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Life style

Do gemstones correlating to the zodiac offer protection?

I just started a website devoted to astrological jewelry. Though obviously related to my spiritual interests, this is a commercial project: everything that someone buys on that site earns me a percentage. (my disclaimer)
One of the things I present there are amulets made of semi-precious gemstones. This reminded me of something I used to do [...]

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Is spirituality a lifestyle or a quest?

I have been pondering recently the difference between spirituality as a life style and spirituality as a quest. Consider the following Blavatsky quote (the modernized English is mine) from The Voice of the Silence, The Seven Portals:
Before you stand on the threshold of the path; before you cross the foremost Gate, you have to merge [...]

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Why doesn’t the dream add up to the reality?

I’ve spent a lot of time on this blog analyzing the Law of Attraction, aka ‘The Secret’. One of the issues that keeps coming up for those who spend (in my opinion) too much time on this law, is how to translate the dream into reality. Or as one member of the LOA forum says [...]

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Will, diet, renunciation and religion

Traditionally the main religions have advocated renunciation in one form or another. Whether it’s the fasting for Lent or the day time fast in Ramadan – lay people have been stimulated to restrain their appetites at one time in the year. For religious professionals – like monks, nuns and priests – renunciation was a full [...]

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Seduction, advertisement and black magic…

The advantage of having a spiritual blog are, among other things, that I get free copies of spiritual books occasionally. So far that’s limited to spiritual fiction though, in my case. And it’s not exactly the best fiction I get sent home for free either. I recently received ‘The Happy Soul Industry‘ by Steffan Postaer. [...]

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Environmentally aware – spiritual virtue no. 7

Is this a cliche? Is environmental consciousness a central spiritual value? Or is it only a virtue when people act on it? In any way it’s the most modern of values on my list. A century ago the concept hardly existed – although of cource air and water pollution are as old as the industrial [...]

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Generosity and detachment – spiritual virtue no. 5

Generosity is, for once, a classic virtue. In Islam it’s called Zakat: the duty to give a percentage of your possessions to the poor.
Generosity is linked to another classic virtue: detachment. In both Hinduism and Buddhism attachment to stuff, money and status is seen as a problem. Letting go of that in the form of [...]

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Thinking for yourself – spiritual virtue no. 2

Of all the virtues and values I’m discussing in this series, thinking for yourself is probably the least ’spiritual’. A lot of people associate spirituality more with ‘intuition’ (or even emotion as some have noted in the comments) than with thinking. Yet thinking for yourself is a central concept in many new religious movements. It [...]

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Freedom – spiritual virtue, value or norm no. 1

In my series about spiritual values I want to start out with a virtue that is perhaps the strongest ideal in the series.
Is freedom a virtue? In a traditional religious setting taking responsibility would be considered a virtue. Freedom and responsibility can’t be separated. Those who have freedom, have a lot of responsibility. With responsibility [...]

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Spiritual virtues / values / norms: perspective on alternative spirituality

Auch. That was way too long a title.
Anyhow, I was thinking about some of the responses to my post about the difference between religion and spirituality (and how little difference there is). While I don’t agree with Jan Peter for instance – spirituality is more than something emotional – I do think I know what [...]

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