Charging for Spiritual Services
Sorry I have been quiet for a while! I got sick with a horrible flu of yuckiness.
Weekly blog prompt: Do you think it's right to charge for magical services? If yes, why? Which services? All of them? If not, why do you feel that way? If you don't believe it's right to charge, how about a barter or a trade of services rather than currency? What defines an equal trade?
It depends. In my opinion, when you pay money to a psychic, healer, teacher etc. what you are paying for is not their "gifts", but their time and energy. Those people have to eat and pay their bills too, so we can't expect them to be giving us free readings, healings, spiritual lessons and counselling sessions and the like for free as a service to the community all the time. As my IDGAF mentor said in her post (here: http://windthroughtrees.blogspot.ca/2014/07/late-blog-prompt-and-idgaf.html), sometimes spiritual teachers have to hire somewhere to have the class and put money into printing handouts etc. so there's that practical concern.
Having said that, I am a Reiki Master/Teacher as well as a Tarot reader and witch, and there is a reason why I don't charge for my services at the moment. The first is that I feel I am still inexperienced and I don't feel comfortable or confident in promoting myself. The second reason is that I want to be selective about who I teach, do a healing for, or read for. I only want to do it for friends and like-minded people who I feel comfortable with and I don't want to be in a position where someone has had a reading from me, didn't get anything out of it and doesn't want to pay. I would never want to be in a position where I had to demand payment, and that's why I only want to do it on my down time and don't attempt to do it as a full time career or business. I love doing barters or trades for my services. I think a fair trade is any trade where the same (or roughly the same) amount of time and energy has been put in. A good example is that a few months ago a friend of mine bought me a t-shirt I had my eye on at the hippy shop for no reason... it wasn't my birthday or anything! So I got some materials together and made her a smudge fan that I would have charged around $30 for (the same price as the t-shirt).
I do put a lot of money into things like books and courses to learn about Reiki, Tarot and the craft, so I can see why some people would charge money if they're helping a lot of strangers. Some people may certainly feel a calling to help people on a larger scale than I do, at the moment anyway, so in those cases I think it's understandable that they ask for payment in return for all the time and energy they put in.
I got sick with a cold on the winter solstice and I have been recovering ever since. I now just have a bit of a cough left over, so I hope I'm all better soon. I had a few family visitors in the last couple of weeks, my mum and brother and then my sister and her partner when they were on the way through to do their uni prac on the Sunshine Coast. I am going to Cardwell for another visit in October.
I have still been plugging away at my IDGAF reading. With being sick I haven't been reading much, but I am now onto the last chapter of Mastering Witchcraft, so I'm looking forward to getting started on something else. Today I joined some YouTube Pagan communities, so I'm feeling inspired to make more videos when I feel better.
Thank you for reading! Blessed be. xx
Weekly blog prompt: Do you think it's right to charge for magical services? If yes, why? Which services? All of them? If not, why do you feel that way? If you don't believe it's right to charge, how about a barter or a trade of services rather than currency? What defines an equal trade?
It depends. In my opinion, when you pay money to a psychic, healer, teacher etc. what you are paying for is not their "gifts", but their time and energy. Those people have to eat and pay their bills too, so we can't expect them to be giving us free readings, healings, spiritual lessons and counselling sessions and the like for free as a service to the community all the time. As my IDGAF mentor said in her post (here: http://windthroughtrees.blogspot.ca/2014/07/late-blog-prompt-and-idgaf.html), sometimes spiritual teachers have to hire somewhere to have the class and put money into printing handouts etc. so there's that practical concern.
Having said that, I am a Reiki Master/Teacher as well as a Tarot reader and witch, and there is a reason why I don't charge for my services at the moment. The first is that I feel I am still inexperienced and I don't feel comfortable or confident in promoting myself. The second reason is that I want to be selective about who I teach, do a healing for, or read for. I only want to do it for friends and like-minded people who I feel comfortable with and I don't want to be in a position where someone has had a reading from me, didn't get anything out of it and doesn't want to pay. I would never want to be in a position where I had to demand payment, and that's why I only want to do it on my down time and don't attempt to do it as a full time career or business. I love doing barters or trades for my services. I think a fair trade is any trade where the same (or roughly the same) amount of time and energy has been put in. A good example is that a few months ago a friend of mine bought me a t-shirt I had my eye on at the hippy shop for no reason... it wasn't my birthday or anything! So I got some materials together and made her a smudge fan that I would have charged around $30 for (the same price as the t-shirt).
I do put a lot of money into things like books and courses to learn about Reiki, Tarot and the craft, so I can see why some people would charge money if they're helping a lot of strangers. Some people may certainly feel a calling to help people on a larger scale than I do, at the moment anyway, so in those cases I think it's understandable that they ask for payment in return for all the time and energy they put in.
I got sick with a cold on the winter solstice and I have been recovering ever since. I now just have a bit of a cough left over, so I hope I'm all better soon. I had a few family visitors in the last couple of weeks, my mum and brother and then my sister and her partner when they were on the way through to do their uni prac on the Sunshine Coast. I am going to Cardwell for another visit in October.
I have still been plugging away at my IDGAF reading. With being sick I haven't been reading much, but I am now onto the last chapter of Mastering Witchcraft, so I'm looking forward to getting started on something else. Today I joined some YouTube Pagan communities, so I'm feeling inspired to make more videos when I feel better.
Thank you for reading! Blessed be. xx