A spirit worker whom I respect referred to me as being spirit taught recently. They weren’t saying that I was completely spirit taught. I’m not. They simply mentioned how they see a sizeable portion of my practice (and how I practice) as being spirit led or spirit taught. I will define ‘spirit taught’ here as learning something (ie a skill, a spell, an offering practice) directly from one or more spirits as opposed to learning it from a book, a human teacher, a tradition, or elsewhere. Sometimes a person will learn something from a spirit and then find that others do or teach the same thing.
This person casually stating that they viewed me as being spirit taught in much of what I do caused me to do a double take. I considered this person to be much more spirit taught (and in tune, to be honest). I have and have had friends who do regular journey work to regularly meet up with certain spirits who teach them new skills. I definitely have learned things from spirits during journey work, but it is not usually as planned or structured as I imagined it would be for someone ‘spirit taught.’ 10 years into my polytheist practice, and I’m still assuming that others are getting things in a clearer and more structured way. I thought I had already released this fallacy.
For some who are spirit taught, it does involve regular trance work to meet up with one’s spirits and work on skills and knowledge. Sometimes there are bits of this in my own journey work. However, I find that some of what I find myself doing comes from what I refer to as an intuitive push or nudge. Many people might be able to relate to this on the level of offerings. When you just know that one of your spirits wants a specific offering. You don’t necessarily hear words or see an image of the thing, but you know T/they want it. These intuitive nudges play a part in my offering practice, my spell work, and energy work, to name a few areas.
When the nudge leads to a specific result, I can store that information in my conscious mind and access of my own accord later. A result of this might be starting to offer a new type of food to a spirit that you hadn’t considered offering to T/them before the nudge. If you feel or use divination to confirm a positive response, that food might become a regular offering.
These nudges can also happen with certain skills. I find myself around a number of people who are extra sensitive and aware of different energies, energetic effects, and spiritual bodies a lot more often these days then in my past. This is partially due to my schedule and probably just that I’m more aware when they notice or react to things. This means that when I follow a nudge about how to do a thing, I can get feedback from someone nearby or involved about what they saw or felt. Sometimes they can better or more precisely explain what took place than I can. At times I feel like a baby who is just learning that they have hands. First you discover your hands. Then you discover you can hold things. Finally you learn to grab at what you want to hold. That’s a bit of a clumsy metaphor, but I often feel clumsy and fumbling in parts of my spiritual work. I’ll know what I want to achieve, feel a nudge about what to do, but I won’t know the why behind the action or everything that it is affecting. I fumble through it and observe any results. Then I can consciously try to do the same thing again in similar future situations, honing the action or method as I do.
I never really thought of this part of my practice as spirit taught. I thought of it as an illustration of how little I knew or how much of a beginner I was. I am realizing that I can do more than I thought, but I don’t necessarily know the why or how behind it. I’m hoping to learn more about the why and how of things through working with others in addition to my solo practice. My spiritual practice does incorporate a lot that I’ve learned from my mentors, my traditions and groups, my peers, and books. I’m learning that this internal nudges are also a legitimate part of how I form my practice. I am starting to accept that it’s one of the ways in which I am spirit taught.