This is a very thorny and contentious issue that has been raising its head around me recently. Through various recent social media conversations and observing certain statements etc, the issues of magic, money and entitlement around teachers, magicians, writers, priests and priestesses proves to be one that still has not found an easy peace. It is a complex debate with lots of twists and turns, so I wanted to spend a little time looking at this to from a purely magical perspective and without prejudice.
The ethics and morals around the issue of magic and money are purely personal and cultural, and such issues are for the individual to work out for themselves. But the magical implications do not change according to culture and are implications that need careful thought.
Money and magic cross points in various ways, usually in terms of being paid for teaching, writing, divination, healing, magic to order (results magic) and officiating. This can take the form of anything from donations, to charging, to stipends and can vary from covering costs to making a living. 
Some of the magical affects from money crossing paths with magic can vary from almost nothing to severe long term implications. The key for a magician is to know what the inner and outer dynamics are, the mistakes that can be made, and balance that knowledge with their personal beliefs/ethics. Approaching it this way enables the magician to function productively over a long period of time. So let’s have a look at the various avenues of magic that tend to involve money.
Healing
Some branches of magic involve learning healing techniques that can be very effective and powerful when done by an experienced adept. We live in a society that has many different types of healers from doctors to acupuncturists to reiki masters and beyond. All of them charge: it is their career and livelihood. If a magical adept chooses to become a commercial healer using magical inner techniques the goal posts change.
The power and energy available for a good magical healer is limited over a period of time. In the esoteric world, we often reflect back to the village healer, and point to that model, saying this was fine, they healed the people in the community and they were paid well, they didn’t have a problem. This is true to an extent, though some of the more powerful ones did pay the occasional heavy price (Biddy Early, a renowned Irish healer was very well documented for this).
But such a model does not work in the modern world. Why? A village healer would live in a very small community and would work on probably no more than one or two people in any month. 
Modern healers who work for an income on the other hand often see four or five clients a day, and up to twenty in a week. Inner healing techniques are not designed for such intensive week after week use.
But what is magical healing: anything that uses a visionary component, an energy component, or ritual interaction with beings. All of these actions are forms of magical mediation, bridging energy from one realm to another, or moving energy about. Regardless of what beings work with you, such mediation is going to impact the healers own energy systems. This creates a drain on the vital force of the healer and eventually they begin to crumble. This is why so many healers end up with chronic fatigue. To think that working with other beings (angels et al) will protect you completely is folly. They will to an extent, but it still leaves some impact that slowly accumulates. This sort of skill and power is meant to be used occasionally in extreme circumstance, not as a regular weekly way of earning money.
If you do not charge for healing, then it is likely that you do not advertise the fact you have this skill and few people would know. This is turn ensures that you do not heal people very often. This enables you to work powerfully when there is great need, not when there is want. Done properly, a magician would only heal a very small amount of people in their lives, but it will be powerful and will probably save lives. Usually in such a scenario, a person is guided to you by chance, impulse, or even dreams. People in dire need cross your path, and you are urged to work on them when they ask you for help. It happens to most adept magicians at some point in their lives, but it is not a regularly occurring thing.
If you do charge for such healing and it is an integral part of how you make your living, then chances are you will spend a lot of time and energy dealing with people who really do not actually need your skills.
Many people who go to see healers often have emotional or life problems, as well as chronic health issues. More often than not they can either be cared for by a doctor/herbalist or they can better their health by changing their life. But often people do not want to change, they would rather go see a healer who will charge them up and make them feel better for a while.
So the whole system devolves down into a very unhealthy scenario. The healer has to work on people that they should not be working on, simply because they need the income, and the clients are being propped up emotively/energetically which is stopping them from facing their own issues. 
The client builds an energy dependency and the healer becomes chronically energetically deficient. There are a small amount of people who seem to be naturally immune to the energetic impacts of such work, but such immunity is not common.
Divination
This is probably the most common way that magicians make money. Many do commercial readings on a regular basis to supplement their income. Divination does not take as much energy as healing does, but it has more risks in terms of picking up inner ‘dirt’ and parasites. Most commercial readers spend their time having to look at people’s love lives, job prospects and money issues, and more often than not the client is really not willing to make any of the suggested changes or take advice. They basically want to be told that everything will be fine.
Every commercial reader will have regulars who visit or call on a daily or weekly basis and essentially they are feeding an addiction (the ‘I need to know’ addiction) where by they wish to be comforted or feel they cannot make a decision without a reading. These regular clients are not turned away as the reader needs to make money, but often these kind of clients are parasited and some are like energetic ‘black holes’: They suck the life out of you on a regular basis.
