The Hedge Witch's Way: Magical Spirituality for the Lone Spellcaster - Rae Beth 2006

Prayers and Spells for Wealth

Health, wealth and happiness are all connected; at least, you cannot be healthy, or really very happy, if too poor to buy enough food, or if suffering from stress about how to pay the rent or bills. However, wealth can be defined in many ways. It is goods, cash and property, a good income, savings. But it is also skills, talents, opportunities and the privilege of being able to live in a prosperous and fertile land. And, in a sense, it is resourcefulness, the ability to make much out of what you have — to see the possibilities and to be creative.

Most of this chapter will have to do with prayers for material prosperity, or solid cash, in a context of realization that real wealth is based in the right relationship with all nature, the land, other species. But, before going deeper into that subject, I would like to share something I’ve been told. Recently, I asked my familiar spirit to assist me in a rite for prosperity — which she was happy to do. Before setting to work, however, she made this pronouncement: ’Honey and iron attend you! There is a horseshoe full of honey that does not spill nor ever empty. It is the wealth you need the most!’

There are many ways I could interpret this lovely symbol of a horseshoe full of honey that does not spill, but the first thing that comes to mind is that an upright horseshoe, usually nailed onto a door or beam, is an old talisman for good luck (as well as being a protective symbol). So, is the best form of wealth the possession of good luck? And what else does the cup-shaped or lunar crescent-shaped object, magically full of sweet honey that never spills from each side, really mean? A good relationship with a marriage partner (which I do have — certainly, this is great wealth). Horseshoes are especially associated with good luck at a wedding. The symbol also reminds me of a chalice. Perhaps it resembles the mythical Grail, which heals the wasteland, restoring leaves to the withered trees and bringing new growth from the barren earth; the Grail, seen in an earthy, more homely form than that of a silver cauldron with pearls round the rim, or a crystal cup. This brings me back, in fact, to the theme that a right relationship with the land (environmentally) is the only foundation for lasting riches, for the nations and so for the people — for individuals. There is much to be said about this, but where to begin?

A tree is wealthy if it grows in good land and has rain, sunlight and clean air. It is the same, in many ways, for all people. If we live in a warm, spacious home, in a land that is fertile — not a wasteland — and we have light, clean air and water, then we have the foundation for real riches. To have, instead, the latest sound system, computer or calculator, and yet to breathe polluted air, is to be poor, from a witch’s point of view. To have many exotic holidays abroad, yet not to be able to sunbathe in your own back garden without a protective cream to stop you getting skin cancer, is to be poor. To have a full food cupboard, yet to know that many of the items within it are laced with pesticides or are genetically modified, is to be poor. A witch knows that wealth is unspoiled food, clean air, an undamaged atmosphere, clean lakes and rivers where you can swim. Imagine that! A land in which all rivers and seas are safe to swim in, without the lurking threats of industrial pollution, untreated sewage or radioactivity. A land beneath a sky that shields us from harmful solar rays, a land rich with trees and wildflowers. This is wealth (though to a Pagan it seems like a mere birthright), and with wise planning and the use of non-abusive technology, it is perfectly congruent with motor transport, computers and material comfort (the perceived choice between environmentalism and a high standard of living being a cruel illusion).

At the moment, however, many of us need more cash, as well as the genuine wealth of a healthy environment. Being able to buy things is essential. Our Celtic ancestors did have a trading economy. The role of the merchant was important to them, for they traded gold and silver from Ireland, and tin from Wales, the Mendips and Cornwall (among other things), to gain wine, pottery and coins from France. In many other parts of the world, beads or shells were used to represent money, to overcome the limitations of barter.

There has never been anything wrong with buying and selling done from need, not greed — not when the methods and merchandise harm none. Back then, as nowadays, people found that having wealth of some kind increased their possibilities of living adventurously. It could pay for a horse to take you on a long journey! It could purchase materials with which to make inspired artwork. If you had not enough mead to throw a party, you could buy some. Then, as now, money could purchase freedom from a constricting routine, as well as from anxiety.

When based in the Green economies that must become the entire Earth’s future, we can have all the wealth that a wild rose has — and then some — to play and enrich our lives with, and to save against hard times. All it takes is the will to live from need, not greed and the vision to see that new solutions already exist to all the old problems.

Need not greed. A witch knows we need more than survival rations. We need books and music and travel. We need to give friends a meal without wondering how to pay the water rates or find money for our child’s next school trip. We need to celebrate someone’s birthday without experiencing a financial crisis! And we need all this in reward for work that can enhance life, causing no harm to nature. We need work that serves a real need in society, not a spurious one. And we all need to play roles, in our working lives, that are non-abusive. We need to do our unwaged work — as parents, carers, mystics, charity workers or whatever — in freedom from money worries. (Some of us are even still wondering why such work should be unwaged, but perhaps that is a disingenuous question in today’s world.) We need to know that such wealth is available for the people in every land.

