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Do you have mastery over your material or skill?

Posted: Wed Dec 13, 2017 10:59 pm
by monsnoleedra
I spent a number of years teaching as part of my military career. So as both a teacher and a technician we had to have mastery over the material we would be teaching and an in-depth qualification with that material. We had to know it both from an Academic and Theoretical perspective but also from an application and technical perspective. The theories, conceptual idea's, exploratory idea's all had to be owned by use and made our own. We couldn't say or use the idea that so and so expressed it as such or constantly refer to some book, article, briefing notes, etc. We had to know the material, experience the material and be able to explain and present the material / concept / theories from both the book and personal experience.

Yet in the pagan and occult communities one seem's to find the opposite is true. Seldom does one present material from a position of mastery of something but constant referral back to some book. This is how Bardon say's you have to do things to achieve mastery of something for instance. This is how one must utilize the Keys of Solomon according to this or that author to successfully work the system. Often inferring that the one doing the writing is lacking themselves in their mastery of the system. After all Bardon must be correct for they are not secure enough or confident enough to state the author is wrong or they disagree with the author's conclusions. Instead almost a blind obedience to the author and insistence that they are correct.

In many ways the same sort of blind obedience and acceptance that we saw in the late 80's & 90's to other author's that today are now ridiculed for their lazy works. What makes it even worse is many authors today go straight to self publications or other formats so even less peer review than what there was in the past. OF course that doesn't touch upon the multiple endorsements by company author's who give praise and endorsements for each other's works. Well that or the heaping endorsements by unqualified "Readers" who endorse the books.

Yet in the end it's still the same thing. Practitioners who truly are not master's of the material themselves yet recite the authors works. The author says one must do this or that. Yet the practitioner is not qualified in the system themselves sufficiently to explain it in their own words or own the system enough to teach it without resorting to the "Book".

In that capacity of needing to resort to the book it sort of reminds one of the many groups of teens that popped up back in the day with their instant High Priest / High Priestess to teach each other about Silver Ravenwolf's TO RIDE A SILVER BROOM STICK. They were neither qualified to teach the material nor actually experienced in it sufficiently to claim ownership of the material or experience of it. All they could do was cite the book and say this is what the author says one is supposed to do and what is supposed to happen.

But then again maybe it's the pain in my spine speaking right now and the pain pill has not kicked in yet. The cold is seeping in and the wind is howling and their calling for more cold and potentially snow tonight. That or maybe it's just how I was taught to own things and make them mine and embrace it vice reverting back to the book and not really experiencing and understanding / living it.

Disregard if you like maybe just rambling at the moment.