Money … For many Pagans, that one little word might as well be the four-letter word. Many within Paganism seem still to clutch on to the saying: “The love of money is the root of all evil.”

One thing though … Wrong religion!

Did you know that the word “money” is from the Roman goddess Moneta, an epithet of Juno, called Juno Moneta? Juno Moneta was the protectress of funds. She guarded over the finances of the empire and had a temple on the Arx (one of two Capitoline hills), close to the Royal Mint. The word moneta had come to mean money, currency, or mint by the times of writers such as Ovid, Martial, Juvenal, and Cicero.

And then we have the goddess Abundantia, the personification of luck, abundance and prosperity, and the guardian of the cornucopia - the horn of plenty (note of PLENTY not of EMPTY). In Roman mythology we also have Fortuna (equivalent to the Greek goddess Tyche) goddess of fortune, the personification of luck and under whose blessings was bounty. Tyche also happens to appear on many coins of the Hellenistic period.

So obviously to the ancient pagans prosperity was not necessarily contrary to their religious beliefs and spirituality.

To contemporary Pagans, money, however, seems to have acquired a bad reputation when some of the early Pagan leaders made a conscious decision that money and spirituality should not mix. Although it is true that money is not always put to good use (poverty, starvation, poor education and a host of other problems still exist) and although it is often misused and even abused, the attempt to separate money from spirituality is where Paganism’s difficulty with the concept of prosperity emerged.

We have been told that something as wonderful as spirituality should not be tainted by something as base as money. We have done this so well that the idea of receiving payment for “spiritual and religious-works” in any fashion has become foreign to us. Many Pagans seem to be under the impression that poor Pagans are more spiritual than richer Pagans. What a load of rubbish!
What has happened, in fact, is that we have forgotten certain very important truths when it comes to money.

Money is not power.

Money is not success.

Money is merely a tool, a form of energy.

Certainly, money as a tool has been abused, but we also seem to forget the wonderful things that can result from the correct use of money. Money can be used to feed the hungry, help to provide medical resources for those who are ill and in pain, house those who are in need of shelter, offer training opportunities and create jobs, etc. It can be used to bring joy into the hearts and minds of people.

I believe that its purpose can in fact help us to evolve on every level, including the spiritual.
What we need to realise is that there is a difference between money and greed. Money is the object; greed is the action. Money is in fact, to me at least, a way to examine how well we are applying our values - such as fairness and honesty - in all our transactions.

The choices we make on how we attract and spend money helps us to evolve on all levels. It is difficult to focus on the Higher Self when one is hungry or when the bills are stacking up. Someone once said that the rich and healthy do far more good in the world than all the sick and poor. For if you have wealth, then you to not need to rely on others to provide for you. If you have sufficient money in your life then you are able to purchase goods and services from others and this supports their prosperity and growth too.

As is the case with all forms of energy too little is not good and neither is too much. Balance is needed (and I am not talking about a good bank balance). In our modern culture, a lack of financial energy flow often becomes a form of stress that can divert us from our Spiritual Path. But the reverse situation can be equally true. When we have balance with money we have total faith that whatever we need will be provided. The money itself is not an issue. We do and will do whatever we are here to do, whether we have money or not.

How does this apply to our religious practices? Simply put, when any of our elders/teachers/clergy/gifted provide a service, there should be a balanced exchange in return. We do a disservice to them when we deny them support for what they share with the rest of us. One form of energy should always be exchanged with an equal form of energy - a fair exchange.

In Paganism, and other indigenous spiritual traditions, there is ongoing debate about the appropriateness of charging money for spiritual services, teaching, and healing. On one hand there is the long-standing tradition in Pagan communities that one does not charge for such services. On the other hand, the modern day emphasis on prosperity has resulted in the application of modern marketing principles to all sorts of spiritual work, from soul retrieval to tarot reading. One need only open the pages of almost any publication to see opportunities to spend money on being regressed to past lives, channeling, walking on fire, having your aura read, fortune telling, healing, etc.

Where should one draw the line? Should one draw a line? For example, paying doctors, hypnotists and acupuncturists is not too controversial within the Pagan community. Why not? Is the exchange of money always, by definition, corrupt or tainted by greed? What determines whether work is “spiritual” rather than “professional”? Can it ever be both? And what determines the value of, say, a channeling? Is it what the market will bear? A person’s wallet? Or is it what a person’s conscience should bear?