Wealth is a very physical issue, concerned with material justice. As such, it is a middle Earth matter. So the first prayers we say for wealth might be like this.

Prayer for Wealth for Everybody

Great Mother Earth and Green God of forests and all living beings, I invoke you. May your abundance and natural justice prevail for all of us. Help us to know how we may live in harmony with all the creatures and with one another, in wealth. Grant us all true riches — good food, a beautiful country that is healed of damage, and freedom from scarcity. May all the nature spirits have these riches. May all the animals, birds, fishes, insects and reptiles have these riches. May all the plants of each land have these riches. And may all we who need enough wealth for adventure and creativity have all these riches, as it harms none. So may all thrive and celebrate life! So may it be.

Such a prayer could be said in spring, around seed-planting time or on a waxing Moon, for maximum effect. However, if any prayer were being chosen to be said every day, all year round, or at any festival at all, then I would pick something like this, as it certainly deals with the most everyday concerns for us all. A ritual to follow this prayer could be a simple tending of a houseplant, or of plants in the garden, without any use of toxic materials. That is, you could repot something in organic compost or water it with spring water, saying, Mother Earth and Green God, to you I now make this offering of care for plants. I give this plant what it needs. And may all receive abundance.

The above is a statement of willingness to live by the principles we have invoked and not, as may at first appear, a demonstration to the deities of how we would like them to behave. It is, after all, we and not they who need to change our ways. But any small act of kindness, performed ritually, is an offering of ourselves as seed for the process of change.

At this point, many of us may be feeling that these rites for abundance and justice for all are a good idea and should certainly be done, but that meanwhile, we, ourselves, are flat broke and desperate! When that is the case, then serious rites for money must be done for the individual. Clearly, there are moral considerations. You want enough but you don’t want your magic to rob someone else of what they may need, nor to cause harm of any kind. If such thoughts are not uppermost, then your magic could become another abusive ’technology’ in a most greedy world. A wildwood mystic would be very aware of this, yet the financial worries may be severe. In such a case you need a rite which has genuine justice built into its structure. A prayer to the underworld deities and invocation of faerie assistance is one correct answer.

Faeries are not nature spirits, they are not flower devas, and they are not tiny. Many are about the same size as humans, according to the mystics, worldwide, who have seen them. But there are exceptions to this as the faerie realm contains all kinds of beings. They live in a different dimension from our own, one known as the other or underworld. Their business, partly, is to weave fate. They are also said to concern themselves with mortal affairs, through love, for purposes of guidance and initiation. Their world interpenetrates with ours, though to a lesser extent than in ancient times, so what affects us affects them and vice versa. The Dark Goddess and God — that is, they who rule over the subtle and hidden and unrevealed things — are the deities of the faerie realm (for a modern, in-depth examination of this subject, I recommend any of the books by R.J. Stewart on the faerie tradition). Faeries can nowadays mostly be met through psychic experiences and seen in visions. It is rare to see any signs of faerie existence with our physical eyes, though it can happen on rare occasions I, myself, have been thus privileged.

Anyway, the main point about faeries, for the purposes of prosperity, is that they interest themselves in justice. If you pray to the Dark Goddess and God for faerie help, you can expect to get what is your right financially, but also to give what you owe. They are notorious, when invoked, for making sure that a person who has tried to wriggle out of her or his debts, will lose that money somehow. If you need money partly in order to settle debts, then you should tell them that you intend to pay up fairly. And if you have a genuine need for a lump sum or improved wages, and your cause is just, tradition says they will help you out. Natural justice is their concern, not human rules.

Prayer to Faerie Deities for Money

Deities of Faerie Realms, Goddess and God of Enchantment and Fate, I invoke you. As you watch over the balance between give and take, between want and necessity, be with me. Lady and Lord of the realm where there is song and poetry, wild lands and mystery, and also natural justice, I ask your blessing. Hear me call, from this, the mortal world. I need enough riches to [here list all the things that you want to do, e.g. pay all my debts, settle my bills in the future, bring up my children and pursue my vocation]. Please bring the money from those who have more than they need to me, who have not enough. Please bring it as gifts or as winnings or grants or patronage or as the right work opportunities, as it harms nobody. And, as the scales shall be balanced up, my fate is determined.

Have a small pair of scales on your altar, of the old-fashioned kind that use weights. Before you recite the prayer, have one side weighted down heavily. That represents the world. The empty side is yours. After the prayer, balance the two sides equally. Keep the scales on your altar for three cycles of the Moon. You should begin when the Moon is new.

