Mark does not receive any kind of payment or royalties from the sale of his books, and their price is set at the cost of their production, in accordance with his principles of providing all his work for free or at cost. Mark used to provide all his books for free in eBook format, but they are no longer available as they were being too plagiarized. We are just a small team, and unfortunately following up instances of copyright became so time-consuming we could no longer cope with having them available.
Mark’s eBooks were downloaded over 140,000 times over the course of about 3 years, and this website has had millions of hits.
Mark has turned down a number of publishers because he wants his work to remain free and without profit. In doing so, he and his non-profit publisher may have given up at least $365,000 over 3 years, which is what he would have made if he’d charged for his eBooks (that he gave away for free) at going rates on Amazon.com– and that’s not taking into account the huge advertising budgets large publishers with their access to the mainstream media offer.
Belsebuub’s non-profit publisher – the team at
Mystical Life Publications.
But have you ever stopped to ask yourself, is it right to charge money for spiritual information? After all, spiritual knowledge and understanding flows freely from the universe to us, so why should we then sell it on at a profit?
We believe spirituality is not something you can price tag, and that it should be passed onto others without profit, just as it’s received that way from the universe. To profit is to block the free flow of spirituality, much like someone at a cosmic stream who diverts the flow of water, only to sell it to those suffering the thirst for change, knowledge, and inner awakening downstream.
Sacred texts and teachings have always been free – so why not now?
Humankind’s greatest spiritual teachers—from Quetzalcoatl to Jesus, Krishna to Lao-Tzu, and Osiris to Hermes, along with the authors of many of the most sacred texts of all time—never charged money for their words. Imagine a bestselling Jesus charging entry to the Sermon on the Mount, or an Arjuna who paid thousands in fees to Krishna for personal coaching in The Bhagavad Gita! They taught and followed common spiritual principles, which includes teaching spirituality freely. To charge money is to exclude people from receiving the most important information in life based on their financial standing, which is not and has never been a requirement for receiving genuine knowledge.
“Freely you have received; freely give.”
~ Jesus, Matthew 10:8 NIV
“The sage doesn’t hoard. She increases her treasure by working for her fellow human beings. She increases her abundance by giving herself to them. The way of heaven: benefit all, harm none. The way of the sage: work for all, contend with none.”
~ Lao-Tzu, Tao Te Ching, translated by Brian Browne Walker
“Some who heard mocked and scoffed and went their way, delivering themselves to the Second Death from which there is no salvation. But others, casting themselves before the feet of Hermes, besought him to teach them the Way of Life. He lifted them gently, receiving no approbation for himself, and staff in hand, went forth teaching and guiding mankind, and showing them how they might be saved. In the worlds of men, Hermes sowed the seeds of wisdom and nourished the seeds with the Immortal Waters.”
~ The Vision of Hermes, in The Secret Teachings of All Ages by Manly P. Hall
We share these principles as they are timeless, and continue the tradition of working in the ancient and time-honored way of receiving just what people give voluntarily in donations alone. And in reality, this is how spiritual things should operate, and have operated for many thousands of years in ancient wisdom traditions in which knowledge was transmitted from teacher to student, or from guru to disciple, based on merit not on monetary exchange.
Spirituality has been hijacked by corporations
However, a massive shift has taken place in the way humanity perceives and receives spiritual information. In the US alone, the personal development market grosses 10 billion plus annually. This indicates there are a huge number of people getting rich off of people’s search for truth. Spirituality has become hijacked by people out for their own financial interests who’ve totally saturated bookstores and the internet with every kind of spiritual misinformation because a market-place in it has been created. You don’t actually have to practice spirituality anymore to be successful, you just need to market a spiritual product like any other. Most involved are business people and career writers who are not even doing a basic spiritual practice themselves. Many are simply repeating popular ideas, putting things in a way to make the most money, and even some of the most famous names in spirituality have ghost writers producing their books. Sometimes it makes you wonder… how on earth could anyone think that any of this is really spiritual?
“The world is full of half-enlightened masters. Overly clever, too “sensitive” to live in the real world, they surround themselves with selfish pleasures and bestow their grandiose teachings upon the unwary. Prematurely publicizing themselves, intent upon reaching some spiritual climax, they constantly sacrifice the truth and deviate from the Tao. What they really offer the world is their own confusion.”
~ Lao-Tzu, Hua Hu Ching, translated by Brian Browne Walker“There are ignorant people who speak flowery words and delight in the letter of the law, saying that there is nothing else. Their hearts are full of selfish desires, Arjuna. Their idea of heaven is their own enjoyment, and the aim of all their activities is pleasure and power. The fruit of their actions is continual rebirth… The scriptures describe the three gunas. But you should be free from the action of the gunas, established in eternal truth, self-controlled, without any sense of duality or the desire to acquire and hoard.”
~ Krishna, The Bhagavad Gita, translated by Eknath Easwaran
It should ring alarm bells if anyone is charging money to make a profit out of spiritual knowledge. No matter how high-sounding their cause, beautiful their words, or genuine seeming their humility, breaking such a fundamental spiritual principle is a “no access” pass in terms of being able to receive more advanced esoteric knowledge from spiritual sources in higher dimensions.