Divination is a major aspect of magic, and can be a valuable tool, and reading for other people is sometimes necessary for all sorts of reasons. But like healing, it used to be something that was preserved for necessity and would not be used on such a regular basis for other people. The constant contact with low level parasitical beings along with energy draining clients can have a slow but sustained degenerative effect on readers. Some readers learn how to keep themselves ritually clean, learn how to fend off energy drains and know which clients to turn down. These readers seem to be able to operate pretty well for quite a while. 
Like the magical skill of healing, the skill of divination was not meant to be used in such a commercial daily way, but our modern consumer society and large population, topped with accessibility has created a situation where by magicians are chronically exposed to energy starvation and impact. What compounds the situation is these issues are often not addressed within magical training and to mention them can be seen as being ‘negative’. People feel they have the right to do what they want. Well, yes they do, but that ‘right’ does not change the actual energy dynamics of what happens people have the ‘right’ to jump off a cliff if they so choose, but it would not be wise! The understanding of cause and effect in magic somehow got lost in the tangle of personal rights. We cannot evolve as magicians in this fast consumer society if we do not face up to the issues that such a society poses.
Teaching
Teaching classes, workshops and ongoing groups is an aspect of magic where money often crosses hands. In terms of inner impact, it very much depends on what type of teaching is being done, where and how. Basic instructional classes that are study groups or talks, tend to have no inner impact on magicians.
When that teaching progresses into actual magical work, particularly inner work which comprises of visionary work, energy mediation, or ritual patterning, invocation etc then we are into a different ball game. If the magician is not skilled, then it is not an issue, as little more than a puff of power will be raised. But if the adept is taking people in vision to inner realms, or is teaching a person how to collect power and bring it out into form, or is invoking beings, or working rituals with magical/consecrated tools, then it can become a bit more serious.
When an adept works magically with a group of less experienced magicians, and active magical and inner work is done with the group, the adept carries the energetic responsibility for the group. Most adepts in this circumstance work with inner beings in order to protect and uphold the group, but the energetic strain still hits the adept. There is also another dynamic that happens when inner work is used with a group, something I only learned after I had been teaching for a while, and that is that sometimes such work has far reaching inner dynamics for the student and the adept is also inextricably linked with the energies of that dynamic. This is particularly evident when an adept consecrates (as opposed to initiates) someone. Their energies become linked.
This has manifested itself for me over the years by my energies being ‘pulled upon’ when a consecrated priest, priestess or magician is in mortal danger or is terribly ill. My energies go to help protect the magician until the danger is over. Real magical training and consecration is truly a weaving into a larger tapestry that can echo down the decades. It taught me a hard lesson about responsibility and about choosing wisely what I get involved with.
When such teaching is done properly, the teacher has a limited shelf life as a ‘direct experience’ teacher and usually only teaches a small amount of students when working at a higher magical level. Those students become a part of the magicians ‘energetic’ family and the training/contact can unfold for decades. 
This was how magic was taught for thousands of years. But with the arrival of the consumer age, these goal posts changed. Magicians found they could make a living by teaching groups, workshops and residential events to more or less anyone who was willing to pay.
Some teachers learned about the dynamics and shifted their teaching methods accordingly. Some did not. Some realised what was happening and downgraded their teaching to a lesser level and some ended up ‘faking it’ by throwing in psychology techniques, drama etc. For myself, I taught commercial style workshops using high levels of magic for ten years before I realised what was happening to me. It was a hard lesson to learn. I did eventually get the message and scaled right back, took out the money aspect and began working with small select groups of people or individuals on an occasional basis. It totally changed how I taught and took it back to a ‘pre commercial’ era style which worked much better for everyone involved.
During that time of commercial teaching, I also observed something more serious that could potentially damage the future of magic and that was the power of market forces. I saw many good magicians teach commercial workshops for their main income and watched them get trapped in the web of teaching what sells, not what needs teaching. Real magical training is not glamorous, is not fashionable and is damn hard work. Such training never attracts enough people for an adept to make a living out of teaching. People want to be involved with whatever has caught their fancy and the teacher bends and twists the magic to fit the current trend. In essence, such action tears apart the integrity of the magic: the truth is not marketable, to the teacher begins to lie. Some magical teaching organisations have side stepped this quite neatly and some have not.
