There is so much emphasis on our blog about elders and our priests speak of elders so commonly but very rarely is the term actually defined. In this growing environment of the internet and all the resources available to the public at the end of a click, there is still so much confusion as to what exactly an elder is, what their role is, what are the traits of a good elder, and what to do if you find yourself behind a bad elder. This has caused many people to believe they themselves are elders when they are not, or someone they know is an elder when they are not. Even worse, it has caused people who are not acknowledged and known elders to be given platforms to perform as if they were because nobody understands that they are playing the role of elders.

It is important to first define what an “elder” actually is before we get to more information about what an elder does or their traits. Elders are people who have ceremonies and wisdom granting them titles that make them elders because they are wise beyond their physical age, in most cases an elder is another term for an experienced priest. It is important to know this bit of information because in traditional religions your elder can be physically younger than you but when it comes to the traditional religion, they are years ahead of you. In some cases, your elders can also be understood as your family members that are older than you. This is particularly true when your traditional religion is one that is practiced and handed down from one generation to the next. In that case, your elder will be someone literally older than you but it would also be because they are years ahead of you in the traditional religion. It is important to remember that not everybody that is old is your elder and not everybody that is young is your peer. The ideology of elders having a certain physical appearance is also categorically wrong. In one example we can give, picture a child receiving ceremonies at the age of 5 and growing up surrounded by elders and training to be one themselves. By the time this child is 25 they would have 20 years of experience training to be an elder, yet they are only a 25. Meanwhile someone can receive their ceremonies at 40 and train until 50 to be an elder. At 50 this person has the physical appearance of an elder, the grey hairs, the wrinkles on the corners of their eyes, the more dated fashion sense… Yet when the 25 year old stands next to the 50 year old, the 25 year old is the elder of the two elders because they have 20 years experience and the 50 year old only has 10 years of experience.

To be clear, just because someone practices a traditional religion for a long time does not make them an elder in that traditional religion. They need to have the ceremonies that grant the authority of an elder, which in most cases are the ceremonies of priesthood. They also would need to have trained under another elder and have experience being an elder. Usually this is accomplished with the concept of an elder teaching a disciple and then at such a time that they feel this disciple is worthy of being an elder, they acknowledge them as such. One cannot just become an elder overnight, cannot just appoint themselves as an elder randomly, and cannot just say I have been practicing long enough I am an elder now. There are reasons as to why this is the protocol for such a title and it mainly has to do with the role an elder plays in their disciples lives.

Speaking of the role of an elder, what is that role? The role of an elder is to teach, guide, love and protect their disciples with all their might and wisdom. As en elder, accepting a disciple is an immense responsibility. You make yourself responsible for their safety and progress spiritually. This is comparable to the role of a parent, who makes themselves responsible for their safety and progress physically. This is why the terminology of “Godparent and Godchild” are often used to describe this role. There is no method in which you can acquire an elder without their consent. They have to accept you and acknowledge you as a disciple, which in most cases involves some sort of ceremonial rites taking place in which they make oaths to bring you under their protection and guidance and you make oaths to be a good disciple. It is not possible to just casually have a conversation with an elder and that is now your elder. Once an elder takes you to be their disciple, they teach and guide you as best they can. This can range from spiritual subjects to everyday subjects and is supposed to be an ongoing process for the rest of your life or theirs. Another thing elders are supposed to do is love and protect you. Elders should never look upon their disciples with any form of malice, not even the intent of possibly taking advantage of them. Keep in mind that as we mentioned above the relationship between and elder and a disciple is similar to the relationship between a parent and child, in which the power structure can be easily manipulated in favor of the elder to take advantage in many ways of the disciple. This is one of the reasons why nobody is allowed to appoint themselves as an elder because if they were, there would be no accountability. In almost every traditional religion we have seen, any form of romantic relationship between a disciple and an elder is strictly forbidden but this does not go far enough. There are many “elders” taking financial advantage of their disciples and this too is predatory. The ideology of “my protection comes at a cost” is one that shatters this relationship because it abuses the needs of the disciple and coerces them into making certain financial burdens if they want their needs met. In reality, an elder already agreed to protect that disciple as an extension of themselves. That disciple should only be responsible for covering costs they incur and if they want they can also provide assistance to their elder so that their elder is able to continue on their path of leading others. At least that is how we understand this relationship to work in this temple and in some temples, the financial aspect is completely different.

