’s sacred quest.

Judaism, Islam and the other major world religions have their own soul issues to contend with but it is Christianity (especially in the UK) which carries the worst confusion over money. Even if you would not call yourself a Christian in any way, if you have been raised in a nominally Christian country, the financial/spiritual programming of centuries will still have a profound affect on your psyche. Remember the Jesuit saying, ‘Give me a child until he is seven and I will give you the man.’ What we learn at home, at school and from our peers in our childhood will remain as programming forever unless we take conscious steps to change it.

We give to charity; we give to our children; we give whatever we can in order both to be kind and to be good. We pay out on the bills and the house and the car and the credit cards as a priority every month. And because we neglect the call of our soul we give from an empty hand and our soul weeps in consternation at our fear of lack, which we must hide from others because it might be viewed as a judgment from on high because we are not good enough.

There is no reason whatsoever for poverty in this abundant world. The issue is distribution not lack. But spiritually, it needs to be understood that distribution comes from us not from them. By the Law of Cause and Effect, also known as karma and the Law of Attraction, it is our energetic vibration that decides whether we are prosperous or not. It’s not what they told us, it’s what we believe about what they told us. And that can be changed.

Imagine if you had three gifts to give to three people. You walk into the room where they are and one person was bright and excited at the idea of a gift, the second was suspicious or unwilling to trust you and the third said they didn’t want anything and you should give it to the needy, you would find it easy to give to the first one and challenging to give to the last two. If the same thing happened several times, it would be quite normal for you to feel the urge to give to the first person only. The second person would be too much like hard work and often you had to leave the gift ungiven and the third, who was trying to make you do something that wasn’t what you wanted or planned to do, would just feel so confusing that it’s likely that the gift would be dropped or spoilt or broken in the tug of energy.

That’s how it must feel for the Source when it tries to give. You can’t give something to someone who won’t receive it, especially if they believe that you are the one who wrote the rule book on exactly why they shouldn’t receive it!
The Spiritual Laws of Prosperity, a sister book to The Little Book of Prosperity and From Credit Crunch to Pure Prosperity aims to set the record straight on cosmic, divine law when it comes to our health, wealth and happiness. It attempts to show that spiritual law is all about living abundantly and it is centuries of misinterpretation that have misled and restricted us.

It is clear always that we must guard against being possessed by our belongings (that is such an interesting word: possessions!) so that we are trapped in a life ruled by ‘shoulds’ and ‘things’ instead of being free to go and do what our soul desires. To work at the level of the soul requires discernment and loving kindness — to yourself and to others. Certainly you must have what is beautiful and useful in your life but spiritual growth requires the cutting out of the dead wood so that the beauty can flourish.

It is clear in every spiritual teaching — including Christianity — that abundance is our birthright and everything else is resistance.

To learn to be a magnet for wealth is not a selfish thing for the spiritual seeker. It is a service to the world and all the people in it. You cannot teach abundance to others if you, yourself, live in lack. It is clear that giving and giving and giving to others does not solve the world’s problems. What will solve them is teaching prosperity consciousness and trust in the abundance of a loving Source Energy (whatever you want to call it).

Embrace prosperity consciousness; teach it on and watch the people of this planet respond with joy. This is the world we seek and it is good.

Thursday

Marci Shimoff

Amazing free podcast interview with Marci Shimoff. May you be safe; may you be happy; may you be healthy; may you live with ease.

RIP Keith Floyd

I had the delight of working with Keith at the BBC - and my mother never forgave him for being horribly rude about her chives frozen in ice-cubes! He and I had a relationship for a short while; full of surprises, good food (I cooked most of the time however) and a fair amount of alcohol. Rest in peace Keith. Sounds like you had the perfect last day...

Tuesday

The Nature of Money

A wonderful story (told my by my friend Hilary) about the nature of money:


It is the month of August, on the shores of the Black Sea .. It is raining, and the little town looks totally deserted. It is tough times, everybody is in debt, and everybody lives on credit.

Suddenly, a rich tourist comes to town.

He enters the only hotel, lays a 100 Euro note on the reception counter, and goes to inspect the rooms upstairs in order to pick one.

The hotel proprietor takes the 100 Euro note and runs to pay his debt to the butcher.

The Butcher takes the 100 Euro note, and runs to pay his debt to the pig breeder.

The pig breeder takes the 100 Euro note, and runs to pay his debt to the supplier of his feed and fuel.

The supplier of feed and fuel takes the 100 Euro note and runs to pay his debt to the town's prostitute who in these hard times, gave her "services" on credit.

The hooker runs to the hotel, and pays off her debt with the 100 Euro note to the hotel proprietor to pay for the rooms that she rented when she brought her clients there.

The hotel proprietor then lays the 100 Euro note back on the counter so that the rich tourist will not suspect anything.

At that moment, the rich tourist comes down after inspecting the rooms, and takes his 100 Euro note, after saying that he did not like any of the rooms,and leaves town.

No one earned anything. However, the whole town is now without debt, and looks to the future with a lot of optimism...

Download my new book The Spiritual Laws of Prosperity from Pure Prosperity

Friday

Introduction to my new book: 'The Spiritual Laws of Prosperity'

Download my new book The Spiritual Laws of Prosperity from the Pure Prosperity website

The great American mystic Joseph Campbell said you could tell the focus of a society by the height of its buildings.