Magic to order
Some magicians make money by doing rituals, curses and spells for people on a pay for service basis. The same issues of parasites and energy that can plague tarot readers can rear their head, as can energetic ties into the situation that the ritual is addressing. Some sidestep this by working with energetic scapegoats, some maintain a distance and have developed techniques to stop any connections with the action once the action is completed and some suffer the full impact of the work, which accumulated over time. 
This is not about bad karma or making curses or good karma for making healing spells. It is about energetic cause and effect, inner hygiene, and about working methods. Some magicians who do magic for order, work with beings who do the actual energy work in return for something. Some magicians are blithely unaware of the energetic impact that is slowly building and do not clean off the parasites that often come with such magic. If the magician is making their livelihood from such magic and does not know how to properly clear themselves, protect themselves and sever energetic ties, then they eventually become grimy, ill and surrounded by chaos.
Choices
These many magical issues often get lost in the debate regarding magic and money. Some magicians do not have any issues with such energy dynamics are they do not actually do the work: they fake it, bullshit their way through readings, teach ineffectual work, reap the financial rewards and have no energetic impact from what they do.
Some soldier on, often unaware of the health and energy burden that is slowly building around them until it is too late. Some adjust their work, scale back or find another way to make their money and do the magical work in a more traditional way. Some teaching groups spread the load between many different adepts, they filter their students carefully and take the magical teaching very slowly. Sometimes that works well, other times it does not and the inner contacts pull away simply because the work is just not getting done. This happens when a teaching group slows the progression down too much and the students are not really doing any high level magical work or learning. There is no reason for inner contacts of powerful beings to be present: it becomes a magical kindergarten where the magic never gets much past the first few steps.
Summary
So as you can see, there is a whole other avenue of issues around magic and money before you even get to the line of ethics and morals. Those latter are a matter for the individual and it is not my place or anyone else’s place to say what goes on between a provider of a service and a customer. It is the individual magician’s load to carry so they must make their individual choice. But that choice must also be tempered by a full understanding of the inner effects of magical actions with other people – without that understanding they are walking a potentially dangerous fine line.
Josephine McCarthy 
Thanks for digging into the wallets and ledgers of the magical community and seeing what is inside.
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Posted on UK Budget Day ! Excellent !!
June
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oh lol…. was not intentional! hehehee
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Would working unconditionally help to avoid these sorts of problems, if you are offering yourself as a bridge for what needs to be done, rather than expending energy on a task that the universe does not necessarily give two hoots about?
(Though I guess unconditionality is not always going to be a viable option, depending on what your customer has paid you to find out. “The tarot says would you please go away now. Also that I should meditate more.”)
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not really, the point is, if you are doing this day in and day out, it is going to hammer you at some point… it was never meant to be used in such a way.
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I was thinking to become tarot reader, but now after reading this eye opening article i think i may change my mind???? or is there a way to avoid client’s negative parasites??
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there are ways, and it would be best to learn how to get yourself clean and keep yourself clean and learn how to protect your energies before you start working as a reader. If you do go ahead with that, bear in mind the energy drain… don’t pack the readings in… don’t do too many clients, learn what your level/limit is.. so when you start to feel the drag on your energy, then you know you have pushed it too far. For some people it comes after 2 clients, for some after 3 or 4.. find your own balance and stick to it. have plenty of rest after and always always wash your hands with soap and some salt after each reading. Put your cards in a bag with some salt and shake them to clean them off. You will need to regularly replace your pack (they get gloopy from dirty energy). Use your common sense and know when to pack it in. If you find that after a while, you are not recovering at the end of the day as well as you did.. that is the time to stop, not when you have full blown chronic fatigue.
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What incredibly important advice! Yes, wholeheartedly agree with Josephine. To anyone venturing into reading tarot professionally like Helena, no one can fully prep or warn you of the energy drain.
Asians have this age old notion that those who devote their life’s work to divination or energetic healing and counsel for others are more likely to meet an untimely or difficult end. The rationale behind that is the energy drain on the self and the general negligence we have toward ourselves– we neglect to make sure we are fully recharged before we get back out there and devote more energy to others. As a result, our own personal energetic defense mechanisms are down, making such practitioners more vulnerable.
A good tarot reading is about going beyond the consciousness into an unconscious plane to retrieve information from there. No tarot reader can do that willy nilly without energetic consequences. In formulating your “business plan” for reading tarot professionally, the “exit strategy” you have to define clearly for yourself is how you will energetically recharge and not let clients take more from you than you bargained for.
