How to Become a Witch, Amber K. [new books to read .txt] 📗

Needless to say, this means magick for healing, protection, wisdom, and other positive aims.

Magick for self-defense ordinarily doesn’t require that you act against another person; shielding yourself and your loved ones is normally enough. But in emergency situations, you may have no choice but to bind an attacker or disable them using magick. This should never be done for trivial reasons, such as because you are miffed or embarrassed; but to protect your life or the lives of your loved ones, do what you must.

An older version of the eight-line Wiccan Rede makes this clear:

Bide the Wiccan Law ye must,

In perfect love, in perfect trust.

Eight words the Wiccan Rede fulfill:

An ye harm none, do what ye will.

Lest in thy self-defense it be,

Ever mind the Rule of Three.

Follow this with mind and heart,

And merry ye meet, and merry ye part!

Law Of Return/Rule Of Three/Threefold Law

There is a law that is called the Law of Return. It is a natural law, not an arbitrary rule invented by humans, and it has a great bearing on human ethics. Sometimes it is stated this way: “Whatever you send out will return to you.” But other people explain the same concept in different ways:

“What goes around, comes around” (Folk wisdom)

“A liberal man will be enriched, and one who waters will himself be watered” (Judaism)

“What proceeds from you will return to you” (Confucianism)

“Whatever a man sows, that he will also reap” (Christianity)

“If a man sow poison, he cannot expect ambrosia” (Sikhism)

“You cannot gather what you do not sow; as you plant the tree, so it will grow” (Hinduism)

If you act with honor and kindness, this is what you will receive from the universe. That’s simple enough. But Witches understand this somewhat differently from other traditions: we believe that what you send out returns magnified as much as three times. There is some universal force or structure that multiplies the energy you get back called the Law of Return, the Rule of Three, or the Threefold Law.

In northern New Mexico, there is a place called Echo Amphitheater, a great stone cliff with a giant semicircular scoop out of the side, created by wind and water. If you stand in front of it and call out, your voice echoes back to you again…and again…and again. It’s very much like the Threefold Law. The only difference is, at the amphitheater you get the results immediately and in the same medium you sent them (sound), whereas your karmic actions in life might return to you later on or in a different form.

So don’t expect to hand ten dollars to a homeless person and have an angel appear a moment later to give you thirty dollars. The return usually doesn’t happen that quickly and may not be in the same coin.

Although sometimes it works very fast and clearly. A covenmate of ours once was stuck in traffic and wanted to turn left but realized too late that the street was barricaded in that direction, so she turned on her right-turn signal and waited for a break in traffic. The driver behind her, who couldn’t see the barricade, honked furiously. Finally, our friend managed to slide into the right-hand lane and get clear. Through her rear-view mirror, she saw the angry honker make a whipping left turn—and squeal to a halt in front of the barricade, blocking three lanes of oncoming traffic…who all started honking at him.

Because your actions are magnified, you have the power to affect the world more than you know. A single act of kindness can spread and grow until many lives are changed—but an act of cruelty is also multiplied.

The wages of evil

Modern Witches get tired of seeing nasty, green-skinned, warty-nosed “witches” in fantasy movies. But the movie writers get one thing correct: the Law of Return. Invariably, the witch-villains experience that karmic backlash within ninety minutes of performing their evil deeds. In Oz, the Wicked Witch of the West gets melted by a bucket of water; Snow White’s queen/witch was made to dance in red-hot iron shoes (in the original fairy tale, not the Disney version); and Hansel and Gretel’s witch was shoved into the oven. Yep, the Law of Return works.

So why would any intelligent Witch do evil to others?

A Safety Valve for Magick

Sometimes you may work magick with all kinds of good intentions but wind up making a situation worse. This isn’t surprising; we are not omniscient and cannot see every outcome of our acts. Half the comedies (and many tragedies) in books and movies are based on this premise:

Good-hearted people face a problem.

People think of a scheme to fix everything.

Unforeseen results make it worse.

Good-hearted people scramble to repair the bigger problem, and so on.

Witches have a kind of safety valve that we attach to most magickal workings, just in case. After the intention has been stated, we add the phrase “With harm toward none and for the greatest good of all.” This essentially gives the gods (and our deep minds) permission to deactivate the spell if it would cause harm.

A Note About Love Spells Particularly

One question we are asked by new Witches is this: “So, how do I do a love spell and still be ethical?” This, at least, recognizes that there is an ethical question here: “How can I do a love spell without interfering with the other person’s true will, which would violate the Rede?” Indeed, a typical love spell (pink candles, rose essential oil, and a couplet that includes “and bring Johnny to me”) would violate the Rede, since you are asking the gods to override Johnny’s true will. Instead, hard as it may be, change the rhyme to say, “bring my true love to me.” This changes the spell to an ethical working, and you may discover that Christopher (or Marilyn) is truly your love.

The Golden Rule

We’ve all heard of the Golden Rule, which almost seems like the ultimate moral and ethical standard. Many faiths