A Sorceror's Apprentice

a memoir

My father taught me long ago that a really smart man is one who can do for himself, on pretty much any job that comes to hand, for himself or for those he loves or for any purpose that seems right. My father's ideal did turn out a bit too high for me in practice, for there is much I cannot do, but I did definitely come to understand that a smart person is a resourceful and courageous open-hearted person.

Then last spring, my step-daughter asked me to take a stronger hand in raising her little boy, to see if I could somehow lead the child a few steps further up the road toward self-possession, for this little boy definitely needs to learn some way to keep his wild behavior in control. He is a child of great promise but the very feature of his mind that's causing his unruliness – a soaring brilliantly lit and fiery imagination – is sure to be one of his greatest future strengths; this is actually a virtue which must not be spoiled.

All of this was unclear to me at first in the spring, not so clear as it became with summer's passing, but I did have some glimmerings at least of the boy's personality and strengths and weaknesses and needs; and his mother was correct, I thought, about the proper general approach that should be taken. This richly imaginative and intelligent boy was a very likely one despite his tender years, we both believed, to benefit from entering Higher Magic.

What this little man truly needed (if I may use a metaphor) was a lump of true philosopher's stone to clasp in his hand, so he could shine its light about to see reality whenever one of his flights of fancy might require. But actually, a different metaphor has taken hold of our doings in this summer: He needs to get the voice of Merlin to speak inside himself, like young Prince Arthur did, whatever real historical person Arthur was.

But the boy is seven. I have taught some of the higher realms of magic to adults and done some good, but he is seven. No magician that I know has ever taken charge of a serious student at that age. And how could I grope a path through such profound and foggy ground as Higher Magic with a partner who has never read a real book in his life (nor scarcely even a hand-written instruction) and cannot do so now? So, with the summer growing and passing – under the guidance of my wisest god – naturally I have taken to exploring the primitive Shamanic Rite. In that rite, or so I have always heard, only the barest rules and requirements apply.

I've really done a lot. I've told the boy a bit about the Fairy Folk and got his help in a work that I had pledged to do for them myself, where we opened the ground together, and the boy won a magic wand. I have introduced him to the honored dead. I've drummed with the boy, doused by means of a stick, gazed at the sky and forest with him, scried the doings of animals and plants with him and promised to scry a fire. We wielded a few sharp-edged and pointed tools together and the earnestly striving child did not even scratch me with the foot-long rasp. I lately got a board of oak and fashioned a little twelve-string harp for him to listen to and then on the first day when he took the harp from the box where I am keeping it, there happened to come up on that day a little job of divination at which I was striving hard with my drum but had no blessed time for, and as soon as I explained my problem, with no thought even of requesting help from him, he sprang to in proper order, a barefoot little boy in dirty clothes walking about the dewy grass with a primitive harp pressed to his ear, plucking the strings, and he came back later, much to my surprise, with an answer that proved admirably useful. And other successful events have happened too, all along that line. All through circumstances and success, it's been one blessed shamanic thing right after another for months.

He is an excellent apprentice, despite his tender years, but this Shamanic Rite is a new thing for me, a place where I have never quite precisely been in this life (nor any other life which comes to mind) and I do not even have a human teacher in this subject, because my current human teacher practiced shamanism and left it some years ago. I have never even read a book with the word "shamanism" in its title, though I did try to read my teacher's once.

Shall I try to tell you what I've found so far? It seems to me there are a hundred things to mention and each deserves a paragraph.

For one thing, please rest assured that I am not copying exercises for the child out of books, not old books nor new. That would be irresponsible. The priestcraft that I am plying should be a better-tailored sort; I shall do as much as possible myself in hope of gaining the kind of result that I think he needs. I am relying just on general knowledge of some principles of Mind, on a great many accounts that I have heard of different ways that this is done across the world, relying on my own more or less related experiences, and on my mysterious divine inspirations, and on the boy himself. I am relying greatly on the boy to do the best he can whenever tests and tools are set before him, however dotty they may be. I am relying on him to make good choices if only I can make the choices clear. And too, I am relying on another deity who knows us both, a little god of the love we share, to tell me right and wrong.