Another equally important tip is to have a supportive network of other tarot professionals who can empathize with you. Here’s why: no one else gets it. You can explain in any articulate way you want to others what this energy drain is like and they will nod and smile at you but really just think you’re being a touch melodramatic and everyone gets stressed out by their jobs. Allying with other tarot professionals who get it is important, because it’s what will keep you sane.
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Thank you for the precious advice. This helps me alot. Now i understand why after i have done few readings to my friends and even to my self i felt tired and took me 2 days to recover! After reading your article i surffed for some research and found out that many tarot readers had the same issue of energy drain ah that was a relief in a way, i thought i was the only weirdo :D. But not a good news.
I was thinking to shield myself before anyreading but i dono if this will make a reading harder?
Thanks
Hugs
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Hi Helena,
shielding yourself will help to fend of parasites, but it will not stop the general energy drain. Always work with a lit candle, just to tune the space in also helps. But the heavier energy drain comes either doing it too much and also the deeper magical implications of reading for people’s futures, hence until fairly recently in history, it was only used when really necessary. Those implications are a bit too complicated for a reply post, but one way to side step that is, when you do a reading for someone, ask only to see what is really necessary for the person to know, to warnings or advice that is truly needful. That filters out you causing ‘knots’ in the cause and affect of future paths. But in general, low level readings for everyday stuff on a regular basis for others is draining because it is an unbalanced way of working.
A lot of people will not like to hear that and will fight it (I have the right! is the cry), but it is as basic as put your hand, unprotected into a fire, and it will burn. Very few magicians who know what they are doing will use tarot on a day to day commercial reading level because they know what problems it causes.
When it is for yourself it is a different dynamic entirely. Always clean your hands with salt after reading, and remember, when you do readings for the regular guy on the street, you are essentially sticking your head into a large bucket of shit for a few dollars.
J
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Wow great advice .. thanks aloooooot
Hugs
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Thank you for the precious advice. This helps me alot. Now i understand why after i have done few readings to my friends and even to my self i felt tired and took me 2 days to recover! After reading your article i surffed for some research and found out that many tarot readers had the same issue of energy drain ah that was a relief in a way, i thought i was the only weirdo :D. But not a good news.
I was thinking to shield myself before anyreading but i dono if this will make a reading harder?
Thanks
Hugs
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benebell, you make very important points there and you offer excellent advice..thankyou!
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Reblogged this on Fanny Fae and commented:
Josephine has tackled this issue as few other authors or bloggers have. Definitely worth the read.
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Interesting article, thank you for writing!
I wanted to comment specifically on the Healing section from my perspective as a Reiki Master. I am not a commercial healer as I mainly channel it either for myself or close friends when they need it.
You wrote, “bridging energy from one realm to another, or moving energy about…is going to impact the healers own energy systems. This creates a drain on the vital force of the healer and eventually they begin to crumble. This is why so many healers end up with chronic fatigue.” While it´s definitely true that there will be an impact on the healer´s system from chanelling Reiki (especially in the beginning while the body gets used to this foreign energy moving about), there shouldn´t be any affect whatsoever on the healer´s vital energies because these energies should not be used or released during a Reiki treatment. Reiki is limitless. As channels we allow it to pass through our bodies to others. If our vital energy is being drained that would indicate a different problem, however channeling should usually only benefit us as we are enjoying this balancing energy as we pass it on.
You wrote, “Many people who go to see healers often have emotional or life problems, as well as chronic health issues. More often than not they can either be cared for by a doctor/herbalist or they can better their health by changing their life. But often people do not want to change, they would rather go see a healer who will charge them up and make them feel better for a while.”
I absolutely agree with you. I don´t know if this story is true or not, but it´s said that Mikao Usui (the first person to channel Reiki and then pass that ability on to others) began his practice in a poor neighborhood, giving Reiki for free. However after spending 7 years healing there, he noticed some of the same people kept coming back to him. He asked why they didn´t try to turn their life around after being healed and try to find work, and they answered it was too hard to find work and was easier to just keep begging others. Clearly he was very deeply affected by this and realized a mistake was that he had not taught them to appreciate what he was doing for them.
