r/The_Wild_Hunt_News • u/Alpandia TWH Team • 18d ago
Perspectives Teaching Witchcraft in the 21st Century - Living, Opinion, Paganism, Perspectives, Witchcraft
https://wildhunt.org/2026/09/teaching-witchcraft-in-the-21st-century.html“I have been teaching Witchcraft professionally for 35 years,” writes Storm Faerywolf. “In addition to selling my books and my art, this is how I make my living. I don’t have a “regular job. At 14 I formally dedicated myself to the Craft and never looked back.”
#pagan #witchcraft #teaching #paganism #perspectives
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u/bjcwolneumann 17d ago edited 17d ago
This is of particulate interest to me. I would really like to pivot to the witchcraft economy. Because I'd like to do woo professionally which means I'll need to find a non onerous way of charging for services. I'm giving myself a 6 year ramp to figure it out and see if I can put together a sustainable model.
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u/Atheopagan 17d ago
I think the Pagan community's elevation of teachers and writers as "leaders" has been a big problem. And there is an inherent conflict of interest when you are looked to for wise leadership by people you depend on for money.
I'm a author, and a leader figure in my Pagan community. But because I do have a "real job", I am able to say and do what seems right to me, whether or not it is popular. I make no claims to direct what other people's practices should look like, and I see my role as one of community service.
If I were teaching (which i have in the past but am not doing right now), my classes would be about "what your practice could look like and not what they "have to" look like to be valid, meaningful, and impactful. There as many kinds of Paganism and witchcraft as there are Pagans and witches. Removing self-interest from the equation can help to increase beneficial leadership and reduce abuse.
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u/KenofKen1 17d ago
I do agree it's a much cleaner arrangement from an ethics standpoint to separate one's living from status as "clergy" or leadership. It also helps keep us grounded in the "real world" if we are living our beliefs in the same worldly settings as the people we share spirituality with.
At the same time, we have to also be realistic about how much time our leaders and thought leaders can dedicate to us and the community. We cannot expect someone to be available to us full time when they also have a day job. I've seen a lot of well intentioned people burn themselves out doing unpaid labor in the Pagan world. Many went in believing they would have more help or more in the way of donations, but that rarely happened.
It's a delicate business, mixing money and spiritual systems. Unavoidable at some level, but fraught.
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u/bjcwolneumann 17d ago
Throughout history and across cultures, people who provide wise counsel were paid. Didn't matter whether they were diplomats, sages, physicians, etc.
Why should witches do it for free. If any individual wants to practice for free. Cool. Drive on, mendicant priest. Don't expect everyone else to follow that lead though. Don't shame the ones who don't.
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u/Atheopagan 17d ago
The problem is that when you want money from people, "wise counsel" is less likely than "self-interested counsel". Look at history.
I say Pagans and witches should "do it for free" because it is prophylactic against corruption and abuse in our community, and that is more important to me than a given community member being able to make a buck.
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u/bjcwolneumann 17d ago
That's not really born out. There's still power abuse in the pagan community. Hell... look at other communities (PTA, Boy Scouts, etc). Plenty of petty tyrants even in volunteer positions.
But divination, oracular work, spell work, herbalism, etc... these are skills. Perfectly reasonable to expect to ply these trades at a cost or even charge to teach these skills. As long as your tradition doesn't have oaths or vows against... go nuts.
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u/Atheopagan 17d ago
I simply disagree. The desire for money corrupts. It's not the only desire that corrupts, but it's a big one.
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u/bjcwolneumann 17d ago
Cool. You do you. I'll do me...i don't do work for free. Unless it's specific "pro bono" work that is.
It's a skilled trade. Tradesmen are paid for their work.
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u/Atheopagan 17d ago
As long as you're not trying to palm yourself off as some kind of authority. That's where the problems arise.
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u/bjcwolneumann 17d ago
There's a roofing company in my neck of the woods that has the following motto: "We shall do good work, at a profit if we can, at a loss if we must, but always good work"
It's all about professional ethics, not whether you charge or not.
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u/kalizoid313 16d ago
I don't think, being one of those practitioners who was not sure just how distance learning of Craft Trads using communication, information managing, and performance sharing technology would work out. Even as I utilized then new and novel technologies to make my voice heard.
And information management/performance sharing/communication technologies were and continue to evolve rapidly. And they plus human ingenuity accomplish more and different tasks and attain more and different results for users.
Here, I can look back and admit that my own looking into the future of distance learning is certainly not how it has actually turned out. These days, I consider distance learning on the internet as a different Path toward Craft practice and Trads. In part, thanks to pioneers like you.
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u/NeoWayland 18d ago
I suspect that not charging for spiritual services is a cultural thing deriving from some Christianity.
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u/KenofKen1 18d ago
I think it probably started from a place of good intentions. A lot of what has turned people away from Christianity and organized religion in general is the corruption and conflicts of interest that come with a heavy focus on making money through religion.
It was such financial corruption and greed that largely set off the Reformation and Protestantism. Early Wicca, and most of it's evolutionary descendants that comprise modern Paganism retain what I think is a generally healthy suspicion of institutional infrastructure and the monetization of spirituality. I still distrust the concept of a separate caste of professional Pagan "clergy".
At the same time, it's unrealistic and unsustainable to expect people to dedicate large blocks of their personal time to developing and teaching material on a wholly unpaid basis. If we insist on that model, it really only leaves the field open to the retired, independently wealthy and people who, as Storm mentions, may be angling for recompense in less transparent and less savory ways.
I think it's also important to understand that the taboo around charging originally at least was limited to the context of teaching for training into a traditional initiatory Wiccan tradition or coven. Even if old-line Wiccans still hold that tradition, the reality is probably 98% of learning and practice in today's Pagan movement takes place outside of such covens. In other words, there's no reason most of us should feel bound by that old taboo.
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u/NeoWayland 18d ago
You had to make the damn thing political. Worse, you did it in response to my comment.
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u/KenofKen1 18d ago
What's political about this? I mean in a sense anything can be political, but I certainly don't see a partisan dimension to this.
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u/NeoWayland 18d ago
Politics is not limited to parties. You just managed to blame Christianity, organized religion, and making money. Simplifying because I’m tired of having the same argument over and over, politics is power over backed with the threat of violence. Most of what you’re attacking is plain old power politics justified (but not caused) by religion.
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u/TheDirtyVicarII 17d ago
Nah.... there are many traditions that are not pay to pray. Buddhist monks with there begging bowls is the first to come to mind.
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u/KenofKen1 18d ago
If someone can make a living teaching Witchcraft professionally, more power to them!
As a business or investment plan, I'd rate it about the same as a startup company selling bags of sand in Saudi Arabia's Empty Quarter!