Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Home
Pagan
Seekers and Guides: Wicca Has No Gurus, Only Teachers

Seekers and Guides: Wicca Has No Gurus, Only Teachers

Last updated on: April 14, 2014 at 2:03 pm by Sable Aradia

Seekers and Guides: Wicca Has No Gurus, Only Teachers 2014-04-14T14:03:41+00:00 Sable Aradia

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Witch Guru The final edit of my book was finished recently. In the layout of the manuscript that I received from the publisher was a section for my dedication. I knew exactly what my dedication was going to be. I listed the people who have been my teachers in the Craft over the years. And then I thought about them and smiled.

My first Craft teacher was a Lady who earned that title in the Society for Creative Anachronism, which was how I first met other Pagans, and not in the Craft. I don’t really know what tradition she practices, or even if she still practices, and as I recall, at the time she described herself as “eclectic.” She taught me the basics about moving energy, creating circle, loving the earth, and sacred feminism. She was silver-haired and carried herself with the dignity of a true Crone in all the beauty of that term when I met her twenty years ago, and this has not changed. But she is also emotional, prone to flights of fancy, and used to have a tendency toward hypochondria, though I don’t think this still holds true. In other words, I loved her dearly, and still do, and she taught me invaluable lessons that I will never forget, lessons that shaped my spirituality for the rest of my life in such a positive way that I can be nothing but grateful. Yet, she’s not perfect. She doesn’t have everything figured out. She doesn’t have all of her feces coagulated!

I considered the other significant teachers I’ve had in my journey. My next teacher was (and is) a giant teddy bear of a man. When I started learning from him, he wasn’t calling his practice “Wicca,” but was drawing more from Native American and modern New Age shamanic practices. I don’t know where he got some of his training, but he knew more about stuff than I did, and he taught me focus, and astral travelling, and soul retrieval, and the candle meditation I use in my own book. He’s compassionate and one of the best lay counselors I have ever seen. He’s also moody, egotistical and socially awkward.

I joined a Wiccan church and that’s where I met my third major mentor, who founded the group and organized the clergy training. Under his direction I did more reading – good reading – on Paganism than I ever had before in my life, and experienced powerful esoteric practices. My third degree initiation into his Pagans for Peace tradition was one of the most moving mystical experiences of my life. But he’s abrasive, acerbic, snobbish, extremely socially awkward to the point of coming across as misogynistic even though he’s a feminist activist, and manages to alienate pretty much every Pagan community he spends any time in.

The last two people I mention are my initiators in my current tradition. One of them is bipolar. The other has mild Asperger’s Syndrome, which is part of the autistic spectrum disorders. I love and admire them greatly and value their wisdom. They know stuff about people, and about life, that most people never grasp. They help me to explore the depths and heights of my theology, force me to question my assumptions, and urge me to expand my consciousness. They practice powerful magical experiments with me. And outside of the magickal circle I’m in a relationship with one of them, and he is churlish, sometimes passive aggressive, stubborn and frustrating. He also is passionate, loving, emotional, honorable, thoughtful and kind.

In other words, these are human beings. They are real people, and just because they have some important spiritual wisdom to impart does not mean that they are magically enlightened Ascended Masters who are perfect in every thought, word and deed. They’ve figured some stuff out, and they’re still figuring other stuff out. In other words, they are teachers, not gurus.

The Guru Delusion

I think that one of the most uncomfortable realizations of adulthood is that no one really knows what they’re doing. We’re all just making it up as we go along. One of the reasons we seek out spirituality is to give meaning to our otherwise chaotic lives. So I think we’d all really like to believe that somebody has their feces coagulated! We find role models and emulate them in the hopes that their lives will be good examples to us. This isn’t a bad thing; but the problem is that we expect superhuman examples. We believe that people who have spiritual wisdom somehow transcend the limitations of humanity, and become better than human beings can really be. And this is an unhealthy delusion.

You hear about it all the time. A great spiritual leader (pick your religion; there’s no shortage of examples in any faith) turns out to be not all he or she is cracked up to be. Usually it’s sex scandals; and if it isn’t, it’s about money, isn’t it? I think that the ones who do best are those who don’t pretend to be anything other than human.

The Real Witches

Do we foster this delusion? I think we do. We look to our leaders and expect them never to fail; because if they fail, that means that we can fail, even if we do everything perfectly. And that’s scary, to realize just how out of control our lives really are. We invest our leaders with superpowers. Leaders become aware of this expectation and try to do their best to live up to it. Our myths echo this expectation: divine avatars, god-kings, holy saints. But they are doomed to failure, because there never has been, nor will there ever be, a perfect human being.

One of the worst traps that we, as teachers, can fall into is to believe the press and think that with so many people telling us how wonderful we are, that we must really be that wonderful. That’s the path to High Priestess’ Disease. And if we fall into that trap, we’re doomed for a fall.