Up until a century ago, churches and temples were the tallest buildings. Then administration took over. Now our great monuments are dedicated to commerce and economics.

Everyone faces his or her own issues with money but those on a spiritual quest have the harder task as they seek to make peace with the issue of God and Mammon. In simple truth, there is no conflict: the Source is the source of all including financial prosperity — but that is not what we have been taught.

Money was invented by humanity; it is a purely imaginative thing fuelled by belief. We have come to see it as a source of evil, inequality and a power in its own right and we have lost the ability to understand it as a natural resource responding to peace and trust at the soul level.

As a teacher of prosperity consciousness for more than a decade I see many clients who are paralysed by fear over money issues. This is not the feeling of fear — that is a passing sensation from the ego — but a deep, soul-based emotion that is ingrained, perhaps even over lifetimes.

The great spiritual teacher, Louise Hay, once responded with a sharp intake of breath when I told her I taught prosperity. She said she would rather teach relationships any time over prosperity as people had so much resistance to it.

Just call me a masochist!

The main issue is this: if the soul is activated, as in the spiritual seeker, it must seek union with the Divine. And for century after century (in the Christian world at least), religious teachings have been interpreted to imply that the holy and the good must be poor. Mix this up with aeons of wealth within the Church itself and the promise of ‘jam tomorrow’ — in heaven if you’re good enough and don’t complain — and you have the basis of mixed and contradictory emotion in the soul.

Each human soul knows that it is precious and rare and sacred to the Divine. And yet the teachings of holiness appear to say that it must experience lack in an abundant world. The modern ego is trained not to be selfish but it is rarely taught to be self-full in order to support the soul’s sacred quest.

Judaism, Islam and the other major world religions have their own soul issues to contend with but it is Christianity (especially in the UK) which carries the worst confusion over money. Even if you would not call yourself a Christian in any way, if you have been raised in a nominally Christian country, the financial/spiritual programming of centuries will still have a profound affect on your psyche. Remember the Jesuit saying, ‘Give me a child until he is seven and I will give you the man.’ What we learn at home, at school and from our peers in our childhood will remain as programming forever unless we take conscious steps to change it.

We give to charity; we give to our children; we give whatever we can in order both to be kind and to be good. We pay out on the bills and the house and the car and the credit cards as a priority every month. And because we neglect the call of our soul we give from an empty hand and our soul weeps in consternation at our fear of lack, which we must hide from others because it might be viewed as a judgment from on high because we are not good enough.

There is no reason whatsoever for poverty in this abundant world. The issue is distribution not lack. But spiritually, it needs to be understood that distribution comes from us not from them. By the Law of Cause and Effect, also known as karma and the Law of Attraction, it is our energetic vibration that decides whether we are prosperous or not. It’s not what they told us, it’s what we believe about what they told us. And that can be changed.

Imagine if you had three gifts to give to three people. You walk into the room where they are and one person was bright and excited at the idea of a gift, the second was suspicious or unwilling to trust you and the third said they didn’t want anything and you should give it to the needy, you would find it easy to give to the first one and challenging to give to the last two. If the same thing happened several times, it would be quite normal for you to feel the urge to give to the first person only. The second person would be too much like hard work and often you had to leave the gift ungiven and the third, who was trying to make you do something that wasn’t what you wanted or planned to do, would just feel so confusing that it’s likely that the gift would be dropped or spoilt or broken in the tug of energy.

That’s how it must feel for the Source when it tries to give. You can’t give something to someone who won’t receive it, especially if they believe that you are the one who wrote the rule book on exactly why they shouldn’t receive it!

The Spiritual Laws of Prosperity, a sister book to The Little Book of Prosperity and the forthcoming From Credit Crunch to Pure Prosperity aims to set the record straight on cosmic, divine law when it comes to our health, wealth and happiness. It attempts to show that spiritual law is all about living abundantly and it is centuries of misinterpretation that have misled and restricted us.

It is clear always that we must guard against being possessed by our belongings (that is such an interesting word: possessions!) so that we are trapped in a life ruled by ‘shoulds’ and ‘things’ instead of being free to go and do what our soul desires. To work at the level of the soul requires discernment and loving kindness — to yourself and to others. Certainly you must have what is beautiful and useful in your life but spiritual growth requires the cutting out of the dead wood so that the beauty can flourish.

It is clear in every spiritual teaching — including Christianity — that abundance is our birthright and everything else is resistance.

To learn to be a magnet for wealth is not a selfish thing for the spiritual seeker. It is a service to the world and all the people in it. You cannot teach abundance to others if you, yourself, live in lack. It is clear that giving and giving and giving to others does not solve the world’s problems. What will solve them is teaching prosperity consciousness and trust in the abundance of a loving Source Energy (whatever you want to call it).

Embrace prosperity consciousness; teach it on and watch the people of this planet respond with joy. This is the world we seek and it is good.

Download The Spiritual Laws of Prosperity from the Pure Prosperity website

Tuesday

Prosperity and Jesus

Jesus was poor, right?

Wrong.

