| Wiccan Ethics |
| In Wicca, we do have a few simple rules and guidelines for the best way possible to live out our lives. Every religion has ethics and a spiritual set of morals they follow. Christians for example, follow the 10 Commandment. “Thou shalt not steal, Thou Shalt not kill” etc. They also have the Bible, a book that they can look at and base their lives on. Wicca has no “bible’ or holy book, but we still have rules and morals! Wicca has greatly changed in the past 50 years, but there are still a few things that all Wiccans believe. Most Wiccans believe in these three things, Karma, Reincarnation and the Three-Fold Law. We also follow the Wiccan Rede, our one written out law which states “An it harm none, do what you will” meaning you can do what you like in life as long as it hurts no one. That means that you wouldn’t be mean to people or hurt them both physically or magically. Its applied to the magical side of our lives and the mundane. We know that our actions have a direct affect on the universe and the people living in it, therefore we do not want to hurt anyone. If someone comes up to you and says their Wiccan, but does not follow the Wiccan rede, then they are not Wiccan. If someone does negative magic and doesn’t care if another person gets hurt they are not Wiccan. They can call themselves a witch, but not a Wiccan. But that doesn’t mean we cant defend ourselves. If someone, for example, is stalking you, you have the right to go to the police and see to it that something is done. You could also work magic to get the person caught, but not to have them run over by a car or anything! Besides, if the person is doing something bad anyway, most Wiccans believe karma will catch up to them sometime or another. Its not our responsibility to hand out punishments. I personally do not believe in Karma or any spiritual punishment system. I do good things because I am a good person. I dont want to hurt people because I know its wrong. I think the Three-fold rule (stated below) and karma are just a system to keep people from doing bad things. However, most Wiccans would disagree with me. I believe this is one area where there should be some personal descrepencies in Wicca. As long as we are good people doing good things, thats all that matters. Wiccans take full responsibility for their actions. We have no “devil’ to blame our problems on. We create our problems and only we can fix them. Simply, karma means that what you do will catch up with you sometime either in this life or the next. Most Wiccans try to live their lives in a good way where we hurt nobody so that they have good karma. This goes along with the three-fold law. In the Wiccan rede, a phrase reads, “what ye send out comes back to thee.” In Wicca we have a general rule that what we do will come back to us. Some believe it will come back to us in this life and some believe it could come back to us in the next. Its all about personal choice and experience. If you do something good, like donate money to an organization or charity who needs it, then that good positive energy will come back to you. But if you curse someone, then that bad energy will also come back to you. Some say (like myself)that this rule is just an excuse for Wiccans to not do any negative magic or do anything bad to anyone, and yes that’s true. This rule is a way to keep us morally on track. As for reincarnation...most Wiccans believe in it. We believe that when we die, we are reborn into this world until we learn valuable lessons that have been set up for us to learn. If you don’t learn it in this life, maybe you will in the next. This idea is closely tied with Buddhism and their belief in reincarnation and enlightenment. Some believe that in between incarnations we stay in a place called “Summer Land”, or the Isle of Apples...Avalon. There we can rest until our next life. When we finally learn our lessons, its not quite known what happens. Some believe we become one with the God and Goddess, some believe that we reach a heaven-like place, and some don’t believe in reincarnation at all. I myself struggled with that belief. I still do. It doesn’t seem possible, yet it’s the best answer out there. But then I think of the life of a tree. From a seed, a tiny tree is born. It lives, grows, blooms and flourishes. Then when the fall comes, it starts to wither, grow weak and eventually dies. But does it really die? No. It just recedes into the ground to rest for the next year, then in the spring its reborn again. Thats kinda like our life. We are born from a seed, we live and grow, then eventually grow weak and die. But maybe, like the tree, we come back. We go to Summerland, rest and come back ready to live, grow and flourish again. I’m not sure, but since I look to nature to answer a lot of my questions, this seems like a plausible idea. To find these answers yourself, you should meditate. Read up on reincarnation and death and see what you come up with. Do you believe in karma? Or do you think its just an excuse for Wiccans to do good? Its all up to personal choice and beliefs. For more information, see my essay on Morals and Ethics Re-defined. |
 |