I discuss why money magic won't solve your financial problems if you don't understand how money works and share my own path to financial literacy.
Get Manifesting Wealth at books2read.com/u/31xoEW
Some thoughts about the Professional Magician
Both Jason and Frater Barrabbas have written some excellent post about the route of the professional magician. Frater Barrabbas notes that the professional magician route isn't necessarily for every occultist and that doing a job he loves is actually good for him in a variety of ways. I can appreciate his perspective, and its one reason I have a professional business that is not oriented toward magic. Jason also makes a good point, that you shouldn't go into magic with a focus on making money off of it, at least not initially, and that ideally it is a calling.
I agree with both of them and I probably fall in between the two of them. I don't offer to do spells for people, although I am happy to give readings and do spiritual coaching. I write books and help to publish other people's books on magic (including a few from Frater Barrabbas) and recently I've started offering a correspondence course (with more planned down the line!). That's likely the extent of what I'll do a professional magician. I don't want to cast spells for people because I feel they should solve their own problems using their own skills. But I also don't want to work at a corporate job. I think it's a dead end, unless you get into the right discipline and frankly the disciplines I've seen that are the right fits are ones that would bore me to tears. Plus I love being self-employed because I'm able to work on my own projects, and help people in the way I've been called to help them.
I do have another business and with both that business and Magical Experiments, I'm making some inroads, which are making my life better as a result, but its taken a lot of work. And in my opinion to be a successful professional magician you have to also be successful as a self-employed person. Not everyone is cut out to be self-employed, especially because you need to actively work on your business, as well as within it. And if its a service business, which professional magic would be, expect it to take even more work. Selling a product is easier than selling a service.
I think its good that magic is becoming more of a professional activity, in the sense that it makes it that much more acceptable in mainstream society. Such inroads are always useful, but its also important to continue to focus on magic as a spiritual path. The main focus of my work is exploration of magic as a spiritual and practical process for improving life, and that focus informs my work as a professional magician.
A wealth magic tip
This is actually a tip that applies to anything you want to learn, but I'm applying it to wealth magic since that's an area of magic I've been working with quite a bit. Bune, the goetic demon I've been working with, has also been inspirational in regards to this tip. If you really want to apply magic to an aspect of your life, one of the key things you need to do is learn as much about that aspect of life as possible. In my case, I started working with Bune last year in order to get him to help me with my primary business. Along the way, he's helped me see how I could also turn Magical Experiments into more of a business. But the one thing he's pushed all along is the need to educate myself if I want to succeed in business. As a result I ended up taking a Small Business Management course, which has helped me with both businesses in a variety of ways, as well as currently taking a marketing class. I've also been reading a lot of books on business development and wealth at Bune's prompting. The result is that I feel a lot more tools available to me, for both of my businesses.
I also think it helps to have a patron spirit for my business. It's something I'd recommend to anyone who owns a business and practices magic. Find yourself a patron spirit that will provide support on the spiritual side, and will also give you that intuitive push in directions you need to go in, to grow your business. And make sure you honor your patron, as it is quite a gift such a spirit provides. I've done most of the work on my businesses this year and last, but Bune has been the muse for that work. Once I started working with him, I started getting pushed into directions that could help me with my businesses and I've seen a real improvement, especially in the last six months. Praise Bune!
How you manifest Wealth
In my business coaching practice, one of the topics that inevitably comes up is wealth and money. As I tell my clients its not enough to want money as an end goal, if you don't know what you'll do with it. You have to understand how you'll use money and how it will benefit you before you can really acquire it. That's the first step toward manifesting wealth. You recognize what allows you to attract wealth into your life and then you establish how you will use that given medium to attain and sustain that wealth.
Money is just one medium for acquiring wealth. But any medium you are going to use to manifest wealth can never be an end goal in and of itself. More importantly you clearly have to define what you will do with the wealth you attain. Wealth is movement. Just attaining it doesn't mean much if you aren't sure how you'll apply it to your life. In fact not knowing how you'll apply it will likely cause you to lose it because its an indication that you aren't ready for the wealth.
Manifesting wealth is a result of a process where you define what wealth is, as well as the means you'll use to get it, and what you'll do with it once you have it. Manifesting wealth is a continuous process by virtue of the fact that you are continually manifesting it and moving it in your life in order to create more. This can be a bit intimidating if you aren't sure how to continue to move wealth. This is one reason I recommend learning about finances. It teaches you a lot about what you consider to be wealth and helps you learn how to move with it, as well as how to change the direction of movement (i.e. spending).
If you want to manifest wealth, be prepared for it. It's only when you are ready for it, that you should seek to acquire it.
How do you define wealth?
One of the questions I'm asking and answering as I start work on the wealth magic book is how I define wealth. Do I define it as money? The answer is yes and no. I think money is an essential characteristic of wealth, but doesn't solely represent wealth. Actually I'd argue that money can represent wealth, but it can also represent poverty and a whole host of other meanings. Money as a symbol is...quite diverse in meaning.
Wealth, on the other hand, isn't necessarily so diverse, but certainly it can be illusive. What is wealth? What does it really mean to be wealthy? The definition of wealth is something that seems to tease people. And what one person defines as wealth another person disagrees with...not that it really matters. The real question is: Can I embody my definition of wealth in a way that is maintainable?
Speaking from experience, its taken me a while to embody wealth in my life, and maintain it. I'm still learning how to do it, although I seem to be getting better at it each day. Persistence is another ingredient of wealth. You have to be persistent and focused on it, in order to attain it. That's actually true of anything you want in life. If you really want it, you'll find a way (maybe even an A).
Magic is one means toward that end, and when you combine multiple means (like creating multiple income streams) it makes it much easier to achieve the desired result. My own quest toward wealth has focused on using multiple means to that end, and its a continual project, one I enjoy thoroughly. If you don't enjoy it, I advise not seeking it.
My definition of wealth is simple. I love to live by my own rules. Life on my terms is wealth. This isn't to say I'm in control of everything, but rather that I am doing what I love to do, at my leisure, and maintaining and improving it, while also being able to enjoy everything that brings pleasure to me, and allows me to continue to work on the projects I value most. That's my definition of wealth.
What's yours?