Get "certified" - it's cheap! ; )

Le Fanu said:

I think our essay traumatised him.

The listing has ended, the diploma has been removed. Poor thing...

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No, it's still available. We operate under the name Plessey Castle Academic now. every so often we use ebay to advertise at discount prices.

photokat said:

FINE - here are the juicy details. I guess I messed this one up. But hey - wasn't this obvious if I did the "ethics" part?

I asked him (well, I begged him) to reconsider, and I offered a new essay.
Here his reply:

From: Alex H Parker Services <alex@arccstic.plus.com>
Subject: Re: Essay for buyer / Ebay
Date: March 5, 2011 2:03:54 AM PST

Hello B

This essay was excellently written and demonstrated a thorough knowledge of Tarot and other spiritual approaches.

We are unable to dispense a diploma because the ethical approach within the essay is in opposition to many of STIC’s principles.
The ethics of STIC are published at www.stic.arccstic.com

I am not able to identify parts of the essay which are in opposition to to STIC principles over email as much of what is written is of a personal nature.

Some of our principles are:

13. Respect professional relationship boundaries.

The practitioner will offer a professional service based on an agreed contract. A practitioner will not form a relationship with the client outside the boundaries of the contract. A practitioner will not engage in courtship rituals with clients or sexual behaviour. If because of circumstances outside the practitioners control such as the client becoming a family member through marriage or a work colleague then supervision will be sought and the contract altered to accommodate, or a referral be offered to the client.

12. Trustworthiness.

A practitioner will treat all information, money and possessions of the client with respect. The practitioner will not recommend any service or product unless it is in the client's best interest to receive it. A practitioner will honour all agreements made with client unless it conflicts with other ethical principles.

11. Reverence for life, health and self-determination.

A practitioner will use conduct, which preserved and protects life and the quality of life experienced by all entities. The right of an individual to choose their own thinking is paramount to their continued transcendence and the practitioner will allow the individual to follow their own path unhindered through action, speech or implication. The practitioner will break confidentiality if an individuals self-determination is likely to cause harm to others or to the client themselves.

7. There are no absolutes autonomy in the present moment

The client will be encouraged to see the future as choices and will be encouraged to live in the present moment. The practitioner will not encourage any particular course of action and will leave all decisions to the client. the practitioner will not present anything as an absolute truth whether it be the future, or the practitioners own personal truth.


2. Treat others, as you would like them to treat you.

A practitioner will value other individuals equally as they value themselves. A practitioner will not extort or mislead a client for their own gain .A practitioner will respect the material, psychological and spiritual resources of the client, and avoid exploitation in these areas either to increase the practitioners material wealth or self esteem. Respect and acceptance of the client’s cultural background will be demonstrated. Sexual, spiritual and philosophical differences will be respected. The practitioner will provide safety and hold adequate insurance to accommodate any mistakes and a complaints procedure that is easily accessible.


Our certificates are often used to by Tarot practitioners to demonstrate to clients that they are aware and practice ethics which is in line with Stic.

Unfortunately we can not reconsider a reworking of your essay.

Many Thanks

Alex



My suggestion: would anyone be willing to seek out other sources of such diplomas and submit this unholy mess?
Perhaps there is a morally flexible person who issues diplomas?
Thoughts?

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With this type of subject we often get some beliefs that some people would consider unconventional but they would not disqualify anyone from receiving their award. The reason that the Award was not issued was because the writer claimed that she accepted sex from her clients as payment if they were on low income. I could only consider that either her clients were exploiting her or that she was butt ugly and was exploiting people who had problems that really needed a psychotherapist. anyway, she also stated that, she didn't tell her partner about her sexual payment scheme which was deceitful.
I can't tell you how happy I am to find that she didn't exist, I was really concerned.

Hello Alex. I think that what this very long and sometimes hilarious thread has proved is that you're not lacking in ethics, even if there are some out there who are. You've behaved decently and correctly from the beginning by refunding the money and refusing to issue the certificate, and your posts are polite, in spite of the stress and extra work we've probably caused you.

Whether or not it's right to offer this service will no doubt continue to be argued here. It's a pity that we failed to ascertain the level of knowledge and ethics required to obtain the certificate, but then this particular exercise was never going to achieve that anyway.

Thanks for taking it all so calmly.

Pen

alexhparker said:

With this type of subject we often get some beliefs that some people would consider unconventional but they would not disqualify anyone from receiving their award. The reason that the Award was not issued was because the writer claimed that she accepted sex from her clients as payment if they were on low income. I could only consider that either her clients were exploiting her or that she was butt ugly and was exploiting people who had problems that really needed a psychotherapist. anyway, she also stated that, she didn't tell her partner about her sexual payment scheme which was deceitful.
I can't tell you how happy I am to find that she didn't exist, I was really concerned.

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??? She does SO exist. She's in hiding at the moment. So would you be if the Great Ovum was after you. But butt-ugly - no, I don't think so.

I am amazed to find that so few people can see humour when it's out there. Or do I mean that so many people CAN'T see it ? (I don't mean Alex; I DO mean a few of the people who posted there !!! Notably someone from Russia, who didn't seem to mind the ethics, but felt that her approach to reading was all wrong...)

