Wicca & Magick:
A Short Course on Ethics

One of the best and more fun things to do in Wicca is to discover by yourself the rituals and practices that are better for you. I won't give a version of my Book of Shadows here, because I think it's something way too personal. But I intend on giving a guide to design rituals sometime in the future. There are few things that can compare to the satisfaction a well done ritual gives, where you could achived a good conection with the Divine.

What I intend on touching here is, if not fun, at least equally important. And deals with the ethics we have to follow if we want to perform magick rituals.

For anthropologists, magick is the beliefs system that mantains the possibility of having an influence in ordinary facts, using extraordinary acts. For wiccan, magick is a reality that surrounds us every day. Now, a very important part of it is knowing your influence on reality is not just magickal, but ought to be practical too. An example: if I want to weave a spell to find myself a job, I can. But it won't be usefull if I sit at home waiting for the job to land on me miraculously. A spell is nothing other than an aid for our unconscious mind to focus itself.

This is a very hard to learn lesson for those newly initiated, willing to excercise their new-found magickal arts at any chance. As a norm, before jumping enthusiastically into casting circles and weaving spells, we should carefully consider what we're about to do. As a golden rule, we should always consider if the magick intervention is justified; that is, if it's really needed. We can't go around wasting our energy without concert. And as an adjunt rule, we should try to contemplate the situation we're trying to influence upon from every possible angle. Is there anyone who could be harmed by our actions? Are we trying to influence on others without their permission? Are we violating any of the basics of Wicca?

A careful reading of these points should give us the answer to the most common doubts. So far, we can evidently discard any thoughts on human or animal sacrifices, since it is against the Rede. But we should also keep in mind other situations, that even though at first glance might appear evident, if we read between the lines we'll find they're not so.

A tipical situation is the ever-present question about love spells. The answer is that no matter how good the union of two people may seem to us, we're acting upon the free will of at least one of them, which violates the ethic of self-responsibility. And the long-term consequences of our deeds can't be measured. So NO, we shouldn't cast love spells at all, unless we're using a general spell to atract love into our lives, not a particular person.

Next FAQ is what happens if we want to help a friend that is going through tough times. The answer is the same as in the previous case: we can't magickally influence on other's decisions without their permision. If we're dealing with illnesses this is even more complicated. We don't know if by acting we're reverting some karmic situation, so we cannot for instance try to cure a cancerous person without them asking us no matter how altruist and "good" this may seem

Another doubt-generating situation are counterspells. Us following certain ethics doesn't guarantee everybody else is following the same rules. What should we do in case of a magickal attack? First, we should keep in mind such attacks are not as common as many would like to believe. The reason I'm saying this is because many who call themselves magicians and live out of their "profession" use psychic attacks to cheat innocent people and make their profits. Even then, if such an attack exists upon ourselves, we could understand we're on our rights to counter-spell with equal force, if not increased. But no. The right thing to do in this case would be to simply cast a defensive ritual, and let karma give the other it's due.

As we can see, magick is nothing as easy as grabbing a pointed hat and guiding a broom to do our chores for us. And this image so familiar can also be a warning to help us learn the consequences of our actions before acting.

Many wiccan say they really don't do any other magickal thing apart from casting the circle at each ritual. And this is because they've learnt to see magick in everything that surrounds us, being it the cicle of life happening around us or the wonders of nature's laws. This few are the ones who have finally learnt that the best way to influence reality is daily action.

Index