This will be one of the most intense articles on Taoism’s famous and most popular practice, the burning of magic money and paper offerings. Please take some time to read up on the article of “burning offerings” and “preheaven and postheaven wealth”, or else you might not be able to make sense of this article. This article will be very beneficial for the disciples who have an altar now, because this is what we use and do at the altar, and it should be done by you as well, whenever you are ready to get serious.

How Does it Work

As we have mentioned in the “wealth” article, wealth is the agreement of trust.

For our MAGIC MONEY, it’s the same idea. Our magic money is authorized by the celestial court which is like the government, and the highest emperor in charge is the Jade Emperor. Now you can see the relationship between our real-world money and the paper offerings money?

The magic monies are all sanctified, meaning that they all have to undergo a ceremony to make them turn from ordinary papers into the actual magic money that we use in the lineage.  You don’t just buy the papers and use them as-is. They don’t mean anything before the sanctification process.

Keep in mind that all the magic money we use is based on our lineage system, and all lineages/sects might have a different set of rules and systems. Some even don’t have any and just follow the “tradition” mentioned in the “burning offerings” article.

Magic money can be used to fund your “Troops” to do work, they can help your altar to get stronger in magic battles, they can help your magic work to become more powerful, and they act just like money. When you give more money to an army, they can be equipped better and eat better, resulting in better performance and results.

Unlimited Money?

The magic money is a form of currency that is given to you in exchange for your “TE” (virtue of giving back to the Tao).  Let me introduce you to the “banking system” in the celestial court.

There are two God of Wealth in the celestial court system with their departments. The God of Wealth for Income (Munn Choy Sun 文財神), and the God of Wealth for Spending (Mo Choy Sun 武財神). They work for the celestial court to take care of the income and spending of the court.  The one for income is going to keep a record of what the celestial court has got from you! 

Read the article on “Destroying the Gods” – now you can relate to this subject too. What the gods need from us is your trust and faith, which is demonstrated by the three virtues. Whenever your heart feels, the soul thinks, or the body act to demonstrate and present your trust and faith, you are accumulating your credit in the celestial court.  The more trust and faith you are giving to the Tao, the gods can have their “wealth” from us, and that is why they are granting us the magic money.

What if the requested amount is over what you have given? No worry, it’s like a credit system, you will eventually build up more credit as you work hard to cultivate your virtues and give back to the lineage.

The God of Wealth for Spending takes care of the spending part for the celestial court. He will give you the money that you need or requested based on the approval of the God of Wealth for Income. It’s kind of like a cheque, or bond. If you have a good credit history, even you don’t have the amount to take this much, the court will still approve the request based on your history. That is why it is a good habit to cultivate your TE often and do more when you can, in the case when you are dealing with something big later, and you need to use a lot of magic money, then there goes the quota! 

Power of the Magic Money

Magic money could be “paid” before or after the request of any magic work to be done. For example, you need protection, then you draw a protection FU and sanctify it then it will work. However, after the FU has protected you for the whole year, you come back to the gods and burn the FU and some magic money to conclude and say thanks.

Another way is to sanctify the FU and burn the magic money, which is like paying for the help you wanted in advice, instead of using a credit system. If you feel the FU would need more power, then burn more money for the FU to get more powerful!

Magic money can be very powerful because it funds the task that you ask God to do for you, and it can be even used for ordinary people who are not Taoists. Imagine your uncle needs help but he is not a Taoist, why does the god want to help him? Well, you can tell him to buy some magic money and you can sanctify them to make it your magic money, then your uncle burns it for his request, and now he has paid for the help using your credit. You earn your “TE” credit by promoting the Tao to your uncle while you “spend” by giving or lending him the money with your credit. It’s a win-win strategy.

Or let’s say someone in your family died and you want to do a funeral for them to help them go to Dai Law Tin. However they have not been ordained yet and what makes them deserve such a nice treatment and that enormous amount of help? In this situation, you can use magic money from your side to draw credit for this ceremony.

Or let’s say your family got attacked by evil spirits and you need the help right away, you could burn more magic money to fund and fuel the troops to fight back with bigger power too. You don’t want to just go with the “default” power for such a life-threatening case.

Let’s say my disciple Tin-X is having magic warfare with someone and he already tried his best and gave the magic money to the troops, but they are still having a hard time winning. In this case, I could take my magic money and burn it for him. That way I am funding and supporting his troops to fight.

Magic money can also be gifted, transferred, shared, just like your real money. You want a computer but you only have $100, your dad can lend you his first, and you will have the computer. Just like that!  Magic money is very powerful and very useful. It allows the ordinary people or those with less “TE” credit to have the help they need because the more senior ones can help them out by lending or gifting them the magic money.

Now you can read the next post on the different kinds of magic money.

Ordain to learn more and don’t forget to check out our FIRST TAOISM BOOK!