Getting into an argument on some Yahoo group about charging money for spirituality. I got so into it that I realised it would make a blog-post in its own right! So here is a rejoinder I was planning to write, from which I have trimmed the intemperate bits (i.e. the more intemperate bits).
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Now let me present a completely different argument about why it is wrong to charge people money for spirituality. It has nothing to do any superstitious notion about money being tainted, and everything to do with Economics. It is this:
If Spiritual Teachers are seen to be getting away with charging money for their services, it will only encourage Spiritual-Teachers-Who-Aren’t-All-That-Good to charge money for their services.
Now I may be treading on sensitive ground here, but without naming any names I’m sure we can all think of a few organisations, maybe but not necessarily connected with some incarnation of the Golden Dawn, whom we all know are basically a bunch of crooks who are only in it for the money. Why are they doing it? Because they think they can! They have seen genuine teachers charge money, and they think “we can make an argument for saying we’re genuine – now let’s see those dollar bills!”
Hence, based on Economics, the way to get rid of the shysters is not to charge more money than them, but to undercut them.
Moreover, I can think of two ways to make sure that only high-quality candidates take a correspondence course on offer. The first is to set them at fairly difficult entrance exam right at the out-set.
The second is to cease advertising it. This only looks counter-intuitive to those who have an obsession with publicity, or with empire-building, but the fact is that there are a great number of organisations that thrive perfectly well with doing no publicity whatsoever. People who are genuinely interested in their work seek them out, of their own volition.
, flawed though it may be, at least points out that Dee made marginal notes as he received the calls as to how each odd collection of consonants should be pronounced. What is immediately obvious is that the overall scheme is quite simply that each word is pronounced as it would have been in Elizabethan English, with odd consonants being pronounced separately. Moreover, Z is not pronounced Zode every time, but only when either smooth pronunciation demands it, or to add the connotation of “of God” to a word. The idea of interpolating vowels from equivalent Hebrew letters is entirely absent in Dee’s work.
‘ remark that Angels do not have vocal cords. Hence the manner of pronouncing a given Enochian key is rather academic at best. Hence knowing what the Enochian call is, and what it is meant to do, is possibly more important than how to pronounce it using the vocal cords of an “alien being” – i.e. a human.
) that the “Garden of Eden” is actually the Platonic World of Forms – and that the Adamitic language speaks directly to this World, thus invoking archetypal energies. Whether or not this is the case, the fact remains that Enochian is the closest thing we have to objective proof that magic actually works.
AND 
Sol Ascendans - The Website of Alex Sumner 
Ophiuchus – The Real Deal
Proposed symbol for Ophiuchus
Recently across the interwebby-type thing there it has been suggested that a new constellation – Ophiuchus – be included within the Zodiac. Actually some people have been saying this for around 16 years or more, however the most recent publicity to the notion has been generated by a statement by the Minnesota Planetarium Society – so it is rather cheeky that they claim to have only recently discovered it. Obviously time does not pass so quickly in that part of America!
The argument is that because Ophiuchus is in the same general vicinity as the other constellations which make up the Zodiac (nb: not “Horoscope” *) it should be added thereto. IMO, however, Ophiuchus should not and probably won’t be included in conventional Astrology – and with good reason. The rationale of Astrology is that it is the direct continuation of the ancient Pagan religions in unbroken succession from their heyday thousands of years ago into the present day. It has millenia of established practice behind it, and it provides both the language and the vocabulary of the Hermetic tradition. Hence – the only extent to which any constellation or heavenly body can be included in astrology – whether existing or a new candidate – is that to which it is reflected in ancient practice, and ancient mythology – which after all makes up the archetypes of the collective unconscious. Whilst there are various myths and legends surrounding Ophiuchus as a constellation in the general sense, it has no established mythology as an astrological entity. One cannot, for example, say which planet rules it, which planets are exalted in it, what planets are in their fall or detriment in it, what Element it should be, or whether it should be Cardinal, Fixed or Mutable.
Needless to say, this has probably whipped straight over the heads of the Minnesota Planetarium Society who, being astronomers, are not thinking about this from an astrological point of view.
Therefore, as an astrologer myself, I would recommend simply ignoring the current talk about there being a new sign of the Zodiac. And to the Minnesota Planetarium Society, I say: “G’Ophiuchus Yourselves.”
* The reason I say “not Horoscope” is because there is only one Zodiac – but there are currently 7 billion different Horoscopes. The Zodiac is what is in the sky, but the word “Horoscope” refers to an individual’s astrological chart generally, and their first-house marker (Ascendant) specifically.
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Tagged as astrology, BBC World Service, Horoscope, horoscope change, Minnesota Planetarium Society, New Zodiac, Ophiuchus, Serpentarius, Zodiac