Those Were The Days….
There is a new round of posts on Social Media arguing for/against charging for magic and magical training. Actually, to be honest I have only seen posts FOR it, which is probably a result of blocking, being blocked, and the algorithm generally showing us all what we already think.
You know where I stand on it, so I don’t want to weigh in on that. Instead I want to weigh in on a certain comment appearing in some of these posts. Something along the lines of:
“I think its fine people charge for their time and labor, but magic has become too commercial. Endless classes and courses, on things that a student could probably put together themselves. Expensive custom made tools, overpriced specialty books, its a huge marketplace and some of it is clearly just designed to make money rather than provide value. It wasn’t always like this…..”
Queue Archie and Edith singing a pagan version of Those Were The Days…
I actually agree with some of this. I see the young Witches and Occultists who are hungry to play doctor, but have no interest in taking the medicine. I see the “subject matter experts” who are cranking out courses before their brain has finished developing. I hear about the businesses that take the money and never ship the product. I get it. I do. And yeah, things weren’t always this way. But in a lot of ways, things were worse.
Let me tell you what I remember.
I remember when, unless you lived in a major city, you had just a smattering of Llewellyn and New Falcon books on the shelf at Walden Books. Of course NONE of those were written just for the money (Enochian Yoga, 21 Lessons of Merlyn, etc etc). The closest you could get to something like the Grimoire Verum was either a few choice segments quoted in the Complete Book of Magic & Witchcraft, or a shitty IGOS book that was basically just a photocopy of a photocopy of a photocopy that someone bound.
I remember when a serious student would have to join and Order or Coven to go beyond the books. Yes, monetary dues were minimum, but ass-kissing was not. Often it was the price of going up a degree. And isn’t it funny how the person f*cking the High Priest/Priestess/Master/Ipsissimus always managed to get fast-tracked? Or how the coven would have intervene in messy domestic disputes?
I remember when condition oils and powders at the botanica were basically colored olive oil or talcum powder. I remember when unless you had access to a machine shop or a lot of expertise in carpentry, your tools would look like shit and fall apart in ritual.
And yeah, we didn’t need fancy classes that presented a lot of information in an orderly fashion over a few weeks. We cobbled that shit together ourselves! Over years. Using every spare minute we had. Or we just didn’t and worked with whatever the Llewellyn/New Falcon book said.
The teachers back then didn’t get rich! They did it for the love of the craft. Or to feel important in an otherwise humdrum life. Or to get laid…. The important thing is that it wasn’t for money! When they got older, and life and students moved on – they simply lived in squalor and begged old students to pay for their medical/living expenses…. Ya know, like a REAL Teacher should…..
Or hey, maybe you had a teacher that actually had their shit together. They had a job and a family and still managed to teach. For maybe an hour after work before they had to go home and make dinner, or at a festival once or twice a year.
So, while I sympathize with all the downsides of the commodification of Magic – I would like people to remember clearly what the community was like before that. I will take the situation now.
Just recently I took an online course in a Tantra that probably would have never been offered before this current age. If it was, I would have had to travel half a world away and take months off of my job to do it.
I took another class in something far less exotic, and yeah, maybe its something I could have pieced together myself with some work and elbow grease – but so is fixing my plumbing, and landscaping, and staining the deck. Frankly I am happy I can pay someone else to do that shit who can do it better than I can, because its what they do for a living.
Just recently I thought that I might futz around with some of the old Don Kraig rituals I used to do. I could buy the whole set of Elemental Tools, Lotus Wand, and Tablet of Union for less than $400 bucks. They would be much higher quality than I would be able to produce after months of work. And its a Tax Write Off!
I know how to make oils and powders and candles, and sometimes I really do have to get my hands dirty, but in general? I prefer to buy it from someone who is an expert at their craft.
Me? I spend 40-50 hours a week at my job. I couldn’t do it, if I didn’t get paid to do it. I was lucky enough to know a lot of good teachers who gave up everything to teach what they loved for free, because teaching and doing magic for money was not a thing back then. I saw them sleep on peoples couches when they were in their 70’s, and plead for medication money when they were in their 80’s. No thank you.
Lastly, I would like to remind people that when you look back to the Good Old Days, a lot of it simply has to do with the fact that you were younger then. You had more energy and less time commitments so all the things you remember doing fondly, you might not be so fond of anymore.