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Inspiration, Celebration and Everybody Else. Or Tithing 101.

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!

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

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

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

Listen to Maggy on The Barefoot Broadcast, Monday 22nd November

Maggy will be talking about The Miracle Man, on The Barefoot Broadcast at 11am GMT, Monday 22nd November.

Las Vegas

When I wrote The Miracle Man I'd not been to Las Vegas for nearly a quarter of a century so it was an interesting pilgrimage to see if I got the geography right...

We came into 'Sin City' on Highway 5, stopping off at Primm on the border to check that Josh and his parents could have called Jude from a diner with gaming machines. Yes, he could; it was there. So that was okay. Phew. No matter how much you research something, you won't get it all right unless you show up and do the walking.

Vegas itself is a real culture shock. If I had different astrology I'd probably have like it more to start with but it did grow on me over the five days that we were there. It didn't help that our hotel turned out to be a bit like Alcatraz in that the rooms are inside a border wall, probably for extra security. Perfectly fine inside though ... and three minutes from the Strip. Which is weird. So much fantasy in one place and, of course, gambling everywhere. And I mean everywhere, not only in the palaces and fake frontages of the hotels. In one food-and-gambling area there were games set up where you could try to throw ping-pong balls into half-full plastic cups of beer. And this wasn't just a one-off.

Before leaving the UK I'd contacted five radio stations about the book — no reply. However, I emailed them again the first afternoon and within hours one had come back to say 'yes please, drop a copy in and we'll see what we can do.' That was the one which had an online blog inviting comments on Sin City and the Nature of Evil so I was able to give them something to quote on air as well as asking for their assistance.

While we were there, we 'stalked' six stations and then headed out to the Hoover Dam and The Valley of Fire to see where Josh lost his Gemma and became transformed. Still looking forward to the radio stations' responses (one interview request came in the day after we left - thank God for Skype and the good old fashioned telephone!).

The dam is wonderful; still is. As the novel is fiction it takes place just a couple of days before the new by-pass bridge over the Colorado river was opened (the bridge was actually opened while we were out there - much earlier than scheduled - so how that's for timing?). It's fiction - in a parallel world - so not actually having the exact date in the book doesn't matter although it felt a bit odd. It was just amazing that we were there the exact week that it happened! And we were able to drive over the bridge as well as go across the dam.

And oh, the fountains at the Bellagio in Las Vegas...and the wonderful inside Venice...and as for Cher, well I'll just quote my friend Michael: "She's going to look real good in the casket.'

I'll write more in another blog.

Diary of a book promotion tour part 1

So, here I am in the Days Inn Motel, Barstow, California ... the epitome of hopefulness. You see, we (my husband, Lion, and I) are on our way to Las Vegas to promote my new novel The Miracle Man. A targeted mail-out from my publisher's US publicity company, Ascot Media, will be hitting Las Vegas media tomorrow. And so am I.

I have two gigs booked in Vegas, at Unity Center in the Valley this coming weekend (looking forward to those very much). The hope is all on the publicity. I shall present every local radio and TV station with a copy of the book and show up looking like a very interesting interviewee. I am doing this totally on spec. I am putting myself where my heart is. I love this book and I am willing to travel across the globe to give it the chance it deserves in the world.

Will it work? Yes of course it will. After all, as Woody Allen said '90% of life is about showing up.' Am I scared? Sure. But feeling scared and feeling excited are twin sisters so sometimes it's hard to tell them apart. And I do understand that it may not work in exactly the way I hope that it will. But on an energetic level - yes, and I say yes, and yes and yes!

Why Las Vegas? Because The Miracle Man is based there. It's the story of a modern day Messiah who comes to Vegas and heals the city of all its reasons for being known as 'Sin City.' And he does it on live network TV because he's a judge on a TV talent show just like America's Got Talent.

So, this will be my blog of just how I get on in Las Vegas. One thing's for sure, I hope they have some vegetables there. Or a juice bar or two. I'm not a vegetarian but after three days traveling in California my whole body is yelling for produce. San Francisco, where we landed, was fine. Fantastic in fact. Cafe Gratitude is stunning and the food yummy (even though I'm not a raw food fan in general). But rural California? That's a different story.

Here in Barstow - and in our previous overnighter, Cayucos — there wasn't a restaurant in town that knew what a vegetable was. Salad, yes — but there's only so much lettuce a girl can eat (their standard of salad just here is pretty British as in 'throw a tomato and some dressing at it and it's a salad). And I can't get anywhere close to my five-a-day on orange juice and lettuce. It would be better if I liked Mexican food because I guess the beans count.

It's not just me. Beloved Lion who is the carnivore of carnivores, a petrol-head currently wearing a Cream teeshirt from the reunion concert at the Albert Hall, London, in 2005, is also pining for the green stuff. In fact it was his suggestion, after we had trawled the town, to buy salads from the produce section in the local supermarket and take them back to the motel for supper.

So we picked up the green stuff and took it to the check-out ... where the assistant said: "I'm sorry Ma'am, the produce section is for display purposes only." (just kidding but it really is that crazy here).

Tomorrow, we arrive in Las Vegas. I'll see you there...

It’s got nothing to do with money…

Hi Everyone,

Your October article is below.

