However, when it comes to services in the Pagan community, be they divinations, the creation of a spell, the performance of a rite or ritual or some other priest/essing service, many Pagans who charge or request donation for their services get a lot of hate, or sideways looks or people will say "don't go to the they ask for donations or try to charge!
When I first came into the Pagan world this was the mindset that was pretty much drilled in to me. You cannot ever charge for your services! If you charge for your services you will become corrupt! And other, similar things. When I was thinking about writing this post I was thinking of why on Earth there would be such force with these thoughts and the only things I could think of was a combination of the basically forced tithing in Christian churches (and shaming when you only put a small donation, not an actual tithe in the plate) as well as the prolific tarot and psychic phone scams back in the 90's, such as Miss Cleo and and the Psychic Friends Network.
Many years ago I participated in a barter of services where I wrote newsletters for a pagan website/email group and received a particular amount of product from the store in exchange. I never at any time found a problem with this. If we were to break it down for the amount of work I put into the newsletters I wrote (2 per month) versus the amount of product I got and I was paid approximately minimum wage for the work I did. And I received a lot of hate for it, people telling me it was wrong as a good portion of my newsletters was educational (some was actual news as well) and you shouldn't charge for teaching services. I was actually compared side by side with some very negative people in my local Pagan community at the time when certain people found out I was getting compensation for writing the newsletters. And I'll tell you, this reaction really affected my self confidence, though I knew that I was doing nothing wrong and I continued to write the newsletters for quite some time (to be honest I don't remember how long it was that I wrote them).
The thing about it... if you're in a place in life where you can do all of these things and take the whole financial burden upon yourself plus receive no compensation ... good for you! It's amazing that you're in a place like that!
However the majority of us are not. Many of us, if we do something for someone we are taking time out of our day despite most of us having families and full time jobs. When we are gathering supplies to do a ritual for someone, we are taking this money out of our own personal funds.
But beyond all of that, a lot of those services are work. Hard work and time consuming. And many of us are called to be full time priests/esses. Many of us are called to start groups and serving the pagan community at large, in which case that becomes a full time job in and of itself. I think where it often goes wrong is that many people use that as a reason/excuse to not have any other source of income, which then gives them a "reason" to truly charge and/or charge exorbitant prices for things.
For me, for example, I offer divination services online (oracle or tarot card reasons) and I have only declined to do readings for non-financial reasons (such as inappropriate questions, dishonest behavior prior to requesting the reading, etc) but I do ask for donations for big readings (such as over 3 cards) and I do have a "buy reading" thing on my Tumblr page. I do not feel any discomfort asking for donations or having the buy thing because it truly takes time to do readings especially big readings such as 7+ cards. I have spent upwards of 90 minutes doing a full reading before (that one was quite complicated and detailed). It is hard work, it truly is.
In my opinion, the way to do it is to don't attempt to "full time priestess" (like, serving the community at large; serving a small group is not as time consuming) unless you are otherwise financially comfortable or unless you have a reliable work from home position that pays the bills but you make your own hours.
I believe that no one should ever be turned away for true financial inability to pay. I believe that once you know the person you should be willing to arrange payment plans for a service that does/should have payment (such as classes, training, etc). I absolutely believe that if supplies are involved the person requesting the service should be responsible for either procuring the supplies beforehand or should reimburse them. And if you are new to each other I think proof of cost is not too much to request, so long as it's done with tact, or simply offered up front.
Like anything charging for services or requesting donation can be done very wrong. I truly have seen people charge upwards of $100 for simply a "charged" candle with a ribbon on it. And people pay! This, is wrong. Saying $20-$5 tribute is requested for attendance but no one is turned away due to lack of funds, that's reasonable; you put a lot of time into what's going on, possibly hosting the event and perhaps even buying items.
In the end, it's like pretty much anything else. You can do it in an appropriate way, and a not-appropriate way. And as a community we must look at how things are actually being done instead of just blanket judging.
When I ever do tarot, I just accept donations, but sometimes it never fails that if you set a price nobody ever seems to have that amount. Now I can understand if you are charging for services like Handfastings and such, but yes when its things for classes, it have to make it reasonable or you won't have many people coming back to learn.
ReplyDelete*nods* I agree. I think depending on the situation simply being "coverage of only the cost of materials and a suggessted donation of x amount or whatever you're comfortable with" and then "payment plans available" is more than acceptable.
DeleteMy HPS has a policy that she strongly asks for donations, but never turns anyone away for not being able to pay. Not only that, but we are on the "honor system" where there's a little jar in the North corner of the altar. You just go up and put in what you have and that's that. She doesn't watch it, or ask who put what or who didn't put. She then keeps half for herself and half goes in the coven coffers, and she doesn't lie about that. Then, every Quarter she publicizes where all of the money went. What went to her, what went for supplies, what went for any donations the Sisterhood made, etc.
That sort of honesty and transparency is refreshing and what is needed for those of us who believe in Sustainable Priestessing.
But yea, if you say $20 for a celtic cross spread, yea. No one will do it. But if you just be like $5-$10 suggested donation for a 5-10 card spread... yea. I think people feeling like they have a choice in paying will make them feel like they have power in the situation and thus they're more likely to do it.