If you prefer, you may scoop earth, representing wealth, from one full bowl to an empty one, until each holds the same. Keep these upon your altar, instead of scales.

Do not try to guess where your good fortune will come from. Never focus upon one particular possibility. From our limited perspective, we cannot know what is natural justice and what is not, and may make mistakes. But the faeries do know. We may leave it to them.

You may want to say the prayer at a known faerie haunt, e.g. a stone circle or other sacred site. It is customary to give the faeries an offering. Do not leave crystals or fruit and flowers by standing stones for them, as this will make the site feel cluttered to other visitors. Instead, you could offer to plant a tree in your garden or to feed the wild birds all winter, or something similar. Faeries are not nature spirits but they do need wild places, wild creatures and greenery, if ours is to be a world in which they can once again feel at home. For it is believed by some that although they could once live on our Earth and intermarry with mortals, they cannot now do so, because of the industrial revolution with all its noise and dirt. So, anything that heals the Earth or protects wild places is pleasing to them.

This also helps today’s descendants of those half-human-and-half-faerie unions of the past. Many people are said to exist today who are of faerie stock and therefore cannot live healthily in a polluted world, or not so easily as people can who are of entirely human descent. This is not to say that all cases of ’decline’ are due to the inheritance of faerie DNA, but some of them are. Nor does it mean that no one of such inheritance can survive urban stress, but it does mean that they will find it more difficult.

Faerie lore has been explored the most in the Celtic lands — Ireland, Scotland, the Isle of Man, Wales, Cornwall and Brittany. But other countries, from Egypt to Australia, from Italy to North America, have faerie teachings or traditions of faerie presences, in some form or another. In fact, they appear to be known about in every continent.

You may now be wondering why there are not lots of obviously wealthy witches around, if we only have to ask the faeries for assistance in order to get money. Well, part of the answer is that the above spells will not necessarily make you very rich. They should simply mean that you have enough, which most of us do, somehow or other. When our money problems become severe, it is because we have forgotten to ask, being too ’away with the faeries’ to have thought about it.

Wild places far from the towns, deserted beaches, hilltops or woodlands are the best places for visions of faerie folk. However, if you are stuck inside a city, you can still say the prayer for wealth, anyway. Prayers and spells cross time and space easily.

When the money arrives, say thank you. But please note, this spell will only work if your cause is just, as the faeries do not help us otherwise.

Grace for Prosperity

I give thanks to the Goddess and God of the Faerie Realms for money. I give thanks for [here name your good fortune]. May I be guided by faerie familiars to use such wealth as I have wisely and generously, that my gold shall not turn into lumps of coal because of bad dealings. Nor my money become as dry leaves.

The upperworld may not seem to have much to do with money. Yet sun deities have always been invoked in rites of wealth, and traditionally, people turn over the coins in their pockets on seeing the new moon, as this is said to bring increase. The following prayer is an example of one to the sun deities, but you can say it to the Sun Goddess or God alone, if you prefer to.

Prayer to the Sun Goddess and God for Wealth

Great Lady and Lord of the Golden Realms of warmth and light, I invoke your assistance. You ripen corn and bring good things to flourish. Yours is the light of our summer ease and joyfulness, when we enjoy good times. Grant to me a time of prosperity, a time that’s ’in the Sun’. Banish from my life the shadows of poverty. As it harms none, let me come into a golden time, when I have all I really need. As I share with others, without greed, let wealth come to me.

This rite is a good one to do at the midsummer solstice. Place something gold on your altar: a piece of jewellery, a golden charm from a bracelet or — if all else fails — a golden foil chocolate wrapper.

Now make a vow to take on some task that means giving to somebody else a more golden time. This may mean sponsoring a child’s education in a third-world country, through a charity like ’Save the Children’; adopting a homeless cat; working in a charity shop for a few mornings per week, or something of the sort. As with the offering to earth deities, this is not meant to show the Goddess or God what to do for us, but to align ourselves with the energy of giving — and receiving. As witches say, what you give out, you receive, three times increased. As a motivation for helping others, this may seem a little cheap, but to be pragmatic about it, everyone benefits. Having said that, the spell still works best if you give what comes naturally. In other words, it is better to adopt a cat, or sponsor a dolphin, if that appeals to you, than to volunteer to work for a charity, if that does not.

All this is a far cry from the public’s idea of black magic rites for money, involving orgies and cruelty to goats (I’m afraid the above rites may seem rather dull in comparison!). However, they are actually more subversive than the stereotypical ones would be, as they are based on the idea that being dominant in society does not necessarily entitle you to more than your share — and being near the bottom of the cultural pyramid should not condemn you to poverty. People have been executed for holding beliefs like this, but they are true, all the same for that.