Spiritual Mentoring: A Pagan Guide (Paperback)

by Judy Harrow (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Review
"This book is both an important resource and a delight to read." -- PanGaia

Product Description
The path towards enlightenment is best traveled with a guide. Spiritual mentoring is the process of assisting others in their quests to deepen and sustain contact with the holy, a complex practice in any religion. This guide focuses on spiritual teaching issues within the Pagan community and addresses topics such as good seeker-to-mentor matching, clear communication, religious maturity, and the role of community. Exercises for clarifying and enriching spiritual relationships are described and are accompanied by open-ended questions intended to help readers find their own spiritual answers.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 265 pages
• Publisher: Ecw Press (October 1, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1550225197
• ISBN-13: 978-1550225198
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.5 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #337,220 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Insightful book for pagan mentors, November 18, 2003

By	WitchGrrl (Boston, MA) - See all my reviews

This book is amazing.
In my opinion, one of the best traits in a pagan author is willingness to draw from many sources, since the pagan community is so diverse. In this work Harrow draws on her own experiences, comments from other pagan teachers, and both secular and religious counseling models. The result is a pagan book unlike any that I've ever read. The non-pagan source material outweighs the pagan source material, but it is all put into a pagan framework, and you find yourself saying, "Yes, that makes sense, yes, that's exactly right!"
Harrow gives no space to lesson plans, assigning students to levels, or how to convince pupils that your way is The Right Way. Instead, she focuses on qualities that mentors need to develop in order to teach, and gives suggestions about skillsets and understandings that students might need to learn to become functioning members of pagan community. Other jewels of the book include its chapter-specific bibliographies and excercises. Best of all, Harrow reminds the reader over and over again that the most important thing for any teacher or student is to listen to the Entheoi, the still small voice within us that is our link to the Gods. Highly recommended for teachers and students in the pagan tradition.

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Serious and Insightful Guide for Pagan Clergy, October 22, 2002

By A Customer

If you are a newcomer to Wicca, this may not be the best book to begin with, however, for covenleaders, Priest/esses, any student who is interested in someday teaching the Craft, and even religious scholars or seminarians--this book is an invaluable and much-needed tool! Without ever losing her Pagan perspective, Judy Harrow examines the skills and qualities required to be a good teacher, mentor and spiritual leader--skills which are *essential* for any clergy member and which are generally overlooked in most how-to Pagan books and traditional priest/ess training. Delving into psychology, developmental theories and mentoring skills (with exercises, even), this is a well-written work with meticulous references (many of them from sources outside the typical Wiccan library). Kudos to Ms. Harrow for adding to the small (but growing!) number of books that elevate Wiccan literature into the realm of serious religious discourse!

13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Very little pedagogy, but good defining of "mentor", July 12, 2004

By	Lili P. (AL United States) - See all my reviews

This is a pretty good book if you want to learn about mentoring in general without much actual how-to. There are a few helpful how-tos in there, but Harrow mostly talks about the concept of mentoring, why it's a good thing, and how mentoring is different than certain other helping roles like coaching or counseling.

On the one hand, she acknowledges that some people reading the book might not be Wiccan (which is good considering that the title uses the word "Pagan" and not "Wiccan"), but then she goes on to make comments that annoyingly assume everyone follows the Rede or otherwise assume that the reader is Wiccan. This might not bother Wiccans, but it can get very old to non-Wiccans.

Harrow says in the last chapter of the book that "Nobody teaches Wiccan teachers how to teach! (p. 241)" and then goes on to advertise for the next book she plans to write called _Pedagogy for Pagans_. As far as I'm concerned, that's what there should have been much more of in THIS book and less of the space fillers like telling us about tarot card meanings and various other things that aren't mentor-specific, can be found in many other books, and are not relevant to a lot of pagan paths.

If you're looking for a book about techniques to be a good mentor, this book will be rather unsatisfying. If you're wanting a book that makes a convincing argument that it's a good thing to have mentoring and defines mentoring, this book will be right up your alley.