The only thing more pathetic than the term, “spiritual entrepreneur,” is the individual who describes him- or herself that way. It may seem a bit ironic that I'm saying this, given that I used to practice public sorcery and charge for such services. But there is definitely a difference between a “spiritual entrepreneur” and a “spiritual worker” as the terms are commonly understood and used.
A spiritual worker is a magical individual (rootdoctor, sorcerer, Reiki master, herbalist, card reader, etc.) who provides a set of spiritual services to a community. These days, that includes an online community. This person may work through various established spiritual traditions and usually tries to educate and counsel his or her clientele. For example, my former sorcery-for-hire practice was not only dedicated to conjure, evocation, and Reiki. It was also committed to fostering multiculturalism, tolerance, and sharing across ethnic and spiritual boundaries. I did such work not just for my own monetary benefit but also to teach the art of magic, initiatory spirituality, and, in the process, to make the world a better place.
Conversely, a spiritual entrepreneur may or may not be a magical individual but will try hard to seem like one (using the most trendy suburban Wiccan* or new age styles, keywords, and assumptions). This person promotes a spiritual technique, product, or service, relying heavily on e-marketing, focused spam via “newsletters,” usually a content-lite YouTube channel, and niche customer targeting to generate as much passive income as possible. A spiritual entrepreneur's focus is on his or her multi-platform business first, then content, then the clients. For this person, it's all about the “brand.” If you go to YouTube or TikTok and type in one of the key words associated with spiritual entrepreneurialism, “witchy,” you will get a veritable phone book of unimaginative cliché examples. After watching one or two of those videos and looking at the linked websites, you wouldn't be wrong to wonder whether we need another post entitled “Six Signs You Might Be a Witch” or “Crystals Dealing with Toxic Family Energy Over the Holidays” or “Working with Angels and Spirit Guides.”
In the 1990s, more serious (or at least more style conscious) magical people coined the term “fluffy bunny” to describe Wiccans who pretend that they only work with love and light (with an equally pretentious subsequent reaction, “dark fluff”). And many spiritual entrepreneurs still believe that a generous helping of fluff will more easily part a certain type of customer from his or her money. But spiritual entrepreneurialism isn't about love or “ascension” or, actually, anything at all beyond branding. It's the most cynical commodification of spirituality available in the West and we see it everywhere. It's the reason why occult publishers like Llewellyn and Weiser have taken so much criticism from real practitioners over the last 20-30 years, even though they've published quality work along with poorly researched, padded, repetitive trash.
Most of what I'm saying here is obvious and anyone who spends time looking through social media and reading Tumblr will quickly come to these conclusions. As in all things Theodore Sturgeon's “garbage theory” applies: 90% of a given set of things is crap to support the 10% that isn't. All well and good. However, it's not so good when we need spiritual services that actually work, especially when the situation is dire.
Uh-oh. What about when you've been cursed? What then? If you think only members of certain ethnic communities worry about curses, you're dead wrong. Every culture has them. And I can tell you confidently that if you haven't been the target of a curse or some other form of psychic attack at least once, you will be someday. It's part of life.
Imagine you find yourself in a situation where a highly suspicious chain of nasty events is taking place in your life. Maybe you've also come down with a case of heavy depression and insomnia. You're having reversals and problems at work and at home. And all of this happens to coincide with a falling-out you've recently had with someone or with some envy-inducing advancement, like a raise or a new relationship or a financial windfall. You say to yourself, why would anyone want to curse me? I haven't done anything wrong! But curses don't just work for justice. You can get crossed up by any individual who resents your happiness enough to do something about it.
Most of us, if we're leading adult lives and not living in a cave, have a sprinkling of enemies who want to see us suffer. Often, a few of those people will either have some metaphysical aptitude or will be willing to go to a sorcerer-for-hire. And many times those people will be very close to us—ex-lovers, family, or coworkers. If you're a decent person, like most people are, you won't want to believe it. Jane from accounting?! She's still bitter about me turning her down but, really, is that enough for her to pay a hoodoo worker to fuck up my life? Sure. Why not? You have no idea what's going on in her head. She may just frown at you and avoid eye-contact when you pass her in the hallway, but maybe she's lurking on your Facebook page, spending a lot of time fixating on why you turned her down, etc. With that in mind, do you think it's so far-fetched that if she has a few books on magic, she might try something? Maybe she starts searching for “love spells” and comes across a professional's website. And the rest is, as they say, academic.
In a situation like this, do you want to go to a spiritual entrepreneur who charges you $300 to change your vibration with a $10 quartz crystal and some essential oil? Do you want to go to a cute-as-a-button Wiccan girl on YouTube who says she can sage the bad juju away? Really? How about getting a reading from a teenager on Tumblr who snaps it out in just 20 minutes? Because I've been contacted by people who've taken that route at first. They nearly always write the following: I've gotten burned by workers before. Paid a lot of money and nothing happened. Or got a tarot reading and it made no sense / was totally vague. Or so-and-so cursed me and now my life is in tatters and Jenny the Lightworker told me my chakras were just out of balance. And then I have to clean up both the mess that their lives are in and whatever half-baked work the spiritual entrepreneur did (if anything).
All the new-age stuff, all the Wiccan stuff, all the watered-down pop-occult techniques and Law of Attraction and “abundance manifesting” can work. I don't want to give the impression that “my way is the only way.” The problem is not actually with the techniques. It's with the branding and the people who think they can make a living off of others by doing very little beyond curating their feeds and smiling into the camera. Most of the clients I get are desperate and sometimes locked in life-or-death circumstances. Many of them have been victims of baneful magic or a deep run of crossed-up luck or some force, whether human or otherwise, holding them down. They have been unjustly harmed and they feel like their options have become very limited. Understandably, they have no sense of humor about this stuff. They're not playing. They need help and they need it yesterday.
My recommendation is that if you are one of those people in need, do not waste your time on someone surrounded by a lot of slick e-commerce because that's where all the energy is going. Instead, look for three qualities in a worker: (1) reasonable rates; (2) professionalism (i.e. scheduling, doing a small diagnostic reading in the beginning, providing updates, not seeming money hungry, ethical); and (3) doing more than just protecting and curating their brand / internet presence. It's important to keep these things in mind if you want to avoid throwing your time, money, and emotion away on someone who doesn't have your best interests at heart.
* I actually love Wicca. I'm not putting it down. I'm putting down those who cynically use it to hook customers in support of a superficial brand.