Ethical Magick, Karma, The Three-fold Law
Posted: Wed Jul 08, 2020 7:33 pm
Conversation from The Occult Server & Library - original question: "Is using a sigil to heighten a pre-existing emotion in someone unethical?" Several people threw out Karma and "the three-fold law" and so... I happened.
Okay. First of all - the "three-fold law" was literally INVENTED, specifically to put the training wheels on wiccans and to make christians feel safe. The idea of the three fold law was that once you were initiated past a certain point, you'd be taught that actually, that's not a thing, and here's how and when to do curses and hexes safely. Needless to say, there are now so many wiccans out there who have NEVER been initiated, and therefore never got to that point.
SECONDLY - Karma as understood in the west is... Wrong. It's just flat out wrong. Karma isn't some giant universal foot waiting to kick you for some mystical judgment of right and wrong, good and evil. Good and evil themselves are subjective judgments - what you think of as bad is not necessarily bad. There's this chinese parable, of the Horse Farmer - he goes out one day and finds a herd of wild horses. He brings them home, and his neighbors say, "That's really good!" And he says, "good, bad, who knows." The next day, his son goes out to break in the horses, falls off one and breaks his leg. "That's bad." "Good, bad, who knows?" The next day, the army comes through and conscripts all the young men in the village... except the farmer's son.
Karma, in the eastern philosophy, is ripples. Picture a very VERY still lake. Now, throw a rock into it and watch the ripples spread. Now, understand that every action done by every person is a rock thrown into that lake. Sometimes, the ripples converge, and make a bigger wave. Sometimes they cancel each other out. Sometimes you can be hit by a wave created by rocks you have no connection to. Sometimes your own rocks can have no effect on you.
Karma is the result of actions - it's NOT a judgment. The idea that what you do will come back on you is preposterous and not supported by realistic observable experiences.
There's this concept in Norse paganism that I'm sure I'm going to explain incorrectly because I'm not a Norse pagan, but it's an image that really stuck to me. It's called Wyrd.
Wyrd is a river, full of reeds and rocks. You are a drop of water on that river. Every other drop behind you are choices made. Some by people you know, some by people you will never see. Some by environments, some by governments, some by religious movements... And all of it, ALL of it, affects you. It guides you, pushes you, steadily forward.
You make the choices you make because of everything that went into making you - the choices people made around you as you grew, the choices made around them, the choices that society has made, the choices that philosophy and religion made, the choices that history made.
This web of decisions impacts what you will choose, and all of it is unseen, and slowly narrows down until the words, "I have no choice, I have to do this," come out of your mouth, and for you, it's absolutely true because you can be no other person, make no other choice, than the one you make when its before you.
The whole idea of karmic blowback is nonsense.
You decide what ethics you want to have. You decide what's good and bad, and you act in a way that agrees with that judgment. You may change your mind at a later date.
Spell work of any kind, if you consider acting against other people, is unethical. You taking control of the world and yourself, and using that control to influence the world to better suit your needs and desires, knowing that doing so will affect other people who are in that world and thus influenced by your magickal actions, is unethical from that perspective.
However, I don't consider it unethical. In Bozbeeb's example, using a sigil to "fan the flames" of someone's emotions... considering there are MANY ways to fan the flames of someone's emotions, and magick is only ONE of those ways... considering that if I know a person and I know exactly what buttons to push to get them to act a certain way WITHOUT magick, is that unethical?
People manipulate each other all the time. How is using magick to do it different? It's like arguing that glamor is unacceptable, while saying that make-up is ok.
These discussions of morals and ethics... there's no point to them. Either you look at your actions and judge them as ethical by your own standards, or you look at those actions and judge them as not ethical. If you insist on having unrealistic perceptions, your ethics will never be met. It's better to understand that magick is just like anything else - another tool for manipulating reality - and people are part of that reality - and either you're ok with that, or you should put your books up, burn your wand, and move on.
~fin
Okay. First of all - the "three-fold law" was literally INVENTED, specifically to put the training wheels on wiccans and to make christians feel safe. The idea of the three fold law was that once you were initiated past a certain point, you'd be taught that actually, that's not a thing, and here's how and when to do curses and hexes safely. Needless to say, there are now so many wiccans out there who have NEVER been initiated, and therefore never got to that point.
SECONDLY - Karma as understood in the west is... Wrong. It's just flat out wrong. Karma isn't some giant universal foot waiting to kick you for some mystical judgment of right and wrong, good and evil. Good and evil themselves are subjective judgments - what you think of as bad is not necessarily bad. There's this chinese parable, of the Horse Farmer - he goes out one day and finds a herd of wild horses. He brings them home, and his neighbors say, "That's really good!" And he says, "good, bad, who knows." The next day, his son goes out to break in the horses, falls off one and breaks his leg. "That's bad." "Good, bad, who knows?" The next day, the army comes through and conscripts all the young men in the village... except the farmer's son.
Karma, in the eastern philosophy, is ripples. Picture a very VERY still lake. Now, throw a rock into it and watch the ripples spread. Now, understand that every action done by every person is a rock thrown into that lake. Sometimes, the ripples converge, and make a bigger wave. Sometimes they cancel each other out. Sometimes you can be hit by a wave created by rocks you have no connection to. Sometimes your own rocks can have no effect on you.
Karma is the result of actions - it's NOT a judgment. The idea that what you do will come back on you is preposterous and not supported by realistic observable experiences.
There's this concept in Norse paganism that I'm sure I'm going to explain incorrectly because I'm not a Norse pagan, but it's an image that really stuck to me. It's called Wyrd.
Wyrd is a river, full of reeds and rocks. You are a drop of water on that river. Every other drop behind you are choices made. Some by people you know, some by people you will never see. Some by environments, some by governments, some by religious movements... And all of it, ALL of it, affects you. It guides you, pushes you, steadily forward.
You make the choices you make because of everything that went into making you - the choices people made around you as you grew, the choices made around them, the choices that society has made, the choices that philosophy and religion made, the choices that history made.
This web of decisions impacts what you will choose, and all of it is unseen, and slowly narrows down until the words, "I have no choice, I have to do this," come out of your mouth, and for you, it's absolutely true because you can be no other person, make no other choice, than the one you make when its before you.
The whole idea of karmic blowback is nonsense.
You decide what ethics you want to have. You decide what's good and bad, and you act in a way that agrees with that judgment. You may change your mind at a later date.
Spell work of any kind, if you consider acting against other people, is unethical. You taking control of the world and yourself, and using that control to influence the world to better suit your needs and desires, knowing that doing so will affect other people who are in that world and thus influenced by your magickal actions, is unethical from that perspective.
However, I don't consider it unethical. In Bozbeeb's example, using a sigil to "fan the flames" of someone's emotions... considering there are MANY ways to fan the flames of someone's emotions, and magick is only ONE of those ways... considering that if I know a person and I know exactly what buttons to push to get them to act a certain way WITHOUT magick, is that unethical?
People manipulate each other all the time. How is using magick to do it different? It's like arguing that glamor is unacceptable, while saying that make-up is ok.
These discussions of morals and ethics... there's no point to them. Either you look at your actions and judge them as ethical by your own standards, or you look at those actions and judge them as not ethical. If you insist on having unrealistic perceptions, your ethics will never be met. It's better to understand that magick is just like anything else - another tool for manipulating reality - and people are part of that reality - and either you're ok with that, or you should put your books up, burn your wand, and move on.
~fin
