Occult careers

[Pangi]

What are your opinions on people who want/do the occult as a career

Exorcists, astrologers, soothsayers etc etc

You think it's practical and possible, a pipe dream or something inbetween

 

[Robert Ramsay]

Read Tarot cards for people. Astrologers seem to do ok. Almost everything else is going to tempt you to cheat in order to get the kind of reliability that people expect when they pay good money for something.

 

[akenu]

It reminds me of my old friends, Baron and Baronessa Araignee. They sell occult services and also overpriced books, I would say they are doing pretty well for themselves, but if you want to do that, you need to add a little extra umph there. Some blood, some dirt from the grave, it's part of the show.

I would just avoid fortune-telling if I were you. People usually don't go to fortune tellers when everything is fine; you will hear a lot of fucked up stories.

 

[Keldan]

I used to offer my service, and it took off immediately. It was like a hot cake because no one else was offering anything like it. A simple Google search made that obvious, and once people realized its uniqueness, word of mouth spread very quickly. If you are serious and consistent with it, this kind of work can become a full time job.

 

[ewiz]

In Thailand, fortune telling is a pretty major industry with a big presence in mainstream media, to the point where it's involved in politics. I've heard visiting a fortune teller is more common than visiting a therapist.

 

[AbammonTheGreat]

What are your opinions on people who want/do the occult as a career

Exorcists, astrologers, soothsayers etc etc

You think it's practical and possible, a pipe dream or something inbetween

I think most models are entirely impractical as the occult is incredibly niche even if it seems to be popular online. Its great as a side hustle but there's a few problem with the models.

Occult authorship - this is probably one of the most lucrative ways to go but has a lot of flaws and draw backs. You're not going to be a best seller or get rich off this though the highest networth authors do well. Your ceiling here is around upper middle class but in order to get to that realm you have to be writing occultism for the masses. Popular stuff and watered down to a Barnes n' Noble style readership. Writing on Thelema, Crowley, Manifesting, Angel Magick, Tarot... these are the kind of subjects you'd be dealing with in order to have a broad market appeal. If you are selling books based around niche subjects you're probably still going to need to work a day job even if your books are popular amongst occultists.

Private Practice/Client Based Model - Your tarot readers, ritual for hire, astrologers, healers, shamans, etc etc who sell services for $60/h. Even at $200/h with full bookings this is unsustainable. There is an income cap based around how many clients and sessions you can sell. It takes years and years to build a consistent client base where you are their person and that consistent client base isn't booking you like a therapist. Its not a weekly thing. Its every few months. This market is also so incredibly saturated on social media that makes online marketing it a nightmare. You are going to spend most of your time developing new leads and marketing yourself and a lot less time reading or using your skills. There's also something that successful tarot readers dont talk about a lot and its that an hour session is not an hour session. You can't take 8 clients back to back for 8 hours a day like its a desk job. On a good day maybe 3 clients while you take notes, update their files, and prep for the next session. Burnout is incredibly real and other private practice professions don't do this specifically to protect the well being of the practitioner. This type of occult profession I think is best used as supplementary income. This entire genre of "Spiritual Counselor"/"Private Practice" is entirely unsustainable as a business model for a lot of reasons.

Academia - There is a rapidly expanding interest in our relevant material amongst institutional academia but going into scholarship and academics obviously requires the time commitment and massive expense of grad school. On top of this humanities departments keep getting closed around the world as they are deemed more and more irrelevant. However if you can get in and a solid position either as a researcher, scholar, or professor this is a pretty cushy path to go down if you get tenure and benefits, though you'd be doing a lot less practice in your career and a lot more time studying things relevant to your personal practice. Somebody thats locked into the academic system has tons of vacation time, an upper middle class pay, and great benefits.

Content Creation/Digital Media/Courses - Suffers from the occult's niche factor. To make $3k/m you need to be doing 600,000 - 1.5 million views a month on youtube. As far as i'm aware Esoterica and Morgue if you count him are the only occult channels doing those numbers. Even the most popular occult channels are not doing anything near this. Selling courses may be a viable way to boost revenue from content creation but think of courses like a musician collecting royalties. Its going to buffer already existing income streams.

Crafting/Manufacturing - I have seen a lot of people involved in making talismans, custom binding, blacksmithing, magical crafting, things along those lines. This could be a solid gig if you can carve out a low cost of living and are making a nice, unique, and popular product. But artisan crafting is limited by time/labor vs expenses. You aren't going to sustain yourself selling $5 angel amulets and you're also not going to sustain yourself selling 5 $1000 swords that took months to craft every quarter. You gotta find a balance between time/labor and the price of the product. Its gonna be a lifestyle.

Occult Shop - They're usually poorly managed but small businesses are a rough gig right now, at least in the states. If you're gonna open one up make sure you're in a metropolis so you have a large enough demographic to sustain yourself with. Your biggest expense here is going to be employees. Opening up an occult shop in a tourist town/metaphysical place is gonna be rough as its seasonal but thats another option if you like a low key existence in a cool spot.

