Sometimes a cliche just wears out. It loses meaning or, worse,begins to say
things we never meant. I think it's time to retire the phrase
"black magic."
Saying "black" when we mean "evil" is nasty nonsense.
In the first place, it reinforces the racist stereotypes that corrupt
our society. And that's
not all. Whenever we say "black" instead of
"bad," we repeat again the big lie that darkness is wrong.
It isn't, as people who profess to love Nature should know.
Darkness can mean the inside of the womb, and the seed germinating within the
Earth, and the chaos that gives rise to all truly new beginnings. In
our myths, the one who goes down to the underworld returns with the
treasure. Even death, to the Wiccan understanding, is well-earned
rest and comfort, and a preparation for new birth. Using
"black" to mean "bad" is a blasphemy against the Crone.
But even if we no longer speak of magic as "black" or
"white," we still need to think and speak about the ethics
of magic. Although black is not evil, some actions are evil. It
simply is not true that anything a person is strong enough or skilled
enough to do is OK, nor should doing what we will ever be the whole
of the law for us. We need a clear and specific vocabulary that
enables us to choose wisely what we will do.
We need to replace the word "black," not simply to drop it.
Some Pagans have tried using "negative" as their
substitute, but that turned out to be confusing. For some people,
"negative" means any spell to diminish or banish anything.
Some things - tumors, depression, bigotry - are harmful. There's
nothing wrong with a working to get rid of bad stuff.
"Left-handed" is another common term for wrongful practice,
very traditional, but just as ignorant, superstitious and potentially
harmful as the phrase "black magic" itself. So in Proteus
we tried using the word "unethical." That's a lot better -
free of extraneous and false implications - but still too vague.
Gradually, I began to wonder whether using any one word, "black" or
"unethical" or whatever, might just be too general and too
subjective. Perhaps all I really tell a student that way is "Judy
doesn't like that."
I won't settle for blind obedience. If ethical principles are going to
survive the twin tests of time and temptation, people need to
understand just what to avoid, and why. Even more important, they
need a basis for figuring out what to do instead. Especially when it
comes to projective magic.
Projective magic means active workings,the kind in which we project our will
out into the world to make some kind of change. This is what most
people think of when they use the word magic at all. Quite clearly,
magic that may affect other people is magic that can harm. This is
the basis of the proverb "a Witch who can't hex can't heal."
Either you can raise and direct power, or you can't. Your strength
and skill can be used for blessing or for bane. The choice - and the
karma - are yours.
Just as some people feel that strength and skill are their own
justification, others feel that any projective magic is always wrong
- that it is a distraction from our one true goal of union with the
Divine or a willful avoidance of the judgments of Karma. I think
these attitudes are equally inconsistent with basic Wiccan philosophy.
We are taught that we will find theLady within ourselves or not at all,
that the Mother ofAll has been with us from the beginning. We can't
now establish a union that was always there. All we can do, all we
need to do, is become aware. Knowing what it feels like to heal and
empower, again and again till you can't dismiss it as coincidence, is
one of the most powerful methods for awakening that awareness. It
makes no sense to say that the direct experience and exercise of our
indwelling divinity distracts from the Great Work.
Indeed, it is this intimate connection between our magic and our
self-realization that our ethics protect. Wrongful use of magic will
choke the channel. No short term gain could ever compensate for that.
The karmic argument against practical workings seems to me to arise from
a paranoid and defeatist world view. Even if we assume that the
hardships in this life were put there by the Gods for a reason, how
can we be so sure that the reason was punishment? Perhaps instead of
penance to be endured, our difficulties are challenges to be met.
Coping and dealing with our problems, learning magical and mundane
skills, changing ourselves and our world for the better - in short,
growing up - is that not what the Gods of
joy and freedom want from us?
One of the most radically different things about a polytheistic belief
system is that each one of us has the right, and the need, to choose
which God/desses will be the focus of our worship. We make these
choices knowing that whatever energies we invoke most often in ritual
will shape our own further growth. Spiritual practices are a means of
self-programming. So we are responsible for what we worship in a way
that people who take their One God as a given are not.
Think about this: what kind of Power actively wants us to submit and
suffer, and objects when we develop skills to improve our own lives?
Not a Being I'd want to invite around too often!
So it will not work for us to rule out projective magic completely; nor
should we. Total prohibitions are as thoughtless as total
permissiveness or blind obedience. Ethical and spiritual adults ought
to be able to make distinctions and well-reasoned choices. I offer here a start
toward analyzing what kinds of magic are not ethical for us.