Instead, if you scratch the surface, you will discover that much of what spiritual money makers do is motivated by the ego-driven desire for wealth, career, fame, sex and adoration, just as it is in many celebrities. These desires often work beneath someone’s own reasoning—meaning some do genuinely believe they are doing the right thing, and are forging ahead with a sense of “do-gooding,” whilst unfortunately lacking in the understanding of some fundamental spiritual principles.
Taking the road less traveled
The road less traveled is the hard road, where a hugely important job finds itself in a situation where it has some of the least resources to get it done, and this comes with both its advantages and disadvantages. It means we can only work with those who don’t want to charge money, which is why he goes through an independent non-profit publisher. With none of us having much money, nor the resources that money brings, we have to rely on methods outside of huge corporate machines to spread a message. But the big plus for you and one of the most important things for us, is that we also get to keep the full, unadulterated integrity of the message, which mainstream publishers and media outlets could otherwise taper and censor. And we need to hear the whole truth and get the complete practices to be able to awaken.
The most valuable freebie there is
You’d think being free, it would be more popular than things that cost a lot of money. The amazing thing is, we’ve found it’s actually the opposite. To most people the word ‘free’ implies something of little worth, a gimmick, something that wasn’t good enough to publish and charge for, that you use up and throw away. But that’s if you take things from a commercial standpoint; spirituality is very different however, and the most precious things in life are those that don’t come with a price tag. Instead, seeing their worth depends on a level of understanding, not how much money someone is prepared to pay.
“A man came out wearing a cloth bound around his waist, and a gold belt girded it. Also a napkin was tied over his chest, extending over his shoulders and covering his head and his hands. I was staring at the man, because he was beautiful in his form and stature. There were four parts of his body that I saw: the soles of his feet and a part of his chest and the palms of his hands and his visage. These things I was able to see. A book cover like (those of) my books was in his left hand. A staff of styrax wood was in his right hand. His voice was resounding as he slowly spoke, crying out in the city, “Pearls! Pearls!” The rich men of that city heard his voice. They came out of their hidden storerooms. And some were looking out from the storerooms of their houses. Others looked out from their upper windows. And they did not see (that they could gain) anything from him, because there was no pouch on his back nor bundle inside his cloth and napkin. And because of their disdain they did not even acknowledge him. He, for his part, did not reveal himself to them. They returned to their storerooms, saying, “This man is mocking us.” And the poor of that city heard his voice, and they came to the man who sells this pearl. They said, “Please take the trouble to show us the pearl so that we may, then, see it with our (own) eyes. For we are the poor. And we do not have this […] price to pay for it. But show us that we might say to our friends that we saw a pearl with our (own) eyes.” He answered, saying to them, “If it is possible, come to my city, so that I may not only show it before your (very) eyes, but give it to you for nothing.””
~ The Acts of Peter and the Twelve Apostles, The Nag Hammadi Library, translated by Douglas M. Parrott and R. McL.Wilson
Plagiarism is one of the biggest threats to spirituality today
It may come as a surprise that one of the biggest problems truth seekers face is the sheer scale of people taking other people’s spiritual work and passing it off as their own. The internet has made millions of people overnight self-publishers, freelancers, and entrepreneurs. So many are looking for a quick way to earn money, and in the digital world it’s easy to now just “copy paste the bit I like”, “delete author name”, and hit “publish by me”.
But because spirituality requires a practice of a whole knowledge, people chopping it into bits to just keep the parts they like, whilst calling it theirs, creates a virtual labyrinth and hall of mirrors of half-truths and disinformation, which even the sincerest seeker can never find their way through.
“The highest virtue one can exercise is to accept the responsibility of discovering and transmitting the whole truth. Some help others in order to receive blessings and admiration. This is simply meaningless. Some cultivate themselves in part to serve others, in part to serve their own pride. They will understand, at best, half of the truth. But those who improve themselves for the sake of the world–to these, the whole truth of the universe will be revealed. So seek this whole truth, practice it in your daily life, and humbly share it with others. You will enter the realm of the divine.”
~ Lao-Tzu, Hua Hu Ching, translated by Brian Browne Walker
Mark particularly has had his work plagiarized for decades because what he writes is from an extraordinary depth of experience. Because he gives it for free, it’s been virtually ignored in the world and therefore has made it an easy target for the thousands of people sifting for unique content on the internet everyday that they can make money and name out of.
We’ve seen our work on the ancient meaning of the solstices used by sites to run paid holiday solstice retreats, and Mark’s work on self-knowledge looking like it has been repeated as the structure and veiled content of one of the bestselling “spiritual” books of all time. Many others have taken his work on astral travel to create astral projection eBooks for sale and paid courses. What is given freely according to ancient time-honored principles, ends up being used and hijacked by others for their own self interests.
These people take the pleasant bits of the work, then put it in a more enticing way, and often with far more resources behind them. Yet while they may meet the standards for financial and corporate success by having a more charismatic and entertaining personality or being more adept at writing and speaking, they lack the standards required for receiving advanced esoteric wisdom from higher sources—therefore they rely on recycling popular ideas, repeating what people like to hear, and very often other people’s knowledge.
