Monday

The Conditions...

Last month a friend begged me to publish a particular prayer in our magazine The Tree of Life (which you can see online at www.treeoflifemagazine.com). It was a prayer to Jesus for healing [insert name here] but it would only work if the prayer was published and passed on.

In the end I published it in my blog - you can see it in the next blog down - because she was so upset and needed the favour so much. Not because I thought that fulfilling the condition made any difference to the prayer.

And of course there have been this month’s usual rash of conditional emails – you’ll have good luck if you send this on; please forward this because AOL/Microsoft etc will pay money if it goes to a million people…or money will be raised for a little girl who’s been dying of cancer for more than eight years now…

I got a round-robin email sending all this up today – with the conclusion reading:

“If you don't send this e-mail to at least 144,000 people in the next 70 minutes, a large dove with diarrhoea will land on your head at 5:00 PM this afternoon and the fleas from 12 camels will infest your back, causing you to grow a hairy hump. I know this will occur because it actually happened to a friend of my next door neighbour’s ex-mother-in-law's second husband's cousin's beautician...” which at least gave me a laugh!

So why do so many of us still pass these conditional (even threatening) emails on? They are, essentially, chain letters and we fear that if we don’t do what we are told, we will be in trouble.

Well hey there, that’s a perfect reflection of our belief about the Source – or, to put it more accurately, God. So many of us use ‘Source,’ ‘Higher Self’ etc instead of God purely because we have the idea of the vengeful, angry old man in the sky. But there’s no use just changing the name without the belief.

Those old religious beliefs about unworthiness, having to suffer to get what we want and it not being spiritual to be rich are still out there. I asked a woman at one of my talks the other day whether she believed that women should cover their hair at all times; whether they should be subject to their husbands and whether they should not speak in public. She said “Of course not”. And yet she was totally wedded to another of St Paul’s phrases (misquoted) “Money is the root of all evil” and felt she couldn’t possibly ask for any.

But if you take one teaching, you really must take them all! And if one is doubtful, you must check them all out!

Now, to be fair, St Paul’s teaching about women was probably only sensible and practical at a time when the self-castrated male priests of Cybele wore loose long hair, women’s clothing and prophesied in the streets about a resurrected son of a virgin. Those priests were likely to be murdered in the streets as an abomination to right-thinking Romans. And any Christian woman doing the same would probably be mistaken for a priest of Cybele and meet the same fate. And no other religion allowed women to prophesy in the streets so for a Christian woman to do it would also have been as extraordinary as wearing your knickers on your head.

AND St Paul’s actual teaching about money is this:

“Having food and raiment let us be therewith content. But they that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into 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.”

Somewhat more kindly translated from the Greek it means:

“Having sustenance (food, all bills paid, holidays four times a year in Jerusalem and enough to cover tax and council tax) and covering (a house of our own without mortgage, suitable clothing for all events, furniture and clothing), let us be therewith content.
"But they that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition.
For the avarice is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.”

Not many of us would be avaricious if we had everything we needed provided. And it is true that seeking money for money’s sake (addictive gambling etc.) can hurt us. So St Paul wasn’t so far off the mark.

And yet, that one phrase ‘money is the root of all evil’ has been the greatest inhibitor of wealth in so many spiritual people for centuries. It’s even assumed to be taught by Jesus – or be direct from the mouth of God.

It’s just one bloke saying what he thinks with his own loading. Nothing more. It’s not God telling you that it’s wrong to be prosperous – even wealthy.

Jesus’ own teachings about money we can deal with another time – but basically they are the same, that you can have whatever you want but don’t plan to hold onto it so that it holds you back in your life.

So, back to conditions. God/Source is NOT conditional. When it comes to prosperity, It doesn’t give a stuff whether you are good or bad. If you are prosperous it is because you have prosperity consciousness which the Universe recognizes and to which it responds. And that you are willing and able to receive the great abundance which pours down on us all 24/7.

