MONEY + SPIRITUAL BYPASSING
Many spiritual sayings and platitudes have been devised to negate responsibility and dissolve guilt around acquiring and possessing wealth, as well as the various forms of privileges money grants in general. These are to neutralize the politics of money, who possesses it, how it's generated, and the ethics around it all.
A few examples:
"Money is just energy"
"Wealth is just a mindset"
"Scarcity mindset perpetuates scarcity"
"Abundance mindsets attracts abundance"
"There's more than enough to go around"
“Money is neither good or bad; it’s just an interpretation.”
“Money is neutral; money itself doesn’t have power or not have power.”
"You just need to be energetically receptive to money"
And yet...
Money cannot be seen as "just energy". Doing so ignores its power to access food, health, influence, education, entrance into gate-kept arenas, and so much more. The reality of the matter is no matter how we choose to reduce money to "just energy", this energy is both a material and immaterial form that equates with power and privilege. The financial, capitalistic system we are all living in is defined by “more for me means less for you”.
When spiritual platitudes say there is more than enough to go around, it denies that this earth is in need of sustainable, circular systems, and rejects personal responsibility around spending and consumption. This same platitude is a euphemism, giving the financial system and behaviours within the system a “wellness makeover” while ignoring how deforestation continues, mining continues, exploitation of labourers continue, and how race, gender, age, and more are woven into it. To say we live in a world with infinite resources is the very reason why we are in the dire and urgent state that we are in.
While I’ve written about prosperity doctrines before, the idea of money as a result of an attraction-based mindset is about as toxic as it gets. It is easy and convenient for a person of privilege to make such claims— especially when typically a person of less privilege is cleaning their toilets, caring for their babies, manicuring their nails, or if the labourer are faceless and overseas. When we mine metals from the earth, underpay staff, steal images from IG, we can deceives ourselves and others by claiming we are opening ourselves to abundance, but removing an asset from one pocket to the other does not grow wealth, it simply shifts wealth.
To then blame poverty on “not working hard enough” or “having a poverty mindset” are ways to remain elusive about how one has acquired wealth in the first place: having tangible and literal access (and often with a help-myself-don’t-if-I-do mentality). Money-as-mindset is an effective way to keep wealth unaccountable because no one can prove or disprove a mindset. I've noticed that the same people who say money is "just energy" often have discomforts and denials around classism, racism, sexism, ageism, and ableism.
This is not to say that money is not sacred or unspiritual- far from it. We’ve forgotten how economies used to operate - one based on trust, giving, with a focus on “we” rather than “me”, longevity, and one that centres responsibility and stewardship. To deny money’s power, and how we wield the power is step one in dissolving personal responsibility.
TERM 2 of EVOKING YOUR BUSINESS + PROJECT begins January 9, 2022.
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Mimi
Founder, spirit communicator and Wu shama