Green Egg is back, long may it live.
Francesca De Grandis has an interesting discussion in this month's edition concerning a long-standing controversy in the Pagan community. It begins: She shattered the cup, boxed the pieces up to send to her spiritual teacher. The cup, the chalice, the mother, the Goddess. She enclosed a verbal attack, denouncing the teacher for charging for lessons.
I'm going to admit that I've never gotten what this controversy is "really" all "about." Other religions pay their clergy; ministers get paid and often get housing provided. Nuns and monks may take vows of poverty, but their religious community provides them with convents and abbeys and other forms of support. (Yes, the convent may, for example, raise crops and sell them. They got the land as a form of support.) I can't imagine that hundreds of years ago, you would have imagined that you could traipse on down to see the village wise woman for an herbal concoction or a magic-working and expect not to bring her a chicken or a coin or some firewood.
I do understand that many Pagans, by choice or circumstance, don't have a lot of money and I think it's great when teachers, shamans, tarot readers can provide scholarships or allow, for example, a student to do yardwork in exchange for lessons. (Yardwork. Damn! What a good idea. Anyone want to learn my newly-created, extremely arcane tradition? No? Rats.) But it really just seems silly to me to think that Pagans ought to work for other Pagans for free. Strangely, Pagans seem more than willing to pay for books (I've seen your houses. You know I'm right.) We'll buy incense and cheap pewter pentacles and tacky plastic statues of the goddesses. (See above re: I've seen your houses.) But when a Pagan teacher announces a fee for a course, there's generally a significant push-back, an almost unquestioned article of faith that there's just something "wrong" with charging for teaching.
Are there some charlatans who "are only in it for the money"? I guess so. Can a charismatic teacher overdo the demands for cash, services, etc.? Again, I guess so. But that doesn't make it any easier for someone to feed herself long enough to stay alive and finish the course if she can't charge for her services.
Feel free to educate me; maybe I'm missing something.
Meanwhile, subscribe to Green Egg, damn it. They need the cash.
6 comments:
The founder of my Druid grove will not take any money. I have offered to pay for the web site and to pay his professional fee as a piper so he can attend rituals. I think advanced religious leaders should be compensated for their level of expertise. For the love of fruitflies, look how much money college professors make! And they're in the business of leaving people fucked up and insecure.
I agree with you here--although I'm a bit uneasy at the idea of authors trading their names for the ability to charge huge fees for their classes, I've always thought reasonable compensation for teachers was fair. (Defining reasonable, of course, is a bit slippery.)
The fact is, teaching is a lot of work, and costs money in supplies, utilities, and often space rental. Most Pagan teachers aren't independently wealthy and we aren't being supported by a church or organization, so we have to find a way to pay the bills and still have the time and energy to teach. I could be using the time I use to teach Wicca to go back to school and get a degree that might bring me a higher-salaried day job; but I feel called to teach, so I stay in a lower-paying day job that gives me time in the evenings for classes. Even being an author is no guarantee of financial comfort, believe me.
I also agree it's a bit of a contradiction to say it's okay to pay for books, which are completely impersonal, but not for instruction by a real live human who responds to your individual needs. We would be willing to shell out thousands to go to college (mostly for the purpose of being able to make more money later), but something as important as our spirituality should be free? I've never understood that.
> Other religions pay their clergy; ministers get paid and often get housing provided.
That 'professional clergy' often leads to corruption, and always admits the possibility of 'ulterior motives'. Do we want to ape the Catholic Church's sale of Indulgences? Should we sell prayer-hankies and vitamin shakes to build crystal cathedrals?
For me, I would rather see a Pagan community made up of people who earn their living in mundane pursuits, and share what wisdom they can in voluntary association. This arrange might mean that we never have our own superstar ministers, but that our community is broad and deep, with wisdom diffused throughout rather than being concentrated at the 'top'.
> We'll buy incense and cheap pewter pentacles and tacky plastic statues of the goddesses.
And if spiritual teaching is accounted in cash, then it too may become 'cheap' and 'tacky'. Some things should be above (or at least outside) the economic sphere.
If your mother needs help, you will help her. Would you sit down one day and put a price on the time and money that your mother spent raising you, and then write her a check? That feels icky and tacky to me.
> costs money in supplies, utilities, and often space rental
Reimbursement for actual costs seems perfectly reasonable.
I'm afraid I agree with sott'eos here.
My reasons are less definable and made up mostly of things felt rather than things reasoned.
I have never charged for teaching (but then I've never taught in classes bigger than 7) or for divination, spellwork or incense/oils/sachets made.
But then again, I get to pick what sort of work I do undertake.
Plus my professional work pays enough to allow me to live comfortably.
There's a spiritual/soul component to our group of practises which should put it outside of the mundane realm of cash.
Just my opinion, of course.
Love,
Terri in Joburg
Pay, trade, or barter, I think it's OK to pay people if their kind of expertise is useful to you.
I have to agree with sott'Eos. The fact that Paganism is different from mainstream religions, is non-hierarchical (which seems to me to be an inevitable result of becoming highly organized), and is not about ownership--whether of land, buildings, or other trappings of the mainstream--is what I like about it. And I also agree that teachers are entitled to be compensated for their time. I think maybe the next time I got to a class on Tarot I'll bring along a chicken or a dozen eggs in payment. ;-)
Post a Comment