Good Advice or Static Law?: When Magical Knowledge Is Passed Down
by Michael Furie
Since magic and Witchcraft were secret (and illegal) practices for so many centuries, information was passed down from person to person; it’s not as though guidebooks on Witchcraft could be openly published during the burning times. Most magical lore was shared orally, which had the advantage of being safer but had the drawback of occasionally being incomplete. Anyone who has played the telephone game—wherein a group of people sit together whispering a message from person to person until the last one announces what the message is to the group—can attest that messages can be misheard or remembered incorrectly. When miscommunication or an incomplete message is repeated, this confusion is reinforced; if continued long enough, the original statement, message, or teaching can become completely distorted or entirely lost. In the case of magical teachings, a great deal of wisdom has been compacted down into various adages and “laws” as an unfortunate result of orally passing down knowledge. Many of these laws are presented without their proper context, resulting in fragmented knowledge.
On the positive side, this lack of context isn’t necessarily harmful because these rules are designed to prevent or avoid magical mishaps. The only negatives are that when rules are presented as absolutes, they can curtail free expression and experimentation in those who choose to follow them, or paradoxically, they can engender disbelief in those who realize absolutes cannot be effectively applied to every situation. A critical mass of people losing faith in the “laws” could lead to a total rejection of rules and structure, which could be potentially dangerous. That is why I feel so strongly about the importance of thorough training. Magical adages and laws are fantastic to learn, study, and meditate upon in order to gain greater insight into the workings of spiritual forces, but they shouldn’t really be taken as unwavering universal laws. Most practitioners have heard all of these at least once, but so few of us have heard their origins or their full meanings.
Threefold Law
Of all the magical advice we’re given, one of the most often stated is known as the threefold law. As it is usually given, the threefold law says that whatever you send out returns to you with three times greater force—in other words, if you do positive actions and magic, then what returns to you will be positive. Conversely, if you do negative things, negative things will return. This is a nice guideline for the working of positive magic, but it doesn’t really explain how this law works or why things would return “times three.” In the The Kybalion: Hermetic Philosophy, the book detailing Hermetic philosophy, there are listed seven “universal” principles, one of which is the principle of cause and effect. It states in part that “every cause has its effect; every effect has its cause; everything happens according to law; there are many planes of causation but nothing escapes the law.” This principle is similar to Newton’s third law of motion: for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Neither example gives a threefold value to the forces of action and reaction, though Newton spoke of equal force and The Kybalion hints at multitiered causation.
In some older traditions of Witchcraft, the threefold idea and the notion of energy return are two separate concepts. The law of return seems to agree more with the Newtonian law in the belief that what goes around comes back around, generally in equal measure. The old notion of threefold appears to have been that when an act is committed, it reaches through at least three levels (physical, mental, and spiritual). If the act is harmful, in order to rebalance the energy three positive acts must be performed to make things right: one to stop the harm, one to fix the damage, and one to tip the scales back to good. This concept seems to be more in line with the Hermetic cause and effect. At some point, these two ideas were conflated into one overriding principle, which is the law of threefold return.
Some philosophies other than Witchcraft believe that consequences return sevenfold, tenfold, or even one hundredfold, but a basic notion to keep in mind is that what you send out (magically and also through mundane actions) returns to you. The nature or volume of this return is really a secondary concern to the fact that it does indeed come back to its point of origin. Armed with this knowledge, all magical practitioners must carefully consider their actions and the type of spells they wish to cast, since they become responsible not only for what they release into the world but also what they receive as a consequence.
Harm None
It is, however, not a wise idea to become overly obsessed with trying to avoid anything that could be classified as harmful or negative. Another apparent magical law that has come to be known as “the Wiccan Rede” would, on the surface, appear to disagree with me on this point.
Anyone who has studied or practiced magic for even a short time has heard the statement, “An it harm none, do as you will”—but is that even possible? Judging by what I have seen and read, most of us try to live by this guideline as best we can, seeking to avoid perpetuating harm while at the same time not being afraid to take action as needed. Some magically minded folk see the harm none concept as either an immutable law restricting even the most basic of magical efforts, or, since it is essentially impossible to live a life free from causing some form of harm (stepping on grass, swatting a mosquito, etc.), they believe that the concept itself must be faulty and should therefore be discarded. Whether the law is accepted or rejected seems to be based on whatever perception the practitioner carries regarding the law rather than the original nature of the concept itself.
Though the origins of the law are somewhat uncertain, it is believed to be an alternative version of a teaching given by occultist Aleister Crowley, found in his Book of the Law: “Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law; love is the law, love under will.” If this is to be accepted as the inspiration for the Wiccan Rede, it modifies the meaning of the rede to one being specifically guided by the intent of love regulated by a disciplined willpower. Basically, though it may indeed be impossible to live freely without occasionally causing harm (depending on how strict you believe the definition of harm to be), the rede guides us to “do as we will” as long as our actions are done consciously and with loving intent. Reckless actions without regard to potential consequences are the type to be avoided. If a spell is cast with the intent that it be “for the highest good,” “with harm to none,” and/or “for the good of all,” then we can safely use virtually any type of magic while still adhering to the rede. The idea of harm none was never meant to curtail magical or personal freedom but rather to advise us to work with disciplined awareness and always from a place of love.
Only Move Sunwise in the Circle
Another teaching that has received a great deal of attention is the notion of directional movements while inside a magic circle. The belief is that any movement in the circle should be done “sunwise,” as in the direction the Sun appears to travel in the sky (circling clockwise in the Northern Hemisphere and counterclockwise in the Southern Hemisphere) for positive magical purposes or “moonwise” (the reversed directions) for negative magical purposes. Though this is a sound metaphysical teaching, a lack of proper context for what constitutes “positive” and “negative” magical purposes can leave some practitioners fearful of making a harmful mistake.
The idea of positive and negative should really be taken with a grain of salt. Though harmful magic does frequently utilize moonwise movement as part of the spell, that doesn’t mean the direction itself is inherently evil. Rather than “positive and negative,” clearer descriptive terms would be “winding and unwinding,” “building and dissolving,” or “forming and releasing” for the effects generated by sunwise and moonwise motions respectively. Some sabbat rituals call for dancing in one direction and then reversing to the opposite direction at some point in order to emulate the energy shifts taking place at that time. Also, some coven dances have two circles of dancers, one going clockwise and the other moving counterclockwise, and this is in no way harmful. Some unhexing or releasing magic utilizes moonwise motion to break down the troublesome energy and cast it away. Much like the concept of yin and yang, positive and negative are inextricably linked and not intrinsically good or evil; those are intentions held by the individual.
I hope that examining these guidelines and their meanings shows that our predecessors did indeed pass down powerful knowledge of magical forces. There is flexibility contained within these teachings, as opposed to them being “commandments” or proclamations to which we must adhere under threat of some unnamed danger. That would be forfeit of personal strength. Keeping an open but questioning mind is the key to continued progression and spiritual growth; blind acceptance is not advised. It is far more empowering to work with these concepts if they are viewed as helpful advice and important facets of our shared magical heritage.