Baneful magicis magic done forthe explicit purpose of causing harm to another
person. Usually the reason for it is revenge, and the rationalization
is justice. People who defend the practice of baneful magic often ask
"but wouldn't you join in cursing another Hitler?"
For adults there is no rule without exceptions. If you think you would never
torture somebody, consider this scenario: in just half an hour the
bomb will go off, killing everybody in the city, and this terrorist
knows where it is hidden....
It's a bad mistake to base your ethics on wildly unlikely cases, since none
of us honestly knows how we would react in that kind of extreme.
Reasonable ethical statements are statements about the behaviors we
expect of ourselves under normally predictable circumstances.
We all get really angry on occasion, and sometimes with good cause.
Then revenge can seem like no more than simple justice. The anger is
a normal, healthy human reaction, and should not be repressed. But
there's no more need to act it out in magic than in physical
violence. Instead of going for revenge - and invoking the karmic
consequences of baneful magic - identify what you really need. For
example, if your anger comes from a feeling that you have been
attacked or violated, what you need is protection and safe space.
Work for the positive goal, it's both more effective and safer.
The consequences of baneful magic are simply the logical, natural and
inevitable psychological effects. Even in that rare and extreme
situation when you may decide you really do have to use magic to give
Hitler a heart attack, it means you are choosing by the same choice
to accept the act's karma. Magical attack hurts the attacker first.
The only way I know how to do magic is by use of my imagination, by
visualizing or otherwise actively imagining the end I want, and then
projecting that goal with the energy of emotional/physiological
arousal. All the techniques I know either help me to imagine more
specifically or to project more strongly. So the only way I can send
out harm is by first experiencing that harm within my own
imagination. Instant and absolute karma - the natural, logical and
inevitable outcomes of our own choices.
I would think, also, that somebody dumb enough to do such workings
often would soon lose the ability to imagine specifically, as their
sensitivity dulled in sheer self-defense. That callusing effect is
the reality behind the pious proverb that says "if you abuse it,
She'll take it away."
But not every other magician is ethical. Psychic attacks do happen.
Should we not defend ourselves? Of course we should. Leaving
ourselves open to psychic attack is no good example of the autonomy
and assertiveness our chosen Gods expect. But first, how can we be
sure what we are experiencing really is psychic attack?
The fantasy of psychic attackis often aconvenient excuse that allows us to avoid
looking at our own shortcomings. When lack of rest or improper
nutrition is the cause of illness, or a project isn't completed on
time because of distraction, it's a real temptation to put the blame
outside ourselves. Doing this too easily betrays our autonomy just as
badly as meek submission to attack does. Then, to compound matters,
projected blame becomes an excuse for unjust revenge -- and that is
baneful magic without excuse.
Once in a rare while, some fool really does try to throw a whammy. It's
hard to predict when you might be targeted. Passive shields are
always a good idea. Like a mirror, these are totally inactive until
somebody sends unwelcome energy. Then a shield will protect you
completely and bounce back whatever is being thrown. You may not even
know consciously when your shield is working, but the result is
perfect justice.
Perfect justice; elegant and efficient. You won't hurt anybody out of
paranoia or by mistake. And perfect protection, even though we do not
have perfect knowledge.
Bindings, according to some, are completely defensive. They do not harm, only
restrain. But imagine yourself being bound - perhaps by someone who
believes themselves justified - and notice the feeling of impotence
and frustration. Binding is bane from the viewpoint of the bound.
Even if restraint were truly not harm, bindings are just plain poor
protection. They target a particular person or group. What if you
suspect the wrong person? Somebody harmless is bound and your actual
attacker is not bound. Shields, which cover you, not your supposed
enemy, will cover you against any enemy, known or unknown.
So, baneful magic, besides being painful in the short run and crippling
in the long run, is never necessary. There are better ways of self
protection, and retribution is the business of the Gods.
Coercive magicis magic that targets another person to make them give us
something we want or need. When most people think of the "Magic
Power of Witchcraft," this is what they have in mind.
The spell to make the teacher give you a good grade, or the supervisor
give you a good evaluation, the spell to make the personnel officer
or renting agent choose you, the spell to attract that cute guy, all
are examples of coercive magic.
So, what's wrong with high grades, a good job, a raise, a nice apartment
and a sexy lover? There's nothing at all wrong with those goals. An
it harm none, do what ye will. As long as nobody is hurt, go for it!
