Wicca for Beginners (4 page)

Magic, like psychic ability, depends on knowledge of the patterns of the cosmos. But where using psychic ability means attuning to and understanding those patterns, magic means bending or working with them to bring about desired change. The philosophy of magic goes back again to the idea that everything is infused with the divine. If all things contain some divine energy, we can tap into that energy to affect things that seem—to the regular five senses, anyway—to have no connection to us. This idea is summed up neatly in the introduction to
Magick in Theory and Practice
, which opens with the following quote from
The Goetia of the Lemegeton of King Solomon
, a magical grimoire, or spellbook:

Magic is the highest, most absolute, and most divine knowledge of natural philosophy, advanced in its works and wonderful operations by a right understanding of the inward and occult virtue of things, so that true agents being applied to proper patients, strange and admirable effects will thereby be produced. Whence magicians are profound and diligent searchers into nature; they, because of their skill, know how to anticipate an effect, which to the vulgar shall seem to be a miracle.
[5]

As with psychic ability, one of the ways in which Wicca helps people develop magical abilities is simply by allowing them to believe that magic is possible. Another way is by teaching us that each of us must find our own path and moral compass—our magical will. Magic is a tool for empowerment and personal growth. True, Wiccans use magic all the time for mundane things, like healing. But its ultimate purpose transcends the mundane.

Wiccan Principle 6: Reincarnation

Although most Wiccans will tell you that they believe in reincarnation—the soul returning to the earth again in a new body or form after death—their views vary widely on what that means. Some simply believe that our souls are reborn into new bodies, and others think that our essence “recycles” after our bodies die and becomes cosmic energy. Some even believe that we all share one soul, and that this soul experiences the many possibilities of life by inhabiting all of our bodies at the same time.

Gerald Gardner, the “grandfather” of Wicca whom I mentioned in chapter 1, believed strongly in reincarnation. Part of the reason he was accused of being a publicity hound in his day was that he was trying to drum up interest in Wicca so the Craft wouldn’t die out and he’d have a Wiccan family to be reborn into. This focus on reincarnation stems in part from what I called Wiccan Principle 3; that the earth is divine. As we’ve already seen, Wiccan practice is earth-focused; here-and-now-focused. It’s natural, then, that Wiccans would believe that death is not the end of their existence, and that they’re going to be back again in some form, some day.

Wiccan Principle 7:
Sex Is Sacred

In Wicca, sex, the physical joining of two people, is a sacred act, one that brings joy and wonder, not shame and guilt. Sex is treasured and revered. Sexuality is considered a gift from the gods, a pleasure and responsibility that comes with a physical body, and a manifestation of the polarity of the God and Goddess and the fertility of the earth.

There is a lot of sexual symbolism in Wicca. The sabbats—the Wiccan holidays—include stories of the union of the God and Goddess. The chalice and athame (ritual knife) on the Wiccan altar represent female and male reproductive organs, among other things. And the focus in Wicca on the cycles of nature emphasizes fertility of both the earth and its people.

Does the prevalence of God-and-Goddess and fertility symbolism mean that gay sex is taboo in Wicca, since gay sex doesn’t involve both a female and a male? Absolutely not! Polarity is expressed whenever two consenting adults come together to make love, and gay sex is as much about enjoying our earthy humanity as heterosexual sex is.

Does holding sex sacred mean that Wiccans have ceremonial orgies? That’s not the point of sacred sex in Wicca. Understanding the spiritual side of sex frees some people from society’s tight constraints about sex, so they may be more likely to experiment with multiple partners (which is hardly an orgy). But the idea that sex is sacred also means that it should be treated with reverence, which gives Wiccans a reason to approach sexual relationships with greater care and respect than they might if they viewed sex as simply mundane. An eighty-something-year-old medicine woman from central Mexico that I know puts it this way: “You are sacred. Your body is sacred. Your vagina is sacred. Your penis is sacred. You don’t put anything that isn’t sacred in your sacred body. And you don’t put your sacred body into anything that isn’t sacred.” I can’t think of a better way to say it than that.

If you are uncomfortable with the idea of sex as sacred or of sexual symbolism, Wicca probably is not the path for you. That may sound harsh, especially in the United States, where we’re taught that we can be anything that we want to be. But the truth is that Wicca challenges us. It is not meant to be comfortable or static. We do not change when we’re not challenged to do so, and a great deal of Wicca is about change and the personal power that comes from embracing it. The idea that sex is sacred is only one of the many ways that Wicca might challenge some commonly accepted social norms.

Ethics and Empowerment

As you may have gathered, Wiccans are pretty independent folk. It should not surprise you, then, that there is no centralized authority that determines Wiccan ethics. Ethics are essentially principles of good conduct; rules about proper behavior. The ethics or morals of most religions stem from the culture in which the religion developed, the religious institutions (if any) that evolved within the religion, and the religion’s sacred books and teachings. Christianity, for example, has its Ten Commandments, which the Bible tells us came to humanity from God by way of Moses.

In Wicca, however, there are no “thou shalt’s.” There is no book, religious figure, or burning bush to tell Wiccans what is ethical and what is not and what will happen to them if they screw up. One of the empowering—but terrifying—things about Wicca is that a Wiccan has to determine what ethics to follow for him- or herself.

Does this mean that Wicca is a free-for-all, where people do whatever they want, whenever they want, to whomever they want with no consequences or restrictions? Does it mean that there are no Wiccan guidelines for ethical behavior at all? No, and the following section tells you all about this.

The Wiccan Rede

Although there is nobody to tell them that they have to, many Wiccans follow a principle of ethics called the Wiccan Rede, which states: “An it harm none, do as you will.” It’s a bit like a Wiccan “Golden Rule.”