By doing this they break not only common laws, but also spiritual ones. Theft is theft, and that includes stealing other people’s hard earned spiritual work, and even going so far to pass it off as their own. Just imagine the effect of a thousand Krishna look-alikes all repeating misrepresented bits of what Krishna said for money in much more entertaining ways, chatting on the Today Show with bestselling books, whilst Krishna himself remained totally ignored and unknown? Where would The Bhagavad Gita be now? As a humanity our standards may have changed, but spiritual standards are timeless and honesty is one of the most basic standards for receiving esoteric knowledge. Someone who doesn’t meet this requirement is not even fit to be a student of spirituality – let alone any sort of teacher. And anyone really interested in doing a spiritual work needs to find a real teacher.
The media loves an entertainer
People with the right combo of charisma, corporate backing, and marketable ideas then become darlings of the media who thrive off of entertainers, celebrities, products, and those people who don’t touch on anything controversial. This creates a mechanism in which corporate spiritual publishers work hand-in-hand with mainstream media outlets—both feed off each other, creating a cycle of profit in which household name spiritual writers are turned into products that guarantee high returns for the money making interests behind them.
Time to make some changes
We think it’s time to snap out of this money-making spiritual mega marketplace madness, and to instead revive the timeless principles of the universe.
Hey,
I came across your books whilst on this ‘good read’ website and i was searching everywhere to buy 3! During my search, i’ve found this page, explaining why you don’t sell and i can totally understand and respect you for your views on not putting a price on spirituality. I totally 100% agree. (Can’t not say that i am rather gutted BUT i have come across a download of a free copy on PDF which i am absolutely over the moon about!
I got so excited when i came across your series of books because they were exactly what i was looking for but very fair play to you Belsebuub.. major respect to you as an individual and i would 100% travel to come to one of your talks. Don’t think there are many authors at all who would go by the same principals of you in terms of it not being a priority to make the money from the books.
Although i obviously don’t know you and your name is completely new to me (probably about an hour now) i have so much respect for you and more spiritual teachers should be more like you and have the same mentality!
Hats off man + respect!!!
From the UK, Cheshire :)
please astral codex where to get it
Lara,
Pleased to read your explanation on why you do not charge. There is something long-established here on the West Coast, from India, that you may want to look into. The Radha Soami Satsang Beas is a philosophical organization that has been in America for over a hundred years, and in India for nearly 200 years. There are perhaps two million members world-wide, mostly Indian, but many English, Australian, and American. The Master, Baba Gurinder Singh, will be in the Petaluma RSSB center this weekend, if you are in the Bay Area. I will be going, most likely Sunday. I have been on this mystic Path for 45 years and am very satisfied with the views of the RSSB. They are very, very similar to what you must believe. I have particular interest in the gnostics, and would love to speak to Belsebuub and you about what I have learned of Judas from familiarity with the teachings of the RS Masters. The discovery of the Gospel of Judas is in my opinion the greatest discovery in history.
Awsome writings, thanks for that kind words. I cant wait to read the paperback version of the book, as i cant find the other online :( thank you for all of your work!
hello, although I can understand why it would bother you that people have taken your work and used it for self profit, I do find your reasoning to be kind of, well… of the ego, I mean no offense, honestly I truly respected you not falling into the money/spirituality trap and was floored and saddened to find you had fallen into it anyhow. See any teacher can say the same thing to feel better about falling into that trap, your truth would hold strong if you kept your word and the honest work you put out there would shine brighter then those who sell your work dishonestly. it would not make a difference is my point. the only difference would be that they are making the money that you are not, which should be okay with you if you are truly on that path. for the more spiritual truth you put out will lessen their profit. So why not just change the whole free story? wipe it out, delete it, so you can just be like the rest of them who sell spirituality? if you leave all of this story line of what happened to your free stuff as an excuse, those who are truly seeking will know that you have fallen into that trap and are using being a victim as your excuse for now charging? this is worse then just charging for spirituality it is manipulation, which is worse because you know better right?
Hi Nicole,
We don’t receive any royalties or any other payments from the sale of our printed books. Our publisher has set their price at the cost of their production as there are a number of costs involved in printing books that do need to be covered. While we have explained that elsewhere on the site, I hadn’t done so on this page as it was written a while ago, but I have updated it now to make that clear.
We used to provide all our books for free as eBooks, and did so for around 5 years. However, as we are just a small team, it became so time consuming to chase up instances of copyright, that it became impossible to continue to provide what we do. So we came up with the solution of making the books available in printed format at cost price. So far this has dramatically helped with copyright infringement, people are still able to easily acquire the books, and we have time to keep providing what we do whilst receiving no payment from the whole process at all.
Our principles have not changed, and never will, and so that’s why we still feel it is important to have this page to explain those principles clearly. However, we have unfortunately had to adapt to the nature of the internet. Even so, there are many books worth of material on this website alone which is all freely provided and very accessible, and we are working on a project now to provide more.
