Paying the Price

I was shocked today.

Someone asked if I knew a person with specific spiritual abilities who could help them. The required person had to be able to perform exacting mystical tasks. As it happened, what the person requested was a form of spiritual work I had executed many times over in the last fifty years. I offered to do the work.

Shockingly, the person offered to pay for the services they would receive. I am so unused to people actually being willing to pay for spiritual work that I was caught off guard. Once upon a time I charged set rates for my time. I became disenchanted with the work after a time. Not the spiritual work itself, but the people who asked for my assistance. My experience was that many people expected me to provide my time and energy for free.

Who takes a Bugatti or Ferrari to the shop and expects the mechanic to work for free?

Is your soul worth less than an expensive automobile? If you don’t want to pay for the services, what you’ll get will equal what you pay.

The reason professional sports players receive multimillion dollar contracts is because a lot of people are willing to shell out hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars for a ticket to a single game. Add many other willing participants including people who buy box seats and whole boxes, television ads, and the numbers add up. The same is true for concerts, theatre and other forms of recreation. Ditto vacations which add up to thousands of dollars in flights, hotels and other expenses.

Some people spend huge fees for plastic surgery, botox and the like. Add to that clothes, jewelry, cars, boats and private jets, and we begin to see a pattern.

How much are any of them — or anyone at all — willing to pay for their souls?

More times than I can remember I have heard clerics say that the worker is due his pay. They’ve said how they felt underpaid from the constant pressures to perform put on them by both the public and their superiors. They also told me that I am too easy on people. Simply out of exhaustion from arguing the point, I either asked too little or didn’t charge.

Until the time came when I stopped offering my services because I was tired of arguing about fees. I’ve long since realized that if I were to return to spiritual work, I would need a manager who could handle mundane matters so that I could focus on spiritual work.

My experience is that the public is willing to pay big bucks for extracurricular activities, but not a penny for their souls. When someone is asked to give a psychic reading or perform a traditional religious ceremony, it’s presumed to be for free. That is not realistic.

It took years of study and training for me to learn how to exorcise demons, put souls through the Tunnel of Light and properly employ any of the clair senses. Among other gifts with which I’ve been entrusted. More and more there’s a push on for those of us who already have these abilities to take training from some school or another. The idea is simple. In a society that values a piece of paper over the ability to perform, that paper offers an external validation that the public comprehends. We who work in spirituality rather than religion are much like clerics in that we spend years in training. A difference between clerics and me is that my training began in early childhood while most clerics do not begin training until high school or after.

Similarly, I’ve never met any corporate professional who reached their position without years of training and education. Also, their training did not commence as early as mine. The schools which corporate types attend are considered terribly important.

My coworkers and I have attended another type of school. For decades one of my friends has been considered the world’s greatest expert in a particular field of spirituality. Universities across America and beyond have attempted to coax her onto their faculties. She has always refused because it would interfere with her spiritual life. One thing all of the institutions are aware of is that her formal education ended with her high school diploma.

On the other hand, if all you have is something which is in and of the world, why aren’t you working on your spiritual life? Why aren’t you doing something of the ultimate importance with your life?

Are you paying the price of letting your soul slip away rather than working on your spiritual life?

There’s the old story about how the older people get, the more they pray and read the Bible. By then it can be too late. What happens if you die young or middle aged? Or never do your basic spiritual work?

Daily life can complicate life in my experience.

Spirituality is where we simplify ourselves. Whatever books we do or don’t read. Whether or not we pray or meditate the way someone else does.

Let’s not forget the fact that getting professional spiritual help takes guts. Whether the person your going to is a mystic like me, a spiritual director or the cleric of your choice. You have to have the boldness to make the decision to take care of yourself.

Spirituality comes at a cost. It means giving up what ultimately is not essential.

It means paying the price.