What It Takes To Be A Good Pagan Teacher

Teaching others is one of the most powerful and important things we can do; good teachers are the ‘glue’ and continuity in a community, and they enrich the lives of the people in it. Pagan teachers are facilitators, providing others with ideas, tools, support, mentoring, or practice in allowing people to find, explore, and work with the Divine, both within and outside of themselves.

Teaching Pagans is life-affirming, transformative, joyous, satisfying, difficult, terrifying, and frustrating work. But although this work is absolutely vital to our community, we don’t actually seem to spend any time at all teaching others how to teach; almost no one receives any real ‘teacher training’. And this is a problem because being great at doing something or knowing a topic well doesn’t mean you can teach it… Teaching is a very different skill from (say) drawing a magic circle, using divination, meditating, or whatever else a Pagan teacher might teach.

As Pagan teachers, we owe it to our students not just to learn the material we might pass on, but also to learn ways of properly communicating it well to others. But helping people make spiritual decisions is not something to be taken lightly, either. Your choices and those of your students can have long-term effects on them. So if you are teaching a specific tradition, you not only have the responsibility to transmit that tradition accurately. But if it is an initiatory tradition and students aren’t privy to the whole tradition until after initiation, you also have the responsibility of deciding if your path is right for them and if they are right for your path. And while it may sound unfair, the truth is that not every path is right for every person. Some people make, for example, better Druids than they do Alexandrian Wiccans because their natural skills, inclinations, interests, talents, energy, or whatever resonate more with the former than the latter. And it is the responsibility of the Teacher to make those decisions and offer that guidance- and to do so well.

In some cases you will be held accountable for the actions of your students too, because to be a Pagan teacher is to stand up as a representative of your path and community; teaching puts you in the public spotlight and makes you more visible in the community. You are representing Paganism to the next generation and to the outside world. Ergo, your choices and what you say and do as a teacher are likely to have a bigger effect on the community or on an individual than if you said it or did it as a non-teacher. A mistake by someone you taught can reflect badly on you, then, even if the incident was an accident and you had nothing to do with it.

Learning a little about teaching before you actually take on students, then, can help ensure that both you and your students have a better experience- and that, in turn, is better for the Pagan community as a whole. A crucial part of approaching the role of teaching with respect, then, is learning some of the teaching methods that generally have been accepted as effective through trial and error, and in some cases through scientific study (these are called ‘best practices’). It also means critically evaluating whether or not you’re even fit to teach in the first place.

Here are some things multiple interviewees generally agreed were integral for being a good Pagan teacher:

1. An Understanding of Your Goals / Priorities

Knowing why you’re teaching is vitally important. Are you interested in teaching a particular tradition, or just a particular subject? A specific age group or demographic? Do you want to teach to please someone else? Do you want to find and practice with like-minded people? Do you want to teach as a stepping stone to becoming a Clergyman or Coven leader? Are you doing it to serve your Gods or Spirits- or perhaps as a service to your community, to help others grow spiritually?

More specifically, having your expectations in line and being realistic about how emotionally and energetically draining teaching is, how much responsibility is truly in your hands as a teacher, and just how much time, energy, and resources it takes, is vital. Furthermore, you must be willing to bend or change your goals if the situation doesn’t unfold the way you want it to. And the more ego-centered your reasons for teaching are, the less likely you are to be happy doing so.

2. Deep Knowledge of Your Tradition

Good Pagan teachers don’t have to be omnipotent geniuses, but they should have a firm grounding in their material. As Patrick McCollum said:

If you feel you need to learn more before you’re comfortable teaching, your gut instinct is still probably correct. However, as you’re considering whether you know enough and whether you are ready, bear in mind that your perception of your own abilities might be skewed. It’s very possible that you do know enough, but you just don’t realize it yet. After all, most of us have a hard time looking at ourselves completely objectively.

3. Deep Love of Your Tradition

Perhaps the most often mentioned trait of a good Pagan teacher in my interviews was not just a knowledge of, but also a deep love for your particular spiritual path, or for Paganism or Wicca in general; Anne Marie Forrester commented:

Teaching should never be undertaken for selfish or ego-driven reasons. It has to be about having a deep love of the Craft and wanting to see it continue and prosper. More than that, it’s about having so much love for the God and Goddess that you are driven by a burning need to help others find it too.

And Oberon Zell-Ravenheart said:

Well, first off, a good teacher has to know their subject intimately and really love it with a burning passion. They have to be constantly and obsessively researching and learning more all the time. Intense curiosity is essential!

4. Intimate Self Knowledge

Are you a good public speaker? Do you have good people skills? Are you patient and flexible? Are you good in a crisis? Do you have a well-developed sense of humor? Are you confident and grounded? Are you shy? Unsure of your knowledge? Do you feel like you don’t have very good people skills? Do you have problems speaking in front of groups? Are you impatient? Do you get sensory overload when you have to deal with too many people at once?

