opinion
by Janice Van Cleve
The pagan community recently began revisiting the controversial issue of whether to charge admission for pagan events. Is it ethical to charge admission for a pagan event? Can we in good conscience turn away those who lack the means to pay? My answer is a solid yes to both questions.
The notion that pagan events should be offered for free is not ancient. It is merely one of the holdovers from the 1960s along with free sex, free drugs and crash pads. In Spiral Dance, Starhawk considers charging fees for coven training taboo, but she acknowledges that covens may charge dues to cover expenses and that witches may charge a fair fee for their time and labor for public work, which would include events.
Z. Budapest is more direct. In her Holy Book of Women's Mysteries, she says nothing is free and that we must pay each other to ensure that paganism flourishes. She notes that there were many pagan festivals around in her day that really could have used a feminist voice. She could not afford them from her own pocket and her circles did not establish a fund for her to use. The fault was not with the festivals but with her circles.
The fact of the matter is, we pagans do our work "between the worlds." One world is the mundane world in which we eat and sleep; the other worlds are those of spirit and thought. We don't get to pass over entirely into these other worlds until we leave our bodies, and so, like it or not, we have to address the mundane half of our work with mundane realities.
Money is a mundane reality. It is one of the most powerful energy sources in the mundane world. It does everything from renting space for our rituals to buying the ingredients for our communion food and drink. It pays for copying and postage. It pays for candles, incense and portable altars. It provides a reserve we can fall back on. How many fine festivals, rituals and events have we lost because we did not support them financially? How many great teachers and ritualists have we burnt out by not carrying our fair share of the financial load?
Money is also an equalizer. If everybody pays the same fee, everyone has the same stake in the success of the event. Nobody can claim superiority and nobody needs to feel inferior to anyone else. Nobody gets feelings hurt. Nobody can question the fairness of the system. Some events charge fees on a sliding scale or substitute volunteer work for fees. That's fine. The essential element is that everyone contributes a value that is set beforehand and known. There is no such thing as a free lunch and never has been.
There are very few who cannot pay the modest fees charged by most pagan events. Most of the complainers are people with adequate funds who have made other choices for their money. That's fine; but then they must take proper pagan responsibility for their choices and not expect to freeload on the hard work and finances of others. If little old ladies on welfare can support Christian televangelists, then little old pagans can support Sabbats!
My own circle charges initiates $5 per ritual (only initiates and members are invited to Women Of The Goddess rituals). Those who have made a deeper commitment to "hold the rim" of our circle as members pay dues of $24 per year which covers all the rituals of that year. We currently have a grand total of $79 in the treasury. Overall, that's a pretty light footprint on the mundane world, but it's enough to cover postage and copying and occasional ritual supplies.
Paying fees and dues are an exchange of energy. Money is energy. When we pay the fee, we are putting energy into the event. When we also take part -- sing the songs, dance the dances, share our stories -- we are raising that energy into a cone of power. Just as a cone of power is more effective with everybody contributing energy, our pagan events are more effective with everybody contributing money.
So let's stop the whining and pay the fees. Let's support our pagan events, our pagan press, our advertisers and merchants. Good intentions and carefree spirits are coin of the realm in the Otherworld; in this one we pay cash.
Copyright © 2006 by the article's author