Ethical Spell-Casting

Whether simple or complex, all spells involve focusing the power of intention to produce outcomes. Your intention not only provides the fuel that energizes a spell, it also colors the spell. Your motive for doing a spell determines whether it’s “white” or “black” magick, or somewhere in between.

There’s nothing wrong with doing “gray” spells most spells, in fact, fit into this category. It’s not incorrect or selfish to use your magickal talents to improve your lot in life. However, a wise witch always examines her reasons for casting a spell before she takes any action. Sometimes the only difference between a gray and black spell is your intention. Let’s say, for example, you want a certain job. It’s logical to do a spell to improve your chances of landing the position you desire. But if your spell intentionally causes someone else to lose the job so you can take over, that’s black magick.

It’s also important to feel good about the spells you do. Witches have different opinions and preferences when it comes to working magick, and although certain practices may not be wrong, they might not be right for you. For instance, some witches engage in sex magick, but it’s not for everyone. Stay within your own comfort zone.

Witches subscribe to a few general guidelines that constitute morally responsible spells. Here are the basic spellcraft “don’ts.”

Don’t design a spell that might harm another person or interfere with his free will.

Don’t cast a spell that includes components or methods that violate your own personal taboos or ethics.

Don’t work with languages or symbolic items that you don’t fully understand.

Don’t do spells if you are ill, angry, or otherwise off-center, as this can affect the outcome dramatically.

If you follow these simple guidelines, you’ll avoid the problems, pitfalls, and unpleasant ramifications that can sometimes accompany spell-casting.

Skye Alexander, The Everything Wicca and Witchcraft Book: Rituals, spells, and sacred objects for everyday magick (Everything®)

What Should We Use Magick for?

Magic is a force, a power, a wisdom, a knowledge. It is both more and less powerful than the ignorant suppose. Magic can only change the changeable. It can cure a sickness; it cannot regrow a lost limb. In Wicca, magic is carried out according to strict ethics. For this reason, coven training takes a long time. Matches are not put into the hands of children, nor power into the hands of the untrained and untested. Magic is not a power we use in place of our other powers – mind, emotion, hand and limb. It is not a crutch for the weak, nor an ego-boost for the inadequate. It is a skill that we must learn to use wisely and well.

‘Wisely and well’ means in the right time and place, when other avenues on the material plane have been explored. Wicca teaches people sound ethical principles for the use of magic and encourages their spiritual development hand in hand with any powers that they wish to develop. This can be boring and frustrating to the would-be Witch who just wants to get on with it, but going through the boredom threshold is an aspect of any learning, be it playing a musical instrument or learning a language.

Most people do not come to Wicca seeking magical training in order to make a lot of money and gain power over others. There are much simpler ways of achieving this – become a lawyer or an accountant. The usual problem is not people wanting to do negative magic but the ‘astral bandage syndrome’: people wanting to use their new-found powers to put the world to rights. New Witches can easily become interfering nuisances, wanting to cure everyone of every illness, whether they want it or not.

Magic is a simple force but applying it skilfully is difficult. In seemingly simple situations, there can be many complex factors. Even if someone has asked for healing, there can be many barriers within the person that can prevent it. On one level, he or she may want to be well. On another level, the illness may be serving the individual in some way. It may bring attention to the neglected. It may be a way of hiding from a relationship, job or another aspect of life that someone finds untenable.

There is a traditional Witchcraft saying, ‘If it harms none, do what you will.’ Often there is long debate in covens about particular pieces of magical work. It is very important that if you are in a group you take time to check that everyone is happy with any piece of magic you are going to do. If people are half-hearted or have hidden resentments, firstly the magic is unlikely to work and secondly they will feel disempowered. When we enter into trance and do magic, there is not a total dissolving of the boundaries between ourselves and others, but there is a blurring of this distinction. To allow this to happen, we need to be able to love and trust those with whom we are working. This involves treating one another with mutual respect.

This is one of the reasons why traditionally covens are small, closed groups. To build bonds requires time and mutual knowledge. This cannot be achieved quickly; nor is it possible to have this type of loving relationship with everyone.