Kind regards,
Lara
Thanks Lara, I completely agree. A page to clearly explain those principles is very important and could never be any other way.
I’m very grateful for all of the resources available on this website Lara, thank you.
Hi Nicole,
I think Lara has done a good job of explaining the reasoning behind the printed books being available at cost price, with no royalties given to the authors. I can see how at first glance, a non-profit organisation providing books at cost price could be confused with a commercial publishing operation, but I feel that the principles behind the two are very different, and that Lara’s article above clearly outlines these principles of giving spiritual information without profit.
Some of the older comments below also explain the circumstances that led to the free eBooks being withdrawn, after they were heavily plagiarised during the years they were available. But I thought it may be useful to add a few additional observations from what I’ve witnessed over the last few years, as I’ve personally seen well over a thousand instances of plagiarism, involving material copied from the work of the authors of this website.
It’s a pity that although the authors and their publishers have made a lot of efforts and sacrifices to make this information freely available to the world, the poor actions of a significant number of people has led to the necessity to protect the integrity and completeness of what is written.
I think Lara is correct in saying that this situation couldn’t continue, as the constant plagiarism created a situation where no new material could be released, as whatever was made available soon became appropriated and distorted. I can also confirm the accuracy of what Lara mentioned about the depth of Belsebuub’s writing being unmatched today, as the hundreds of cases of plagiarism that I have encountered have given snippets of the information, supplemented by a host of other ideas that confuse and distort the original, clear message.
Unfortunately, the number of people who are willing to support and protect the integrity of the original author’s work is only a tiny percentage, in comparison to the hundreds of people who were very comfortable to take other people’s work for their own gain. So I feel that Belsebuub, Lara and their publishers have shown a lot of determination and persistence in continuing to find ways around this ongoing problem.
I’m very happy to have found this website and feel I’ve gained a lot by exploring what it has to offer. As Lara mentioned, this website gives such a plethora of information that there is enough to fill several books. I hope that you will also benefit from making use of the various resources that it contains and wish you all the best in your spiritual search.
Thanks for your comment Michael, since I’ve also been a witness to everything that you’ve written I totally support your comment.
It’s very sad to read information from people who are quick to judge, especially when it’s without accurate information.
I think I said it somewhere else… but maybe I can repeat again that I liked a lot to have your books in kindle format, but having a nice hard cover book is so good too!
It is much easier now to read thoughtfully long quotes from ancient sacred texts and reflect about diagrams and pictures. I am glad to hear that putting your knowledge back into hard cover books appears to be a good solution to stop your books from being widely plagiarized throughout the web. Selling them for their cost price seems to be quite fair too – I am sure that many people appreciate your work and hopefully some can really put the Teachings into daily practice, in everyday circumstances, as it is so important and so challenging.
Dear Belsebuub and Lara, thank you so much for providing us with this spiritual knowledge.
Stay warm and healthy – all the best to you with all your projects!
Hi Nicole,
Knowing both Mark and Lara’s tireless and selfless dedication, I was honestly really saddened by your quick jump to conclusion.
Belsebuub and Lara haven’t changed in their principles at all as they don’t receive any kind of payment, benefits or anything whatsoever from the sale of their books. In their end, nothing has changed, they continue to give everything they do for free, and they don’t get anything in return but the hope that what they do will help others.
What has happened with the plagiarism and distortion of Belsebuub’s work is quite sad really, and it has many ramifications, and Mark wrote deeply about it here: https://belsebuub.com/the-plagiarism-of-this-work-is-too-extensive
The printing of the new books were always on the cards and mentioned by Belsebuub’s not-for-profit publisher for a couple of years beforehand, but they gave priority to developing and publishing the eBooks as this new technology could provide easy access to the books by anyone in the world, and obviously for free as always requested by Mark. And people did, well over 140,000! That’s not a small number.
But as you know, people plagiarised heavily Mark’s work, using the content in the eBooks to their advantage and distorting things or cutting content out, and always without giving credit. Do you realize how misleading this is? It is not only dishonest, but there is a responsibility in not enabling this to continue. If people are looking for this work yet are mislead and never able to reach the original thing, this has dire consequences.
And from these highly unethical and unscrupulous actions, Mark and Lara’s publisher which had been publishing the free eBooks all along, had to stop doing that in order to protect the content and be responsible toward it too, and started to focus on providing his work in printed forms once again instead of both printed and online forms as had always been the plan.
As readers and users, we’ve always had continuous access to all the articles, audios, videos, and talks that Belsebuub and Lara provide (and as a side-note, several of the eBooks are compilations of the articles and talks found on this website), but due to unscrupulous and unethical actions of some people, instead of having access to BOTH format of printed books and eBooks, we have access to printed books ‘only’. And I say ‘only’ because not so long ago, printed books is all that existed!
I think it’s good to realize that eBooks, while now so common, were quite rare just less than a decade ago. And because they have been really an amazing technological achievement, Mark wanted to use this technology as soon as possible, as that enabled people to access his books for free. But people’s actions ruined this opportunity.
Personally, I don’t understand how this situation can be turned against Mark and Lara..