But don't strive toward good ends by coercive means.
Although there is no deliberate intent to do harm or cause pain in coercive
workings, other people are treated as pawns. Their autonomy and their
interests are ignored.
For Pagans, to do this is total hypocrisy. We profess to follow a
religion of immanence, one that places ultimate meaning and value in
this life on this Earth, here and now. We claim to see every living
thing, humans included, as a sacred manifestation. To do honor to
this indwelling divinity, we place great value on our own personal
autonomy. How can we then justify treating other people as objects
for our use?
Nor is it harmless. Forcing the will, controlling the independent
judgement of another human being, is harm. Once again, empathy leads
to understanding. Just imagine you are the person whose will and
judgement is being externally controlled. How does puppethood feel?
From the viewpoint of the target, the harm is palpable.
The Pagan and Wiccan community as a whole is also hurt by coercive
magic. One of the main reasons people fear and hate Witches is our
reputation for controlling others. This is an old, dirty lie, created
by the invading religion in an attempt to discredit the indigenous
competition. Today, that reputation is mostly perpetuated by people
who claim to be "our own," who teach unethical coercive
magic by mail order to strangers whose ethical sensitivity cannot be
evaluated long distance. May the Gods preserve the Craft!
People who are connected to thesituation, but invisible to us,may also be
seriously hurt: the cute guy's fiancee, the other applicant for that
job. What you think of as a working designed only to bring good to
yourself can bring serious harm to innocent third parties, and the
karma of their pain will be on you.
That isn't the only way an incomplete view of the situation can backfire.
There's a traditional saying that goes, "be careful about what
you ask for, because that's exactly what you will get." What if
he is gorgeous, but abusive? What if the apartment house is
structurally unsound? Better to state your legitimate needs (love in
my life, a nice place to live) and let the Gods deal with the details.
Finally,remember this: asking specifically limits us to what we now know or what we
can now imagine. But I remember a time when I could not have imagined
being a priestess. What if the cute guy in the office is perfectly
OK, but your absolutely perfect soul-mate will be in the A+P next
Wednesday? The more specifically targeted your magic is, the more you
limit yourself to a life of tautology and missed chances.
And beyond all the scenario spinning lies the instant karma, the
natural, logical and inevitable consequence of the act. It's more
subtle than in the case of baneful magic, since you are not trying to
imagine and project pain, but the damage is still real.
Every time you treat another human being as a thing to be pushed and
pulled around for your convenience and pleasure, you are reinforcing your own
alienation. The attitude of being removed from and superior to other
people takes you out of community. As the attitude strengthens, so
will the behavior it engenders. The long term result of coercive
magic, as with mundane forms of coercion, is isolation and loneliness.
Are you beginning to think that magic is useless? Did I just rule out
all the good stuff: love charms, job magic, spells for good grades?
Not at all. It is not only ethical but good for you to do lots of
magic to improve your own life. Whenever it works you will get more
than you asked for - because along with whatever you asked for comes
one more experience of your own
effectiveness, your power-from-within.
Work on yourself and your own needs and desires without targeting other
people. Then feel free! Ask for what you want. Visualize it and raise power
for it and act in accordance on the material plane. "I need a
caring and horny lover with a good sense of humor." "I want
an affordable apartment near where my coven meets with a tree outside
my window." "I need to be at my best when I take that exam
next week." Fulfill your dreams, and sometimes let the Gods
surprise you with gifts beyond your dreams.
Manipulative magic is magic that targets another person forwhat we think is
"their own good," without regard for their opinions in the
matter. In the general culture around us, this is normal. As you read
this, you may have some friend or relative praying for you to be
"saved" from your evil Pagan ways and returned to the fold
of their preference. These people mean you
well. By their own lights, they are attempting to heal you. We work
from a very different thealogical base.
As polytheists, we affirm the diversity of the divine andthe divinity
of diversity. If there is no one, true, right and only way in
general, do we dare to assume that there is one obvious right choice
for a person in any given situation? If more than one choice may be
"right," how can one person presume they know what another
person would want without asking them first?
No life situation ever looks the same from outside as it does to the
person who is experiencing it. Are you sure you even have all the
facts? Are you fully aware of all the emotional entanglements
involved? Perhaps that illness is the only way they have of getting
rest or getting attention. Perhaps they stay in that dead end job
because it leaves them more energy to concentrate on their music. How
do you know till you ask?