So this month’s exercise is to realize that the Source is neutral; that happiness and prosperity are in your choice, not doled out to the worthy by a judgmental God who loads you down with conditions. It is YOUR conditional thinking that causes the problem. These emails are just demonstrating it back to you if you even consider passing them on.

So, stop sending on conditional emails. It’s quite easy to cut the threat off at the end if they are otherwise lovely. Then, if you are not putting conditions on others, then the Universe will stop putting conditions on you….

And try this very simple affirmation: “Thank you for my wonderful prosperity consciousness.” Believe me, it works.

Tuesday

Prayer for a friend

A friend asked me to post the following for her as apparently the prayer depends upon publication. Ask and it is given...So here it is...


The Miraculous Prayer
Dear heart of Jesus, in the past I have asked for many favours, this time I ask You this very special one.{mention favour} Take it dear heart of Jesus, and place it within your own broken heart where your Father sees it. Then in His merciful eyes, it will become Your favour not mine. Amen. Say for three days, promise publication and your favour will be granted. Never known to fail. JS

Sunday

Prosperity course March 2008

Hi Everyone,
March rather crept up on me this year! Just a quick note to say that I am putting together a five-CD set of the "Activating The Secret Courses" that I am running in the Midlands of England. These are really life-enhancing courses with some incredible results! If any of you are seriously interested, I can do the five-week evening course in a day so get in touch with me at mw@pureprosperity.com if you want to organise one in your area.
NB the www.pureprosperity.com website may be down for a day or so as it's moving servers.
Wishing you a lovely Easter,
Maggy
Prosperity Email for March.
You know the term "baggage" and, if you've read Eckhart Tolle's "The Power of Now" you know that one of the names that can be used for our baggage is "the pain body."
It's the pain body that holds us back when we are trying to move on to the next stage in our prosperity consciousness. Now, there are those who say that there is no truth in the idea that we have to suffer at all as we move towards the light and, to a certain extent, they are right.
The trouble is that I still believe in pain. Not as much as I used to do but, as I can still experience it, I obviously believe in it! And if it's in my life, then I need techniques to deal with it. And maybe you do too.
So, you have a pain body. That's the old familiar horrid feeling you get when something goes wrong. We all know it - and depending on our astrology and other blueprint stuff it either feels fearful, anxious, despairing, hopeless - or all of those.
The thing is, it isn't YOU. It's actually a separate entity that lives within you. No, that doesn't mean that it's an alien presence or a dead soul that's attached to you or that you're being attacked by lizards, it means that it's a self-created energy field that feeds on your negative emotions.
So, if it feeds on emotions, it's in its interests to find circumstances that are emotionally charged. Has it a consciousness to do this? No. But it does have a sub-conscious ability to focus on events and people who fit its criteria for pain.
For example, for some reason you turn on the television when there's a documentary or an appeal or a drama that pushes all your buttons. Or your mother throws an off-the-cuff remark at you that you react to without thinking and suddenly there's an old issue surfacing big-time.
So, how to deal with it (thank you Eckhart Tolle!). I've added a bit to his idea which I think helps even more...
You close your eyes, think of your biggest problem - probably prosperity? - and feel the negative emotion around it. Then you visualise the feeling and/or the problem itself as some kind of image. For example, a grumbling old woman or a fizzy, electric, black ball of string...whatever works for you.
Once you are visualising it - seeing it - start saying "I (name) see you (whatever) pain." As in "I, Maggy, see you, Fear of Judgment." As you say that, you separate the "I" - the real you - from the pain - the illusion.
Once you can see the pain body as a separate entity, the emotion goes; it can't survive unless you are feeding it with consciousness.
The other thing to do is to give it a name. Something that works for you in emphasising that it is NOT you but a separate being. Silly names work for me - like Fifi or Fido or Bunkum.
Then, if you practice, daily looking at the pain as being separate from you, a time will soon come when you feel sparked into the pain and will be able to think: "Oh! That's Fifi! It's not me..."
And then, you're on the way towards a full and lasting recovery from the pain...
An old friend of mine once said that the most important part of Jesus's crucifixion was his dying - not the pain of the crucifixion itself nor the resurrection. She said that as soon as we are willing to give up the pain (die to the pain) then resurrection is a done deal. Makes sense to me. It's the pain body that crucifies us day after day - so if you can get it outside of you by observation (and give it a VERY silly name) then, resurrection is the naturally occurring result.
So, bung those financial fears into a ball of black string, separate them out from you, give them a silly name, and watch the pain levels subside. It's not an overnight job but, with perseverence, it really, really works.
Happy Easter!

