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Spiritual Work Is Still Work

If you're a spiritual worker, then I claim that you really should be charging for your work—at least most of the time, whenever possible and reasonable to do so, and also while taking charity/favors/exchanges/etc. into consideration. Likewise, if you're hiring a spiritual worker, you should expect to pay them, or at least give them something in exchange even if they do the work gratis.

Consider: we pay doctors, lawyers, plumbers, electricians, programmers, writers, and artists; we should pay spiritual workers, too. Just as with any expert, what we're paying for isn't just to do something or other for us; we're paying for their expertise and training, the money they've put into books, classes, conferences, technologies, study, and so on. Then there's also the material aspect of it: supplies that get procured and used up in such work like herbs, incenses, oils, crystals, cloth, beads, animal parts, and more; the tools that they had to craft or find or buy that are used in the process; and the space in which they do the work. On top of that, there's also the time that we're taking they could be spending doing literally anything else, and also on top of the energy they spend, both physical and spiritual; they need sleep, food, clothes, and a roof over their heads, too, along with their own cleansings and work that they themselves need to hire others for (spiritual and otherwise). None of these things come about through well-wishing alone, and the fact of the matter is that this world runs on money and exchange. Work is work, regardless of the context, and work deserves recognition, and that recognition comes about with fair recompense.

If you're a worker yourself, then don't feel like you have to wait until you're perfect to start charging; if you wait until you're perfect, you'll never charge anyone at all, so charge when you get enough experience and expertise to do the work you need to do, because you can always be good enough and be worth the money for doing enough. When you're learning, you might charge nothing (except cost of supplies) as a sort of apprenticeship, taking the experience and knowledge takeaway as your "payment", or have a "pay what you want so long as you pay something" model—but you should still always get something out of it. Of course, there may well be times when you might not want to charge, and quite fairly so: donation or charity work, favors for a friend, exchange of services from someone else, or when a divination says "this person needs all the help they can get so charge nothing or only for supplies". That's fair! That's your call to make, but you'd be better served by making that the exception rather than the rule if you have any skin in the game and need to find a way to support yourself, especially if you don't have anyone to help support you as well.

Some people want to make a living off spiritual work. Some people should and are worthy of it. Some people like the security of having a mundane job to pay the bills while charging something fair and small for pocket money. But it's still work—and we don't call it the Work for nothing.