On the other hand, the late great Judy Harrow, so recently taken from us, wrote in her book Wicca Covens about waiting for the “real witches” to come along and show them how to do things right, and then realizing that she and her companions were the “real witches.” It’s an error to believe that we, or others, have nothing of value to teach just because we (or they) don’t have all the answers yet. Ordinary people can (and often do) have moments of extraordinary enlightenment, especially when they commit to a spiritual practice, and sharing that is almost a sacred duty to help others improve their lives; even if that insight is just that gathering at the Sabbats feels right. So don’t discount the gifts and lessons of your teachers just because they smell up the bathroom when they eat too many tacos! And don’t discount your own, either. The gods speak to all of us in different ways, and we all have something to share.

Advice for Guides

I think it’s important to keep in mind a factor that I call “right-sized ego.” Swelled heads encourage us to believe in our own perfection and infallibility, and that’s a path to disaster. But so is not appreciating your own worth.

New teachers sometimes end up feeling badly about themselves because someone tells them that they’re not doing it right. Constructive criticism is good, and you should consider it, but don’t allow yourself to be manipulated either. Sometimes, the people who don’t “do” feel better about themselves when others who are “doing” fail, and they are therefore invested in your failure. Don’t be afraid about hurting anyone’s feelings: give them the boot. Shauna Aura Knight wrote a great blog post about this recently at Pagan Activist.

The other thing to keep in mind is that even if others expect you to be perfect, don’t expect it of yourself. Doing so will either lead to High Priestess guru-delusions, or constant anxiety and emotional pressure that cause burnout. And the truth is, you are going to fail if you try. It’s a guarantee! You’re also guaranteed to tick someone off when you do, and the bad-mouthing and anger and attempt at public shaming that results is probably inevitable too. Just remember, if you don’t try, you don’t accomplish anything, and the tall blade of grass is the one that the lawnmower targets. In other words, put such reactions in your cap like feathers because they mean you’re doing something that matters, take what constructive criticism you can from the experience, and move on with the lesson learned.

You can minimize this reaction by making your humanity very clear to those who choose to follow your spiritual lead, and being willing to admit to (and accept) your own vulnerability; but even so, people want to have their delusions, and we like to have our delusions about ourselves as well (which we therefore perpetuate), and this will not always succeed.

Advice for Seekers

Simply put, if you want perfection and holiness, go to the myths, because you will not find it among humanity. Take what you can from those you choose to learn from, accept that they are flawed, and move on when they cease to have anything to teach you. Don’t believe anyone who claims to be anything other than mortal, and don’t put up with abusive behaviors. But also try to have some patience for your human Guides when they don’t act as you expect.

What We Can Learn from This

If none of the “gurus” have it all figured it, isn’t it okay that neither do we? I think this gives us permission to be human and glean small bits of enlightenment along the way, without worrying that we are somehow failing at life. I think that we can therefore find meaning in ordinary things, and spiritual wisdom in the real world. As a Taoist saying goes, “Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water.”

Next column: Divine Wisdom, Mortal Filters

Seekers and Guides is published on alternate Mondays. Follow it via RSS or e-mail!

Previous Post

April 8, 2014

The Dance of Pagan Recovery: The Season of Sex

Next Post

April 15, 2014 The Busy Witch: Learning to Love The Tower

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category A Lakeside Hearth Adventures in Wortcunning Alone In Her Presence Arts, Crafts & Cooking Birthing Hereditary Witchcraft Book of Blackbirds Book Reviews Born-Again Witch Cauldron, Sword, Spear, & Stone Cermony and Liturgy Columns Community Dandelion Seeds Dear Jasmine Druid Thoughts Editor's Picks Everyday Pagan Family & Household Practice Family Traditions Full Frontal Magic Gateway Goddess Guest Articles Happily Heathen Health and Wellness Hearth of Hellenism Heathen Woman Hills of the Horizon History Holidays Horse Goddesses Interfaith Interviews Irish-American Witchcraft Jewish Witch Lamp & Labyrinth Letters from Midgard Literature, Media, Film, Music Loop of Brighid Love, Sex & Relationships Magic or Magick Making Light Naturalistic Traditions Nature News Outside The Circle Pantheisticon Politics Prayers, Poems, Blessings & Stories Queer Femme Mystic Queer of Swords Recipes Ritual and Practice Science and Research Seekers and Guides Seeking the Grail Socially Responsible Magic Spear of Athena Star Made Witch Syncretic Electric Technology The Blooming Staff The Busy Witch The Cartomancer The Crow's Nest The Dance of Pagan Recovery The Hearth of Hellenism The Lady's Quill The Other Side of the Hedge The Path of She The Rantin' Raven The Witches Next Door The Zen Pagan Theology, Ethics, Philosophy Tree City Witch Urban Earthwitch Wayfaring Woman Witch on Fire Wyrd Words

Select a Month January 2026 March 2025 December 2024 June 2024 April 2024 March 2024 January 2024 December 2023 November 2023 October 2023 August 2023 July 2023 May 2023 April 2023 March 2023 February 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 September 2022 August 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

What did Moses do after breaking the tablets?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Returned to Sinai for new tablets Fasted for 30 days Destroyed the calf Left the camp