Knowing about yourself, how you respond to stress, what your limitations are, what your general strengths and weaknesses are as a person, and more- as well as working within those boundaries, or working to improve your faults- are integral to being a good teacher.

5. A Healthy Dose of Humility

Humility was also mentioned frequently. It’s easy to let teaching go to your head, especially if you have a bunch of attentive students hanging on your every word. But there are some potential pitfalls for teachers who are too arrogant or proud; Patrick McCollum described it this way:

I would say the first thing teaching requires is humility. Because when we think that as Pagan teachers or leaders we know it all, that’s when we really lose the ability to fully gain the respect of the people who want to learn from us. And it’s also when we cut off our own ability to expand and move forward from where we are […] We really have to be humble and have the people who we’re teaching know that we’re open and willing to learn more, and that we don’t know everything, but that we do know something. You can’t have been around experiencing what we’ve been experiencing without having something to share.

Pete “Pathfinder” Davis, archpriest of the Aquarian Tabernacle Church, had a similar take:

It takes somebody who has a handle on their ego and recognizes when they start to slip into that sort of a mode. Because it’s way too easy to start to strut around like a rooster, and then you’re not conveying anything […]

And Sylva Markson drew a connection between love of your path and humility:

Ultimately, I think, to be a good and effective teacher, you need first and foremost to love the Craft and be thinking of what is best for the Craft rather than what is best for you… Because we have no higher authority or human authority that says “This is the way it has to be” […] it’s very easy for it to become all about me and self-aggrandizement. And that, I think, is the downfall of a lot of groups and a lot of coven leaders. So, to me, I think you have to have a level of Craft that is bigger than your desire for personal glory… It should be about what is best for the tradition and what is best for my students […]

6. A Lot of Patience

Another often mentioned quality of a good Pagan teacher was patience. You can’t expect everyone to understand and absorb the information you give them immediately or on the first try. You also need the patience to deal with people’s questions, issues, and imperfections— and to work on mastering your own.

7. The Ability To Communicate

Communication is an essential skill for any teacher. Teachers need to be able to convey information in multiple ways, clearly and concisely, and preferably without putting anyone to sleep; Christopher Penczak said:

Generally I think good teachers are prepared and have good communication skills and a sense of humor.

And again, Oberon Zell-Ravenheart commented:

They have to be able to explain things creatively in such a manner that their students can not only understand but really get it. And they need to have the charisma to inspire their students to want to learn more from them and to feel fortunate and blessed to have such a great teacher.

8. Integrity and Honesty

Many of my interviewees spoke about good teachers having integrity and honesty. After all, if we as teachers are passing along sacred knowledge, we need to act accordingly; Christopher Penczak commented:

I think one has to walk the talk. You must be practicing what you teach. Not doing so is the downfall of most teachers. You must integrate the teaching into your own life as you teach others.

People mentioned honesty in various contexts, not just in telling the truth. Anne Marie Forrester talked about being up-front with students about their progress:

I think honesty is a big part of it. You have to be willing to tell people when they’re doing good and when they’re not doing good, and not shy away from confronting them about that.

Similarly, Brian Rowe talked about being honest with students about expectations:

Don’t be afraid to set high expectations, but be clear in trying to put those forward to students.

And Melanie Henry mentioned being honest enough to admit when you don’t have an answer:

You’ve got to know what you don’t know, and know when to say, “I can’t help you with this”— and, when you yourself need some help, it’s really good if you can accept help. You’re going to need it!

That being said, you can’t become an experienced teacher without having been an inexperienced one. You have to learn somewhere, and there’s no way around the fact that your first students will be human guinea pigs; experienced teachers simply don’t pop up fully formed overnight. Their abilities are honed over time- often through making some very big mistakes.

It’s unrealistic to expect new teachers to be great the first time they try. It is realistic, however, to expect new teachers to be patient, prepared, responsive to their students, and willing to learn from their mistakes. And it’s crucial for them to go into their first teaching experience with the understanding that teaching is a sacred trust— that they are carrying on a cherished and indispensable tradition— and approach the role of teacher with the respect it deserves.

All teachers start out inexperienced, but that doesn’t mean they have to start out inadequate; even if you are teaching strangers online, you have an obligation to take it seriously and do it responsibly. For that reason, if you are considering teaching, take some time to genuinely reflect on your desire to teach and why, and if you are truly ready and qualified- not just in terms of the knowledge you possess, but also in terms of temperament, spiritual calling, and other areas; talk to friends and other teachers, and meditate or ask your guides or deities for insight and guidance before continuing.

Main Sources

• 'A Teaching Handbook for Wiccans and Pagans: Practical Guidance for Sharing Your Path' by Thea Sabin