triple_entendre
As someone told me recently, If you serve the material realm then you get paid in kind. If you serve in Spirit, then you must take your payment in Spirit.
Hogwash, I say! It's not only talent that you're showing, it's time and effort. Think about tarot cards themselves: a lot of their value, apart from the artistic novelty, might be spiritual-- but just ask anyone how much it costs to test print, to publish, to choose the cardboard, and how much work goes into designing essentially 78 commissioned illustrations. How much time.
On the other hand, I can understand going back to being an amateur (not in the sense of becoming less skilled, but doing it for free because you like it rather than being professionally paid for it). I had a friend who wrote magazine horoscopes, and did the whole chart aspects astrological thing... but his work was just as respected as that of any other magazine astrologer who writes their horoscopes by pulling fortune cookie papers out of a hat. He wasn't more appreciated because he was paid for it, or even because he did the actual work.
That might be the biggest problem with working in these areas: it also matters what your querents believe they are paying for. Think of all the free downloaded music from people who enjoy the songs, but don't quite believe that the performer does any real work except for being physically attractive while a robot sings for them. With all the other complications and reasoning from both sides added into the mix, I see psychism as an art very much like that. If it's what you want to do with your life, and you have querents who want to see someone who does this with their life... then I think they should pay, so that you can eat, and not get rained on, and live, and that you have no need to feel guilty for it.
The acquaintances who presume that you'll read for them for free, might think that the reading itself is but an amusing encounter with some entertaining banter... which is why it is "worth" whatever you "got" from meeting them once. Maybe just remind them, "I do this professionally, so a ___ minute reading / __-card spread, is ___ bucks."
Hogwash, I say! It's not only talent that you're showing, it's time and effort. Think about tarot cards themselves: a lot of their value, apart from the artistic novelty, might be spiritual-- but just ask anyone how much it costs to test print, to publish, to choose the cardboard, and how much work goes into designing essentially 78 commissioned illustrations. How much time.
On the other hand, I can understand going back to being an amateur (not in the sense of becoming less skilled, but doing it for free because you like it rather than being professionally paid for it). I had a friend who wrote magazine horoscopes, and did the whole chart aspects astrological thing... but his work was just as respected as that of any other magazine astrologer who writes their horoscopes by pulling fortune cookie papers out of a hat. He wasn't more appreciated because he was paid for it, or even because he did the actual work.
That might be the biggest problem with working in these areas: it also matters what your querents believe they are paying for. Think of all the free downloaded music from people who enjoy the songs, but don't quite believe that the performer does any real work except for being physically attractive while a robot sings for them. With all the other complications and reasoning from both sides added into the mix, I see psychism as an art very much like that. If it's what you want to do with your life, and you have querents who want to see someone who does this with their life... then I think they should pay, so that you can eat, and not get rained on, and live, and that you have no need to feel guilty for it.
The acquaintances who presume that you'll read for them for free, might think that the reading itself is but an amusing encounter with some entertaining banter... which is why it is "worth" whatever you "got" from meeting them once. Maybe just remind them, "I do this professionally, so a ___ minute reading / __-card spread, is ___ bucks."