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had finally encountered an  advanced adept I could learn from. Fortunately, I was
soon disabused of this idealistic projection, as the  adept launched into a story of
how he had upset some Irishmen in a pub and that, sensing imminent confrontation,
he had gone into the toilets, ripped off one of the  bog-chains - which had a heavy
porcelain handle, and gone back into the pub whirling it over his head and shouting
 Come on, then! This tale initially caused me some confusion, but quickly led me
away from putting him on a pedestal. As I grew to know this elder magician, we
had many interesting conversations. He never accepted the label of  teacher saying
instead that we were brother-sorcerers, exchanging information. When I went to him
with an idea for some new ritual or technique, his reply to my question  What ll
happen if I do this? was invariably along the lines of  I don t know - try it out and
tell me about it afterwards. Thus, rather than telling me what I ought, or ought not
to do, he enabled me to find the confidence to strike out on my own magical path,
and always qualified his interpretations of my experience as being merely his own
individual perspective and that he did not see himself as an  authority . In retro-
spect, I would characterise my relationship with this elder magician as that between a
student and mentor.
The term mentor derives from the Greek, where Mentor is the counsellor of
Telemachus, son of Odyesseus. It has become synonymous with the notions of  a
trusted friend , an adviser, counsellor or teacher. Mentor s task was not merely to
educate Telemachus, but to prepare and develop him for the responsibilities he would
have to face as Odyesseus s heir. A mentor is someone who offers knowledge, insights
or perspectives that are especially useful to the other person. For me, what charac-
terises the core of the mentoring relationship as opposed to the popular view of the
Teacher or Guru is that it is an intimate relationship, rather than a distant one. To be
effective, the mentor must respect the uniqueness of the other person, and seek to
empower them by assisting them in the development of their own abilities.
We can see the results of dysfunctional teaching when we meet so-called magicians
who appear to be little more than mirror-reflections of their teachers, who lack inde-
pendent voices and hold the world at bay with their belief-systems which (as Peter
J. Carroll once quipped)  act not even as crutches for the feeble, but broken legs for
the incapable . The tendency to teach magic to others  cookbook style, rather than
encouraging individuals to twist techniques and theories so that they are relevant
.
20 21
Aspects of Tantra
to their immediate life experience, is responsible for much of the blinkered, narrow
thinking of many modern occultists. I suspect that this is due to the fact that  teach-
ers have a position to cling to, which involves keeping students around them rather
than letting them go off and pursue their own interests. Some of the best Mentors
in comparison are those who view the mentoring process as a learning experience
for themselves. The idea of ageless wisdom, passed down from Mage to Neophyte
is an endearing one, but is inaccurate in a world of constant, accelerating change.
Mentoring requires both work and responsibility for both parties in the relationship.
It is a partnership between Mentor & student, based on mutual respect. Another
quote from Robert Anton Wilson is apposite to the discussion, that -  communica-
tion is only possible amongst equals. Both Mentor & Student contribute & gain
equally from the relationship.
However, having said this, it must also be recognised that both Students and poten-
tial Mentors need to be clear about what expectations they bring to the relationship.
For the relationship to be effective, these expectations must be made explicit.
Mentoring is based on a friendly, informal relationship, and any attempts to extract
firm promises from either side are likely to end badly. This is not to say however, that
some form of agreement between Student and Mentor is not useful. If both parties
have made their expectations from the relationship explicit, then an agreement can
act to remind both parties of specific objectives which have arisen from their mutual
work, and secondly, it can be drawn on occasionally to clarify the boundaries of the
relationship to both parties.
This latter point is particularly useful in Magical Mentoring, where it is easy for the
Mentor s influence to extend beyond the boundaries of the immediate magical rela-
tionship - and often does, under a variety of guises and justifications. The desire for
this can come from Mentor or Student, or may even arise unbidden from the sharing
of intense magical experiences. Similar problems are not unknown between therapists
and clients, nurses and patients, or teachers and pupils. Yes, this situation is open to
abuse, but need not necessarily arise.
If we turn to ancient, rather than contemporary views of the Guru, it becomes fairly
apparent that studying with a Guru was often a traumatic process. There are many
stories about Zen and Tantric masters behaving in a way that is vastly different to the
modern idea of the other-worldly saint. AShN 55, writing in Nuit-Isis Vol. II No.1,
recounts the story of a Zen master who met every one of his pupil s questions with
a blow from a heavy cane. Eventually, the pupil shouts  Enough! and jumps up
and snaps the cane, and then realises how unnecessary his slavish obedience to his
master was. It seems to me that the old masters were all too aware of the tendency of [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
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