This is a wonderful sequel to Jack Chanek’s Tarot for Real Life, a down-to-earth primer that de-mystifies the tarot, whereas here in Tarot for the Magically Inclined: Spells and Spirits to Stack the Deck in Your Favor, we delve straight into the mysteries of the tarot.
Continue reading “Tarot for the Magically Inclined by Jack Chanek”
I was listening to the podcast (a great one, by the way) Occultish Behavior: The Unholy Hour with Ivy Corvus and Justin Bennett, Episode 4: The Monetization of Magic where Ivy and Justin share their thoughts on paid endorsements, paywalls, charging for online courses, and so much more. They explore a spectrum of opinions, which I think so many of us can resonate with. These are observations I myself have been grappling with, so it was really fruitful to hear their perspectives.
Tangentially related are other recent thought pieces I’ve been enjoying: Thorn Mooney’s “Reflections on Community” and Kelly-Ann Maddox speaking on “Buying the Witchcraft Aesthetic.”
As a collective we cycle back to this subject for conversation every few years. A year ago that #Occultea tag had lots of pagan and witchy content creators addressing social media witchcraft, grifters, aesthetics, consumerism, and gatekeeping. Consumerism in spirituality comes up frequently in the tarot community, which I’ve previously chimed in on here (Tarot Tube and Classism) two years ago, touching on many of the topics Ivy and Justin cover in this podcast episode, specific to tarot social media spaces, rather than the broader witchy/pagan space.
When we monetize the teaching of sacred knowledge, we complicate and maybe even risk committing sacrilege. But if we don’t meet humans where they are and provide monetary compensation, they’re not going to share their work.
For many holding sincere religious beliefs around how they’ve divinely received the sacred knowledge, trying to put a dollar and cents price tag on the value of that knowledge is intuitively icky. And yet if we don’t value that knowledge — and we demonstrate value by paying for it — then these sacred cultural traditions risk going extinct.
It seems like the majority agree that people should be adequately compensated for their work, but also we judge that at some point it’s just greedy, gross, and profane. We don’t want you to starve, but if you get too popular and start selling your stuff for too much, we’ll knock you off your high horse.
It’s funny how an oft-repeated tenet in the artist/creator community is “charge what you’re worth,” except when you do, you get vilified. If you charge a “grotesque” amount of money for your work, you’re perceived as having an inflated ego, and you’ll get accusingly asked, “What makes you think your work is worth so much.” Which also is a silly question to ask, because if the creator is doing business right, then the clear answer is the marketplace. The marketplace has accepted that their work is worth that much. It’s not ego. It’s capitalism. Okay maybe it’s both.
We all agree that some sort of balanced approach is best, but we disagree on what “balanced approach” means. Where do you draw the line and why do you draw the line there? Is charging $30 for an online course on planetary ritual magic okay? What about charging $300? $3,000? You say it depends on the content of that course, but how do we even apply an objective standard for review?
As an author and educational content creator of topics in mysticism, I struggle a lot with what a “balanced approach” means to me. I want to produce diligently researched, comprehensive, substantive educational videos on YouTube, but it’s a lot of work. It’s time-consuming, and at this point in my life, time is very precious. So if I’m going to invest my time and energy into making free educational videos to increase equitable accessibility to sacred knowledge, then I want to be compensated for that work, but how? Do I want money? Initially I think, no, I don’t need money for it. I just need something in exchange to feel like it’s fair, to feel like my investment sacrifice of time was worth it. But what?
You’re probably quite familiar with the “For Dummies” learning series that were popularized in the 90s. The book series published by Wiley & Sons de-mystifies difficult subjects and is known for accessible, easy-to-understand, plainspoken writing. Wiley could not have chosen a better author for the task than my dear friend Charles Harrington.
Although the “For Dummies” series catches a kitschy rep, this is in all seriousness a legit, no-nonsense, superb beginner’s book on tarot and oracle decks — and I love the dual coverage this compact yet comprehensive book packs for you.
Continue reading ““Tarot and Oracle Card Reading” from the For Dummies Learning Series”
I guess I’ll start with the ending spoiler: this was not for me. Yet if keto was a cult (sometimes I think it is), the Hubby says he’d join in a heartbeat (he jokes, but you get what he’s saying). The Hubby now swears by keto.
Everything about having to be on a ketogenic diet fundamentally runs against my impulses, inclinations, my intuition, my preferred lifestyle, my joie de vivre, like this was 30 days of stripping away the meaning of life from me.
Also, at the tail end of this blog post I’ll share some woo thoughts on keto, and what I felt like was the impact of a ketogenic diet on those who are psychic or hyper-intuitive.
Balancing out the text reviewing my 30 days of keto will be keto food pics. I’ll also share a pdf download of 30 days of keto dinners. On weekends I meal-prepped for weekday breakfasts and lunches, i.e., fridge fully stocked with soft-boiled eggs, various seasoned ingredients to easily build salads, foods cut and at the ready for easy charcuterie boards.
In case you’re curious, here’s a print-out of what we ate for 30 days:
To any keto purists reading this, yes, our meal planning included several vegetables considered “not keto-friendly,” but are nutrient-packed. I found that I had to integrate “not keto-friendly” vegetables into our meal planning to avoid vitamin deficiencies.
The problem with the keto diet (if I may…) is the high risk of nutrient deficiencies, and if you eat “dirty keto” (more on that later), then you’re probably taking in way too much sodium, way too much bad fats, etc. If you aren’t hyper-aware of what exactly you’re eating just to stay keto, you’re putting yourself at a much higher risk for elevated cholesterol, liver stress, kidney stones, and if you already have digestive issues and lack of gut microbiome diversity, you’re gonna exacerbate those conditions if you’re not super-careful on keto.
Before we continue, in case it’s not overtly obvious to you already, I’m not a nutrition scientist, I’m not an anything at all that would remotely qualify me to talk about dieting or ketogenesis. This is just a lay person cooking food in a lay people kinda way and sharing my lay person opinions on something I know nothing about (but experienced for 30 days).
Oh, and one more thing about that print-out of meal prep. Cuisine-wise, it’s primarily East Asian, but California (specifically Bay Area) influenced, as “farm to table” as practicable, local and seasonal. If that’s not your palate, then the print-out is going to be quite useless to you. =P
benebell wen 