I am glad she didn't get her award, actually. But I do think that offering them in this way is not the best course of action. I am also concerned that I said at the time that we WOULDN'T get it if the sex stayed in there - and I was out-voted - and it seems that we might have done if it had been taken out; that worries me ! It wasn't only her ethics that were dubious !

Welcome to AT, anyway - it's good to see you !

You all did a very valuble service for the public.

Pen said:

Hello Alex. I think that what this very long and sometimes hilarious thread has proved is that you're not lacking in ethics, even if there are some out there who are. You've behaved decently and correctly from the beginning by refunding the money and refusing to issue the certificate, and your posts are polite, in spite of the stress and extra work we've probably caused you.

Whether or not it's right to offer this service will no doubt continue to be argued here. It's a pity that we failed to ascertain the level of knowledge and ethics required to obtain the certificate, but then this particular exercise was never going to achieve that anyway.

Thanks for taking it all so calmly.

Pen

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Thanks Pen

This exercise was very important and i think it is to everyone's credit, its been very useful for improving the work I do. I think you should continue testing different organisations, people can learn from your experiences.

Link to Facebook page removed by moderator.

Alex, it would be enlightening if you'd answer a question or two - ones that bothered me about the original advert.

Would you award a certificate if:

1.An essay submitted to you was full of mistakes - e.g. glaring historical errors re. the known history of tarot, and/or very badly written and showing inadequate knowledge of the general accepted meanings of the cards?

2. All the essays looked as though they'd been lifted from the Internet?

Also:

3. How many times have you refused to award a certificate, and do you refund the money when/if this happens?



As Gregory mentioned earlier, you did seem to be more concerned with sexual ethics than with content.

Pen

Pen said:

Alex, it would be enlightening if you'd answer a question or two - ones that bothered me about the original advert.

Would you award a certificate if:

1.An essay submitted to you was full of mistakes - e.g. glaring historical errors re. the known history of tarot, and/or very badly written and showing inadequate knowledge of the general accepted meanings of the cards?

2. All the essays looked as though they'd been lifted from the Internet?

Also:

3. How many times have you refused to award a certificate, and do you refund the money when/if this happens?



As Gregory mentioned earlier, you did seem to be more concerned with sexual ethics than with content.

Pen

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Hello Pen

On our website found in my Profile
we list the reasons for refusal to dispense a certificate, which are:

A dissertation will be rejected if the content is plagiarised.
A dissertation will be rejected if the ethical standards endorsed by the writer risk bringing our awards & diplomas into disrepute.
A dissertation will be rejected if the writer demonstrates contempt, disrespect or ignorance of their chosen subject.


We have refused to award a certificates mainly for plagiarism. over the last five years we have received quite a number dissertations that have been lifted from various websites, especially Wikipedia. Any dubious material is dropped into Google and a search is made. Normally it is the ebay buyers who misunderstand the seriousness that we apply to our work, which has been pointed out by Gregory so I think is probably a good point that ebay is not the greatest venue for advertising. A refund is always immediately issued and the opportunity to rework the dissertation is offered. It is only in serious cases of unethical behaviour which would bring our awards into disrepute that we would disqualify an applicant. Although it looks as though the sexual element was over emphasised when the essay from this forum was rejected it was of such a serious nature regarding safety of clients and the trust that is placed in a practitioner that any other problem with the essay became insignificant.
In the case of very serious historical inaccuracies citations may be asked for if I am unable to verify an individuals information. There is no accepted dogma when writing about the Tarot but discussing the Golden Dawn's Occult approach or some of the influences of Wicca or freemasonry is always impressive. In the case of the essay that was sent to me I remember that the origin of the tarot was suggested to be Dubai. This would have been within an acceptable distance of the Babylon empire and the trade routes taken by nomads at the time so I would have overlooked this.
If they disagree with accepted meanings of the cards I will accept this if the reasons for doing so are discussed extensively. But both interpretation and beliefs about the history of the Tarot may be affected by religious beliefs, own culture or personal research and the reasons for such contradicting accepted history will normally be discussed intelligently.
We avoid allot of these problems by asking the writer to include as much of their own thoughts, criticisms, and philosophies as possible. By writing in such a style a writer will normally give up writing if they are not familiar with the cards and plagiarism becomes more difficult to sustain as 'I' statement's, such as "I believe" or in my experience" need to be inserted to fulfill the criteria.

A dissertation will not be rejected if it is badly written. Grammar and spelling are not important to receiving a certificate. We receive many essays in broken English from Indian university graduates and also from people who know their craft in the UK and USA but have difficulty putting a sentence together. I am confident that these pieces of work are authentic and feel great satisfaction in sending them a certificate. However if there are quotes on the assessment certificate then the spelling will be corrected.

But the most important thing will always be the ethics regarding care for clients.

Actually, I decided to do a certificate course on ebay for Tarot as an experiment and was required to do nothing except send the provider three letters of recommendation from three satisfied clients. Which basically means I could be financially exploiting them, sexually abusing them and drinking their blood which would be acceptable to this provider as long as the clients were happy. I spent £10 but didn't get the certificate because I couldn't be arsed to get anyone to write the letters for me through sheer embarrassment at the crap requirements.

I didn't get a refund.

I hope this answers your questions.

Thanks

Alex

Moderator note:

Just a reminder: You may post links to your web page or Facebook page in your profile. Do not post links in the thread as we try to keep the forum as free from self-promotion as is possible. I have removed some links.

Thanks,
Alta