Gifts of the Spirit by Cate Cavanagh - HTML preview

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The Ethics

Now is a good time to review the rules or ethics of spirituality. You have been challenged to rethink how you think, what you think and to evaluate how thinking affects karma, the body and the mind. Your views on life after life, reincarnation and destiny have also been challenged. The hardest thing in the world to do is to take everything you have learned and put it aside to consider something different. If you go no further than to just enjoy and appreciate the perspectives presented here, you have taken a huge spiritual step. I think you will find the ethics as I practice in my truth interesting as well.

I do my best to live the Eightfold Path. These principles will prevent anyone from participating in anything hurtful to themselves or others. I am not on a mission to convert anyone to my truth or to confront anyone whose truth is different. I am willing to learn from another’s truth. When aggressively confronted, I follow the advice that Jesus gave his disciples when he told them to shake the sand off their sandals and leave those people and places where they would not be welcomed in peace. I will not sacrifice any living thing. My sacrifices are foods, candles, incenses—things that represent my personal bounty and blessings as thanks. I will offer ‘preferred’items depending on the discipline I am following at the time. I will do no work to harm or force anyone to do anything against their will. Can this be accomplished? Absolutely. Will I? No. Some people have come for consultations and asked me if I would make a boyfriend marry them or make a wife quit her job. I refuse each and every time. Some people do not want to hear what they need to know and try to come back until the reading becomes what they want. I turn these clients away and tell them that when they are ready to learn what they need to learn, I will gladly see them.

I strive to teach clients that growth requires examination of the spirit as well as the self. Many people have experience only with practitioners who will do any work for the right amount of money including telling people what they want to hear. It is not the client’s fault that they have come to the conclusion that everyone works the same. There are disciplines that actually allow works such as these. Under the guidelines and ethics of these disciplines, bringing certain changes about is acceptable for certain fees. I do not judge these disciplines. I am familiar with them but do not practice these arts in this manner.

Many charlatans use terror tactics to bring people back claiming it is the only way keep an evil spirit away or to keep a protection spell going. My clients have often asked “Okay, when do I come back?” and have been shocked when I have told them that it was up to them because if they do as my spirits recommended, their life will improve for the better. I strive to teach people how to take care of themselves. I also encourage them to realize that although there are some Karmic debts that are to be paid in this life, since we do not know exactly what they are, we are to aim for change and improvement. Even ‘debts’ that are evident may be transformable so there is no need to frighten people that they must be under spiritual treatment all the time.

Usually, people reach snags in their path that need some unraveling or have picked up negativity or impish spirits one way or another. My regular clients usually see me about twice a year for readings to determine how they are doing on their journey or what they need to learn to do to gain more benefits. I believe in empowering people to be able to help themselves and in a later chapter I provide simple techniques that will enhance positive energies. These will include spiritual baths, “smoking” the house (it is not how it sounds), ‘smudging’ the aura and changing furniture around (Feng Shui). None of these techniques will conjure or attract energies or entities that will confuse a fledgling. It is very important that novices not dabble in attempting to conjure! Fear and even uncertainty can give certain entities permission to be as your perceive. This is especially true of the Kaballah, which should only be studied with Rabbis and other qualified master mages and Santeria where proper offerings are a necessity or the deities invoked will show their displeasure!

I will work to help but, only with the permission and consent of the person who needs the help. I will tell a mother, for example, if her son wants to find work he must contribute the energy of sincerity by contacting me, meeting me and consenting to have the work done. This does not mean I will have someone lose their job to give it to another. Helping someone find a job means creating an environment in which the timing is conducive for that person to be in the right place or the right time. Perhaps, they get nervous on interviews and because of this, interview poorly. I can help them by having a prospective employer see qualifications rather than lack of poise.

I will cleanse a person’s aura and help balance the energies around them that may be in opposition to his or her greater good. I practice and endorse the school of Feng Shui in which all clutter is removed and furniture is arranged in a specific manner to allow energies in a house to nourish the ‘chi’(spirit energy), and to keep positive energies moving for the benefit of the client. I will always refer people to medical professionals for physical complaints. It is important to separate the physical from the spiritual because a genuine physical problem can impair spirituality and impaired spirituality can impair timely healing from traditional medicine.

I have a spiritual teacher, my teacher has his and so on and so forth. If there is a problem out of my realm of expertise, I will not hesitate to refer the client to someone I know that can be of greater assistance.

I will not compromise the greater good for personal gain.

In casting work, if my gain will the result in a consequence (good or bad) to someone else, I cannot cast it unless it is qualified that no one is to be affected in the acquisition of the goal of the spell. Novices need to learn to do this properly. Impatience and failure to qualify the conditions of a casting can result in the outcome being at the expense of even someone you do not know somewhere in the spiral of ‘ripples’ you have created.

I respect other people’s truths. We are each on our individual life path. Whereas I may be more evolved than one person, someone will naturally be more evolved than me. Since we never know where our lessons may come from, I must respect the lowest person in society as well as the highest. I must be aware of my reactions to people and situations for therein lay further clues on how I can better know my real self and what I need to work on.

I will help someone in need even if it is to my own disadvantage. Such is the walk of trust. If I know I am being provided for, it can’t matter to me that I gave almost all of my own food to someone with a family and children to feed, can it?

My Ethics
I live the Eightfold Path to the best of my ability.
I am not on a mission of conversion.
I will harm no one in order to help another.
I will not sacrifice any living things.
I will do no work to harm anyone.
I will not frighten or cajole people into coming back for further

consultations.

I respect and will refer other disciplines and belief systems as necessary when identified.
I will recommend physical check ups to allow for healing to be total and complete.
I will refer clients to my teacher or someone more skilled in certain problems than I may be.
I will not compromise the greater good for personal gain.
I will assist all that ask provided there is no conflict with my ethics.
In addition to these ethics, I give thanks everyday. In each day is the gift of all possibilities. At the end of the day, I give thanks for what I accomplished and for the food on my table and the shelter over my head, regardless of how meager they may be. I must never forget the despairing and ill. I always ask that the light of the Creator reach them no matter how dark their place.
The hardest thing for me to do is leave someone to their own devices floundering on their own path. But I can only assist as much as I am allowed. There are some people who are unable to commit themselves to the work they must do. Sometimes a person’s truth and destiny can only be the result of their hardship. Someone like this is remembered in my prayers for there are times that this is most that can be done.