There’s a curious quirk in modern Paganism that always makes me grin.
We’ll gladly accept a handwoven dreamcatcher for spell work.
We’ll happily take a bottle of homemade mead for energy healing.
We’ll even nod approvingly if someone mows our lawn in exchange for a ritual.
But—gods forbid—slip a twenty into the exchange, and suddenly the air grows tense.
Barter? Noble.
Cash? Corrupt.
Have you noticed this?
The Nostalgia of the Gift Economy
Part of this comes from a longing for the “old ways,” or at least what we imagine the old ways were. Barter feels like community. It feels personal. If you bake bread and I cast a circle, we both walk away warmed by reciprocity.
But money? That feels too modern, too industrial, too… capitalist.
Never mind that money itself was born as a magical innovation—a token system so we wouldn’t have to drag chickens and cows to every exchange. Currency is just barter, simplified.
The Fear of Selling the Sacred
Another current runs deeper: a fear of commodifying the sacred. Many of us grew up hearing sermons about the dangers of false prophets “selling” religion. Somewhere in the cultural bloodstream, we absorbed the idea that sacred service must be given freely—or cloaked in the warm fuzz of barter—to be valid.
So if you give me a chalice, it feels holy. If you give me a $50 bill, it feels suspicious. Same value, different costume.
But Here’s the Trick…
Money is magic.
A slip of paper, a stamped coin, a string of digits in a bank ledger—none of it has intrinsic value. It works only because billions of humans agree it does. Collective belief, enacted daily.
Sound familiar?
Maybe, just maybe, currency is one of the greatest enchantments humanity ever wove. To trade spellwork for money is not to cheapen it, but to meet magic with magic.
An Open Question
So why do we draw the line where we do?
Why do we nod at chickens, candles, and lawn service… but balk at bills and banknotes?
Is it truly about purity of exchange—or about comfort zones, optics, and inherited guilt?
I don’t have the final answer. Maybe none of us should.
But I invite you to sit with this riddle:
If money is belief made tangible, isn’t every dollar already a spell?