What else to say?

I am a modern Celtic Pagan priest (a Witch and Druid, to be more precise) and so a Pagan Celtic mythic theme has pervaded the summer's proceedings quite as if we'd spent the time in some kind of "Celtic Magick" theme park, or quite as if we'd been locked up as two prisoners in some astounding chamber in the Disney Castle. The boy is mainly Celtic stock too, but he also lays claim to a bloodline of Tecumseh besides, the famous and admired Old North American visionary commander. When I look at this active and ambitious child, I think perhaps here is Tecumseh indeed, the selfsame soul come to this realm again, in walking distance of his former land, or at least a spirit like him. And so, you see, my European witcheries must be woven in their finest thread carefully between my fingertips, so as not to knot and bind.

What else?

I think some basic theological training is required between us, but only the most basic. One evening he was here and we found ourselves alone in my tiny, overflowing, cramped, disordered library, and he was leaning over into a big desk drawer looking for some small thing which he did not find. The boy glanced briefly to see if I was paying attention, whispered the word "Jesus!" as an expletive, then looked at me again to see what I would say. I suppose he got this item of speech from a fellow who is one of his other grandfathers, a plainspoken countryman with an overly religious wife. I told the listening child what came to mind, that he shouldn't talk like that because Jesus is a god and it's a bad habit being disrespectful to goddesses and gods. "A god!?" spoke the boy's soft voice in sudden unmistakable alarm; "Will he punish me?" I poo-pooed that in a hurry; no, Jesus doesn't really care who's disrespectful to him, Jesus will not come and punish you – and profanity is a bad habit too! That may be enough theology for now.

I guess there's just one other thing to say, about initiation.

It was just a week ago that the first thought even occurred to me of fashioning an actual initiation for the child. He is only seven. The thought of trying any initiation at such an age is almost preposterous and would even generally seem dangerous. Legal drinking age, whatever that may be in any given state, is usually required. (All of the magicians I have ever talked with on this topic have professed an iron-clad rule of not initiating anyone who has not made love with another person, as another kind of minimum maturity requirement.) Surely, all decent magicians see this piece of work as a clear and powerful aspect of the Great Work itself, and that is not to be attempted lightly. But this admirable boy is such an excellent apprentice – he pursues this whole business with a heart and mind so freely given to it that even an observer with an unbiased eye would be amazed – and his need for a powerful result is true, and I am his adopted grandfather. And besides all that, the Great Work itself makes no demand at all for applicants to be mature, or if it did no person in this world would ever get to it. And frankly, if overwhelming circumstances really convince me that some initiation ought to be offered to some person, then ipso facto I am really sure that person has a right to take a running jump (if I may use a figure of speech) and try it.

So, last Sunday in the laundry room where I was folding clothes – after a convincing vision which I had got while smoking a tobacco pipe – I did offer him initiation.

Surprisingly, the language barrier was not too steep. Last month, the boy had briefly discussed his mental difficulties with me. There was a moment when I stopped him right in the middle of acting out a fantasy – he was wildly waving a stick around toward my friendly dog as if he were a bold warrior against some enemy, the boy growling menace through grimacing mouth at the bewildered and innocent creature – and I asked him quite sincerely what was going on. He was a mite startled to find himself suddenly outside the fence of his private Disneyland, but he listened to my sincere question and chose to answer candidly. His answer was simply to bang a fist one time on his temple and say with genuine frustration that his "brain" gets "stupid ideas", all while looking seriously in my face to see if I could take his meaning. In just that though, I felt he gave an apt and thoughtful description of his problem, and I hugged and kissed him, and promised he would get himself together in a few more years.

