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Hereditary Witches (Teaching The Next Generation)

Hereditary Witches (Teaching The Next Generation)

Last updated on: August 3, 2023 at 9:20 am by Katie Gerrard

Hereditary Witches (Teaching The Next Generation) 2023-08-03T09:20:33+00:00 Katie Gerrard

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My daughter is a natural Seer. A true hereditary witch in the sense she has inherent skills and abilities she doesn’t yet access.

Like most naturally psychic empaths she’s been afraid of the witchy side of her brain for most of her life. I’ve helped her to cloak it in the hope one day she’ll be ready to embrace it.

I believe my mother and grandmother also had natural psychic abilities, but they never took the steps I did to fully harness them. Mostly because the extra sensory experiences scared them.

This week, probably fuelled by Youtube clips and gothic leaning friends, she asked if I could teach her about Paganism.

Which of course I’m able to. But the question is how and at what speed.

Like most empaths she struggles with taking on other people’s energy and emotions. There are times I look at her and realise her love and compassion for others has meant she’s poured herself too thin again and her essence is low.

Before I introduce her to the exciting parts of Paganism, I need to give her the tools she needs to recognise where her aura ends, and other people start.

She’s not the most patient or focused of humans so instilling the “topping yourself up” energy theory might be something she wants to bypass.

Then of course there’s the Frigga test. What do you say and when?

Frigga was the Norse goddess who spun the wool the Norns wove. She knew everything yet said nothing.

Part of learning to be a Seer is understanding what you should and shouldn’t say to others. It only seems a few years ago she learnt not to tell people what I’d bought them for Christmas. Now I’m considering how to explain that back of the head feeling which tells you which information the ancestors are giving for your own knowledge, and which they want you to pass on.

The ancestors are of course another consideration.

They’ve been waiting since the moment she was born to interact with her, and their time is not linear like ours is.

It’s the same for all Seers. Your ancestors have waited. You’ve been there. They’ve watched you live your mundane life, from learning to walk and talk, to puberty, to forming the knowledge of who you are. Every part of your life they’ve been present for; from the events which nearly broke you to the joy of mundane things which give you shelter from fate level living.

The moment they can finally communicate is huge. Yet they mostly don’t remember how it feels to be a human reaching for the first breaths of the other worlds.

I’ll be honest, I breathed in the other world in my own teenage years of this earthly life and I can barely remember how it feels.

It makes total sense your ancestors find it hard. They don’t know how much is too much. They want your spiritual labour. Only you can set boundaries and expectations. My job as a witch-parent is to teach my daughter how to do this.

Whether she chooses to dedicate her life to Witchcraft and Seership like I have is still being woven by the norns. My suspicion is she’ll live a ‘normal’ life and Initiatory Wicca will be too restrictive for her.

For now, I’ll fulfil the promise I’ve made to my daughter and teach her the basics of Paganism and Witchcraft, but I’ll do it in the gentlest way I know.

About Katie Gerrard

Wiccan by lineage, heathen by heart. I’m an author, workshop facilitator, and photographer. I can follow rules, but I don’t follow expectations Stereotype me at your peril! You can read more about the author here.

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