Now there's been a few people that i've known that have made it into a successful career. One occult family runs a distribution center for metaphysical products and stocks metaphysical supply stores across the southwestern United States. its cool because at their industrial warehouse they walk through consecrating all the stuff before it gets loaded onto trucks. The other ones I know either have a successful shop or have diversified a bunch of these things as private individuals. I think if you're going to be a career occultist you need to treat it like artists and musicians treat their profession. Fingers in a bunch of different avenues that bring them money every month. I acquired a patron but thats not really that common and something you shouldn't bank on.

 

[Firetree]

What are your opinions on people who want/do the occult as a career

Exorcists, astrologers, soothsayers etc etc

You think it's practical and possible, a pipe dream or something inbetween

Its some people's dreams ... then they want to get money for it ,,, then the focus becomes , how to get the money .... then the art or skill (if it was there in the first place ) takes a second seat to whatever brings in the money .

I feel I sorta did it for a while ; I was employed by Biodynamic Agriculture Australia to make and distribute agricultural remedies and natural fertilizers and products . Basically it is an alchemical process ; ' Earth Alchemy ' . Even if some do not consider that so , many (outside of the process and use of the products ) consider it magical, 'witchy' or 'occult' eg ;

- take a ram's bladder and fill it with dried organic chamomile flowers and hang it in the sun for .... or fill a cows horn with manure and bury it upside down in fertile soil over winter ( 'preparation 500 ' ) , 501 - smash and grind quartz crystal rods and pack the dust into cow horns and seal with clay and bury upside down over summer ... and a lot more 'fun stuff' .

I used to have a magic market stall and sell books objects and do tarot ..... on the 'side' - not really a 'career ' though .

Post automatically merged: Friday at 1:34 AM

It reminds me of my old friends, Baron and Baronessa Araignee. They sell occult services and also overpriced books, I would say they are doing pretty well for themselves, but if you want to do that, you need to add a little extra umph there. Some blood, some dirt from the grave, it's part of the show.

I would just avoid fortune-telling if I were you. People usually don't go to fortune tellers when everything is fine; you will hear a lot of fucked up stories.

Hooooo boy ! You said it there ( for some readings , although most were good )

I will not write them out here but

Client ; '' ........................ ''

Me ; '' I see , however your reading does indicate a STRONG need for you to go and talk to a psychologist ! ''

( Yoiks ! )

 

[Butterfly Affect]

Crafting/Manufacturing - I have seen a lot of people involved in making talismans, custom binding, blacksmithing, magical crafting, things along those lines. This could be a solid gig if you can carve out a low cost of living and are making a nice, unique, and popular product. But artisan crafting is limited by time/labor vs expenses. You aren't going to sustain yourself selling $5 angel amulets and you're also not going to sustain yourself selling 5 $1000 swords that took months to craft every quarter. You gotta find a balance between time/labor and the price of the product. Its gonna be a lifestyle.

Nah, that's underselling yourself. I've seen people sell literal tree branches as wands for at least $40, you need to get on that level.

 

[pizzab]

Fyi

 

[embitca]

Occult Shop - They're usually poorly managed but small businesses are a rough gig right now, at least in the states. If you're gonna open one up make sure you're in a metropolis so you have a large enough demographic to sustain yourself with. Your biggest expense here is going to be employees. Opening up an occult shop in a tourist town/metaphysical place is gonna be rough as its seasonal but thats another option if you like a low key existence in a cool spot.

My dream! An occult shop offering classes. It's just a fantasy, but a fun one. I think doing it in a touristy area could be good, especially if you could shut down every winter

I could see myself doing tarot/astrology readings once I retire from my regular job as very much a side gig. But the fact that you have to basically become a social media manager nowadays to be any kind of entrepreneur really makes the prospect less enticing. Ugh. I can't think of anything less I'd rather do than try and sell myself on instagram and tiktok, etc.

 

[odrep]

A secondhand bookstore on the subject is something you can start small by selling your own books and then expanding from there.

 

[Xasthur]

I live in Russia and occult services are very popular here. Women often turn to fortune tellers. The second most popular service is love magic, so that a man can love a woman more than anything else in the world. There are also websites where magicians and witches sell artifacts and rituals for wealth, success, health, love, and so on. The prices are very different, the minimum is 100-200 bucks per service/artifact, the maximum is tens of thousands of dollars. Recently, I was very impressed by an artifact from a Chaos magician, which, according to the description, creates something like an anomalous zone within a radius of 100-200 meters. The cost of the artifact is 10,000 dollars.
PS. Chaos magic is rarely practiced in Russia. The leader in the occult is, of course, black Russian magic, as well as Scandinavian runic magic, which has gained popularity over the past 10-15 years. There are a lot of services, materials, books and courses for black and Scandinavian magic on sale in Russia now.