Belsebuub and Lara haven’t changed in principles but due to the action of unscrupulous people how we access some of their work has changed back to what it was before the invention of eBooks: printed books once again.
There is no manipulation here, far from it, and I think it’s important to keep back to what really happened, looking at the facts, instead of making a conclusion based on misunderstanding, leading to accusations that truly don’t apply nor do have any grounds in reality.
Your comment regarding Mark and Lara is completely undeniable to anyone who truly knows them. Thanks Geraldine for being clear about the facts on this sad reality.
So with all that, the books aren’t free. Kind of funny.
Hi Rob,
For quite a number of years the books were available for free, however unfortunately there have been thousands of cases in which they’ve been plagiarised in various ways, with unscrupulous people presenting them as their own books and selling them on for profit, or simply copying them unattributed to try to benefit their own standing as writers, bloggers, etc. It’s very sad that Mark & Lara have been forced into a position where they’ve had to withdraw the ebooks, but the spiritual message they’re trying to give was just being harmed or lost by people who were stealing it for their own selfish purposes. Mark and Lara themselves don’t make any money from the sale of the books, which are sold pretty much at cost.
Mark’s written about the withdrawal of the ebooks here if you’d like to have a read: https://belsebuub.com/the-plagiarism-of-this-work-is-too-extensive
Thanks Nathan.
I personally find it a very sad situation, rather than a funny one.
We’re just a very small team of people and work very hard to make everything here available. We made eBooks available for a number of years, however they were so plagiarized we could not cope with following up all the instances of copyright (there were thousands) among the many other things we do. So we decided to print all of them instead so that the actual work in them is secured and is not lost by people taking it as their own, and distorting the message of it as they spread it around. (I wrote an article here about the threat plagiarism poses to spiritual knowledge belsebuub.com/articles/plagiarism-as-a-threat-to-higher-knowledge-and-spiritual-awakening )
The cost of the printed books covers just the actual printed physical matter, like the pages, and then also the cuts that the distributors take. Mark and I receive no royalties from the book sales and Mystical Life Publications (MLP) just gets a small amount which they use to cover their costs. We will continue to provide the books in printed format into the future.
Meanwhile, while working to print all the books, behind the scenes there has also been a lot of work done on making some of the books available again as free eBooks, but in a more secure format. Unfortunately, even by stopping any kind of ‘copy paste’ type plagiarism, we are still left with free eBooks being an easy target for unscrupulous people who are looking to steal ideas, so we’ll have to get around this somehow. However, we hope to see them released by the end of 2016, but that all depends on how myself and the team at MLP go in getting through things. We are working our way there however. Thankfully there are people here who are supporting us to be able to do that, and we couldn’t do it without them.
Thank you Lara. I also wanted to add a few points mainly for the benefit of anyone who’s new to the site, as this article was written in 2014 when all ebooks were still available freely, and they were only taken down at the start of this year.
When they were available, there wasn’t a lot of support from the wider public for it, despite them being downloaded over 140,000 times, yet we noticed a huge increase in the amount of people that were taking the information and passing it off as their own, in books, courses, videos, websites, blogs, etc. This is not a new problem – it’s something that Mark has faced for over 10 years, as he first began giving his work as free PDFs online in 2001, and ever since then it’s been an issue. I’ve been involved in dealing with this copyright infringement and plagiarism for the last 8 years, and it’s just getting worse. There’s only handful of us including MLP and Mark and Lara volunteering all the time we can to try to get things out there in a high-quality and successful way, and having faced 8 years already tackling this problem with no end in sight, we really had to re-think how to best approach things. So for now we are working to get the printed books out there, and then work on making them available freely in a way that protects them from being ripped off.
I can appreciate that it would be disappointing to come across the site and find that there used to be ebooks freely available in the past, and we are even more dismayed and saddened by the situation. Mark has given his work for free online for 15 years, and it’s a huge disappointment after all that time to stop, but we had to do something to halt this growing problem while we resolve the cases already out there. In the meantime, we have some of the printed books already available, starting at $8, if people want to access them, otherwise there is a treasure trove of free information in articles, videos, talks etc. that we have published online.
I would also like to thank everyone so much who has and is supporting us throughout this time, as Lara said we could not do it without you.
We would all hope to see more of these books reach as many people who are serious about learning from them as possible but at the same we need to protect the integrity of these works from the hands of those who will abuse and distort it for unhonorable, often selfish reasons. We ought to also respect the authors’ wishes – I believe they have given us several valid reasons for choosing to take this approach for the time being.
Hi Rob,
I share the disappointment that the eBooks are not currently available for download, but as others have mentioned, this is for a very good reason. It’s such a pity that although Mark and Lara want nothing more than to give the information for profound inner change in a way that is accessible and available to all, the unethical actions of others continually block their pure intentions. As Priya mentioned, the content of some of the books was originally given to students as free PDFs 15 years ago, but this was continually ripped off, so printed books needed to be published to try and protect the integrity of the information they contained.
