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Teaching Magic

16:27 / 30.09.06

OK, I've been asked by my SO and a friend if I'd be willing to teach them witchcraft/occultness/whatever. I've got a few ideas, and I think that I'm at a level where I can set them in the right direction, but basically I'm fucked.
I was thinking of an approach based on me asking them questions and setting them tasks. No "teachy" teaching if you get what I mean, I'm really not qualified to do that sort of stuff. But what activities should I be offering them? What subjects should I be sending them essays on?
I was hoping this thread could kinda be reused by other people in the same situation. I'd assumed there would eb a similar thread somewhere but couldn't find it, if there is one just lock this and send me there.

16:30 / 30.09.06

Also, what questions should I be asking myself? What do I need to check about *me* to make sure I should even be teaching these people? What sort of dynamics could I cause that are detrimental to the whole thing. In particular, is the fact I'm already fucking one of these guys and utter mistake? Is there a danger of creating *another* relationship with him in which I am, like the love\sex\fishcakes one, a top?

*

00:33 / 01.10.06

Ask yourself if you really want to add this taxing, complicated, potentially fucked-up didactic power dynamic to your existing friendship and partnership. Ask yourself why you want to do it, and if there's the least little chance that one reason you want to is because it makes you feel proud, special, and important to them to teach them magic.

I really hope this doesn't come across as too condescending. PAINFUL EXPERIENCE TALKING: Think really hard first. Introspect. Consider shopping the job out to someone else.

00:44 / 01.10.06

Maybe ask them what it is *exactly* they want to learn?

I mean, occulty stuff could be swigging belladonna tea, or it could be memorizing a few archaic diagrams, or it could be cutting the head off a chicken while singing at a crossroads, or it could be going to a *special* church where, like, the preacher is nekkid or it could be simply sitting quietly and thinking hard about the moon.

Couldn't it?

If it was me, I think I'd probably start them on the tarot -- reading the major arcana as a story. With pictures. But that's just me.

00:46 / 01.10.06

Is there a danger of creating *another* relationship with him in which I am, like the love\sex\fishcakes one, a top?

Oh, and I don't think relationships can be segmented like that. It's a relationship. One thing that exists with two (or more) people.

*

05:20 / 01.10.06

(er, yeah, that did sound condescending, didn't it. sorry.)

08:02 / 01.10.06

Well, with the SO he mainly want's to learn enough of anything so we can practice together. He's realised what a big part of my life it is, and he want's in. Actually, I think I know how to teach with him. His Dad's the head of an alternative medicine research group so he already has some energy work under his belt. I think I might just follow that on into the bedroom and do some exploratory stuff. Like the pushhands excercise, but naked. I think, with him, I want him to learn because I think it would be good for him. I think he'd be good at it and I think it would something fun for us to do together. To be honest, I think he'll just pick it up as we go along. He's this amazing super genius.
As to the other guy, well, I'm not really sure if I want to teach him at all. Your right, it is a lot of effort. I'm tempted to just send him to Google

The tarot suggestion is a good one. It ties into a lot of other stuff, it's a good place to start. I might just get Mojo (the other guy, named after the monkey) to buy a cheap pack of Rider-Waite and talk about them with him. I really wouldn't mind just discussing that with him, but I'm not sure I'm even experienced or in control of myself to be in any kind of position of authority. I'll come back to this later, having thought some more. Thanks for all the stuff so far kids.

09:47 / 01.10.06

One way to approach teaching is simply to frame it as sharing of experience. "I've done this, this happened for me, what about you?". I think this is a good methodology because:

1) You can emphasis the sharing part, and thus undercut your own *teacher* status i.e. when their experience diverges from yours, as it will, they can come back and teach you something.
2) You're sharing a fixed and finite body of knowledge and experience rather than going for a vauge goal like "making them a magnificent magician" or crossing the abyss before breakfast. (This is what I think is slightly cock about Golden Dawn style hierachies etc.)
3) It gives you an opportunity to be honest and open about your own experience and whatever has happened to you. I think if you are simply honest, with them and yourself, you can't go far wrong.

Related to the last two points, I'd have a big chat about preconceptions, ideas about magic, expectations and so forth. If anyone is expecting it solve all their problems, "transmute their being into hyper-reality" or whatever, you might want to drop them as a pupil.

Unconditional Love

15:25 / 01.10.06

I think people with the widest dreams have the most potential, what it really takes is to ground those dreams in practice or working, dreaming itself wont achieve anything on its own, altough a good imagination is a very good magickal tool, organising and reorganising information, creating structures for new information etc etc.

The problem lies in teachers and pupils who have to ground things in there own preconceptions of what magick should be, without approaching it with an open mind for all possibility of what magick can be, which inculdes those who are driven by an urge to be god or godlike, if that can be applied to say being a god at kabbalah, or jujitsu, or adaptation and change so much the better.

Magick can often be about making the unrealistic real at its best, I agree having fixed timezones and areas for sequential advancement is a bad idea for some, but that works for others, as does the much criticised and repoliticised guru/aspirant relationship. Their are no set boundarys to a magickal relationship, until that relationship becomes abusive and at odds with either will involved. Nothing lasts for ever and everything else changes.

Teach everything you know you know, teach your experience, but adapt how you teach for each person, there isnt one true teaching method, in fact there is no teaching method at all, the teacher is just as much a pupil.

11:20 / 02.10.06

What Pegs said. And I reckon start the SO on the push-hands and the Tarot and what your practice involves, pass the other dude on to wikipedia and google and maybe give him some pointers, there's a wealth of information out there.

It sounds like you are happy to teach your partner but that taking two people on would be too much, is that about right? I think you should follow your intuition on it.

18:29 / 23.10.06

Actually, I would love to see more discussion here - folks relating their own positive and negative experiences with teachers re: what worked and what didn't. Folks relating their experiences as teachers, what worked and what didn't, what they had to learn.

A couple years ago I assisted my Teacher to instruct a trance class. Now it's my turn to teach that class.

I immediately roped two others who have greater experience in the subject to help me, because I don't want the students to take my oppinions as gospel, and because I think everyone needs to have more than one perspective forming their understanding of a subject like this.

I have taken responsibility for the organizational aspects, because the whole point of it being my turn is for me to learn how to handle teaching a class.

** So I'm interested in advice on how to handle a classroom full of students for an esoteric subject.

I also have an individual apprentice/student. The challenges there are very different, because it IS so much more personal, and intensive, and because we were already good friends when it came to our attention that she needs to be my student for a while.

** So I'm interested in advice and experiences with individual students.

--Ember--