So then after my vision last Sunday, when the boy happened to swagger into the laundry room with a yellow beanbag chair hoisted on top of his head, I called him over to sit down on a footstool there by the washing machine and broke the news that we could try to fix his mental problem, if he wanted to, by means of a hard work of magic. I described his fantasy mental situation to him as I understand it, as succinctly as I could, and asked for confirmation, which he gave by looking away and giving a curt nod and a "Yep". I did not offer any description then of what the work would be like, but only stressed it was a "bigger deal" than anything we'd done before. As is his way, he asked just one or two apt questions then took the matter seriously and silently into consideration. I said in closing that he should bring his magic tools sometime when he comes over, if he wants to go ahead.

Then half an hour after that, he was doodling on a sheet of paper with a pen and found a tightly whirling pattern that he liked well enough to cut out with scissors and stick up on the refrigerator in a blue little magnetic picture frame while I was standing there, and he called for me to look at this finished installation of free art work. I saw this deeply swirling design there in a tight thick frame on a white space, and it seemed to be a miniature impressionist depiction of the interior of a cave, with a sort of psychedelic reversal in color, from the perspective of someone lying down inside and looking even further in. Rather startled, I asked him if it was a cave and he at once agreed that it was with bright enthusiasm, as though he had been wondering what it was. According to the vision I was given by my god – and like I instantly informed the boy – the big job really should be done inside a cave. "In a cave?" he cried, and I only had the wits at that moment to shrug and answer "Yes".

We shall not use an actual cave but a simulated one instead. I'll ask his uncle or his father or the young buck magician up the hill to scrape out a little shallow pit in my back yard between the great old dying ash tree and some baby oaks – maybe even in the snow since winter's coming on – and we'll cover that with branches and blankets and an old skin off a dead sheep. I have called one of my former human teachers, one of the local Witch kings, in hope that he'll be able to attend; that admirable scholar was a lad at the time when I took up with him, so he is young enough now to wield a shovel too if required. I have no doubt that such a simulation of a cave will do just fine in Shamanic Rite.

The boy has not been given a drum to take, which some authorities might claim is required, but this is Celtic style so I believe he ought to carry in the oakwood steel-strung harp instead, and the ashwood wand as well just so he's well equipped in case of Fairies. But I shall ply my willow drum outside in a steady heartbeat rhythm. And too, before that does begin, I'll cast a Witch's circle up by the house, and in that circle tell a tale how Merlin fled the madding world of war into the woods and wandered long without sleep or rest, and fled at last with his spirit as a wren pursued by hawks into a cave, and then we both shall stand and call Merlin to meet us there, conjuring that holy spirit by bonds of friendship; then we shall fly with such a pantomime of wrens as we can make, and the boy will crawl inside to pluck the harp and wait there for my ancient god.

And when Merlin arrives (as he or someone surely will) the boy shall call to mind all of the verbal instructions that I gave on how to properly make one's arrangements with such folk.

But mind, I do not know if this will come to pass or something else entirely instead. I have not even spoken on this topic of initiation yet with his mother, nor with her mother either (who is my wife) and I don't know how far the ladies will object to my judgment. But most of all, I do not know if my grandson will ever come to my house and say, "Grampy, I brought my stuff."

I warned him clearly that it is a hard job and I emphasized twice already that he can gain the same desired goal of possessing himself without doing this job at all, just simply through a few more years of age. If he asks me what is hard about the job, I don't know what I'll say, perhaps; "It makes you really scared!" But why is it scary, and is the cave too hard a place for him to be sent at all?

First off, going about this world with bouts of a kind of inappropriate madness; that is hard enough. And then, to trust someone (whether it is a grandfather spirit or any other kind) who tells you that they know a way; that isn't easy either for such a one as him. And then to ponder and ponder and finally choose (if he does choose) then wait on tenterhooks; and then at last to do whatever mumbo-jumbo that you're told will help the ritual begin, with your heart in your throat; and then to really listen to the sacred tale, and call the god or goddess to your open soul, and really do the dance or pantomime or such for all you're worth; and then, with your body throbbing and weary and bound into a space of darkness, to await the deity. How hard is that? But then, and far above all else, some deity arrives where you await and you must raise yourself to speak with her or him or it, and you must feel a great increase of dignity.

Ah well, we'll see what we shall see.