Money Magick: A History of Prosperity Magic and Its Traditions

Money magick is the use of ritual, charms, talismans, prayer and symbolic action to attract wealth, protect a livelihood or change one's luck in trade, work and gambling. It is one of the oldest and most widespread kinds of practical magic, found in Roman curse tablets, medieval treasure-hunting manuals, Renaissance Jupiter talismans, African American hoodoo, the cults of wealth gods across Asia, and the prosperity rituals of modern witchcraft and New Thought. Its history is also a history of economic anxiety, since people turned to it wherever income was uncertain.

Money Magic Defined: Wealth, Luck and Livelihood§

Historians of magic rarely treat "money magic" as a single category, because the practices it covers are aimed at different things. Some seek a windfall, such as a buried treasure, a winning number or an inheritance. Some seek steady income: customers for a shop, a good harvest, a job, a fair price at market. Others are defensive, protecting a household's goods from theft, spoiled milk, bad luck or the envy of neighbours. In many traditions the line between prosperity magic and protective magic is thin, because poverty was often explained as the result of a curse, the evil eye or lost luck.

The modern English term "money magick", with Crowley's spelling, is a twentieth-century coinage used mainly by occultists and witches. Earlier sources speak of "gain", "riches", "favour", "fortune" or "treasure", and many of the most common charms aim at luck in general rather than money in particular. This guide uses the term broadly, for any practice whose stated purpose is material prosperity. It describes what the traditions taught and did; it does not claim that any of it works, and no ritual is a substitute for sound financial or legal advice.

Ancient and Medieval Roots of Prosperity Magic§

The earliest evidence is commercial. Among the Greek and Latin curse tablets (defixiones) of the Roman world are many aimed at rivals in trade, including tavern-keepers, potters and other artisans, binding their workshops and customers. The Greek magical papyri from Roman Egypt include charms to bring customers into a shop or workshop, some addressed to Hermes, the god of merchants. Romans honoured the household spirits at the lararium, invoked Fortuna and Mercury for gain, and left coins as offerings at springs and shrines. For the wider background see our guide to Greco-Roman magic.

In medieval Europe the most visible form of money magic was treasure-hunting. Hoards of coins really were buried, and folk belief held that they were guarded by spirits, ghosts or demons. Clerical magicians of the "necromantic" underground used conjurations to command spirits to reveal or bring treasure, and court records from England, Germany and Italy show priests, craftsmen and cunning folk forming partnerships to dig for gold. Richard Kieckhefer and Frank Klaassen have shown how often such manuscripts include experiments for riches alongside those for love and divination; the theme is discussed in our article on necromancy in the Middle Ages.

Jewish and Islamic traditions developed their own methods. The Sefer Shimmush Tehillim, the medieval manual on the magical use of the Psalms (see /texts/sefer-shimmush-tehillim), assigns certain psalms to success in business and travel, and Islamic talismanic science used magic squares (wafq) and divine names for provision (rizq) as well as protection.

Planetary Talismans and Treasure in the Grimoires§

Learned astral magic gave money a planetary ruler. In the astrology inherited from antiquity, Jupiter was the "greater benefic", the planet of abundance, honour and favour, and the Sun ruled gold and royal favour. The tenth-century Arabic Picatrix (see /texts/picatrix-ghayat-al-hakim) teaches the making of images at astrologically chosen moments for gain, and Renaissance writers such as Marsilio Ficino and Agrippa recommended Jovial materials, colours and magic squares for wealth and favour.

The Solomonic grimoires carry this logic into ritual. The Key of Solomon contains pentacles of Jupiter associated with riches, honour and the spirits who rule treasures; the Arbatel (1575) names Bethor, the Olympic spirit of Jupiter, among those who grant dignities and reveal treasures. Our article on Jupiter talismans for wealth traces this tradition in detail, and the related pages on the Seals and Kamea of Jupiter and the Fourth Pentacle of Jupiter show the figures themselves.

Popular grimoires of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, from the French Grand Grimoire to the Sixth and Seventh Books of Moses, sold above all on the promise of treasure. Their reputation for dealing with spirits of wealth made them both popular and notorious.

Folk Traditions: Luck Charms, Hoodoo and the Saints§

Most money magic was never written in grimoires. Across Europe, people kept a lucky coin that should never be spent, turned their money at the sight of the new moon, carried a fish scale from the Christmas carp in their purse, or poured lentils at New Year as a sign of coins to come. Treasure lore attached itself to the mandrake, the hand of glory and household spirits believed to bring grain or money into a house. These customs are surveyed in our article on European folk money and luck charms.

In the African American South, hoodoo and rootwork produced one of the richest bodies of prosperity practice: lodestones, High John the Conqueror root, "money drawing" oils and powders, mojo bags for gamblers, and the floor washes of shopkeepers. From the 1920s onward, mail-order curio companies sold these materials nationally, and their catalogues are now valuable historical sources. See hoodoo money traditions.

