The Most Essential Form Of Disaster Risk Reduction There Is

I have not taken up a new subject. Development of spiritual abilities is the most essential form of disaster risk reduction and preparedness there is.


Yesterday I mentioned that I wanted to write about difficulties that may block or slow the development of your spiritual gifts. One of the biggest barriers to developing your spiritual gifts can be why you want to develop them.


The intention to hurry up and develop your spiritual gifts and make a mint down at the racetrack or in Vegas could stop you from developing them. Selfish motivations of that sort can be barriers.


This does not mean that you have to be perfect in order to develop your spiritual gifts. If that was the case, neither I nor many others who have some success with their spiritual gift development, would have gotten anywhere.


It just helps if you can start with a good attitude.


I used to think that if I ever tried to use my spiritual gifts for any personal benefit, that they might instantly disappear or something of the sort. I no longer believe this, because I have managed to stay alive many times through the use of my spiritual gifts. There are other occasions where I have used my spiritual gifts for personal benefit in less critical circumstances and it worked out okay. 


Study on the use of spiritual gifts by others has bolstered my opinion that it is acceptable to use them for one's own benefit. That is different than having that as one's sole motivation for trying to develop your spiritual gifts, however.


Another barrier to developing spiritual gifts is wanting to develop them for the purpose of doing harm. I think hatred may be incompatible with developing spiritual gifts, and completely stop development.


There is one partial barrier that does not stop development of spiritual gifts, but it may block any further growth in strength  or capacity or developing more of them. That is what can happen to people who already have one or more spiritual gifts working.


The first time I became aware of this problem was with a woman who was a professional fortune teller. She was not aware that she had a real gift for knowing information about people, and another gift for seeing glimpses of possible futures.


She was a charming, and unabashed scam artist and thought that everything she did in her work came from scams. She did things like having a pickpocket tell her about the person who wanted a palm read, and asking leading questions, etc. She believed that everything she did in her work was simply the result of scams. 


She was shocked and frightened when I pointed out to her that she was occasionally using real spiritual gifts to do her fortune telling. She used crutches like palm reading, card reading, and crystal balls to do her work. She strayed from the use of those crutches at times and let her spiritual gifts kick in. 


Once she calmed down and thought things through, she wanted to develop her spiritual gifts more. She was stopped because she had become so accustomed to use of her crutches like the palm reading, card reading, and crystal ball that she could not develop her real gifts.


I don't think crutches like the fortune teller's and others, are a permanent barrier to further spiritual development, but they can make you stay on a plateau for a while and make you work very hard to move on.


I do not consider use of such crutches to be evil. I think they are harmful to the user, and should not be used for this reason.


There can be other problems that will stop or slow down the development of your spiritual gifts, but the ones I just mentioned seem to be the worst and most common ones.


Tomorrow I wish to tell you about some other kinds of spiritual gifts that I know about. I believe that every person has one or more spiritual gifts. That would include you, dear reader.