Selling your soul: Reading for cash Pt 1. A Rather Simple Question

As a tarot reader, I get to talk to a lot of spiritually minded people with their own unique gifts and their own viewpoints on all things spiritual. There are a few commonalities though. A common thing that I’ve heard many people say in regards to charging for tarot readings is that you shouldn’t accept money for the use of your spiritual gifts, to which I ask this:

Why the hell not?!!

A few common answers are that it cheapens the gift and that if you use the gift for profit, then you will lose it.

Now, I could point out the sheer amount of genuine people making good money from things like psychic fairs and carnivals, but that would be too easy. Instead, I’m going to go through why these reasons aren’t really viable.

It always catches me by surprise when people try and convince me that there is something inherently wrong with the idea of trading cash for services rendered. Let me ask you a question though, why do doctors charge for THEIR services? Using the same logic, doctors shouldn’t charge either as they are HEALERS! What about architects? They are responsible for taking a piece of land and a bit of imagination and turning it into someone’s home. I don’t know about you, but to me, this kind of thing sounds strangely like magick. Think about it for a moment.

While I understand completely that people have different values, riddle me this: if there is a service rendered, why not charge for your time and effort? All you are doing is trading one form of energy for another, right? I know that there is a lot more than this to the argument, but there are a lot of ideas that are attached to money that really needn’t be there. Money in and of itself cannot be an evil thing. It’s people that make things either good or evil.

As far as losing the gift goes, I can tell you now that you won’t. It isn’t the money that dampens the gift, but greed. Reading solely for the money will make the cash, rather than the client, the focus. When I myself am reading for a client, it is ALL ABOUT THE CLIENT. Yes, money is involved, but so is time, effort and connecting to another human being. If you are able to connect like that to others, you are not going to make it about the money. Reading for money alone, yeah, THAT will dampen the gift, the same way that reading for the prestige of being able to do something that not many others can do will make it all about your own ego and likewise dampen it. I read for the love of reading. Connecting with people and helping them on their paths.

The answer is simply that you don’t do it for the cash alone. Same as anything else.

Revenge of Revenge of the Fallen

Ladies and gents, do not bother reading reviews of movies anymore.

Case in point?

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.

I initially enjoyed the movie. Do you know what ruined it for me? The reviews. The reviewers gave it hell for various reasons.

People, sorry, but I have to ask: WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU EXPECTING?!!!

It is a movie about great big robots hitting other great big robots!!! End of robot punching story! I don’t know about anyone else, but when I went into the cinema to watch Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, I didn’t exactly expect the most serious of films, mainly because it is a film based on a 1980′s toy line, which is something that most people seem to have glossed over.

The basic idea of Transformers is that they are robots from another planet fighting other robots from another planet, which is populated entirely by robots. The premise alone is enough to insult your intelligence. Don’t pretend that it isn’t, ladies and gents. It’s written for teens and folks that played with the toys as a kid. People had unfair expectations of a movie made for preteen and teenage boys. C’mon say it with me: Robots from another planet inhabited entirely by robots is a stupid premise.

Got it?

Good.

On with the show.

Here’s a few questions for consideration:

How many folks saw the X-Men trilogy, or for that matter, White Chicks to better understand cultural diversity?

How many folks saw Conan the Barbarian for it’s grasp on pre-Christian Sumerian customs?

How many folks watched A Nightmare on Elm Street for it’s slapstick quality?

Seeing my point yet? It’s not a movie made for people to think about. It is a movie for people that like watching big robots hit other big robots.The entire premise is inane, so it’s just plain stupid to whine about something if it doesn’t comply with your personal preferences for inanity.

If you want an intelligent movie, first decide on what makes an intelligent movie and then read the premise behind the movie you’re considering. That’s right, do your own damned dirty work.

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is a movie that isn’t meant to be taken seriously, so why are people doing so?

Oh, and for those folks that bitch about the Twins being a racial stereotype, here’s something for you to focus your posturing on for a moment: The Twins made up an ice-cream van. The whitest vehicle of the white. It wasn’t poking fun at any particular stereotype, except stupid children that emulate cultures that they don’t belong to.

Long story short, folks, is this: If you go into a movie that is not meant to be thought about and are let down by it because you overthought it, then the fault is yours.