[ARTICLE] [SERIES] The spirit of MONEY [1]

INTRODUCTION

Money. Currency. Gold. Crypto. The thing we use to acquire goods and services, including good ol’ goods and services in times of trade, which still exists in parts of the world.

Have you ever wondered what it is? In this article we’re going to understand its nature and relevancy for magick.

HISTORY OF MONEY

Trade developed as a necessary action that came in the toes of the concept of property. Not even private. When different, but friendly, tribes met, they soon got the concept of “give me something in exchange of”. We all win.

In the Great Island of Tierra del Fuego, there were two main tribes, the Selk’nam and the Yamana. I’m not choosing this example at the top of my head. They were among the last to have any contact with Europeans and populated the region 10000 years ago, when the peninsula was still part of the continental Americas.

Once in a while, a whale would drift ashore. When that happened, both groups cooperated to get their food. There was way more than what they could consume before the meat rot, so it made sense. The Yamana were a seafaring people, they would contact the Selk’nam periodically for trading purposes, to get what the islands they lived in (Hornos, Navarino, Hoste) couldn’t give them. And viceversa.

This primitive act is the foundation of commerce and money itself. If we think about it, from here we can explain the basic mechanic of our modern societies: people need things. The whole system is built around this axiom. And for good reasons, if tomorrow everyone in the world decided to ignore it or contradict it, we would be facing extinction. Or worse, involution.

From there, communities created currencies as tools, first as pieces of metal representing commodities and later as coins. At this point, as material objects. Eventually the reign of one and zero came in and we got to this point, where most money hasn’t even been printed and exists as information.

This is a very platonic idea. In the literal sense of the word. Plato said that there are three degrees of existence: the object (your chair), the imitation of the object (a picture of your chair) and the idea, eternal and bulletproof (the image you got in your head the first time I said chair). In that regard, and understanding it’s history, we can see the change from verb to substantive to next-to-adjective. And its existence as the three things, at the same time.

NATURE

The nature of money, as explained above, is quite simple in the surface. If we dive deeper, we will find some complexities.

Let’s start by the value of the currency. Money has not been all created equal. Compare the Sterling Pound with the Venezuelan Bolivar all you want, while they do the same they are not, and won’t be, worth the same. This creates a vicious cycle that damages one while the other remains unscathed, at least due to this process.

What are they backed in, if anything? American dollars used to be backed in gold, but not anymore. Then again, in what’s backed the gold? In the action of extracting it. Historically, it has always been very hard to mine gold and silver. Technology may have changed that a little. Of course, this means gold was chosen to deter the creation of counterfeit coins. Counterfeit money has always existed. And will probably exist as long as imperfect currencies keep being created.

Gold, dollars, bolívares, pounds, etherium, why are they unequal? Because of what they can do. Nobody will take a bolivar, not even Venezuelans, and therefore it lost its worth. But how did it reach that point? It wasn’t just inflation, all countries suffer inflation (at more moderated levels, yes). It was the incapacity of the country to produce goods and services. They had all their eggs in one basket (oil, even if it wasn’t top notch quality) and when the prices went down globally their acquisitive power went down with it.

Similar process, but not as extreme, can explain the same thing happening all over the world. But there is another thing to take into account: mood. In countries where the access to dollars is restricted or illegal you’ll always find a black market to acquire it. Some people can get together, decide to not to sell more of their products, artificially generating scarcity, and making the prices go up, therefore making the access to dollars with local currency more expensive. This is not hypothetical, this happens everyday in parts of South America and Africa, to say the least.

THE SPIRIT

Will all the above information it should easy to understand this affirmation: money has a spirit of its own. And this is not a poetic license. There is an intelligence attached to it.

Among occultists, is quite normal to see certain despise toward money. If you have to approach any given spirit with respect, how in hell can be a surprise that so many find it so difficult to get a dime with magick, since they seem to believe it is worthless, when it clearly conditions all of our lives, in one way or another?

In the future I’ll write more about my experience with money and how did I rebound from near homelessness to co-owner of a company.

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That is quite a success story, and I’m sure that we can all learn from it. Man it’s hard to have faith when your homeless and broke that your magical results are coming.

I’m sure this will be encouraging for everyone, and a good reminder for those of who have lived similar.

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This post is a year old but I wanted to share some stuff.

Money definitely is a spirit, and while I don’t personally know any magician that’s a billionaire, I also got out of a homeless situation and into earning more money than most of the people in my country. I have my own place, I work no more than 16 hours a week, and I’m about to expand my business (for which I won’t give details sorry).

I’ve seen people try to do the same I did with no success. My best friend does it too, and yet, she doesn’t do as much as I do. I attribute it to my own spells and pacts, and to being in tune with money as a spirit.

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Yet, you meant, right? :wink:

Thank you for your comment. One day I’ll come around and write the rest of the series.

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looking forward to it!:purple_heart:

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