I apologise if this ruins your idea of the perfect Christmas nativity complete with heartless inn-keepers but it is much more likely that the story of Jesus’s birth was just one in a long line of prosperity miracles.

You’d expect that from a Son of God really, wouldn’t you? It’s plain silly to think someone as clear, loving and powerful as Jesus was broke. And yet we are still infected with the idea that Jesus was poor and that, if we are ‘good’ people, we should follow that very same path.

In the Christian world, the most often quoted objection to spiritual prosperity is not from Jesus at all. It’s attributed to St Paul: “The love of money is the root of all evil.” (1 Timothy: 6)

This is what the King James Bible says:

Having food and raiment let us be therewith content.

But they that will be rich 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 the root of all evil; which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.


The Greek words for sustenance and clothing, diatrophe and skepasma in ancient times covered food, housing without a mortgage or rent, four holidays a year (literally the ability to attend four religious festivals a year in Jerusalem), clothing, bedding, curtains, carpets (rugs), household equipment, all bills and taxes.

The phrase ‘love of money’ means ‘obsession with money’ and the word translated as ‘evil’ is kaka which actually means…um, crap.

So, in a nutshell, it means:

“If, having everything you need for a prosperous life, you obsess over money and lose your true focus, then your life will suck.”
I don’t think anybody would disagree with that.

It also means if we hate money or resent it, or spend so long sorting out our bills that we seem to have no time for anything else, we are still being avaricious – obsessed with the negative side of money. And feeling resentment at the riches of others is a sure fire way of creating lack in our own life.

Certainly, Jesus himself was not a fan of cluttering yourself up with possessions. We all know the quotation, “It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than it is for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God” (Matt 19:24). The rich man is “one heavy with possessions.” It’s hard to be prosperous when what you own possesses you – when the ties of the mortgage, your kids’ schooling and your job mean you can’t follow your life’s dream.

Jesus also said “Ask and it is given” (Luke 11:9) but in Matthew 21:22, he added the rider “Whatever you ask for in prayer, believing, you shall receive.” This is the key. If we ask for money but don’t believe wealth is our birthright, we cannot attract prosperity.

I’ve never found any evidence in the Bible to show that Jesus or his family lived a life of poverty. What I have found is modern misinterpretation of ancient lifestyles.

Jesus never needed for anything. In those days there were no books or movies so a visiting preacher with new stories was an exciting event. If Madonna showed up for a concert in your town and needed a bed for the night I don’t think there’d be any shortage of food or accommodation offered (and her retinue’s much larger than Jesus’s was!)

We are taught that Jesus was a carpenter. The Greek word translated as “carpenter” in the Gospels is tekton which means artisan, mason or builder as well as a worker in wood.

In the Jewish Biblical commentary, the Talmud, the trade of carpenter is deeply respected. There is even a story of a man who arrives in a town looking for someone to help him with a religious problem. He asks for the rabbi, then says, “Is there a carpenter among you, the son of a carpenter, who can offer me a solution?” Where there was no rabbi, a carpenter was considered the person most qualified to interpret law or answer questions.

There were customers too. Four miles from Nazareth, was the town of Sepphoris which was partially destroyed by fire in about 4 BCE. During Jesus’ lifetime, it was being rebuilt into a thriving city. Archaeologists are still discovering luxurious homes and public buildings dating back to the first century including an aqueduct and a palace. For a tekton there was full-time work for years and the walk from Nazareth would be considered a very reasonable commute.

But about the nativity, the stable and ‘no room in the inn’?

The story we love at Christmas only exists in the Gospel of Luke and it reads (KJV):

Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judaea, unto the city of David, which is called Bethlehem; (because he was of the house and lineage of David) to be taxed with Mary his espoused wife, being great with child.
“And so it was, that, while they were there, the days were accomplished that she should be delivered. And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn
. (Luke 2:4-7).

There is no donkey; no ox; no trailing around Bethlehem, no unkind inn-keepers and not even the slightest hint that Mary was in labor while they searched for somewhere to stay.

A lodging house in Jesus’ day didn’t have rooms the way modern motels do. It consisted of two dormitories with men and women segregated from each other. This meant that more people could be accommodated at a time of pilgrimage and made it easier with respect to the laws of purity (where orthodox Jewish men and women spend up to two weeks not touching during and after the woman’s menses). The shepherds could never have found their way into the female dormitory to see the holy child – and Joseph couldn’t have been there either!

It is also worth noting that a stable was rarely separate from a house in those days; animals lived next to the kitchen; their body warmth being useful and their dung being used for fuel.

The next problem is the word that Luke uses and that we translate as ‘inn.’ This is kataluma and it is not used in the sense of public accommodations or inn anywhere else in the whole New Testament.

Just before the last supper, in Luke 22:11, Jesus tells the disciples to follow a man into Jerusalem carrying water. He leads them to a house that had a large kataluma where they could all gather together for the Passover. That kataluma is translated in almost all versions of the Bible as "upper room" or "guest room."

Luke does tell a story featuring an inn – the Good Samaritan. But there, he doesn’t use kataluma but pandocheion, meaning “a public house for travellers.”

Luke writes that Joseph was of the House of David and had to return to his family’s hometown for the census (apographo, meaning “written record” rather than the usually-translated “tax”) so it’s more than likely that he had extended family in the town.