And,to further complicate the analysis, it's possible that the person you
are trying to help would agree with you about the most desirable
outcome, but fears and hates the very idea of magic. They have as
much of a right to keep magic out of their own life, as you have to
make it part of yours!
Our religion teaches that the sacred lives within each person, that we
can hear the Lady's voice for ourselves if we only learn to
listen." ... If that which you seek, you find not within
yourself, you will never find it without." In behavioral terms,
when you take another person's opinion about their own life
seriously, you are reinforcing them in thinking and choosing for
themselves. The more you do this, the more you encourage them to
listen for the sacred inner voice.
Conversely, whenever you ignore or override a person's feelings about their own
life, you are discounting those feelings and discouraging the kind of
internal attention that can keep the channels to wisdom open.
Although well-intentioned meddling may actually help somebody in the
short run, in the longer run it trains them to dependency and
indecision. Few intentional banes damage as severely. This is
especially true because even the untrained and unaware will
instinctively resist overt ill-will, but in our culture we are
trained to receive "expert" interference with gratitude.
Check by asking yourself, "who's in charge here?" The answer to
that will tell you whether you are basically empowering or
undermining the person
you intend to help.
And, as usual, the effects go both ways. The same uninvited intervention
that fosters passivity in the recipient will foster arrogance in the "rescuer."
It's control and ego-inflation masked as generosity. It's very seductive.
If you make this a habit, you will come to believe that other people
are incompetent and powerless. Then what happens when you need help?
Your contempt will make it impossible for you to see what resources
surround you. Manipulativemagic is ultimately just as alienating as
coercive magic - and it's a much prettier trap!
The way to avoid the trap is to do no working affecting another person
without that person's explicit permission. Proteans are pledged to
this, and I think it's a good idea for anybody.
You don't need to wait passively for the person to ask. It's perfectly
all right to offer, as long as you are willing to sometimes accept
"no" for your answer. For the person who believes s/he is unworthy or who is
simply too shy, offering help is itself a gift. Taking their opinion
seriously is an even greater gift: respect.
The rule is that whenever it is in anyway physically possible to ask,
you must ask. If it's not important enough to pay long distance
charges, it certainly isn't important enough to violate a friend's
autonomy. If asking is literally not possible, then and only then,
here are a few exceptions:
Sometimes an illness or injury happens very suddenly,and the person is
unconscious or in a coma before you could possibly ask them. If you
know that this person is generally comfortable with magic, you may do
workings to keep their basic body systems working and allow the
normal healing process the time it needs. If they are opposed to
magic, for whatever reason, back off!
Traditionally, an unconscious person is understood to be temporarily out of their
body. Maintaining their body in habitable condition is preserving
their option, not choosing for them. Doing maintenance magic requires
a lot of sensitivity. At some point, the time may come when you
should stop and let the person go on. Be sure to use some kind of
divination to help you stay aware.
This is a hard road. It may be your lover, your child, lying there
helpless. Any normal human being would be tempted to drag them back, to force
them to stay regardless of what is truly best for them, regardless
of what they want. Don't repress these feelings, they do no harm,
even though your actions might. It takes great strength and
non-possessive love to recognize that your loved one knows their own
need. You may be calling them back to a crippled body, to a life of
pain. You may be calling them back from the ecstasy of the Goddess.
And this is no more your right than it would be to murder them.
If a person is temporarily not reachable, you may charge up a physical
object, such as an appropriate talisman or some incense. When you
present it to them, give them a full explanation. It is their choice
whether to keep or use your gift. By interposing an object between
the magic and the target in this way, you can work the magic in
Circle, with the coven's power to draw on, and still get the person's
permission before the magic is triggered.
With all these rules about permission, perhaps it would be safer to work
only on ourselves? Safer, yes, but not nearly as good. If you have
permission, you may do any working for another person that you might
do for yourself. Coercive magic is just as unacceptable when somebody
else asks for it, and you may not do manipulative magic on your
friend's mother, even at your friend's request. The permission must
come from the magic's intended target and from nobody else. With
proper permission, working magic for others is good for all concerned.
Every act of magic has two effects. One is the direct effect, the healing
or prosperity working or whatever was intended. The other is a minute
change in the mind and the heart of the person who does the working.
Everything we experience, and especially everything that we do in a
wholehearted and focused way - the only way effective magic can be
done - changes us. Each experience leaves its tiny trace, but the
traces are cumulative. They mold the person we will become. Our karma
is our choice.