It is the role of elders to teach and guide and the role of disciples to learn and grow. When people who are not elders are the ones teaching, there are many things that can go wrong. To be clear, non-elders should not be teaching about traditional religions at all. In older times, this would be considered an egregious act that could lead to a public denouncing and even punishment of said person that is taking upon themselves the duties of an elder without having been an elder. In more recent times, due to the internet and the vast amount of uninformed people on the internet, this act is celebrated and has become a common occurrence. Guiding people is also something that is especially heinous for a non-elder to do because the consequences for bad guidance can be staggering for the people listening to bad guidance.

When in search for a good elder, one must use their discernment but they need something to discern against. One cannot state “use your discernment” as if it were that simple because it is truly not that simple. Traits of good elders are difficult and very often mixed up because people that are not elders are commenting on what the traits of good elders are. To define these traits one must take the full account of what it takes to be an elder and the role of an elder and then pull from those the traits that would particularly make them well suited for the task. Seeing as how an elder has to have ceremonies and wisdom, the first trait someone would want to see is qualifications. Without qualifications as an elder, nothing else matters. They can display every other trait but this one and they will not be a suitable elder because they cannot teach, guide or protect you in accordance with the traditional religion. In fact, displaying every other trait but this one is a very bad thing because that means that they are purposely misrepresenting themselves to be an elder when they are not and the people following them can suffer great catastrophes due to this. The next trait you will want to see is love. Any amount of titles and wisdom mean nothing if the elder does not truly care about your well-being. In so many cases people believe the best elder to be the one with the most wisdom or the most titles, this is not true. A very knowledgeable elder with no interest in their disciples will not defend those disciples as fiercely as an elder that has less titles and has less wisdom but truly cares about their disciples. Love reigns supreme in this regard and without it, a person can be convinced that their service provider is actually their elder when they are in fact just providing services. Another valuable trait that people tend to be unaware of, lineage. To be an elder means to have been taught by elders, which means to have lineage that they will induct you into. When properly trained and experienced, an elder should be able to describe their lineage of who taught them and granted them ceremonies, without any breaks in the lineage. Sometimes these lineages can be recited further back by really knowledgeable elders. This ensures that not only do they have the qualifications but that your induction or initiations and protections will be observed by an actual lineage of spirits. Integrity is the final piece of the puzzle in terms of traits that good elders should display. If you open yourself up in a vulnerable state, a good elder should never seek to take advantage of this vulnerability. Regardless of how vulnerable you may be, there should never be doubt as to the integrity of your elder. They should be a pillar of integrity that commands trust and respect, not demands it. There is a difference between commanding these things and demanding these things. One happens naturally based on the character of the person and the other happens when the person forcefully wants these things observed. There are many more traits that can be observed and commented on in this regard but these are the basic traits that all good elders must display.

If you have fallen behind a bad elder you should first seek within yourself the reasoning why your discernment has failed you. There may have been things that you believed to be positive that were not. There may have been messages from your spirits telling you to not trust this person that went ignored. While this may seem unnecessary at the time, it is absolutely necessary for the next steps. The next thing you need to do is take a step back and take time to process this loss. You cannot move on to the next step without processing this loss because you will project all of your previous problems into the future people you meet. Once you have processed this loss, however long that takes, you want to start searching for a new elder and use the above article to measure whether this is the elder for you or not. Take your time and observe them to see if they have all the traits mentioned above, there is no need to immediately jump under them the very first second they state their qualifications.

We wish the best of endeavors upon the people of the world, may your elders teach, guide, love and protect you always.