So the Pagan and Occult world has exploded with chatter this week about an article in Patheos called “A Poor Magician Is A Poor Magician”. The article is pretty well reasoned and doesnt accuse anyone of anything, and just makes some common sense suggestions. The comments in forums, facebook, and elsewhere however have veered into the absurd.

As the author of Financial Sorcery, a book that took a pretty strong position on this issue, I was tempted to start commenting all over the place, but to save time I figured I would just do a post here on the article and on several positions that people have since taken regarding it.

IS A MAGICIAN WITHOUT MONEY BAD AT MAGIC?

It depends. Is money even on their radar? Being a magician means a lot of different things to different people. If their practice is not really much about material prosperity and practical sorcery than I would hesitate to judge them based on that. You see Christians all the time assuming that people with lower means are not as blessed by god, and you see Buddhists blaming the poor for their bad karma. These are examples of people being shitty Christians and Buddhists though, and has little reflection on the spiritual worth of the person they are judging. Let’s not have magicians and pagans start doing the same.

Maybe their practice does involve practical sorcery, but they are simply existing at a lower economic strata than what is normally considered middle class. Jack Faust pointed out in a facebook post that just because he strikes a deal with a fairy to never starve does not mean that the fairy is going to make him rich, and that there is a long history of magic of the lower classes. This is very true, but just because something is tradition does not make it very good or wise. I have been down and out in life, and I have studied magic that is stems from that place in life. Some of the practices and mind-set that comes with that reinforces that state. Is it bad magic? No, there is beauty and power in it, but that doesn’t make it good magic for dealing with money either. If you are happy then its good. If you are constantly bitching about you lot in life, then yes, its bad magic – do something else.

As for the person who is a full on Sorcerer, claims that their magic effects material reality, and that betterment of circumstances is part of that success, yet is constantly in financial disarray – yes, that person is a shitty magician. Too many people have taken high titles and bragged about the worldly power that their magic gives them, yet cannot seem to afford even the basics. I judge those people by the criteria that they set for themselves. I cannot seriously take your talk of being one of the “elite” when you cannot afford the payments on your Ford Focus.

This is not to say that good magicians will not have financial woes from time to time. Everyone has problems – its how you handle them that makes you a good magician and wise person financially.

This is also not to say that people must live opulently. I don’t, and chances are that if you are a magician, money is not your first love in life, and thus you may not be working as a hedge fund manager.* No one is saying you need to be rich, I am just talking about not wallowing in fiscal chaos.

FINANCIAL SKILLS

In reading through the responses of many people that felt compelled to defend their lifestyles and lack of financial stability in the face of this article, I found one that made an astonishing statement, that I must quote here.

“Lack of Financial Skills has nothing to do with why people are poor”.

Now I get what this person is hopefully trying to say: that race, class, and the general downturn of the economy places people in shitty positions. Too many people of privilege have thought of the poor as lazy because they truly have no idea what it is to not have opportunity. That said: your financial skills have nothing to do with it? Come on, of course they do.

In almost every situation there are factors that are not in your control, and there are factors that are. We should never let the factors that are out of our control, be an excuse for not working with the factors that are.

I hate it when people on the right say that the poor should just pull themselves up by their bootstraps and work harder – it does not address the root causes of poverty in the country and is an unreasonable response to give to the millions of people that live in poverty in this country. Here’s a secret though: It IS good advice to give to an individual with no catastrophic mental or physical conditions.

Thinking that it is only your race, class, age, area, or the general downturn of the economy that are keeping you in poverty is foolish. Those things certainly can be stacked against you, but if you think it is the only thing that matters then you are dooming yourself to your situation because you have removed even the hope of making a better world for yourself. And yes, THAT would make you a poor magician.

THE MONK THING

The original article spoke about those that sacrifice material comfort for spirituality, and specifically mentioned Monks.

“Monks agree to live in great simplicity and at times in deprivation. It’s a hard life that’s not for everyone, but most of us can recognize the monks’ poor material condition is a sign of spiritual maturity, not weakness.”

There are several things wrong here.

First is that the monks poor material condition is not a sign of his spiritual maturity, its a path to spiritual maturity. People become Monks for all kinds of reasons, they may just have no where else to turn. I have seen Buddhist monks sneak out of the gompa to gamble, get into knife fights with each other, and gather at a room to watch porn: trust me the robes and the lack of cash does not make one holy. It can make you holy if you take it as a path, but it is not a sign of your spiritual maturity.

Second is that Monks and Nuns who are serious about it have chosen to REALLY make non-materialism part of their spiritual journey. People that are 40 years old and work a shitty retail job they hate are not expressing spiritual maturity and non-materialism. They are expressing bad choices that they have made and the terrible state of the economy that may have forced them into those choices.

I have a lot of respect for Monks and Nuns, and I have a lot of respect for poor wandering Yogi’s. Please do not compare your retail or warehouse job to that kind of commitment.

THE FINANCIAL APOCALYPSE

In the days since the article came out I have seen ever increasing talk of the financial apocalypse. It went from people talking about the “shrinking middle class” to “there is NO middle class”. It went from “fewer opportunities” to “zero opportunities”.

To be sure, the economy is not what it once was, but those of us that have lived in places where there really is no middle class can tell you that, yes, there still is a middle class in America and there will be for quite a while to come. There are still opportunities to be had. There are still ways to move upward. Yes, they take more will and skill and determination than they did for earlier generations but the opportunities are there.

In the last week I have seen way to many people treat the economy as an excuse to do nothing. The irony is that for all the privilege middle class white people have in this country, and trust me we have a lot, it is largely white people born to middle class families that I have seen use the economy as an excuse. African Americans and immigrants are already used to not having the world handed to them on a platter, and so maybe are not quite as quick to use these factors as an excuse.

YOU CAN DO EFFECTIVE MAGIC AND STILL BE A BAD MAGICIAN

Getting back to the original topic of magic – if your magic is not creating opportunity for what you are aiming at, then yes you are bad at it. If you are aiming magic at improving your financial situation and you are living in a constant state of abject poverty and chaos then yet, you are a bad magician.

Since writing Financial Sorcery and getting to talk with a lot more people on this topic I have discovered that there are a lot of people who fall into a category that some people do not even know exists: those who can do effective magic, but are still bad magicians.

You see, being a magician is about more than just effective spells. It’s about using it to attain things that will be useful. Its about making your mundane efforts meet your magical ones. It’s about moving along a path and not just zapping situations willy nilly.

I have met magicians who conjure work almost instantly, but refuse to place any magic towards job training. I have met magicians who can conjure exact amounts needed in an emergency but would never even think of conjuring for money to be put into savings. I have met magicians who are so incredibly effective at enchanting minds, and situations that they have been stuck in the same shitty relationships, jobs, and hovels for DECADES longer than they should have because they were able to use magic to keep the statues quo. That is a danger of magic worse than any demon.

THE ONLY QUESTION THE MATTERS

Are you a poor magician? I dunno. Do you like your life?

Thats what it really boils down to: DO YOU LIKE YOUR LIFE?

If so then no matter what your financial state, you are probably a good magician.

If you don’t like your life, and you hate living in financial chaos, but you resent being thought of as a poor magician because of that then the question is: WHAT DOES MAKE YOU A GOOD MAGICIAN?

*Though since writing Financial Sorcery and starting doing consultations I am FLOORED at the amount of Hedge Fund Managers, Brokers, Investors, and High End Accountants that are really VERY good magicians.