It has been suggested before by scholars that Joseph and Mary would have stayed with relatives rather than at an inn and anyone with Jewish friends knows they would be outraged if even a distant cousin chose to stay at a motel and not with them!
If there was more than one couple staying in a private house, there probably wouldn’t have been enough space for a woman to give birth, so Mary would have been moved out of the guest room and into a warm place where she could walk, sit, lie down, be attended by others and where she didn’t have to worry about the ritual purity laws and the blood and natural mess of a baby’s birth.

And the stone (not wood) trough used as a manger would have made an excellent and secure cradle when the baby was born.

Both Jesus and his family knew how to manifest exactly what they needed at the perfect time without being encumbered by unnecessary possessions, duties and cares. They weren’t poor; they were truly prosperous – just as we can be.

Monday

The Wisdom Cap Pilgrimage

The plumber came round on a Tuesday morning wearing a navy blue baseball cap with an image of a mountain and the word Wisdom on it. It really floated my boat to think that you could walk around with “wisdom” on your head so I had to find out how to get one.

The answer was simple: there’s a town called Wisdom in western Montana and they sell caps…

At the time, my ex and I were living somewhat precariously in Bozeman, Montana, trying to run a café. We had visa problems which were soon to ensure that we were forced to sell the café and move back to the UK. The whole story of how I got a visa in order to return to Montana, sell the café and get my beloved beagle, Didcot, home, have been told elsewhere in this blog. This is the story of the hat.

While I was living in Bozeman on my own, I was in such fear that I decided to set myself some goals to raise my spirits. The main one was to travel to Wisdom (I could do with some, I thought) and get myself a cap.

It wasn’t an easy journey; it was scorchingly hot for a start and my car didn’t have air conditioning. And the prairie dogs were more than usually suicidal on the smaller roads that led to this tiny place in the middle of one of the most beautiful nowheres in the world. But after a two-and-a-half-hour drive, I got there.

There were two questions that came into my head on arrival in Wisdom, Montana, the first being “where is it?” when I was standing in the middle of Main Street (Wisdom is very small). The second was “why on earth would anyone call this place Wisdom?”

The answer to the second one comes from the famous American explorers, Lewis and Clark. They actually named the three rivers in this area after attributes of Thomas Jefferson, the US president who had funded their trip. The locals however took a fairly dim view of rivers called Philosophy, Philanthropy and Wisdom and reverted to Beaverhead, Ruby and Big Hole. The town however kept the name Wisdom.

Be that as it may, I bought the cap. I was very pleased with it even though the assistant tried to point out that a cowboy hat would suit me better. They didn’t have “wisdom” written on them so I wasn’t interested.

Nine months later, when I was back in London and my ex and I were still together, he travelled to New York on a Gilbert and Sullivan exchange trip. He asked if he could borrow the cap to wear. I didn’t mind — though it didn’t suit him either. It was on that fateful trip that he met my successor and the marriage was over.

By the time I was compos-mentis enough to ask him if I could have the cap back, he had thrown it away.

Odd how much that hat meant to me. It wasn’t even a reminder of a time when I’d been happy but it meant something even if I couldn’t express what.

I tried several times to contact the shop where I’d bought the cap – searching the web and trying international directory enquiries but drew a blank. But something inside me wouldn’t let go.

The whole Montana thing, tied up with the end of the marriage, haunted me for years. It required lots of re-framing from “total, dismal, miserable failure” to “amazing adventure” but I made it in the end. It became a goal, a quest, a spiritual duty if you like, to recover completely both emotionally and financially so that I could go back to Montana with a clear heart even if it seemed to be for no other reason than that I’m a Taurean and I wanted my Wisdom, Montana cap back!

It took ten years until my heart and soul were cloudless enough to dare to hope that it could be done but the moment there was no pain left, I said, to my husband, Lion, “Can we go to Montana?” and last Fall we did just that.

We flew to Seattle (and someone had left two complete slices of cheesecake from the Cheesecake Factory in our motel room fridge as a welcoming present!). Then we drove across Washington, Oregon and Idaho and into Montana. It was so beautiful…

I thought I might cry as we crossed the border to the US state that my ex and I had loved beyond all reason and Lion made sure I’d got some Rescue Remedy to hand. As it was, I was fine; delighted to be back after 10 whole years and capable of being just as rude about the town of Butte…

Guess where we headed first? Yep, Wisdom. But would they have the baseball caps? Would the shop even be there? Would I be able to find it in this metropolis that had swelled to 114 people?

Yes, it was there on Main Street (still pretty much the only street) and it was such a rite of passage to return to that great outdoors shop and meander over to the shelf which held a small pile of baseball caps. They weren’t navy blue; they were green, but they had the very same mountain and the word “Wisdom” embroidered so what the heck? I put one on and turned to Lion grinning all over my face.

“They don’t usually suit you,” he said tactfully.

“I don’t care,” I said. “I got myself a Wisdom baseball cap.”

That’s it really. It was a pilgrimage. A rite of passage that was as important to me as climbing Mount Everest or trekking to the South Pole might be for others. I’d done it; full circle.