At first glance, the Rede seems to be saying, “Do whatever you want, but don’t harm anybody or anything.” This is great, in principle; think before you act, don’t hex that annoying telemarketer, and try to walk through this world doing as little damage as possible. But many people who interpret the Rede that way get hung up on the word “harm.” Visit the archives of any Wiccan email list and you’re bound to find a discussion of the Rede where the participants pick the word to death, trying to define exactly just what constitutes harm. This conversation can, and almost always does, go to ridiculous places: “Did I harm someone when I got my new job because it meant that he or she didn’t get it?” “Did I harm my friend when I didn’t tell her about the half-off sale at Victoria’s Secret?” “Did I cause harm when I squashed that big spider in my bathtub?”

Although this can be an interesting philosophical exercise, it misses the point. After all, if you want to go this far, everything, by its mere existence, hurts something else. Trying not to harm anything to the point of asceticism—self-denial as a measure of one’s spirituality—defeats the point of Wicca, which celebrates life instead of trying to control it. In fact, “harm none” also means that you should not harm yourself either, and imposing this rigid morality muzzle on your life is hardly a healthy thing to do. If you’re not harming anyone else, but you’re not living your life either, you’re still not living the Rede. The good news is that the important part of the Rede—the true power—is not the word “harm.” It is the word “will.”

The “Want” and the “Will”

Your “want” is, well, what you want. You want a new car or a date with Cameron Diaz or a pint of Ben and Jerry’s. Want is about earthly things, both trivial and important. Your will, however, is the force that drives you to your ultimate spiritual goal. It transcends want. It’s the thing that Joseph Campbell is referring to when he says, “Follow your bliss.” Campbell’s “bliss” is the inner knowing that puts you on the life path that will lead you to your highest mundane and spiritual purpose. In the print version of
The Power of Myth
, he states:

If you do follow your bliss, you put yourself on a kind of track that has been there all the while, waiting for you, and the life that you ought to be living is the one you are living. When you can see that, you begin to meet people who are in the field of your bliss, and they open the doors to you. I say, follow your bliss and don’t be afraid, and doors will open where you didn’t know they were going to be.
[6]

The same could be said for following, or doing, your will. As you can see, this is a much bigger deal than “do what you want.”

The Rede, with its emphasis on will, is challenging you to act according to your highest purpose; to infuse your spirituality, whatever it is, throughout your entire life. It’s telling you to act out of that spiritual place when you make decisions. When you act in accordance with your true will, you are in harmony with deity. The focus of the Rede is really on you, your life, and your choices; not on someone you may or may not harm by your actions. It’s all about personal responsibility and self-knowledge, which is both scary and freeing because you are accountable for yourself. The Rede is about both ethics and empowerment.

The Threefold Law

Since there are no morality police in Wicca, there is nobody to determine if Wiccans have done something right or wrong other than they themselves, and there is no cosmic time-out place they will be sent to if they have been misbehaving. This doesn’t mean they’re off the hook, though.

Many Wiccans believe in the “Threefold Law.” The Threefold Law essentially says that whatever you put out into the world will come back to you three times. As with the word harm in the Rede, you can get hung up on “threefold” and argue about whether your deeds come back three separate times or one time, three times as strong, but that isn’t the point. The point is simply “like attracts like.” If you put positive energy out into the universe, living by your own set of ethics, trying to do “good” for yourself and others, you’re likely to receive that kind of energy in return. If you put negative energy out, you’ll get that back too. The difference is that when the good stuff comes back, it makes things in your life flow smoothly, and when the negative stuff comes back, it tends to sneak up on you and whack you on the head.

This is not to say that there is a cosmic energy bank somewhere in which you deposit good or bad deeds and someone monitors your account to make sure that your withdrawals reflect what you put in. The universe just doesn’t work that way. It doesn’t keep scorecards, so don’t take the Law literally and expect an immediate reward or head-whacking for whatever you do. You also have no control of
how
it comes back to you. Letting someone merge in front of you on a crowded highway doesn’t mean that someone will do the same for you later.

The Rede and the Threefold Law Together

When you put the Law and the Rede together, you see that if you are working your true will, if you are in sync with the universe and the divine, the positive energy you generate ripples out and affects everything around you, and it’s a beacon for other positive energy to be attracted to you. This is the place where Wiccans strive to be.

Taking personal responsibility is a major part of Wiccan practice. If Wiccans who adhere to the Rede and the Law screw up or do something nasty to someone, they know that they will attract that energy back in its own place and time. In addition, when you hurt others, you are also hurting yourself, even if it is only indirectly through the negative energy you will attract. Hurting others marks you, and the energy signature sticks to you like flypaper. Even knowing this, sometimes Wiccans will take a risk and choose to do something that is ethically “iffy” because they believe that ultimately it’s for the greater good. In that case, they take responsibility for the results, and they know that whatever they receive back, positive or negative, is partially their own doing. The important thing is that they are the arbiters of their own ethics; they have the responsibility and the power to choose their actions based on their own ideals rather than on rules imposed by someone else. This can be heavy stuff, but like I said earlier, Wicca is not about being comfortable all the time. It is about directing the course of your own life, and that can put you on shaky turf from time to time.

In the next chapters we’re going to explore some of the foundation practices of Wicca, including energy work, visualization, trance work, meditation, and pathworking. If you are considering trying your hand at these skills and doing the exercises in the upcoming chapters, this would be a good time to start a journal to record your experiences. A journal can help you keep track of your progress and provide a record of the insights you’ve gained along the way.