Why I am not a teacher.

For as long as I’ve been writing about magick, alchemy and esotericism, people have regularly asked if I’ll become their teacher. They want someone to guide them through the rituals, explain the symbolism, answer every question, and reassure them that they’re doing everything correctly. I understand the desire because I felt exactly the same way when I first began. I wished there had been someone with decades of experience standing beside me, someone I could ask every question that arose, someone who could tell me if I was on the right path.

My answer is always the same: no.

That answer isn’t meant to discourage anyone. It’s because I’ve come to believe that nothing could be more damaging to a person’s practice than becoming dependent on another human being to carry them through it. The Great Work isn’t about collecting information, memorizing correspondences, or performing rituals perfectly. It’s about change and becoming someone different. That kind of transformation cannot be borrowed from another.

We live in a culture that wants shortcuts. We assume that if someone already knows the way, we should simply follow behind them. That may work if you’re learning something like how to repair an engine or build a house, but it doesn’t work with inner transformation. The struggle itself is part of the initiation.

Imagine someone helping you lift weights every time the bar became heavy. You might complete the movement, but you wouldn’t become any stronger. The resistance isn’t an obstacle to strength - it’s what creates strength. Every difficult repetition changes your body in ways that would never happen if someone else helped carry the weight for you.

Alchemy and magick work the same way.

The confusion, the frustration, the periods where nothing seems to make sense. The nights spent wrestling with a symbol or a passage that refuses to reveal itself. These aren’t signs that something has gone wrong. They ARE the Work itself. Every sincere effort to understand changes something inside you. It develops intuition. It sharpens discernment. It teaches you to trust direct experience instead of constantly looking over your shoulder for someone else’s approval.

People often mistake information for wisdom. They are NOT the same thing. Wisdom is information that has been lived. It has been tested. It has survived doubt, failure, persistence, and experience. No one can hand that to you.

It’s like watching a baby bird struggle to hatch from its egg. Out of compassion, someone may want to crack the shell open for it. But doing so would rob the bird of the very struggle that strengthens its body enough to survive. The effort of breaking through the shell is not an unfortunate inconvenience. It’s the process by which the bird becomes capable of flight.

The shell has to be broken from the inside.

That’s why, when I write, I don’t think of myself as teaching in the traditional sense. I’m simply drawing maps. I share what I’ve found in source material , what I’ve learned through decades of practice, and what direct experience has taught me. If something on those pages helps someone orient themselves, then I’m grateful. But I have no desire to walk beside them, interpreting every signpost or reassuring them after every step.

Because that isn’t my path to walk.

Every serious practitioner eventually reaches places where no one else can accompany them. There are thresholds that cannot be crossed with another person holding your hand. There are questions no teacher can answer because the answer isn’t verbal or intellectual. It has to emerge from your own practice, your own failures, your own persistence.

The Great Work has always been solitary in this sense. Not because we reject community or friendship, but because no one else can perform your transformation for you. Others can inspire you. They can encourage you. They can point toward the mountain.

But the climb belongs to you and you alone.

And in the end, you’ll discover that the strength you were seeking wasn’t hidden inside another teacher. It was forged during every moment you thought you were struggling alone.