It wasn’t necessary but it was still terrific when, three days later, Lion turned to me on Bozeman Main Street and said, “Yes, I could live here. I can see why you loved it so much.”

And it was extraordinary to stand on that very street where my heart had felt so broken and filled with fear that I was in physical pain — and feel nothing but contentment.

The Americans call it closure. Sometimes you can get closure in the safety of your own home; sometimes it has to be done with a letter or a phone call. But sometimes it requires an adventure. And the call of that baseball cap was palpable.

You know something? The pilgrimage could never have happened if my ex hadn’t thrown that cap away. If I’d had it back all those years ago when we broke up, it would have gathered dust in a cupboard, loaded with the fears and resentments of a difficult time only to have been thrown out as a pain-filled memento. Instead it became a quest; part of a call to healing and, eventually, a fabulous three-week adventure across the Rockies with someone whom I love and who loves me deeply in return.

What’s the prosperity message here? Was I just seeking wisdom? Was it that I was searching for something that didn’t suit me?

Perhaps it is that a hideous final straw, like the casual throwing away of something that meant a lot to you by someone who doesn’t care any more, could be the starting point for your great healing adventure: maybe even the quest of your soul. So often I hear clients saying “I don’t know what I want.” To know what you want is incredibly important, even if what you want seems silly, like a Montana baseball cap. Behind that silliness will be something important that is calling and yearning and grieving.

Nowadays, I wear the cap out walking with the dog on sunny days. There’s a regular group of us who cross paths with our dogs in Moseley Bog. I’m writing this now because yesterday one of them said with a chuckle, “I like your cap. We could all do with some of that.”

“Thanks,” I said.

She nodded, “It looks good on you,” she said and, whistling to her dog, walked on.

For more pictures of Wisdom, Montana, visit my Facebook photos page

Wednesday

Re-born book! The Little Book of Prosperity.



Well here it is - the new/old baby. The Little Book of Prosperity, revised and updated for crunchier times and with a pretty new cover. It's 4000 words longer and actually smaller. The wonders of modern publishing!
I've spent today updating my website which, for me is a pretty darn amazing experience. And you can now buy the book online thanks to my sometimes frustrated, sometimes joyous efforts (I think a glass of wine will be appropriate tonight). The real book that is. It may take me a day or two more to work out how to put it up there for you to download!
Why am I doing my own website? Well because it's mine (Taurus!) and if I do it then it really has my energy on it rather than being designed by someone who may be brilliant but isn't me. I've seen a lot of websites that are flash and cute but just don't tell me anything about the owner. I guess I'm showing my age and my star sign here but it's also good for me to learn how to do new things. And once I'm up to speed, I can update it wherever I may be in the world.
Control freak? Moi?

Thursday

The Spiritual Law of Cleansing

Everything we experience is within us.

Spiritual work is often referred to as ‘remembering’ or as ‘peeling off the layers of an onion’ to get to the heart of ourselves. We can only do that if we believe that at the heart of ourselves there is something good. If we believe that we are evil to the core, we will be unwilling to go there — no matter how many holistic workshops we attend or spiritual books that we read.

I got there for a brief moment at the very beginning of my spiritual search but, even though I’ve spoken of that moment many times in discussions on grief or despair, it was nearly 20 years before I finally got it.

My first husband, Henry, had died just a few weeks earlier and already friends were saying ‘don’t cry’ when I wanted to howl so I was closing in on myself in the grief. I was miserable one evening so I decided to sit in the bath with a gin and tonic and allow myself the unhappiness instead of tying it up in a little bag and hiding it in my wardrobe.

I had to push it a bit because my ego was trained to control itself but, pretty soon I was weeping like a waterfall and sinking down and down into the darkness of fear, anguish and loss.

It was a long way down and parts of me kept saying, ‘might be a good idea to turn round now, Maggy!’ but I ignored them and went on digging that hole in my heart and my guts.

After about half an hour, just as I thought I might suffocate from lack of breath, everything stopped. The darkness became spangled with little lights and something gentle touched me with a soothing enquiry and — believe it or not — laughter.
I laughed in my rapidly cooling bath with my empty glass of gin and tonic and I knew that I was totally safe and happy to the core.

It was me in there. The Divine Me. Alive and blissful even at the height of my grief. And You are in there, right in the heart of You. It isn’t about going to an Ashram in India or to visit Deepak Chopra in San Diego (nice though that is), it’s about peeling away the coverings to you.

And if it were very, very hard to do, we’d all be doing it. The fact is that it’s slow and simple where we want swift and dramatic revelation.

So, the Spiritual Law of Cleansing is about gently wiping away the dirt to reveal the beauty underneath. But the all-important caveat is are you prepared to find perfection?

If you feel a bit uncomfortable about that, try not to worry; it takes a while to get there on a regular basis and the good news is that, as you get closer, it doesn’t seem quite so mad, bad or arrogant. And other people notice that your eyes get clearer and your life seems to be working out pretty well. They may even ask you the secret of your success. They're sure as heck never going to ask you for the secret of your failure...

Here’s the latest one that I’m using. See how you get on with it.