It’s now just 20 days to the publication of my new novel The Miracle Man. There’s a new blog on http://themiracleman-maggyw.blogspot.com. It’s a work in progress at the moment but it will tell you all about the book.

This month I’ll be speaking at the Kabbalah and Healing Conference, College Heights Church, San Mateo, San Francisco, Saturday 16th October, Home of Truth Spiritual Center, San Francisco, Monday 18th October and Unity in the Valley, Las Vegas, Monday 25th October so if you’re on the West Coast of the USA come along and say hello.

Wishing you a wonderful autumn.

Maggy

It’s got nothing to do with money…

I know that it’s still hard to believe sometimes but I don’t believe that our financial problems have anything to do with the actual amount of money that we have (or don’t have). Everywhere I do a talk, whenever I ask what money is, people reply ‘energy.’ So if it’s just energy, it responds to who we are; what we think and what we believe in doesn’t it?

But we still think that it is about the money itself.

In the last week I’ve spoken with people who had sporadic income and nothing coming in for two clear months with mortgage still to pay, people who had jobs that paid enough to cover the rent and the debt repayment for the next six months at least, with a woman who ‘only has £5,000 left’ in her savings, no mortgage or rent to pay, a good pension and not a debt to her name and with someone who has a life-time work redundancy payment, no mortgage, no debt and a partner who’s earning more than £30,000 a year. What did they have in common? They were all frozen with exactly the same level of terror whatever their circumstances.

So what does money mean to us?

Survival.

Pride.

Worth.

In the Western world we are unlikely to be attacked by a lion or to experience crop failure and famine but we still fear anything that can mean that we can’t hunt (earn), have shelter or eat. So we fear the lack of the means to support ourselves. Even though most of us live in a welfare state where we would be taken care of and most of us have families who could put us up if push came to shove.

So we could survive. But not without a huge loss of pride. We would feel that we had failed and were lesser (we often feel that we have already failed with the examples of other apparently wealthy people before us). The interesting thing is that the ‘wealthier’ people felt no less fear about losing status than those who had much less money.

The status we have in other people’s eyes is the biggest demon in our prosperity consciousness. To give you an example: our fridge freezer is poorly and we’re not sure what our plans for next year are yet so instead of buying a new one, my husband has replaced it with an old fridge and separate freezer that we had in storage from a friend’s house. We usually use those only at Christmas time when we have visitors. So the old equipment is now sitting in the kitchen instead of the more modern appliance. It looks old; it looks (to me) scruffy and my ego loathes and detests it because I think visitors will look at it and think that this is our standard of living.

Does it work? Yes. Should I care what visitors think? No. Do the visitors actually care? No. It’s all about me and my pride.

Last month a dear friend cut herself out of a photograph of her family enjoying a special meal because she had not got a wine glass that matched the others on the table. She thought people seeing the picture would think she didn’t have any sense of style.

Now, we don’t have more than four matching glasses of any shape or form and it doesn’t bother me in the slightest but, given the fridge situation, I can relate because it’s exactly the same thing. It mattered so much to her that we don’t have any record of her being there at the lovely meal. She probably wouldn’t even notice my fridge…We all have our own push-points with this poverty-prosperity-ego thing.

So the answer? I think it’s Worth. Self-worth at the level of the soul. It’s not even about the ‘did you do the pink ribbon walk last weekend and get sponsored for charity?’ kind of worth because that’s the automatic (temporary) good feeling we get when we’ve helped others. It’s about real worth.

It’s about feeling loved by God. Sorry, but there it is. We call It the Source, the Universe etc. nowadays because of all our projections about the mean man in the sky who punishes us. And much as I love the Abraham teachings and the other Law of Attraction teachings, I’m not sure that they help us with the relationship with our loving Creator. If we are one with God (which we are), where is the relationship? We humans do crave relationship; it’s the reason why duality exists. We can’t laugh without duality; we can’t cuddle and taste and smile without duality so we need relationship. And for worth, we need to have a loving relationship with the Holy One. If we feel valued by God, then it is easier to let go the need to be socially acceptable to others — and then the whole ‘having to have the goods and chattels’ bit will ease and the money issues will ease too.

To quote Mike Todd: “I've never been poor, only broke. Being poor is a frame of mind. Being broke is only a temporary situation.”

You can’t be poor if you feel loved by God even if you’re broke. And you are loved by God. You don’t have to believe in God — or anything — to be loved. God is particularly fond of you. How do I know? Because I’m the author of 15 books and I simply cannot love one of them any more or less than the others. I can – and do – love them completely differently. Even the ones that are really out-of-date and don’t even reflect who I am now are cherished because I find something special inside them every time I pick one up and read a few paragraphs. And if I can do that over 15 books, what can God do about every one of us?

You are worthy; worth it; loved; adored; special; desired; perfect; gorgeous; glorious and cute to God. Just as you are (even in those old PJs with socks on — especially in those old PJs with socks on…)

Just thought you might like to know that. It might just help with the prosperity consciousness thing...

Review of Maggy's new novel, The Miracle Man

Review for The Miracle Man from Activagers.com ... "Whitehouse writes well with good humour and a modern style and the miracles are well thought out and delivered...this book is a huge accomplishment."

Read the review on Activagers.com.