So it is with what you talk about. I have a friend who I offered Reiki to but she asks not realizing the time and work I have to put into it. She is one of those people who want an immediate fix to everything without having to really think or work for it, or consider making some positive changes in her life in order to change the dynamic of how her emotional blocks come about in the first place. I am very into the spiritual (buddhist) message of Usui besides the actual healing technique and believe they go hand in hand. However, everyone is on a different path in their life and may not be ready to make the changes required to live a healthier and happier life. My response is to try and be compassionate to their situation, and even if giving Reiki may not solve their problems, if I am able to give relief to those I see suffering, I do so. I also try to suggest different ways of looking at things, to allow them the baby steps toward a different way of approaching life. However, I cannot force anyone to take those steps. I can only show them how to take them, and allow them to choose whether they do so or not. It´s my sincerest wish that whatever good that Reiki does in regulating their system will support them to find the path that best suits them.
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But perhaps what we need to do is understand ‘healing’ in the most holistic sense, meaning that the imbalances which caused the original problem must themselves be addressed. This is especially true of chronic ailments, which are usually the ones people bring to alternative practice.
For me, ‘healing’ would enable the person in need of help will come to understand how they can help themselves, and find the imagination, courage and strength to effect the necessary changes in their lives. It is for this change in the deep psyche that the traditional healer works, not simply to alleviate symptoms. (I can’t speak for Reiki at all, as I know little about it) This is why shamanic healing is so much about helping the sick person find a realignment with their alienated psyche (their literally lost soul)
June
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Reiki definitely has a holistic approach when you learn it. This is covered in the 5 principles of Reiki created by its founder Mikao Usui. You can learn more about that here: http://www.aetw.org/reiki_precepts_gokai.htm
However I don´t know that these ideas are integrated in the healing between practitioner and client. At least, with my three different instructors, this was never talked about. I would like to see more of an integration of these ideals. As for now, Reiki is gaining a lot of ground in the alternative medicine world, but it´s still considered a fringe treatment, and as such, the appeal is focused more on its physical healing benefits and as a “Japanese relaxation technique.” For me it is so much more than this when practiced together with the 5 principles.
I am very interested in how you describe shamanic healing June. Would you mind dropping me a link to learn more about it?
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I have no link, as such, to give you. If you google ‘shamanic healing’ you will come up with tens of thousands of pages, the greater number complete rubbish. I have no claim to particular knowledge of shamanic practice, and what I understand about it I have learned through wide reading over a long time. Healing is central to shamanism, and’ soul retrieval’ the core practice of that healing. Scholars I would suggest would include: Mircea Eliade (now considered theoretically a tad old fashioned, but essential reading nevertheless); Piers Vitebsky (a disciplined, anthropological approach); Michael Harner (for a perspective on ‘western’ shamanism) and Carmen Blacker (for a study of Japanese shamanism as an alternative to the more usually studied South American or Siberian shamanisms. Ronal Hutton’s book on western responses to shamanism is also well worth reading. The bibliographies in each of these studies will help you find your way through the huge number of books published on the subject.
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In the system of chi kung that I practice there is a strong emphasis on high level healing. Meaning that your adjusting the person energetically so that they can be healed at a spiritual level and move on with their work/destiny…etc
It is considered mandatory if your doing healing for many people on a daily basis that you meditate for 3-5 hours everyday so that you can recharge yourself and also get rid of any “sick chi” that you pick up after you remove it from the patient. Of-course, we use the standard psychic shields to block any psychic grime we may pick up anyways…..but even after all this you can still feel some impact. It is generally considered that when you do healing professionally that your life-span will naturally be shortened because of the intensity of the work and grime you pick up on a daily basis…..it really has to be your “Path” and that your willing to do that work and accept any consequences. Don’t care what system of healing your doing….sick chi is no joke.
Thanks for such an insightful post Josephine. Much appreciated.
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Christopher, Thankyou for that important insight into working with one’s chi. It reflects Benebells similar comments and advice regarding energy, healing and the long term consequences for many.
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I don’t work my chi as intensively as this, but I find the idea of a three-to-five hour chi circulation somewhat excessive. I’ve been practicing tai chi daily for two full years now, and hermetic magic for a somewhat longer period of time than that— and formally doing magic for that long for myself on a daily basis would burn me out.
I performed a house blessing for someone earlier this week, though. And I was asked to use the capacities that I’ve developed in a Druidic context to do that work, rather than the hermetic/chi-kung syncretism that I’ve been working for much, much longer. And I discovered that I didn’t do as good a job of cleansing the house, purifying it, and rooting the new positive powers in the house. Whereas ahermetic house blessing I did six months ago cost me nothing energetically, this more recent one was much more costly in terms of personal energy.