Imagine your psyche as an village with its own ocean harbour. Place great metal gates at the harbour mouth. Then look closely at the ships within your harbour. If there are any that are pollutants, or any that you don’t like the look of, visually move them outside the harbour gates and close the gates tight behind them tight. Say ‘not in my harbour.’

If the water in your harbour is not clean and clear then these ships have affected your psyche. Imagine a mountain behind the village, green and uninhabited. From its peak flies down an angelic presence with a grail full of holy water. The angel passes the grail to you to bless and pour into the harbour. You say words such as ‘by this holy water my harbour place is cleansed and healed’ and pour the water into the harbour. It is then cleared. This may not happen 100% at once but if you return several times you will find that the water will clear steadily.

You may also find that some of those ships creep back in. Send them away again.

This meditation can be extended throughout the village and the island itself with time (see my workshop The Quest of the Soul) but, for these purposes, stick with the harbour.

Once you are familiar with the visualization, every time you experience a thought that you don’t like or don’t want just say ‘not in my harbour’ and mentally push the thought outside your gates in the open sea.

For those of you who worry about the environment, this is not harming the planet; it is simply setting your boundaries. Negative thoughts, feelings and issues can only thrive if human beings give them attention. Stick that worry outside the harbour too!

Monday

Tithing - the metaphysical way

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 chances 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. That money can then be saved up to buy something special – the important thing is that it means you have taken power and are stating to the Universe that you want prosperity and not debt or fear.

In the age of the Internet, you can have a couple of online savings accounts named “inspiration” and “celebration” and move £1/$1 (or more) into those accounts as soon as possible once money has come in. Only then pay the bills.

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. If you put inspiration first then you will find very swiftly that there is always money to give to others/pay the bills 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, priests are paid wages – and they may not be your source of inspiration. That 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 Martian 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, to travel to Jerusalem for the great festivals four times a year. You would all travel together as an extended family, or even as a village and, while in Jerusalem 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 meditation room because just seeing them 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.
Incidentally, the third tithe, the charity tithe was only given every third year. That was because, due to the way people lived, it wasn’t needed any more than that. We could do with a world where that is the case right now.

So if you want to turn your life around financially, start having fun with your money. This system truly works. And you can do it with time too...I make sure I say a prayer of gratitude and then have a treat in bed (a cup of tea and a ginger biscuit in case your mind is boggling!) before I get up. And because I live a wonderful life, I then go and meditate, have breakfast and walk the dog before I begin work.

Someone once said to me 'how can I possibly do this? I have four young sons who bound into my bedroom at 6am.' That summed up a life where she wasn't in charge at all and the Universe thought she wanted to give her attention to others without any for herself. But it was a simple turnaround. I suggested that she could say a very quick blessing and then pop a Cadbury's hero chocolate into her mouth for her treat. The two together would take perhaps half a minute and then she could give attention to her sons.

He first reaction was 'I can't have chocolate before breakfast!' (an example of society/the ego's rules of what is good for you and what is not ...).and then she thought how wonderfully decadent it sounded. And what a treat! So, she went ahead and it worked. Not only does she have more time now - but she has left work and started her own successful business.

Try it; have fun with it. Having fun is the only thing that works.

Wednesday

Chapter One - From Credit Crunch to Pure Prosperity

Here's a taster of my new book - published by O Books in the autumn:

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?”

I+E=K

In December I had an article published in a major US magazine - The Secrets of the Bible supplement to US News. And since then, my profile having been raised somewhat, my in-box and mail box have been regaled with articles and newsletters from some amazing people. Some I have discarded because I didn't like the feel of them; others I have read with interest. But what interested me most was that they all wanted me to hear their voice - and validate it for them.

There's nothing wrong with that - after all I am writing this so that you can hear my voice. Most of these people were casting their bread upon the waters and writing to a total stranger. Nothing wrong with that either. But in addition to the emails and newsletters that I'm sent because I'm a subscriber to certain sites, I've been truly overwhelmed by information.

It made me take a whole week out to catch up on my reading. That's a challenge to do even if you do work for yourself. And it's taught me a lot - but not actually through anything that I read in that week...

I sat and read a 50-page document on how we should believe in God in the modern day; I absorbed countless well (and not-so-well) phrased arguments for this or that aspect of spirituality/Jesus/Judaism/Buddha.

I've had at least three people sending me the Our Father (Lord's Prayer) in Aramaic as if I'd never seen it before. And one amazing man sent his complete re-translation from Hebrew of the first five chapters of the Book of Genesis. In addition, I even read two whole books that were sent.

It was all very interesting - but was all theory. It's what Kabbalists would call 'Hod.' And when I say that it's 'taught me a lot' I actually mean that it's taught me how much time we spend (perhaps even waste) on information.

Hod is the Sephira of information; the gathering and spreading of the spoken and written word. At its best it is informative and interesting and at its worse it's recycling harmful gossip. It sits on the passive side of the Tree of Life because all this information may be very interesting but the big question is: What are you going to do with it?

And it seemed that the vast majority (though not all) of the writers were passing their information on to me rather than doing anything with it in their own lives.

There's an equation that my husband, Lion, came up with: Information+Experience=Knowledge. I+E=K.

Without experience, information is not real. This is why nowadays I include creative action and visualisation in all my workshops where before I was happy just to talk and answer questions. And without wishing to blow my own trumpet (much) I truly never pass anything on to you before I have tried and tested it for myself.