As Priya also mentioned, new editions of the books were then made available for download again four years ago, this time in eBook format and various eBooks remained freely available until earlier this year, including updated content and new titles. However, unfortunately history repeated itself and the eBooks needed to be withdrawn again, due to the prolific plagiarism of them. Putting the books into print form once again is an attempt to preserve their content and as Lara mentioned, the books are printed on a not-for-profit basis, with any surplus being given back to the non-profit publishers to contribute towards the running costs.
As is mentioned in this article, Mark and Lara have turned down lucrative deals with commercial publishers, and all the publicity that it entails, in order to protect the integrity of what they write and to preserve the principle that spirituality should not be given for profit. Although Mark writes from a wealth of esoteric experience that is unmatched in the world today, he has received little recognition for his years of personal esoteric study and investigation, as he and Lara refuse to surrender their values in order to gain financially.
I can understand that it may seem extraordinary that there are people in the world who would actually want to do this, as there are so many tricksters and fraudsters around, who use every scam they can think of for personal gain. I have found this out myself while looking at some of the sites that have plagiarised Mark and Lara’s work. For example, since the eBooks have stopped being available on this site, I’ve personally come across well over 100 cases of people offering a download link to the eBooks on their own site, which actually leads to either a profit-making or scam site.
I’m also aware of over 1600 separate cases of plagiarism, which were found in slightly over a year – the equivalent of around one case every six hours – and I’ve seen snippets of Mark and Lara’s work being used to promote all manner of events and goods, often for completely unrelated things, including skydiving, vehicle accessories, mattresses, techno music events, fishing, gay interest radio shows, jewellery and erotic stories. I see that some people may hold the point of view that maybe it wouldn’t matter if 1600 people use the teachings for profit, if at least one person manages to find them and use them. But unfortunately, there are also numerous examples of pseudo-spiritual content, with chunks of Mark and Lara’s work interspersed with people’s own ideas, in a way that lacks the coherence of the original and which ultimately takes people away from the information they need for profound inner change.
The above issue is really a vital point behind the eBooks being currently unavailable and why it is so important to protect the integrity of their content. The article which Lara shared explains very well the serious consequences of esoteric teachings becoming fragmented and lost. As the article mentions, when only a few pieces of the jigsaw puzzle remain, it makes it very hard for someone to see the whole picture.
So, rather a long answer to your simple comment, but I hope it adds to what others have said about why this issue of plagiarism is such a menace when it comes to spreading spiritual work and why steps must be taken to protect the integrity of what is written, as its existence creates significant barriers to people finding the information to awaken, which is a very serious matter for everyone who is alive today. It’s great to hear that there will hopefully be a time in the not too distant future when the eBooks can be released in a more protected way again, as Lara mentioned, and it’s wonderful that such a small team are making such huge sacrifices and efforts to get the work out there in a way that can reach the most people, against all the odds.
Although the printed books are available at cost, there is also a wealth of information contained in this site, as Priya mentioned. In fact, it would take many hours, or even days to go through all of the numerous articles, audio files and videos, which are freely available here and which are hugely inspiring.
I’ve got a lot out of this site over the years and have found it draws together so many of the questions I had been asking, but had not found answers to. Due to the depth of Mark’s experience, he is able to present this in a unique way that is understandable and accessible. Importantly though, you will find as you explore that he also gives practical tools to apply to our own lives, so that we can also experience profound and lasting inner change in a real way. I was lucky enough to be able to also participate in various free courses when they were running, which shared Mark’s knowledge and are described on the following website: http://rememberingthegnosticmovement.com/courses/
At the time, I had severe limitations on my finances, as I wasn’t working, but due to the ethos of making the teachings available to all and the generosity of those involved in organising the courses, I was able to attend and to progress further in my inner work. I hope you will also be able to explore the information featured on the site in more depth and I wish you all the best in your own spiritual search.
Hi Rob,
This is hardly funny at all – it’s the consequences of unethical people which has led to this outcome. For 4 years, anyone was able to access them and download them for free (and over 140,000 people did! Not a small number), but then for 4 years, many people also just plagiarized it (and some are still doing it no doubt with free copies flying around the internet which are shared without a thought),. And it was not just a few who acted in such a poor manner, but several thousands of people.
Why? Because what Mark writes is that good and original due to his level of experience being so extremely rare..
So no, I don’t find it funny either, but like Lara said, sad instead.. It’s a tragic loss for those truly interested, as the eBooks were able to reach anyone with internet access. However, this website contains so much information, the message is available for those truly interested in the form or articles, blogs and audio.
But It just goes to show how our actions can have far reaching effects to the world around us – we can bring about positive change or detrimental ones. At the end of the day, it is always our choice.
So Rob… you want them to pay YOU to read the material you’re interested in?! Wow. What a selfish act you’re living. I just don’t get the mindset of ppl today. Hands out grubbing. You are here searching for betterment and don’t want to cover the cost of the book Mark wrote about HIS experiences. You’re asking for it but don’t want to cover the cost of getting it? Bc they aren’t getting any benefit from you getting it other than hoping the world climbs out of the cesspool it’s been in for millenia. This is my first time here. Obviously I need it bc I’m bowled over by reading Rob and Nicole’s entries and they have gotten my ire up. I am so appreciative that there is possibly real truth out there still that I can finally find mine (truth/purpose). I need a guide. It looks like I’ve found one…
ideally all spiritual knowledge should be free, which I agree with, but because of the monetary society we currently live in, I also believe that we can choose to change our perspective about purchasing products to be that of a spiritual practice – provided we have a spiritual mindset about the reasons we are buying or selling something.
