What to Teach First?
When I first learned to play guitar I did not take a class or learn music theory. A friend told me to bring a guitar to coffee house called The Inkwell. He taught me two chords: G and A. He taught me to strum the tune to Jane Says by Jane’s Addiction.
He told me to practice it for a week and to learn to sing along with the tune. A week later I went back to the Inkwell and got up and played Jane Says in front of the crowd. It was exhilerating, and the people at the open mic were supportive and understanding.
I was hooked. It sparked a passion for playing that drove to learn as much as I could as fast as I could.
Why am I telling this story?
Because a long time student of mine recently had someone who has never done any magic at all ask to be taught. He assured me that he would start with meditation and make sure that the student knew how much work and practice is involved in magic. I told him to do the opposite. I said teach a spell or a ritual that will excite him.
Yes, meditation is the cornerstone of my work. Yes, sorcery requires work and study and practice. It also requires drive, and excitement, and motivation.
I think that those of us who put in decades of work sometimes want to over-emphasize how much we work and sacrifice for our craft and forget about igniting passion. I see people join orders and get told to memorize 777 columns or sit perfectly still for an hour a day. I get it. I also get disgusted at young practitioners who get upset if they cannot find a PDF of a grimoire within 20 minutes of hearing about it, or can only hold attention on en entire tradition of magic for the time it takes to read one book on it.
All that work is real, and you should make your students aware that being good at it takes work, time, and effort. Just give them something to get them excited enough to do the work first!
At 19 if I was told to practice scales for a month before I played a song, I might have given up learning to play. Instead someone ignited a passion in me that made me want to put the work in.