Those Pagans who eschew the no-pay-for-services model and decline to set a price for their spiritual services often find themselves in great demand, but uncompensated. The more they give, the more time they devote to developing their skills and the more impoverished they become. Surely not very fair.

In a tribal context there was no question that those providing spiritual services and support to the community would be looked after by the community. While the medicine man or woman might not on many occasions have explicitly ask payment for a healing, divination, or ceremony, members of the tribe understood that an exchange was required, and made sure that the fruits of the harvest or the hunt were provided to the shaman in exchange for her/his services. In the modern world of fragmented (Pagan) communities and isolated individuals (solitaries), those shared expectations have pretty much become nonexistent.

In older times, barter of goods or services was a perfectly acceptable way to handle matters like these, but ultimately in modern times, money is best suited. After all, the last time I checked I cannot barter my labour to pay for my water and lights, food, clothing, education, etc. In this world, where rent or house payments must be paid, groceries bought, clothing purchased, money is necessary. Our economy is based on the exchange of money (energy) for various goods and services (different forms of energy).

Money should perhaps be seen as “gifts of energy”.

I know that keeping money out of the picture is an effort, in part, to keep scam artists out of spirituality. However it does not keep out the scam artists who are into power and control, and people will still get stung by scam artists, but spirituality and spiritual work tends to be self culling and scam artists are eventually weeded out by the fact that they are not creating any transformations for people. The word gets out and people stop coming to them.

Unfortunately, there are also people within the Pagan community itself who charge absurd amounts of money for services.

So how do we resolve this? The concept of fair exchange needs to be brought into play. “Fair exchange’ simply means that both parties walk away from the situation satisfied that what they gave was equal to what they received.

The other idea that I would suggest is responsibility. Simply put, it means that you are answerable for your behaviour. Responsibility means that although you are not here solely to make money, you should also take your own needs, and that of others, into account when dealing with anyone who comes to you for assistance.

Once again, what about money? As I mentioned before, we live in a society that runs on money, no matter how much the idealists among us would like to see it otherwise. As long as we live in this society, we need to play by at least a few of the rules that it has set up. I believe that Pagans who deliver services deserve to be paid for the work that we do, as long as they remember the concepts of fair exchange and responsibility. In other words, people who provide spiritual services must ensure the do not treat their “clients” as cash cows.

Thus, as long as members within the Pagan community provide services for others - both inside and outside the group - it is only fair and correct that they be compensated for their efforts. But it will take time to unlearn the patterns that we have been taught, and it will take some time before Pagans can exchange their services without a sense of guilt over receiving what should be proper recompense.

Unluckily the “Poor Pagan’-archetype is also still infesting our community. It is the one that says that a “true Pagan” has to live hand to mouth, devoting all of her/his spare change and energy to serving the “cause”. I think it is damn hard to be a good teacher, priestess/priest, healer, etc if you are worried about eating, making the rent and paying bills.

Whether people want to admit it or not, Pagan priestesses and priests, and teachers, provide much needed services. I know, I have written about his before. I also know that some covens rotate priestly duties, but there is still a tendency for a few “doers” to shoulder a lot of the behind the scenes work. So, what is wrong, for example, with feeding them, giving them some cash to make up for their effort? They do not owe people any of it, and if their work goes unrewarded, eventually many will get disgusted. We need to find ways to reduce the burden on the “doers” in our community.

Most traditions are still uncomfortable with the concept of paying the “doers’, but I still believe that the hat should be passed around. Sure, some people will not be able to afford much, but many can. After all, if they can afford computers, CDs, eating out, takeaways and movies, then surely they can afford R50 a month to keep their coven or representative body going.

When you need a service, you should be willing to pay a fair price. Tarot decks are not cheap, incense is not cheap, crystals are not cheap, herbs are expensive and expertise is often very costly to acquire. If someone goes to the effort of putting together a formal class or seminar, realise that they have many times the duration of the class in preparation time invested. If they hold it in someone else’s facility, they have to pay rent! A modest fee is not some horrendous sacrilege. It is merely common sense and common decency.

It has also been my experience that people who pay for services gain ownership of the work by exchanging a piece of energy (money from their hard work at their day job) for the energy of the spiritual session.

"Wealth is the slave of a wise man. The master of a fool." - Seneca

(SOURCES: Wikipedia; Witchvox, Beliefnet, RealMagick)