I respect and understand your reason for choosing not to charge money for your spiritual work, and I think of asking for donations as a kind way to request reciprocation for the spiritual knowledge received. However I do also consider the purchase of books to be similar to a donation. I am both a reader and a writer, so I very highly value books. In my opinion, the value of the knowledge or life experiences contained in most books (whether spiritual, educational or for entertainment) is much greater than the cost of the publication. The price of books in our modern society is typically determined by the market, but I have also seen new business models for spiritual content that provides multiple options for people to donate at different amounts as well as pay the full amount of the product if they can. Even if there aren’t donation options, books can be supplied to libraries where people can borrow them for free. For those people who have the financial means and are happy to purchase a book, I say allow them to do so because this is another method for them to be able to give back.
We are all on different soul journeys in which learn from each other. The plagiarism going on is a demonstration of what not to do – and the people doing this may not realize what they are doing and need to be educated about copyright protections, for instance. They may need to be reminded that they can share the information if they provide credit to the source. I worked in the higher education industry for over ten years, so I am very familiar with the various reasons for why people plagiarize.
In regards to spiritual information, I can understand wanting to provide that for free, however what about creative projects (such as art, fictional books and movies, etc.) resulting from the inspiration of spiritual information? The creator has put in much time and effort into the creation of their product as much as any person writing about spiritual knowledge. Everyone has the right to make a sufficient amount of money to be able to live comfortably and do their spiritual work. In essence, people who purchase someone’s art, music or books are benefactors. Whether you offer a product for sale or ask for donations, you are essentially asking for people to be benefactors in both situations in order to support your cause – providing spiritual information.
In this way I see the purchase of a spiritual product as a way to show gratitude and appreciation for what a person has created, provided the product can be purchased at a reasonably affordable amount. (Granted what is considered a reasonable price is different for each person). I think this approach is more honest, unlike product marketers who seek spiritual information solely in order to turn a profit because it is “trendy.” It also provides the opportunity for people to practice generosity by purchasing a spiritual product that they value which is a way for the creator of the product to receive good will from others for having created that product. The companies that charge unreasonable amounts of money (such as hundreds and thousands of dollars) for spiritual products contribute more to the problem in regards to setting up a divide between people who have the money to buy it, versus people who don’t. Yet I believe that genuine spiritual knowledge finds it way to everyone who is willing to listen to it, in whatever way is most appropriate for that person to receive it.
In regards to websites that have subscription services for instance, I think that is becoming a necessity because of the increasing costs of maintaining a large website offering extensive content. I do not think of these people as “trolls.” I am happy to pay for affordable subscription website content to receive information products I find valuable that extends beyond what normally could be purchased from a single book or video. The combination of offering both free products as well as products for purchase helps to balance out individual purchases, which I consider to be voluntary monetary contributions to the greater whole.
Hi Carrie,
Thanks very much for sharing that perspective. I think however, we can get used to seeing things in a certain way sometimes, and often it even seems to make sense given the systems that have been created by people’s collective actions. But I feel it’s worth reflecting, and probing into the question deeply.
I think of it like this. Imagine a tree that charged to perceive its beauty, a sun that charged to feel its light, or a bird that charged to listen to its song? What kind of universe would that create? It would be a universe based on enslavement, depravity, and debt – much like the human society we are creating today. I believe however, that we live in a universe based fundamentally on love, although we often don’t perceive it. It has even been said that God is love. I feel that because reuniting with our higher Being is the purpose of life, the knowledge of how to do so is just as intrinsic and fundamental to human existence as is the sun, the air, and fruits of the earth.
In a higher civilization, all exchanges would be based on love. However, as human understanding degenerates, we have exchanges based more and more on money, profit, greed, and even conflict.
Charging for spiritual knowledge means that only those who can afford to pay money can gain access to it – but that has never been a requirement for receiving anything spiritual from the creator, as the flow from the light is based on love, and love can never be tethered and bound by the mechanical restrictions of markets and economies. Its laws transcend those of a marketplace, and should not be overridden, so that as human beings we all work in line with the will of the creator and creation. Love has always been based on voluntary mutual exchange, and is a transaction that takes place between beings that is not monetary. I agree, there is a duty for people to reciprocate for what they receive, but at least in nature, this is not enforced. Nature’s way of teaching us to love and to care is to instead withdraw her fruits when we take without giving, and allow us to experience the consequences of our actions.
It has been very difficult for us to try and operate this way amidst a humanity that doesn’t tend to value love very much. However, there are those who have enough understanding to value it, and who support what we do. I truly believe that those who understand this way of being, and who give for the betterment of their fellow brothers and sisters in the family of humanity, receive in return their own growth in love and compassion, which I feel is one of the most enriching gifts we can be given.
