Something I hadn't considered...

[avevale_intelligencer]

Alan Moore, in an interview to which cherylmmorgan links, says, among other things:

"To me, all creativity is magic,” he says. “Ideas start out in the empty void of your head – and they end up as a material thing, like a book you can hold in your hand. That is the magical process. It’s an alchemical thing. Yes, we do get the gold out of it but that’s not the most important thing. It’s the work itself. That’s the reward. That’s better than money.”

So far so good, and I tend to believe that myself. What he does not add, but as a practising occultist will certainly know (let's face it, people who watched Charmed know it), is that there is a rule about magic: you aren't allowed to make money from it*. I genuinely hadn't made that connection...but I'd be very surprised if he hasn't.

Hmmmm.

*As with everything in this area, there are many different interpretations of this. Some occultists figure it's okay to charge for materials, but not for the actual spellcasting. Some discriminate between things like divination, which is mostly looking at what's there and interpreting it, and actual magic. Some think it's all right to ask for donations but not to set a fee. And some simply don't give a toss, possibly because they know they are not actually doing magic. EDIT: and, as I should have pointed out, there are innumerable different types of magic and their attitudes to doing it for cash are all different. I was speaking from my own, largely indirect, knowledge, which because it comes from books is automatically suspect (see Pratchett passim).

Comments

[tattercoats.livejournal.com]

I'm with you there. It's right to recieve money if one is doing the magic in a context where there is money to be paid. OTOH, it may well be wrong to withhold said magic where good could be done, and where the money is not, purely for that reason. Ie, give a little, it's good for you, but as Redaxe says, it's ok to make a living.

Bear in mind that in a looser, less populous, more community minded, er, community, then there would not perhaps be such hard lines between money and its lack, a job and unemployment, payment and non-payment.

I have included my harp in paid gigs on a few occasions, I realise, but when playing for handfastings and rituals, it's tended to be as a gift - albeit one in exchange for which I have often been given a bed for the night, a meal, in one case a brooch with a harp on it. Gift for gift... not quite the same thing as payment. Pay me £x or no deal... well, I might have such a conversation with a promoter who's in the business of paying acts to perform, but I'd be less likely to have it with a non-profit concern.

Again, that doesn't mean I'll play for any charity for nothing. Groups with which I have had associations or affiliations, however, have certainly had the right to ask for a little magic without money changing hands.

You will have realised that for me, music *is* magic. My tuppenyworth.

[keristor.livejournal.com]

Yours is about the position of most pagans I know on the subject. It seems to mirror their attitudes in other aspects as well, especially anything done as a hobby, that it's OK to make money from it when appropriate but on the other hand it is often done as a gift as well. (And I agree with it; as a person who makes a living from his hobby but also does it to distribute for free.)

On the other side, I also know some people who are very proud of their 'amateur' status and disparaging about anyone who takes money for doing the same thing, without any of the 'magical' ideas. Dancers, for instance, some of whom won't even do a solo performance at all in case it damages their 'amateur' status. And for that matter some of the more idealist "free software" advocates.