Prophets to Profits: The Corporate Takeover of Spirituality

By Vida Norris

 

• Corporations and individuals who sell spirituality select fragments of ancient spiritual concepts or teachings and then repackage them to be more appealing as a product to sell. In the process, however, they violate the integrity of the original source and distort the original meaning and purpose…

The Self-help and “mind-body-spirit” scenes are billion dollar industries, but how has the commodification of spirituality affected our ability to practice it? As sacred principles are co-opted and watered down to sell feel-good mass-market products, those unwilling to sell-out spiritual principles are pushed further to the margins – where they are increasingly maligned as “cultist” for putting spirituality ahead of materialism.

Alternative spiritual teachings and groups that encourage a way of life outside of mainstream values are being marginalized and suppressed from all sides.

On one side, what is deceptively being presented to the general public as a viable and appealing alternative to mainstream religious institutions is largely owned by corporations and individuals looking to profit from people’s natural interest in spirituality, making it nothing more than a cleverly disguised offshoot of the mainstream itself…

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Synchronicity and the Mind of God: Unlocking the Mystery of Carl Jung’s “Meaningful Coincidence”

By Ray Grasse

• I’d suggest that by focusing our attention primarily on isolated coincidences we are only witnessing one small facet of a much larger reality, one with many different expressions and dimensions. Unlocking the true significance of Jung’s theory thus requires that we step back and attempt to grasp the broader perspective of which synchronistic events are only a facet.

Most of us have, at some point or another, experienced certain unusual coincidences so startling they compel us to wonder about their possible significance or purpose. Do these strange occurrences hold some deeper meaning for our lives? Or are they simply chance events, explainable through ordinary laws of probability, as most scientists claim?

Among those who wrestled with these questions was the famed Swiss psychologist Carl Jung. Having experienced many such uncanny events himself, he coined the term synchronicity to describe the phenomenon of “meaningful coincidence.” Whereas some coincidences were indeed without significance, he wrote, every so often there occurred confluences of circumstance so improbable they hinted at a deeper purpose or design in their unfolding…

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