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Originally Posted by Blue Sparks  Should I elaborate on every single little thing? You all seem to be missing the key point here. For the sake of keeping my argument brief I stated only one side of my view on money, but in no way do I believe money is the absolute evil and should be avoided at all cost. I believe in moderation, along the lines of "not taking more than what you need", I think it should be especially of concern to anyone on the spiritual path the corrupting effects money can have. But I have a bank account too. There's nothing bad about those things Jeremy, the point I've been trying to get across for three posts is that it is not a very good motive to help someone for your own personal gain, its a contradiction.
When you help someone it's not about you or your gain, but theirs. How have we confounded money, with acts of kindness? It's as if we are so lacking in concern for each other, that humanity needs an incentive to help and to better one another? Ironic seeing how one of the main New Age tenets is that of unconditional love, but here it's conditional love, based on how many hundreds of dollars your willing to spend?
I suppose that your ethics are subject to change as if it were a fad of some sort, but this would be expected of a more mainstream audience who have no concept of philosophy what-so-ever or reason to be moral to their fellow creature, besides the fear of going to hell and jail.
But you guys are here obviously because you have at least somewhat woken up to the illusion of the "mainstream", and you study spiritualism. So how is it you guys can justify personal gain being a sound motive to do good and helpful things for one another? (Since "helpful things" is quite general, lets specify, emotional help and guidance.) If your sister or brother called you and was feeling terrible and needed some guidance, would you tell him/her to "book a session"? Of course not, you wouldn't make your own family pay. But aren't we all a part of the human family, Earth being our home?
The importance of money I believe has long been over-exaggerated. This is especially true in western society, obviously, it has come to a point where even the western spiritualists need an incentive to do something nice for their fellow creature. There is something fundamentally wrong here with the act (of selling kindness), and society as a whole, I just don't believe the two should be mixed. I'll close with a quote from the introduction of Thomas Paine's Common Sense essay.
"A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right, and raises at first a formidable outcry in defense of custom."
I know you guys can get it. |
I think you might be a little mislead in thinking that profit from offering psychic or healing services is some kind of new age thing. From what I understand, people were bartering and offering gifts to medicine men, witches, shaman, etc., for their services for as long as they've been documented in time because those people viewed those services as valuable. It's is not one taking from another, it is two people HELPING one another by exchanging things that are valuable for the other.
If a psychic sees that someone will get hit by a bus if they step out into the street just at that moment, rest assured if they are a good person, they will say, HEY YOU, STOP! and not ask to be paid for helping that person.
However, if someone actively seeks out the advice, energy, and services of a psychic then they themselves are willing to pay for these services because they view them as helpful and valuable. You simply cannot bring someone a dead hog for dinner as a thankyou these days and it be useful to the person you give it to. Well, unless you live where I do! LOL. Then it may become breakfast sausage, but that's beside the point. Money is a much more viable and reasonable gift in exchange for services.
I feel like you are being very judgemental here and it is unfair to the people who do their very best to help others out. I can attest that if you give your services away for free all the time, that you will spend 24 hours a day on the phone or in e-mails helping others while you are unable to provide for yourself. There is nothing wrong with asking to be paid for a valuable service as long as it is honestly valuable and you are not scamming or taking advantage. A person who installs floors for a living is helping another by putting new floors in their home so the owners don't have to do it themselves. They also ask to be paid for it because it consumes much time and energy, just as doing readings do, and it is a desired service that is valuable.
Also, being psychic does not equate to being spiritual. They seem to come hand in hand many times simply because of the doors that are opened, but a psychic does not HAVE to be spiritual therefore being psychic is not necessarily a spiritual path. I feel like that is also a misconception and a psychic should not be expected to be someone who is also very spiritual and will "abide" by these laws and limitations that are set by others' values.
Who decided money was root of evil? Man did...I don't think spirit had much of anything to do with that at all. Man is also telling us that we're selfish and not spiritual if we accept money for psychic services. Spirit isn't saying that at all.