i would also suspect that it could be a more recent development-
early-modern cunning folk, from whom a lot of modern wiccans might claim
some 'craft link', were, after all, "jobbing" spellcasters, doing their work
for money or food.....
as a practitioner there have been times when i have done things on the
request of a third party who has subsequently asked me what they owe me, and
i've been unable to price things; sometimes as they were what i considered
trivial and simple, sometimes (a nasty house 'exorcism' springs to mind) as
i simply could not put a high enough figure on the undertaking; so i've
never worked for money.... but have often been fed and accommodated in
return for ritual performances
there is *very* little in modern practitioner books about this angle, i
find..... being paid for divinations etc is different as there is a more
fixed service, if only in terms of a half hour or full hour reading (or
similar), but i suspect that a lot of the disdain or avoidance of charging
for magical ritual work in some western circles relates back to the notion
of 'filthy lucre', and works of pure spirit being above monetary reward
which is fine for those with jobs, but it would be interesting to read any
academic research about people who make their living entirely from
occult-based areas, such as spellcasting. Cassandra Latham in Cornwall
springs to mind; and she has done some work with Prof Theresa Smith who
was-is based at one of the US universities, and i was hoping Cassandra's
autobiography would have been out by now : )
dave e
----- Original Message -----
From: "Chas S. Clifton" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Sunday, August 20, 2006 9:56 PM
Subject: Re: [ACADEMIC-STUDY-MAGIC] Selling Shamanic Training to Survive
> On 20 Aug,06, at 1:58 PM, Sabina Magliocco wrote:
>
> >
> > 1) Why and how did the prejudice towards money/ spirituality
> > develop in the West? and
> >
>
> I will hazard a totally unsupported opinion that it is a cultural echo
> of the Protestant Reformation--the condemnation of the selling
> of indulgences and so forth.
>
> Chas
> ---------------------------------------------------------------
> "Letter from Hardscrabble Creek" -- a Pagan writer's blog
> http://www.chasclifton.com/blogger.html
|