Catholic devotion offered another route. Saints were asked for work, bread and help with debts: St Joseph for a house and a living, St Cajetan (San Cayetano) for bread and employment in Argentina, St Pancras (San Pancracio) in Spain for health and work, and the popular and unofficial St Expedite for urgent causes. Their place in prosperity practice is discussed in saints and deities of wealth.

Gods of Wealth Beyond Europe§

Outside the Christian world, wealth is often personified as a deity whose favour is sought by ordinary worship rather than by magic in the European sense. In Hinduism, Lakshmi is the goddess of fortune and prosperity, worshipped above all at Diwali, while Kubera is the treasurer of the gods and Ganesha the remover of obstacles invoked at the start of any venture. Chinese popular religion honours Caishen, the God of Wealth, whose image is pasted up at the New Year, and burns paper money for gods and ancestors. In Japan, Ebisu and Daikokuten, two of the Seven Gods of Good Fortune, are patrons of fishermen, farmers and merchants, and shrines sell charms for business success. Tibetan Buddhism has wealth deities such as Jambhala, often shown holding a mongoose that spits jewels.

Scholars stress that in these settings, seeking material blessings is a normal part of religion rather than a separate magical activity. Ian Reader and George Tanabe's study of Japanese "worldly benefits" (genze riyaku) is a classic statement of this point, and it is a useful corrective to the Western habit of dividing religion from magic.

Modern Money Magick: Witchcraft, New Thought and Chaos Magic§

In the nineteenth century, American New Thought turned prosperity into a question of mental attitude. Writers such as Prentice Mulford, Wallace D. Wattles, Charles Fillmore, Florence Scovel Shinn and Napoleon Hill taught that thought shapes circumstance, and the idea later became the law of attraction popularised by The Secret. Modern witchcraft absorbed both the folk and the New Thought strands: green candles, herbs such as basil and cinnamon, moon timing and visualisation are common in Wiccan prosperity spells (see our green candle prosperity spell). Chaos magick, with its emphasis on results, made money a standard test case for sigils and servitors. These movements are covered in money magick in witchcraft and New Thought and money sigils and chaos magick.

Ethics, Critiques and Common Misconceptions§

Money magic has always attracted criticism. Christian theologians condemned treasure-seeking with spirits as idolatry or a pact with demons, and saw the desire for quick riches as avarice. Enlightenment writers mocked it as a credulous belief exploited by swindlers, and fraud is a constant theme in the court records: many "treasure-finders" took their clients' money and dug nothing up. Modern critics, from Barbara Ehrenreich to historians of the prosperity gospel such as Kate Bowler, argue that positive-thinking versions can blame the poor for their own poverty. Anthropologists, by contrast, read magic for money as a revealing response to economies that seem arbitrary and opaque.

A common misconception is that money magic is a modern, commercial invention. In fact its forms are ancient; what is modern is mainly the scale of the market selling it. These debates are explored in the ethics and critiques of prosperity magic.

Frequently asked questions§

What is money magick?§

Money magick is a modern name for magical practices intended to attract wealth, income or good fortune, or to protect a livelihood. It includes talismans, candle rituals, charms, prayers to saints and gods of wealth, and the mental techniques of New Thought.

Which planet is associated with money in magic?§

In Western astrological magic, Jupiter is the main planet of wealth, abundance and favour, while the Sun is linked with gold and success. Venus is sometimes added for pleasure and luxury, and Mercury for trade and commerce.

Is money magic part of witchcraft?§

Prosperity spells are common in modern witchcraft and Wicca, but they are older than both. Folk healers, cunning folk, rootworkers and learned ceremonial magicians all practised forms of money magic long before modern witchcraft took shape in the twentieth century.

Does money magic work?§

There is no scientific evidence that rituals produce money. Historians study money magic for what it reveals about belief, economic anxiety and religious life, and practitioners themselves often describe it as a complement to practical effort rather than a replacement for it.

Sources and further reading§

• Religion and the Decline of Magic — Keith Thomas, 1971
• Magic in the Middle Ages — Richard Kieckhefer, 1989
• Grimoires: A History of Magic Books — Owen Davies, 2009
• Magical Treasure Hunting in Europe and North America: A History — Johannes Dillinger, 2012
• Picatrix: A Medieval Treatise on Astral Magic — Dan Attrell and David Porreca, 2019
• Three Books of Occult Philosophy — Henry Cornelius Agrippa, 1533
• Conjure in African American Society — Jeffrey E. Anderson, 2005
• Practically Religious: Worldly Benefits and the Common Religion of Japan — Ian Reader and George J. Tanabe Jr., 1998
• Blessed: A History of the American Prosperity Gospel — Kate Bowler, 2013
• Money Magic: Mastering Prosperity in Its True Element — Frater U∴D∴, 2011