Pyramid occultism

This is the translation of the original article by Señor Shaman. He speaks about the situation of the occult in his natal Chile, but I decided to share it because it applies to the global occult environment as well.

Pyramids, pyramids, pyramids... 

No, I don't want to talk about pyramids and their energy so don't get your hopes up xD It turns out that as of lately the occult has basically become a pyramid game (Ponzi scheme), at least in Chile. I will give you the example with Reiki, but it applies to other areas as well. 

20 years ago there were few Reiki practitioners here and those who had the master's degree could be counted using the fingers of one hand, so it was very different than today (probably between three and five times more different, at least). But as it turned out over time these masters trained other masters and because more people were paying for the training, the prices lowered systematically for courses as well as for services (therapies). This made it necessary for those masters to learn other "variants" of Reiki and so "personal" styles began to appear. Call them people who created their own way of doing Reiki, added something to the name and thus offered it as "a new and better way". They started offering people that product, those in turn, to others, etc. In the long run this caused that "new school" to become devalued and this is how more and more "variants" appear with more and more bombastic names: "Reiki of the Atlantean silver star unicorns" or "reiki of the dolphin telepaths of the big bear", add in aliens, ascended masters and season to taste. This is purely a marketing thing, not spirituality.

A similar thing happened with tarot and now even the neighbor's cat knows how to read tarot so you can't charge much for a reading because the person next door will see it and charge less for the same thing. As a result, in addition to doing tarot readings you start doing classes, but although at first it may be profitable, then your close environment finds out about the subject so you cannot offer them the service (for money). Additionally, people will not repeat the course and thus not pay for it again so each student is one less client. Except of course, that you teach so badly and the person is so deluded that they do not hesitate to pay you for a reading that they could do themselves.

With magic classes it's the same thing. Now everyone cleanses you, opens paths, sahumaciones (a cultural robbery against the native Mexicans, the latter) and the less ethical workings for embittering, sweetening and destruction. Astrology? Dowsing? Akashic records? Same tango. Not to mention the things that smell so rotten they can't be anything other than a scam, like the Hebrew pendulum (no way, it was never part of the culture, everything was done in google translator) or all the quantum healing, without any basis.

The fact is that with the boom of esotericism in recent years the occult market came crashing down and it takes less and less for a magical system to become so massive that the cost of the service is devalued. This is precisely because there are many people learning it not for interest in knowledge, but for becoming able to offer the service later. 

Here the game of investment cost versus investment recovery comes in. If you pay $100 for a tarot course you should recover it in a reasonable time. If you charge $25 per session you recover it after four sessions. But, as market prices are probably low nobody will pay them, so you have to go lower and lower, which increases the number of sessions you have to do to recover your investment. But it turns out there are now many people charging $5 for <number of> questions, which means that to match the market you have to reach the same prices they are, at least. That already makes recovering the investment would involve 20 sessions. Additionally, you must consider that you do not have experience as you haven't made a name of yourself yet (those who are known will take most of the clients that will pay more than $5) and you will have to compete with many other people in the same condition as yours. So it is a lottery. If you are lucky you will get a couple of clients a week, which turns your cost recovery time into a few months at least. Now think about it, there are people out there offering $1 per question. Can you compete with that? Your business is just like an episode of The Walking Dead - dead, dead, dead. 

Now do not forget, that is to recover the initial investment, therefore, you have not obtained any profit yet. Based on that, do you think it is possible to make a living with this business? Do you think you will be able to eat every day by doing this? Ok, yes, there are a couple of whales (a term I copied from my friend who invests in cryptos) that have grabbed many clients who can do it in some cases, but don't get carried away by this bias - there are also many millionaires in the world, but it does not mean that you are close to becoming one. In some cases they get exclusive clientele that can pay a lot or in others they work on an industrial level - people that make classes with the same operational logic of a sausage factory. The vast majority will only get small change and it will not be more than a reduced marginal income, nothing that gets close to the initial investment. 

The thing is that right now, with a market filled with incredibly devalued esoteric services (Perestroika level deflation), recovering the investment of a course is a slow and tiring process. Additionally, there are literally hundreds of service providers and hundreds of course providers. How do you choose between them? It's like Russian roulette. Add to that the unscrupulous people who have scammed their clients, which means that in many cases those clients won't want to know more about service providers in general and therefore, everyone lost. Consider now that there is no only one scammer, there are dozens of scammers. Add to that there are people who offer poor service even if they undertook poor quality courses and were poorly prepared, consequently conning the client and that can also take them out of the market. As in any pyramid scam, the pool of potential new clients is getting smaller and smaller. 

Summary

The worst investment you can make at this time is to undergo a course with the intention of later offering your services in the area. If you want to take it to increase your knowledge and to improve yourself, then excellent. I hope you are lucky to find a person with solid knowledge to teach it. But be clear that doing it as future business opportunity it is by far the worst investment you could make right now. 

P.S. 1: This is supply and demand like any service market. The greater the number of bidders, the lower the amount that can be charged to be competitive. Just search "tarot reading" or something similar on a social network and you will literally have thousands of tarot reader profiles offering you complete clarity or therapeutic tarot or whatever. Stiff competition. Now think about the following, we are in the digital age and not only will you compete with those from your city, you also compete with those from Argentina, Bolivia, Peru, Colombia and basically all of Latin America, since now everyone does video call readings.

P.S. 2: Never forget one thing! Those who are good at something have made a name for themselves, which means that they receive clients by direct recommendation. Therefore those who saturate social networks with their courses and services will obviously not be the greatest geniuses, because the really good ones do not need to promote themselves to have their hours full. What those who are bidding for clients find on social networks is what the wave left behind.

Hate on, dum-dums!

The Great Gazoo