Instant karma can also be good karma. Logical, natural and inevitable
outcomes can be desirable. When you send out good, what you send it
with is love. Love is the driving force. When you let love flow
freely, the channel down to love's wellspring stays clear and open.
When you send out good, you direct it along the web of
person-to-person connection, and awareness of that web is reinforced.
The totality of that web is the basis of community.
When you send out good it feels good. In the same way that sending out
bane requires imagining pain, sending out blessing requires imagining
pleasure, strongly and specifically. And, when you send out good,
just the same as when you call it to yourself, you reinforce your
sense of effectiveness in the world. Blessings grow in the fertile
ground of mutuality, to the benefit of all.
A pattern is becoming visible. In baneful magic, the magician intends
to harm the target. In coercive magic, the intent toward the target
is neutral. In manipulative magic, the magician actually means the
target well. But no matter how different the intent may be, in all
three cases magic is done to affect another person without that
person's permission. In all three cases, the target, the practitioner
and ultimately the community are all hurt. And in all three cases,
there are safer and more effective ways to reach the valid goals that
we mean to aim for.
So, perhaps there is a descriptive word that covers all wrongful magical
workings after all. How about "non-consensual" or
"invasive" magic?
There's one thing left to examine: the paradox of making rules to protect
personal autonomy.
If we make some of our choices as a community, by discussing things
together and arriving at a common understanding about what magical
behaviors are acceptable among us, then we choose and shape the kind
of community we become.
Or we could give up our right to choose, because we feel we shouldn't
tell each other what to do. Some people believe that a refusal to set
community standards promotes personal autonomy. It never has before.
Appeals to individual rights can be real seductive. None of us wants Big
Brother looking over our shoulders, telling us what to do "for
our own good." For Witches in particular - members of a religious minority with bad
image problems - this is a very legitimate fear. But make sure when
somebody talks about "rights" without specifying something
like "religious practice
rights" or "the right to consensual sex," that you
find out just what "rights" they mean.
Rhetoric about "rugged individualism" has been used in recent
history to fast-talk us into letting the rich or strong dominate all
our lives. Without anything to stop them, they can destroy the
forestland, or deny jobs or apartments to "cultists."
Personal autonomy for most of us is diminished when we allow that.
Magic can be used for dominance, just the same as muscle or money. There
is no difference, ethically, between the magical and the mundane. We
are not obligated to tolerate power trippers among us. We are not
obligated to run our own community by the slogans and ground rules of
the dominator culture.
Thinking about "rights," or about "laws" for that matter,
in the abstract leads to "all or nothing" thinking -
immature and slogan driven. I don't think we should ever "just
say" anything. We need a deeper and more mature
analysis. We need to ask questions like "right to do what?"
and "law against what?" We need to get away from absolutes
and to look in practical terms at the advantages or disadvantages of
our choices.
Once more,our religion itself shows us the way to steer between the false
choices. "An it harm none, do what you will." What a person
does that affects only herself - magical or mundane - is truly
nobody's business but her own. For example, consensual sexual
behavior affects only the participants. But toxic waste dumping
affects everybody in the watershed.
As long as we look at behavior in terms of private choices or
individual will, we obscure the distinction that really makes a
difference. If we're serious about wanting to give each of us the
most possible control over our own lives, then decisions should be
made by all the people affected by the behavior - not just by the
people acting.
As soon as another person is magically targeted, that other person is
affected. If we allow such targeting without consent, we are not
supporting personal autonomy, we are subverting it!
When the behavior begins to affect us all - for example when real estate
development threatens the salt marshes, and ultimately the air supply
- or, very specifically, when invasive magic erodes the trust we need
to work together - then we have a right to protect ourselves as a
community. No ideology should turn us into passive victims when
something we hold precious stands to be destroyed.
Invasive magic hurts the target first, and soon the actor, but in the long
run it hurts all of us. It's been so long since we've been able to
meet together, share our knowledge, help one another in need. Pagan
community is very new, and still very fragile. It can only grow in
safe space.
The People of this Land forbade skirmishes around the pipestone
quarries, keeping that sacred source open to all. Otherwise, no sane
person would go there, and the Old Ways would wither. For much the
same reason, we cannot tolerate poppets in our council meetings.
An atmosphere of coercion and manipulation and magical duels does not
nurture community. Eventually, for self protection, the gentle will
either change or go away. We could lose what we have misguidedly
refused to protect.
As within, so without: our karma is our choice.
Judy Harrow