To my mind, this is indication that the source and path of the forces we use are important. When working in the hermetic tradition, I was conscious of being a director of a conduit, rather than the conduit myself. I was steering a powerful current, or sailing it, rather than using my personal power to direct and handle it. The Druidic work, because of my lesser level of practice, was much more about my personal power rather than the Druidic current specifically. And, perhaps this is critical, the hermetic work was conducted in a household that understood me as standing within a tradition that was powerful in its own right, and that I was acting on behalf of that tradition; whereas the person who asked me to bless her house using my Druid training wanted ME, specifically, to do it. The tradition was not the source of the power that cleansed the house, but I was.
I think this is part of the reason that laying on of hands can be so effective in the Christian tradition, though. It’s not the human actor delivering the healing, it’s the tradition and the tradition’s spiritual allies. Part of that, though, is the way there’s a trained laity that understands that it’s not the priest delivering the healing, and the consequent assumption of “effective shielding” between deliverer of healing energy and the person to be healed.
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Hi Andrew,
It is true that the path/tradition is important regarding how energy is used and conserved, but also what you are using it for. Directing the power, as in ritual magic, or directed healing, does serve the energies better and is a step up in technique from using ones own energies, which is essentially folly. But directing power for something like a healing or a house cleaning is about a 1% action in mediating power. Working at that level, you could go on for a very long time if it is only used occasionally. If it is used daily, then eventually problems would start to show.
The problems I address in the post also apply to a ‘deliverer’ or a ‘director’, if it is used on a daily or weekly basis over too long a time. Thinking that working such way protects the deliverer under such circumstances is true folly. People using that technique can go on for longer than someone using their own energies (which is essentially a beginners mistake), particularly if they use it wisely (and not week in week out). But once the magician steps beyond the basics (everyday healing, divination, cleansings, banishings) the goal posts change again and different methods have to come into play.
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I think that makes a good deal of sense. Thank you for the clarification.
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This post really connected some dots for me. I have done tarot readings for others–though not for money–and was surprised how I seemed to instantly become a beacon for needy people who wanted multiple free readings every week, or simply kept asking the same question over and over because they didn’t like the answer. Some people didn’t even want a reading, just wanted to pour out their woes (story of my life). I did my best psychic hygiene but was always left feeling varying degrees of hungover.
Later I did a few astrological charts. This seemed safer as it didn’t require require as much psycho-spiritual effort from me (plenty of mental energy though!). Again this was not for pay. I was literally overwhelmed with demand from the get-go. Thinking I was being terribly clever (ha!) I thought I’d weed out the looky-loos and do a good turn for a non-profit group by charging (from which a significant percentage would be donated), and what do you know? All the demand dried up.
Everyone agreed my readings were spot on, but apparently they weren’t worth anything. At first I was disappointed but recently I’ve been thinking I dodged a bullet. Then I read your post and the pieces really fell into place. Even though I mostly was not asking for money, there is indeed a price to be paid, and not by the clients. I still feel conflicted because I believe in service and I would love to put my natural abilities and hard-earned skills to work doing something I feel is both meaningful and interesting (which I can only do if I am earning some money from it) but I’m not sure I have enough energy to spare. Thank you for sharing these insights!
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Yes, I went through the exact same experience in my youth. Don’t give up, just get smart. Whether you charge money or not is your own personal decision, not a spiritual one, but you have learned the lesson about energetic wealth and how people will just come and take.
But you can do something magically/spiritually meaningful and also making a living (or a part of one at least) – but you have to think intelligently about it and work around the edges.
. Here is an example of how you can do both…. You have a tarot skill. Teach small classes, work out a course that is truly meaningful (i.e. what you have learned from doing it, not from books), layouts, how to shuffle, how to interpret, how to clean yourself and your deck. There are tarot resources on here and on my website that you can use. If you get good at teaching and word gets around, then you start to expand out: charge a fair price, give them tip sheets and start your own tarot school, in your own living room if need be (been there done that!) The readings themselves, save them for needed circumstance.
I do not do commercial readings (energy issues) but within the occult community, my friends and family, I provide readings when it is an emergency, or there is a major problem, I will read for them for free. I ask them to pass it on to others where they see need.
It is essentially all about learning what you body can do and cope with and what it cannot…navigating your way through a magical life is live white water rafting… you have to pay attention to the various twists and turns so that you can go with the flow…. no straight lines!!
Jx
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That is great advice, thank you! This is a fantastic blog by the way.
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