Lara
Lara,
I think what you wrote about how reuniting with our higher Being is the purpose to life and how the knowledge to do so is just as fundamental to humanity as is the sun, air, etc., was really spot on and a beautiful way of expressing it. It made a lot of sense when given that perspective. I’m glad it’s on the Donations page now :)
Hi Lara,
I really appreciate the understanding you are able to share in your comment – truly, there is much in it for reflection – about love, about higher laws and how we as individuals and society can act accordingly.
I think like you say, one of the main thing is that we can so easily bypass such simple principles, because of the way things are ran all around us – I see how I often don’t stop questioning things and accept them as-is. Yet, in this search for truth, for love, for awakening the questioning and reflecting on how things are seems so important.
And I find that the guidance this website is providing has been so helpful to me – many times (every time really..), the articles and blogs posted here have given me food for thought, to reflect on my own actions, and ways of thinking, acting. And so often I find a certain passivity in my thinking and ways of life that is challenged by what is presented here. It is very interesting to dig deeper though in what makes me think and act in certain ways, as well as what is being challenged within me.
So thanks for what you wrote and shared here – very helpful.
I agree with others, this was so beautifully and deeply said. I was especially touched by what you said about the Nature withdrawing its fruits if we take without giving back. A lot to reflect on for sure… Some time ago, I heard somebody wise saying that if we just take without giving, in any area of our life, this is not in line with spiritual principles, so we should look at all areas in our life and correct what we see is not fulfilling this law.
Thank you again Lara for this food for thought.
Beautiful analogies, Lara. And thank you, Lucia, for the food for thought you had offered as well. A lot to “digest”!
Hi Lara,
Your comment makes so much sense to me, thanks very much for such a deep insight on the topic.
I would love to be part of a world who deeply understood the gift of giving from Love.
I agree with others here, thank you Lara.
Very well put Lara, that really resonates with me the idea of a exchange based on love WOW!!!! If only humanity thought the same way
Thanks
Thanks very much Lara for sharing those reflections on the spiritual principle of giving and receiving freely and openly. You have given some beautiful analogies.
I think what you said about nature withdrawing its fruits when we take without giving, in order for us to learn, is something that is echoed a lot within the spiritual work. It’s so easy to take things for granted and not really value them when they’re put there in front of us and the idea that many of us have, where we think we will always have the opportunity to access the spiritual work is a very deceptive one. I’m sure I can speak for many people in saying that there has been a lot of painful learning in understanding how our own negligence and neglect can lead to unforseen consequences and cause the light to hide itself from us and from the world. We often need to go through very harsh learning in order to change our ways, but I hope there are now people among us who appreciate how urgent it is to nuture the light within ourselves and within the world, while we still have the opportunity to do so, and who will take whatever steps are needed to actually do it.
Agreed Michael, well said!
Very nice comment Lara about these vital principles of Love and Light.
Definitely, these high principles of Love and Light are much more superior of the principles of matter that bring pain, misery and debts in humanity.
You also presented a wise way (without charging the true knowledge) how to spread these superior principles into the humanity in order to receive them back to us.
Nicely said Lara, Thanks!
Can I get this book in online format? It would be a good read and it’s not available anymore. Thank you very much!
Unfortunately they are not available in digital form due to extensive plagiarism as mentioned here: https://belsebuub.com/the-plagiarism-of-this-work-is-too-extensive
Some of the books are available from Amazon (and other resellers) as hard copy, with more (I’m sure) to come.
I have been seeking the truth for sometime now. I get very frustrated by the whole let’s make a deal scheme. A way for others to get money while your still left lost aimlessly looking for direction from genuine caring connections helping to connect everyone back to source. The whole rich making money thing could be a thing of the past if we could come together as one. Creating more self wealth valued higher than any amount of money.Instead most people have a me me me attitude. This puts us as a whole one step further away from what needs to be done. Open your eyes people. We are all connected. Let’s complete the puzzle, everyone is wanted and needed.
Mark, thank you for inspiring me to continue my journey. It’s people like you that restore my faith that unity is possible. Never give up. Thank you for providing a free of charge. One day the trolls will quit charging tolls and open their gateways too.
Hey Sara,
Nice message. I agree trying to make a profit and money out of people’s search for spirituality is horrible and impedes humanity’s spiritual potential.
On a ”positive” note though, for me personally, if I would see some website or company charging money for access to teachings then for me it’s a sign to stay away. So I’m not sure if I even want to go through the gateway of the trolls ;-)
Thank you very much for your comment Sara, and for sharing your thoughts. I agree that we are all connected, and the approach you describe of genuinely and caringly trying to help one another back to source is the best approach, and that those who make a business out of people’s wish to return to source actually cause disconnection instead.
Lara I thank you and Mark very much for your work and dedication. There has been an invaluable amount of jewels that I have discovered in just reading a small portion of your writings. Is there a way to get further teaching like in a course of some sort? Or do you all do a workshop? I would really be interested in that. Thanks
Hi Frank,
Thank you very much for your comment. It would be nice to have them, but unfortunately there are no courses or workshops. There may eventually be meetup groups at the Spiritual Sun website however.