Dear WakanTanka...

"Dear God, you made many, many poor people.

I realize, of course, that it's no shame to be poor.

But it's no great honor either!

So, what would have been so terrible
if I had a small fortune?"

Religions, shamanism and other belief systems, that deal with the healing and development of human mind and soul together with a belief in other dimensions and their inhabitants (be it gods, angels, ghosts, ancestors or whatever) are variations of “the same thing” in the same way as all our languages are variations of our ability to talk with each other.

In the old religions and in shamanism we can see the same patterns and one is the offerings to the spirits. There are always some kind of offering on the altar and in BhagavadGita Krishna says that he will accept even just a little flower.

On Batty´s workshops in shamanism people once had to go out in the forest and make a contact with a little nature spirit of some kind. On the following lesson Batty told us that we had to bring the little spirit with us back home. And, then we would have to feed it also with offerings in the form of some kind of nice little pieces of food, candies, chocolate or so.

I talked about it with a friend who had “brought a spirit home” and she said that she did not intend to feed her little spirit, because, as she said, if it was an invisible spirit that was flying around it could just by itself fly down to the shop and take any kind of food that it liked.

Once I was with a friend in the forest outside of Stockholm. We had parked our car by the gravel road and we were just walking around in the forest. We were on a small opening, but when I had walked away from it (but not so much) and intended to turn around and go back to it I could not see it. It was as if it had disappeared.
We were lost and none of us knew the way back to the car and we did not even know in which direction we should walk. We searched but found nothing.

Then I got the idea that maybe we could get help from the little spirits… because that was what Batty had tought us! Well, I thought, without an offering to the spirit it would not be there.
I did not understand that, but we were lost and had to try anything.

I had found a very beautiful red mushroom, an amanita with white dots. and I offered it to a big stump that looked as if it could be “the home of somebody” and I asked for help.
I thought that if Krishna would accept a flower why could not a stump accept a mushroom?

But nothing happened! Absolutely nothing!

I was puzzled. Then a thought came to my mind and it said that this mushroom was not an offering - in fact it was something that I had taken from the forest. It was something that I had stolen from the world that belonged to the eventual spirit of the stump, so in reality it was the opposite of an offering. Whoops!

Batty had always said that tobacco was a good offering. OK... I had a package of tobacco in my pocket and I took some of it and I put it on the stump and I asked for the direction to the car.
Pof!
Immediately I knew the direction and I could run through a lot of bushes directly towards the car.
Well…???

A woman, who lived in the forest, more than 100 years ago, told about a strange happening: She had asked the spirits for help with something. It worked, but the next morning her house was dirty. She cleaned everything, but the next morning it was dirty again. And so on, day after day.
Then it dawned upon her that she had not given anything back to this spirit so now she did that and then the problem was not there any more.
Well…???

I don´t know, but the right kind of offering seems to be the key to everything in both religion and shamanism all over the world.

What is it about? Are the spirits really so greedy and needy that we have to give them food and a lot of things? Do they eat the food??? What do they do with the things that they have got? How can they need or even eat any food if they are just made up from foggy veils?

In the Hare Krishna Temple they offer all their food to Krishna and then they eat up the food themselves!
All of this seems quite crazy!
The modern, rational, Western mind cannot easily grasp this idea and I cannot either. But I try to.

As Batty has said, the real things do not take place in this world but in the Nagual, in another dimension. On that level there is an energy exchange and if you give the offering with a “giving mind” your energy body starts giving out an “altruistic energy” and then the same kind of energy has to flow back to you.

You and the spirit are living in two different dimensions, so to the spirit you are also a spirit?

Just for the fun of it and maybe to get a glimpse of another way of thinking, which could explain more, I make a little mental jump here.

Imagine the world of that entity that you call “nature spirit”.

This entity is there fully visible and looks like someone in a fairy tale book illustration. But in that world this world of ours is not visible! To them you are just a shadow flying around, to the people in that world you are a foggy spirit. But they can sense your presence and in a way also maybe identify you and see your intent. This intent of yours is their identification of you.
If they focus on you or if you focus on them you might even be capable of seeing each other. If you make a ceremony for this purpose the whole thing will be enhanced. It is about frequencies and you will get into contact with a spirit that has the same intentional frequency that you have. You get what you are.

Now comes the thing! Do these entities consider you to be a good spirit, that gives them something, or will they see you as an evil spirit who just wants to get something from them. Evil is just the same as greedy or “taking”.

So… if you now make an offering to them, because you want to get something back from them, I would call it a trick! Not very honest!

You are not really a good spirit to them- you are just making a deal in the same way as we do in the shops. But, of course, as in the shop, it is better to pay than to steal.
Offerings are often used as tricks to get something back in our normal world.

I believe that the original idea of these offerings was to turn your whole being into an altruistic body on all levels, a spirit that was good to all creation all the time, and not just making business using offerings as spiritual money.

A long time ago original spirituality turned around into greed and that is what the wise gurus are talking about.

The more we are greedy the more we get into contact with the greedy spirits and the world sinks down into misery when they get the chance to rule.

But… we have created a society where you have to be kind of greedy to survive. We have to work for money and the only solution to that is that we work out of interest in the job and not in the money. But how many can do that? The interesting job that you love might not at all give you any money. You might not even get that job.

So… New Age has found the solution! Just make up your own religion and then you can sell it to all the lost people. You will be a good Jesus and you will also get rich! Wow! It really sounds like the perfect way!

Well… I think it all depends upon your intent, if it is good or not, if it is giving or greedy. The people who are mainly interested in spirituality and have a genuine interest in shamanism today get blended with those, who are mainly interested in getting famous and making money.
It can be difficult to know who is what and often you will have to pay for it before you know.

As soon as an interest becomes a big trend greedy people jump up on the stage and take over. That is also what the church did when it turned religion into a big block that the priests could use to control people.
Today the big controllers use the money system, the banks.

Intent is your motivation and your energy in your heart and mind.

Mercury is not just commercial - it is about thinking and communicating in general and it can be used for commerce but also for seeking knowledge, not to get illuminated but to distinguish good from bad and this from that and see connections and to sort out things.

Jupiter is often said to be the "star of luck" and it is also the star of wisdom. It is a planet that opens your inner window and expands your perception of the world and it can give you luck in any area of life. A Jupiter transit can mean a prosperous windfall.

In India Jupiter is Brihaspati, the guru and teacher of the gods. Jupiter is the most auspicious, helpful, generous and beneficent of the planets and he rules over the two sidereal signs of Sagittarius and Pisces and presides over Guruwar or Brihaspatiwar (Thursday).
Mercury is said to be his enemy in the same way as we often mean that too much intellectual thinking becomes a block to higher knowledge.

If you make a Medicine Wheel of the Ancestors his place is in the north-east.

So it is interesting that Jupiter, the planet of luck and knowledge, in India is considered to be an enemy of Mercury, the planet of thinking, that in Rome was the planet of commercialism. 

In an old monastery it could be forbidden to even touch money.