How would you introduce magic to kids? I am talking pre-teen. Obviously, we are not talking about the evocation of the 4 dark brothers to wipe our enemies off the map…but about an intro to the whole subject.
If its paganism or wicca, the books are unending…and often skewed with Right Hand Path logic.
I noticed from previous posts, @Lady_Eva that you started when you were fairly young creating wards and other things. E.A. Koetting mentions in his vids that he had an interest in magic when he was young. I think some people get into it because its forbidden by their parents and religion, but what about kids that never had “God” in their life to begin with to rebel against?
How do you lead a child into magic that has little to no interest in the subject. ideas?
Buy lots of classic books about magick, tell them some are not for children (surefire way to make a child read a book), let them read books like The Moon Of Gomrath & The Dark Is Rising series, and watch TV shows and movies with supernatural elements.
For example A Night At The Museum (especially the first and best movie) presentd magick as a fascinating thing, and if you combine that with a trip to a museum and asking what they think the things in it would act like, things like that to engage play mode to cross over into something supernatural.
The RHP these in books like these will not, in my opinion, do them any harm because the villains are usually more interesting, and if you present that as the default it gives them something to rebel against.
If they have it in them, they will bite, but all that said I was trying magick before I had those books, and had magickal concepts like necromancy before I’d read anything about it.
Kids are so different, words that will warn one off for life will make another one determined to find out more, so a lot of this will depend on their personalities.
Maybe start with simple and short meditation.
Then over to sigill evocation.
Maybe don’t tell them what they are doing, just wait and see… Kids have beautiful imagination so it can turn out any way
A friend of mine put his kids in martial arts and yoga to learn self control. But he also incourages them to play freely based on what they are interested in while still making it a learning experience. For example his son loves building with legos so he takes him to places to see how they were built.
He would bring his daughter to our occult book club and she’d teach us yoga poses. She has a passion for teaching and she’s very creative.
I was thinking of writing a homeschool curriculum based on the kybalion. I’ve done research because i’m considering homeschooling them but i find the values are so christian based in a lot of the literature. Or older films for example. The hollywood studios would often make writers change a film ending so that the villan dies as punishment for their deeds. The good must win, evil must be punished idea. But I want to teach my kids that life isn’t polarized like that. Sometimes we don’t get what we want.
So what i’m getting at is magick came naturally for me and I was always interested. But the values and the type of thinking in my christain upbringing that were very restrictive and held me back from my potential. And i dont want that for my children.
I think parenting in a Left Hand Path sense just means not placing restrictions on your child’s development. Recognize if they are showing signs of abilities and help them work with it.
I’ll probably start my son off with sacrificing a goat to Thor.
But at the moment I read him ADORABLE Satanic Bedtime Stories.
I teach my daughter yoga and mediations. The stuff Im into is a little deep for her…I dodge questions she asks, like it’s forbidden. Makes her more interested.
Yeah, it’s pretty cute. I get funny looks out in public in the middle of freaking Arkansas when my only now turned one year old son gets bored and fussy and I take it out of my purse and say “Here you go my angel, cuddle with Satan” . He loves that thing but I wish he would stop trying to eat it .
I also wasn’t kidding about the sacrifice to Thor when he is older… probably about 10ish… because it would be a great way to start doing spiritual things together while also making a great teaching moment. How to kill an animal humanely, the cycles of nature which includes life and death, how to go about butchering an animal so he has the stomach for it when he needs to do it, teach him to appreciate where his food comes from. All kinds of good stuff there.
As a young person, the best thing that happened for me was when I was exposed to ideas that made the world feel magickal.
Children have a very rich perception of the world, and they have better astral senses than they would have as adults.
Interest, desire, and curiosity works a billion times better when it is engaged naturally and emerges organically out of an engagement with the imagination as it interacts with the natural world.
Children are naturally drawn to things that seem nice and playful. Make magick seem like a fun act and do simple things.
Capture the imagination through ideas and stories, get them to start thinking in a way that opens their minds.
Show them how you do magick. It sets a good example, it’s that visual imagery that people gravitate to when they’re older and they’ve grown bitter about the current generation or something.
“When I was a kid, my parents used to do blah blah blah.”
Well, things are looking better. I have kept online gaming time to a minimum, purchased books by recommended authors that were mentioned on this thread, and got the kiddos watching some of E.A.'s videos on Soul travel during our family time. Progress…
From my perspective, I wouldn’t introduce them to the Paths, and let them make choices at an early age.
The best thing my parents ever did for me was to not censor anything, or taise me with dogmatic beliefs. Things just were, and i could take it or leave it depending on my feels at the time.
That sort of flexibility really helps, especially when you keep realizing everything you thought was wrong and have to build your worldview again from the foundation up
But thats just my two cents, i wish you and the kids the best whatever it is you end up doing
For me magick is all about thinking for yourself instead of letting cultural norms and society tell you how to think. Deconditioning. (I’m a chaos magician)
So indoctrinating my child into magick at an early age, would be just as bad as religion imo.
I have thought about this before. And as someone who must work and guide people daily, the best way to introduce anyone to something, is to be a litttllleee sneaky and make them think they came up with the idea themselves.
So for a child what I would likely do is begin to teach them things without telling them what they are actually doing.
Maybe a few times a week before bedtime, i would tell my child, “you know that you can have whateverrrr you want if you think about it hard enough, just imagine it happening and one day it will come”. They will start to do this obviously, and once they do you build from there. If they say, mom I want princess X to come, you can explain how it must be something real so to speak, putting this into your own style…
When they are sick, do healing work on them… as they grow, they’re going to start having real questions. Thennnn you can begin explaining in detail what you know, and what they have the right to know.
In my opinion this is an organic means of teaching them, and making them wonder about what mom and dad are teaching them. The older they get, the more advanced the questions, thus the more in depth you can explain. In essence they choose to learn, and you get to teach at the level in which they grow.
I dont have kids though so I cannot speak from experience
I am currently preparing a co-op for quails to be my daughter’s first animal to raise sacrifice and butcher. I think it’s a pretty important milestone in human development.
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