By acting on information we make it real; by just reaching for yet another book or article or DVD because we think learning just one more thing will bring us closer to enlightenment, we are deluding ourselves and running away from the value of experience.

So I sat down and assessed exactly how much I'd learnt in this whole week of reading. In more than 500 pieces of paper/online articles and the two books only two paragraphs struck gold within me. And guesswhat? They were instructions on how to do a certain meditation that I had already got written down in my Discovery Journal (which is a book I keep to make a record of everything that I find transformative). I did the meditation and it was wonderful. In fact I'm doing it every day until I know I've done it enough.

Don't get me wrong; I value the time and effort all these people took with their research and their wish to make me happier and wiser with their information. But it's not the information that makes me happier or wiser, it's what I choose to do with it.

The nub of it is this. You already have all the information that you need to transform your life into a happy and prosperous one. But have you done anything about it? Have you applied I+E=K and lifted your vibration through the joy of direct experience?

If not, please do. Because that's what works. And that's this month's prosperity suggestion. Find something you've already been taught and do it. If you're stuck for an idea go back through some of these articles. And let me know how you get on.
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Angel Curry

I’ve always been a little bit snappish about angel work. It’s not that I don’t believe in angels; it’s more that I’ve always preferred to go to the Head Honcho rather than the staff. After all, if you want the Boss to help you out and you know you’ve got direct access to his office, why ask the Receptionist, the people from Human Resources or even the Head of Security?
And to be honest I’ve come across a lot of people who talk about angels in a very fluffy manner but whose lives don’t appear to be working very well and that never endeared the practice to me.

The Jewish and Alchemical mystical traditions which I’ve studied for the last 15 years teach that the energy forms that we generally call angels are pure forces of Divine aspects which have no free will. They have never been human and even if they can appear on Earth as humans, they have no experience of human physicality unless we invite them to experience it through us.

That’s different from our guides and spiritual beings whom we often regard as angelic and who combine the best of all worlds. But an actual angel — or messenger of God — is a power-house of energy focused on one particular aspect of existence.
It’s as though we are God’s children and the angels are God’s joyous servants who delight in assisting us. They know exactly what their purpose is and do not deviate from it. The only problem is that they believe that we, as divine beings ourselves know what we’re doing and if we give one Cosmic Order for prosperity and then spend twelve hours focusing on lack they give us the latter because that’s what we asked for most.

Realising that feeling snappish about angels is hardly going to attract a positive angelic experience, I decided that it was time to try to extend the hand of friendship to the Heavenly Office Workers instead of just sweeping past dismissively on my way to the Board Room.

The first few times where I did a meditation where I invoked the presence of one of the higher levels of angels than the ones who take care of the plants in my garden I didn’t get very far. The visualisation called down the essence of Archangel Michael (not the whole of him obviously – an archangel being energetically the size and power of a medium-sized sun). I couldn’t feel him to start with and then got the distinct impression that I wasn’t ready. That gave me a challenge or two!

But I kept trying and one day, the meld occurred. The Archangelic essence stepped (by invitation only) into my electro-magnetic field and it felt as though I was absorbed in living
gold and salmon pink. There was a gentle, powerful questing presence and, as I so often do when asked a question by someone we admire, I babbled.

I said (in my head), “I’m making a vegetable curry tonight.”

I felt like an idiot who was trying to impress with my culinary skills. But the delight that flowed through me at the thought of cooking a curry was palpable. It felt like a rainbow of colour of awe that such a thing was possible. Because, basically, an angel can’t cook…

“You can do it with me, if you like,” I said.

He did like and I loved the feeling of his joyous assent. In fact I thought cooking curry with an angel would be just the bee’s knees. That led to a fairly intense conversation about the leg-working processes of the genus of bee and it’s bending abilities and the fact that bees don’t have kneecaps so, technically, don’t have knees. It wasn’t that he meant to correct me; just desired clarification from a Daughter of the Creator about whether she was commanding/desiring/calling into being a form of bee which did have knees and explaining (politely) that such a creation, being until now unplanned in the evolutionary process would take a long time and a great deal of definitive thought . And apart from that, bees were Sachiel’s business, not his. Not for nothing does the Alchemical Tradition call angels ‘The Heavenly Civil Service.”

So a brief explanation about the vernacular was required. This was listened to with polite interest but it didn’t really hit the spot. Angels tend to stick to the point. Bees may have legs that bend but they don’t have kneecaps therefore they don’t have knees. Either I want them to or I don’t. The choice is mine. If I’m not choosing to begin co-creating bees with knees, then fine.

Shall we move on?

We moved on into the kitchen which was examined with great interest from top to bottom. One of Michael’s call signs is the cat (especially a golden one) and it was very much like experiencing a curious cat checking out the home.
At this point I’d better point out that although I love cooking, I had never cooked a vegetable curry before. I’d just got a surfeit of vegetables and had a recipe off the Internet and fancied giving it a go. I started gathering the root vegetables together, washing and scraping them.

The angel loved the experience of hot water on my hands and, when it cooled down wondered why I didn’t add more.

“I’m trying to save water and electricity,” I said.

