Updated 2025-8-21
The society that murdered thousands of witches also hid the nature of oral tradition, burying even a hint of its immense power to remove our shackles.
I’m a dinosaur, but I will not give up teaching oral tradition. Its power is needed.
The current trend in Pagan education is online courses instead. By online, I mean lessons comprised of emails, PDFs, pre-recorded videos and audio files, and no direct contact with the teacher. Or minimal, supplemental contact.
Though teachers can earn good money in online courses, I’m committed to oral tradition. Online lessons are not oral tradition, not as I know it.
I created a few online courses. They are powerful. They are among the best Pagan online courses. And they suit people who can’t fit actual class meetings into their schedules. However, no online course is a substitute for oral tradition, so I don’t teach many of them, since I prefer to focus on oral teachings.
I leave each person to their definitions. I support each Pagan’s choice of teaching methods. I’m not here to debate what is or isn’t oral tradition, or what teaching method is best.
Instead, here I’m discussing my commitment to the indescribable experience of glory and power conveyed only through a certain style of teaching, whether you call it oral tradition or Francesca’s style or George. 🙂
It’s interesting I used the words “indescribable experience.” The term oral tradition was originally used (in part) because there was no point in writing it down. No record could convey it—it was indescribable.
The indescribable beauty and freedom of a lifestyle informed by oral tradition keep me committed to it.
Beyond my students’ note-taking during classes, any record distorts—and might even corrupt—the original transmission. I don’t allow recordings of my oral transmissions. Nor do I provide transcriptions of them. Sometimes I ask people to refrain from taking notes.
Oral tradition can happen by phone. Most of my classes meet in tele-seminars, aka group meetings by phone. We transcend time and space to walk between the worlds together.
Past life memories tell me a communal knowledge of oral tradition was exterminated centuries ago: A society driven to murder thousands of witches also hid the nature of oral tradition, to bury even a hint of its immense power to free us from external and internal shackles. Thus, oral tradition is tangential to how our society represents it. It is not a discussion group, psychologically-based therapy group, or support group, though it does include discussion and lots of support.
You know what? I don’t think I’ll call myself a dinosaur. I’m actually a gorgeous, powerful dragon. The gems in my dragon hoard are the treasures of oral tradition. I’ll keep sharing them, while my dragon tail encircles them and my students from those who would rob us of this heritage.
I don’t expect anyone to believe oral tradition provides benefits and beauty that cannot be received elsewhere, until they experience it firsthand. Something happens I can’t describe here—there’s that word “description” again—because it cannot be explained in writing, it must be experienced.
Technology’s seamless integration into our lives makes tech an extension of a person to some degree, but that does not turn written exchanges online into oral tradition. I do not know how to transmit oral teachings via online chat, even if no record of it is kept. Once again, explaining that is beyond the limits of the written word.
No one can understand my underlying reasoning for my position unless they talk with me … talk, as in oral tradition. So I make my phone number public:
Many people have been shocked or puzzled because I’m a best-selling author whose phone number is on my webpage. As hard as I work writing books that transform lives—I’ll spend a decade writing a single book, because my standard is sky high—I work even harder on oral tradition, because my Gods told me to center there. As powerful as my books are—there are few better—my oral teachings are even more powerful. I love living in oral tradition.
So I put my phone number out there. For one thing, some people need a taste of oral tradition to know whether they want to work with me.
To enter oral tradition with you represents a willingness on both our parts to show up—take responsibility for the moment and be present in it. Then unparalleled magic fills us.
I’m not talking about showing up perfectly:
1) My courses help you live fully. If you’re living fully, you might be busy and miss some meetings. The courses are meant to help you live, not be a substitute for life.
2) I don’t expect you to be free of distractions and able to give yourself 100% to every lesson. We are all far from perfect. Teachers who demand perfect students are harshly judgmental.
To show up, all you have to do is try. to take responsibility for the moment. to be present in the moment. When we try these things, we get better at them bit by bit. They have to be learned through practice. And how do you practice? By coming to class. I don’t even expect you to know what taking responsibility for the moment being present in it means. You will learn what they mean through experiential lessons when you come to class.
When you simply try, unparalleled magic fills you and your life.
I’m blessed by students who take responsibility for their lives. Some live in the now so fully that they make a long-term commitment to learning my oral teachings. So moment after moment after moment, we can create mind-boggling changes in our lives.
It’s hard to make that commitment. But even if they have insane schedules, relentless financial pressure, or other enormous, daily demands, they make time. Lo, their schedules become less crazy, the demands get fewer, the pressure relents, and they move into their dream lives. Oral tradition is about living life to the max.