Friday

The Freebies

Following on from the previous - about when to give freebies and when not - some lovely stuff sent to me by my friend Barbara from Rebecca Marina's website Celebration Healing.

Rebecca says (and how I agree with her) that there are two main reasons why therapists get asked for freebies.

1/ They don't have enough self-esteem to value their work

2/ They have a Saviour of the World complex - as in "I must do everything I can to save you (forget about me!)"

I've had both...the Saviour of the World part is the trickier of the two...I finally cracked that one when learning about Ho'oponopono which teaches very simply that you can't help anyone but yourself...but if you help yourself, others get better too.

This is what Rebecca writes:

"But Rebecca, who is going to take care of all the poor and downtrodden people in the world?" Well, I don't know... would you like to keep doing it for the rest of your life? Or, are you ready to let some other "up and coming practitioner" take their turn?
Even Jesus said, "The Poor will always bewith us."

When we're starting out we all do a lot of free work. It's actually 'exchanging energy work' in those days because we get to learn on our clients so it's a genuine two-way process.

But later on, when we're moving into our own power, it's time to really value who we are and say 'no,' if you want my services for free, you're not ready for them. If you don't want to pay (or offer a fair exchange) for them then you aren't going to value them - and they won't work for you.'

When I was seriously broke, I weeded the garden for a friend...there's always something you can do as an exchange if you really want to grow.

So, more work on self required (what a surprise!) Or, rather, perhaps more play with self required...

Thursday

Surely the more you give, the more you get back?

