The Curious Case of Capitalist Shame in a Capitalist World

(everything stated in this blog is based upon my own research, personal practice, and opinion)

Let’s begin with a question that haunts every occult Facebook group, every wand-waving subreddit, and approximately 63% of Etsy reviews for tarot readings: “Should you charge for magick?”

The expected answer, apparently, is: “Absolutely not! If it’s real, it should be free. Real witches work for love, light, and exposure.” Exposure, presumably, to the elements, since if you’re doing this full-time for free, you’re probably homeless.

This line of thinking is like saying, “If you’re truly good at brain surgery, you’ll do it for free. Otherwise, you’re just in it for the money.” Or my personal favorite: “If you’re really spiritual, you won’t need to eat, pay rent, or own a functioning toilet.”

Ah, but here we are. Again. Dancing the tired tango of spiritual purity versus capitalist survival, as if living in a late-stage capitalist hellscape wasn’t already enough of a metaphysical endurance test.

So let’s talk about it, historically, and honestly.

Back When Witches Got Paid

If you’ve ever been told, “Witches never charged in the old days,” please understand that this statement is so historically incorrect it could be taught in a Texas high school textbook.

Historically, witches, cunning folk, seers, astrologers, and magical practitioners absolutely charged for their services. In fact, they did pretty good business, until the Inquisition made customer service a lot more complicated.

The cunning man who helped you find your lost cow? Charged.

The herbalist who made a poultice for your festering battle wound? Charged.

The granny midwife who whispered charms while delivering your child and cursing your cheating husband’s manhood to shrivel? Charged. (Twice, if the curse was extra juicy.)

This wasn’t considered unethical. It was common sense. If someone was using their knowledge, skills, and years of experience to help you with real problems, they deserved real compensation.

We’ve only recently decided that spiritual or magical labor should be a hobby you do after your 9–5 soul-crushing job. And if that sounds suspiciously Protestant Work Ethic™, well… buckle in.

Blame the Puritans. (Again.)

Here’s the root of it: the Western world has a weird hang-up about money and spirituality. Somewhere along the line, someone said, “Money is the root of all evil,” and everyone conveniently ignored that the original line is “The love of money is the root of all evil”…a very different sentiment.

Puritanism, and later Victorian moralizing, taught us that anything spiritual should be austere, unpaid, and slightly miserable. If you’re enjoying yourself or making money, you must be doing it wrong. You must be a charlatan, a con artist, or (worst of all) a capitalist witch, which sounds like a great band name, but apparently makes you Satan in yoga pants.

This is particularly ironic because religious professionals have always been compensated. Priests, monks, shamans, imams, rabbis; some got paid in donations, some got food, land, or housing, but they weren’t just vibing in a cave hoping someone brought them a granola bar. Even the aesthetics of asceticism have infrastructure; go look at the Vatican. It’s not exactly minimalist.

Yet somehow, modern witches are expected to be broke, barefoot, and broadcasting on TikTok for free. Preferably from inside a forest hut made of ethical mushrooms and debt.

The Ethnocentric Elephant in the Room

Now here’s where the conversation gets uncomfortable, but necessary.

The idea that it’s “wrong” or “impure” to charge for spiritual services is wildly ethnocentric. Let’s call it what it is: a view rooted deeply in white, Western, Christian-influenced frameworks that don’t understand how other cultures treat spiritual labor.

In countless cultures around the world, spiritual professionals charge, and rightly so. Curanderas in Latin America, diviners in West African traditions, babaylan in the Philippines, Voudou houngans, Ifá priests, shamans, herbalists, and so on. These people often train for years, and their communities understand that what they offer is vital work. Not a hobby. Not cosplay. Not something to do on weekends between barista shifts.

The notion that “real spiritual work is always free” becomes deeply problematic when white Western neo-pagans start pointing fingers at BIPOC practioners who are charging for their time and labor. That’s when it stops being philosophical and starts being colonialist as hell.

Because what you’re really saying is: “If I can’t charge for this, you shouldn’t be able to either.”

And that, my friend, is not ethics. That’s ego wrapped in moralistic pants, preaching poverty while scrolling Etsy for another $300 handmade wand.

The Scam Scarecrow and the Straw Witch

Now to be fair: yes, there are scammers in the spiritual world. People who promise to “remove generational curses” for $2,000 and a kidney. That exists. But you know what else has scammers?

Every profession.

