Very interesting!

And thank you for the clarity of your opinion: "NO! Never!".

Kathryn

----- Original Message -----
From: "kaligrafr" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Tuesday, November 06, 2007 10:58 AM
Subject: Re: [ACADEMIC-STUDY-MAGIC] Esoterism in the Classroom


> Aloha,
>
> On 11/5/2007 at 4:52 PM Kathryn wrote:
>
> >Are spiritual techniques so private that they shouldn't be taught in
> public
> >institutions? I'm truly interested to hear folks' opinions on this
> >question.
>
> As a young teenager, I did in fact learn the fundamental and highly useful
> techniques which underpin a good deal of the world's magico-spiritual
> practices
> in a public institution, junior high school, and from a teacher employed
by
>
> the public school system.
>
> This training took place during and as a part of an entirely different
> overt
> enterprise sponsored by the school district which had to do with young
> adolescents
> learning to manage and use their language skills. And, probably, become a
> little more socially competent.
>
> The instruction that we got in magico-spiritual techniques was thorough,
> sound, and doable. It had little to no ideological content, but was just
> about
> learning how to carry out a range of technical practices.
>
> Let me be honest. At the time, I wasn't interested in magic or
> spirituality.
> I didn't want to be in this language skills class that was overtly aimed
at
>
> making me a better speechifier in front of the school. And I had only the
> slightest clue that anything that we were being taught was odd, exotic,
> or beyond the bounds of school district/community propriety.
>
> Nevertheless, I did do the exercises, learn the techniques, built some
> skills,
> incorporate all this into my growing world view, and was glad when this
> class ended and I moved up a grade.
>
> Some years later, when I began a diligent study of meditation, revolving
> around Zen Buddhism, I discovered, much to my own astonishment, that
> not only did I get what the texts and teachers were talking about, but
also
>
> I had already passed through some of the spiritual experiences involved.
>
> Equally true in the case of Western magico-spiritual traditions.
>
> Because, during that junior high school language skills class, I had
> learned
> magico-spiritual techniques and put them, unwittingly, into practice.
>
> Let me share a few more comments.
>
> It was clear that the teacher understood that some of the instruction was
> pushed the envelope of convention. She did ask us not to blab about it all
> over
> school yard and home. So far as I know, nobody did.
>
> I grasped at the time that I was getting a chance to be slightly
subversive
> of
> the accepted order by learning some of these techniques, but mostly in the
> sense of gaining access to something the school district wanted me not to
> have access to. Not with any grasp of what all that entailed.
>
> The only way that this happened for me is that it happened in a setting
> sanctioned by the school district but involved instruction not really
> acceptable to that school district. The teacher offered an opportunity to
> learn more or less out of sight magico-spiritual techniques that could not
> be openly provided in school.
>
> As I understand now but couldn't be bothered with at the time, one
> of the crucial features of instruction was the teacher's determined focus
> on techniques and equally determined avoidance of any ideological
> context.
>
> This had, I think these days, the effect of making it all a matter
> of technical instruction in skills that could, if necessary, be toted up
> as entirely psycho-physical. On a par with gym exercises or doing tasks
> to learn how to write a book report. Nothing that could ever be described
> as exposing *young souls* to occulture or ideological magico-spiritual
> deviance. No heavens, hells, angels, devils, or magic.
>
> So, having myself learned fundamental magico-spiritual skills in a
> public educational institution, would I ever suggest that such instruction
> become a formal or overt element of the curriculum?
>
> NO! Never!
>
> Look, the context and world view of public educational institutions is
> diametrically opposed to learning worthwhile magico-spiritual techniques
> along just about every axis.
>
> Imagine, just for a moment, the bureaucracy, ideological and
> organizational,
> governing public education.
>
> Musing Uh Oh! Magic In the Classroom! Magic In The Laboratory! Rose,
>
> Pitch