The equivalent of a roar of joyous disbelief washed through me. How could I possibly believe that there could ever be a limit of water or electricity! To think that I chose a less than fabulous experience voluntarily because of fear of lack on this incredible abundant planet where it’s God’s joy to give us everything we desire!

That’s a little challenging to write in the light of political correctness and stewardship of the Earth but at the time it felt magnificent! And as creators of our own reality we really do have watch those automatic sentiments of lack.

The next question was even more incredible.

Why, the angel asked, as I was dicing carrots, did any human being voluntarily think any thought that wasn’t a happy one?
Come to think of it, it added in fascinated enquiry, why had I just cut my thumb? And wasn’t the colour of the blood so utterly, amazingly, gloriously, vibrantly beautiful?

We lost contact for a minute or two there as we were on temporarily incompatible vibrationary patterns but he was back in time to be interested in iodine and sticking plaster and very amused at my belief that any bacteria could possibly harm me if I didn’t want it to.

There arose a distinct desire to teach the angelic realms how to swear but somehow it didn’t get through…

As I par-boiled the root vegetables in salted water with turmeric and fried the onions and leeks with grated garlic, chilli and ginger I could almost feel him playing in the colours, textures and shapes. He explained that he was using (as I had given permission) my senses and literally wallowing in the experience of physicality. I ate a small piece of raw garlic to teach him a lesson but it went down a riot. He was in love with garlic and absolutely fascinated by the reaction of my nose and throat when I raised him a piece of raw chilli.

In fact the Angel thought that the whole experience of making curry was pretty darn profound. It wasn’t that he’d never had so much fun but this was happening now and could happen now to him eternally because he had experienced it in manifest existence (I think that’s right but I didn’t have a notebook).

“It’s individual creation,” he said. “You will never make a curry like any other human being. It has your energy in it; you make it in your own way with your own movements and sounds. You are taking individual blocks of life and mixing them to transform them into something unique; a chemical process that changes them forever. It is inconceivable for us to imagine mixing and heating a group of vegetables together because we can only see them in their individual beauty. And yet you humans create all the time. You build things, you change things, you destroy and improve things. It’s divinity in action!”

I noticed the use of the word ‘we’ rather than I. It would appear that the concept of ‘I’ didn’t resonate with a being which was an essence of a greater essence that was essence of an even greater essence for a long and ever-ascending way up to the full glory of Archangelic Beingness. That is one of the amazing thing about human beings, he explained. Our ability to individuate and to make thousands of individual choices.

I liked the idea that my curry might be a unique, divine creation. I liked the feeling of being observed with incredible love. And I had to wonder, why was it that we thought anything other than happy thoughts? Training and habit were the only answers. After all, I don’t know the truth of anybody else’s life and, once you’ve existed inside an angel you realise that there’s nothing external to you anyway so the suffering you see has to be yours and yours alone. And the enemies you make are only the enemies in you projected outwards.

“That’s Samael’s job,” said Michael, testing for seasoning and thinking simultaneously that nothing so good had ever been cooked and that a little more salt might be a good idea.

“What’s Samael’s job?”

“Protection and clearing the illusion of having enemies and suffering.”

“But everybody says that protection is your job. Don’t you have a sword?” A feeling — or was it a scent? — of scarlet flame with specks of green came through for a moment together with an image of a scene from the movie Crocodile Dundee — the one where Mick Dundee is threatened with attack and says, “that’s not a knife, this is a knife.”

“But isn’t Samael a name for Satan?”

Great roars of laugher made the entire room light up. I understood that Samael was the angel of destruction so it was an easy mistake to make. But he broke down the things that needed to be broken down; he didn’t attack the good. Without Samael there’d be no compost heaps…

Apparently if you ask Samael to help you with an enemy he’ll help you move apart on to your better good. Which means the enemy may be the one getting the promotion or the lovely relationship. He won’t get that good a press then…
But back to the curry. It was time just to let it simmer and to get the rice on to boil. I opened the back door to let the cool air in — and a large ginger tom cat was sitting on the doorstep. I had never seen him before in my life. He gazed up at me as a cat to a queen and sauntered into the kitchen. My husband loves cats so raised no objection to the new arrival and, as we ate, the cat sat watching, sitting elegantly on the third chair at the table.

I’m lucky; I can tell my husband about my spiritual life and it was obvious that something was going on with the extra presence in the kitchen.

We enjoyed that curry; all four of us (the cat had a nibble) were pretty impressed with how it turned out. And it was easier than usual to eat thoughtfully, savouring every taste. The red wine also seemed to be a particularly fine vintage.

But as we drank our cup of after-supper tea, the cat got up, asked to leave and I bid the angelic presence goodbye too. That was only right and proper; the rest of the evening was for Peter and I to talk, read and enjoy being together… but I sent Michael a thought of thanks as I left out a bowl of milk before we locked up went upstairs to bed.

It’s six weeks since Peter, the angel and I shared supper but the cat turns up two or three times a week and requests a mouthful of whatever I may be cooking. Sometimes it makes him sneeze but he eats it with his golden eyes shining. And then he leaves for wherever he lives and I watch him go with a smile in my heart.

Time For Some Not Fake Food.