There are fake doctors, shady mechanics, lying landlords, corrupt politicians (okay, all politicians), and investment bankers who gamble your retirement fund on NFTs shaped like buttholes.

We don’t respond by saying, “Doctors should work for free, or they’re fakes.” We say, “Wow, that guy’s a crook. Let’s hold them accountable.”

But when a witch says, “I’ll read your cards for $30,” suddenly it’s a crisis of authenticity. A real psychic wouldn’t need money! (…but they apparently do need crystals, rent, groceries, Wi-Fi, and self-care tea.)

This is the double-bind: if you don’t charge, you’re a starving artist. If you do, you’re a greedy fraud. Sound familiar? It’s the same trap we spring on creatives, healers, teachers, and anyone who does work that isn’t easy to quantify in spreadsheets.

And frankly? That’s capitalism gaslighting us into believing that our labor is only valid if it kills us slowly.

The Energy Exchange Argument (a.k.a. Spiritual Capitalism’s Soft Pants)

Now here comes the moment where someone puffs up and says, “Well, I believe in energy exchange, not money.”

Cute. But unless you’re living in a fully off-grid barter commune where your landlord accepts goat milk as rent, money is energy. You work for it. You trade time, skill, and life-force for it. That’s as energetic as it gets.

You want to trade three jars of pickles and a poem about the moon in exchange for a curse removal? Great. But that doesn’t make you less capitalist, it just makes you cute capitalist adjacent.

There’s no “clean” money in a capitalist system. That $20 bill in your wallet probably passed through a strip club, a church basket, a drug dealer, and a smoothie bar before it hit your pocket. The money isn’t the problem, it’s the values we attach to it, and the weird guilt we’re programmed to feel for using it to survive.

Let’s call this what it really is: spiritual labor deserves to be compensated, full stop. Just because you can’t put a spell in a spreadsheet doesn’t mean it’s not real work.

Why It’s Not Just About You

Let’s also talk about the real-world impact of this mindset: discouraging people from charging for spiritual work means fewer people doing it professionally.

Which means fewer skilled witches, healers, astrologers, and spiritual teachers building long-term practices, refining their craft, and offering real support to communities that need it.

Instead, we get an ocean of dabblers who burn out fast, ghost their clients, and treat spellwork like it’s a hobby they’ll abandon when Mercury goes direct.

If we don’t allow people to build sustainable, ethical practices, they won’t stick around. And then you’re left with an army of TikTok teenagers hexing the moon and a few bitter elders living off ramen and resentment.

Charging for magick doesn’t mean you’re selling your soul. It means you’re investing in your ability to keep showing up, doing the work, and not dying of scurvy in a tent.

The Future of Paid Magick (a.k.a. Let’s Not Be Silly About This)

So how do we do it right?

Simple.

Transparency: Be clear about what you’re offering, what you charge, and what your boundaries are.

Ethics: Don’t exploit vulnerable people. Don’t promise miracles. Don’t threaten to curse someone unless they Venmo you $500.

Professionalism: Respect your own damn craft enough to treat it like a real service. Contracts, refunds, communication, be a witch, not a walking red flag.

Magick is a service, an art, and a discipline. It can be sacred and profitable. Compassionate and sustainable. Ancient and modern.

You can have incense and invoices. Tarot and taxes. Sigils and Shopify.

The idea that you have to choose between being real and being compensated is a false binary, built by a system that fears anything it can’t commodify, and then mocks you when you try to not die of capitalism.

Recognizing Our Part

Let’s stop pretending that magick is less real because someone charges for it.

Let’s stop projecting our money trauma onto witches, healers, and spiritual workers who are just trying to make a life doing what they’re called to do.

Let’s stop pretending that starving for your craft makes you morally superior. It doesn’t. It just makes you hungry, bitter, and likely to yell at your herbs.

You want to do this work for free? Great. That’s your path. But don’t slap a purity sticker on it and expect everyone else to bow to your self-imposed martyrdom.

The future of magick isn’t broke witches whispering under bridges. It’s powerful, skillful practitioners building real careers, communities, and practices that can last.

If you’re a witch who charges? Bless you. Keep going.

If you’re a witch who doesn’t? Cool, just don’t judge the ones who do.

The real spell we need to cast is breaking the hex of poverty mindset in spiritual spaces.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have invoices to send. The spirits don’t mind, as long as I offer a % to the ancestors and maybe a little extra rum on Saturdays.