Anyone who's seen The Secret http://thesecret.tv knows about the Law of Attraction - which is simply the way that this Universe operates as in 'what you put out you get back.'A friend of mine who's doing some advertising for our magazine, Tree of Life http://www.treeoflifemagazine.com wanted to offer advertisers a special offer on top of an existing special offer. I said 'no' and she said 'surely the more you give, the more you get back?'In theory, yes. But I think it only works the way we'd like it to work if we're actually willing to receive as well as give.
And in business, it’s a bit on the crazy side to give special offers which mean that you can’t pay the print bill (let alone your colleague!) from the revenue that you are offering to others.
Yes, I know it’s true that the money can come from somewhere else but you have to clear about the motivation for giving. And if you don’t want to give it, then it really won’t benefit anyone if it is given…because it’s not a gift it’s a resentment.
And it’s no use jumping to ‘you should be more enlightened than that’ because that’s just adding blame to resentment.
We are allowed to be human! The lovely lady wanted to make the special, special offer to support those potential advertisers who couldn’t afford a ‘proper’ ad.
I do realise that the people who most need prosperity are the ones who don't have it (it’s a blinding flash of the bleedin' obvious but bear with me...) but if I gave extra discounts would I actually be supporting them? Are they ready to advertise their therapy work if they are not willing to promote themselves? And if I gave people the special, special offer, how could I tell the Universe that I want to be paid directly for my work? My accountant is brilliant but she and the tax man do like to have some definite trail to follow on outgoings and income.Yes, if I were enlightened, I could sit and meditate all day and have everything I desired come to me...but, sorry, I'm not that enlightened and anyway I want to walk the dog…So I think the art of giving and receiving is something that is a little more complex than just giving more and more.Interestingly, while I was thinking about this, I had a phone call from someone who wants me to come and do a free talk for her group to promote a six-week course I do on 'Activating the Secret' (see www.pureprosperity.com). It was slightly dispiriting because originally she was going to book me for the course itself...then she was going to book me for one evening at a small fee...and now she said the group wanted me to speak for one session for free.I said I'd ring her back and I had a think. Once I'd got my head around it and got over the slight irritation of the change of plan I knew that it was fair enough...it's a 'loss-leader.' I called her back with good grace and said 'yes, okay.'But within an hour of saying yes to that freebie, I had a phone call from a woman to whom I'd previously offered a discount on a workshop who said she couldn't afford it and could she come for free?An hour after that, I had a call from a client from a previous workshop who hasn't done any of the homework I'd suggested wanting me to give her more (different) advice for free over the phone.And half an hour later I had someone come to the door asking me to buy things that I didn't want or need in order to support him (often I will buy from these people - but there was nothing I could possibly want in his bag and he didn't present his case with any grace!)And another hour later I had a phone call from someone wanting a private session for free who spent 10 minutes telling me how awful she was and how her life was a mess before I could get a word in edgeways.If I had said yes to all those people, would the Universe have re-imbursed me later? I don't think so - because I wouldn't have been valuing me and my work.In fact, I gave all four of them (including the doorstop seller) some concentrated listening time and, to all of the prosperity seekers, I gave two exercises or techniques that they could do to start the process of turning their lives around. Not one of them listened. They didn't want to make the commitment to working themselves. Instead they wanted me to see them for free; they thought that I could do the work for them and heal their problems.Which I couldn't possibly do.I run a monthly free prosperity e-letter and I run a monthly prosperity support group for £5 and there is plenty of free advice to get people started on my website so I have resources available for those who simply can't pay. You can also get my books and Tree of Life magazine from your local library. And I know from my own experience that you can get from a 'can't pay' to 'want to move on and can pay' space from doing those exercises because that's exactly what I did after my own life fell apart. Without free books from the library (it was before the Internet took off) I might well have stayed in trouble but I was desperate enough to do the work - and it worked.And, I have a confession to make (which I may regret!) I always give one free workshop per quarter. But I give it to the person who seems to me to be the one who would most benefit from it. Someone who is already doing the work in some way. And when I give it from my heart, then it both works for the receiver and for me.So this Law of Attraction is a funny thing...if we apply it with a feeling that our heart is sinking it will bring us more heart-sinking experiences. But if we apply it with happiness then it will repay.But we have to remember our own worth all along.

Wednesday

This is the cover of my latest book, The Marriage of Jesus published by O Books http://www.o-books.com this September.

This is how the blurb reads:

Was Jesus celibate, as the Church claims, or did he marry? If he had a wife, was she Mary Magdalene or someone completely unknown to us? In this knowledgeable and accessible book, Bible metaphysician, theologian and author Maggy Whitehouse puts forward a ground-breaking new theory; that just like any other Jew of the time, Jesus married at the age of 14. The “missing years” in the Bible are those he spent as a husband, raising his family.

“The Marriage of Jesus" is enjoyable, thought-provoking and fascinating. Author Maggy Whitehouse seamlessly blends an impressive mix of scholarship, practicality and mysticism. She demonstrates a deep knowledge of the lives of people in Biblical times in presenting this powerful and plausible theory. This book should be read by everyone involved in contemporary religious study." Dr David Goddard, author of Sacred Magic of the Angels and other titles. (David's website is http://www.davidgoddard.com)

http://www.o-books.com/product_info.php?products_id=395

The Secret

Have you seen The Secret? It's a wonderful film about the Law of Attraction - or how to create abundance in all areas of your life. Visit The Secret website for more information.

It's great for people like me who've been teaching prosperity consciousness (and learning it - good grief yes!) for so many years. Now I can just say 'It's about The Secret' and thousands of people suddenly understand.

For me the most important thing is to realise that there are ways to overcome our resistance to The Secret. That's why I do what I do - helping people (and myself!) to identify and resolve those social, religious, family and fear-based resistances.

Resistance is futile! Honest. We'll all get there in the end. Do visit my website, Pure Prosperity for loads of free advice -and details of my free monthly email course.

Oh - and do visit the Tut Adventurers' site too. That's fabulous.

Time For Some Not Fake Food.