Some covens believe that you should not do magic for yourself and if someone in the group has requested help, he or she will not participate in the spell that gives it. In most covens, however, people can work for themselves providing the group thinks it is appropriate. There are a number of reasons why working for ourselves is not a good idea. One is the delusion of the ego and our own self-centredness. It is very easy for us to convince ourselves that what we want is right and appropriate. It takes long years of training for us to become objective about such things. This is one advantage of belonging to a group. If we take our problems to our group, they can be much more objective about them than we are and can advise us if it is appropriate to tackle them with magic or not.

Love is an important aspect of magic. This is not some New Age idea but a good Wiccan principle also found in modern psychology. The founder of the psychotherapeutic system of psychosynthesis, Italian psychologist Roberto Assagioli who had studied much esoteric teaching, wrote:

We must realize that love, in order to truly fulfil its mission of being helpful … must be allied to insight; even more, permeated and blended with wisdom; without understanding there cannot be harmlessness.

The same is true of magic. We must combine it with common sense, worldly wisdom and spiritual insight if it is to do its work. Magic is the power to change ourselves and to change society. For true magic we must want to reach out positively to something beyond the boundaries of the self. This emotion is love. Love operates on many different levels. There is the love of ourselves; the love of those close to us – parents, children, partners, siblings; the love for country and land; the love for humanity as a whole and the love for all creation – both the physical world of Nature and that which lies beyond – the realm of the Gods.

If we talk about love of country, people can become nervous, but this need not mean unthinking patriotism. It is good to respect our own culture and people but the dangers of nationalism are all too present in the world today. Perhaps we need to think of ourselves more as citizens (and tenants) of the Earth itself; that it is terrestrial and not national boundaries that define us. Wicca is less anthropocentric than monotheisms. These tend to believe that the universe was created for the benefit of human beings.

This is a bizarre bit of ego inflation if only we stop and think about it. If we truly love the land then we will love all its species and inhabitants. Loving the land is often a good deal easier than loving our fellow human beings, but it is through love of others that we learn to love the greater universe, both material and non-material. The interdependence of the universe is found at the heart of all Paganism (including Hinduism), within mysticism and in modern physics. The Divine is within us and we are part of the Divine. In coming to an understanding of this, we move into the realms of the Spirit.

Another way of reaching out emotionally is hate. Some traditional Witchcraft books and some feminist Witchcraft books advocate cursing. I have even seen a book written by a feminist academic which criticizes Wicca because it does not ’empower’ women to curse men, their patriarchal enemies. This is an extremely silly and irresponsible idea and can only be advocated by those who do not believe magic works. What is important to remember is that magic does work – both on the recipient and on the practitioner. Don’t be misled by such nonsense.

Magic is about the use of energy. It involves creating certain energies within ourselves and then sending them out into the world to do their work. It is easy enough to create negative energy. How many people have not cursed a driver who causes them to swerve in the road, or some inadvertent shopper who happens to tread on their foot in a busy store? A little anger can be therapeutic. We swear, curse and stamp our feet and feel a whole lot better. This harms no one. Accumulated anger and the negative energy build up needed to indulge in cursing will make us stressed and ill. People who brood and indulge in hate become hateful. As the psychologist Carl Jung said, we all become like the thing we hate. Nor can we do what we will with impunity. Magic operates according to Three-fold Law. The energy that we transmit returns to us but three times as strongly as before. In addition, there are checks and balances within the universe. The universe seeks equilibrium and harmony. If we create negative energy then the universe will choose at some point to short-circuit our efforts, with extremely unpleasant effects.

‘If it harms none do what you will’ sounds superficially easy, but it can be very difficult. Would you help someone attract an individual he or she had fallen in love with? Traditional Witchcraft abounds in love spells, but is it right to make someone fall in love with somebody when they would not otherwise? Will it lead to unhappiness because deep down the couple are not compatible? Love is more than superficial desire. Unrequited love can rarely be turned into happiness by the power of magic.

Another important principle is that magic must not be a refuge for the lazy. It is pointless to do magical work to help someone get a job if they are not doing what is necessary to find one. Another strange truth is that the longer people are Witches, the less active magic they do. This is because something happens along the way. Wicca teaches us to harmonize ourselves with the greater universe, so that with time the direct action of spell-making becomes less necessary. We learn to know what we really want and to be in the right place at the right time to get it. Experienced Witches find that simply by someone asking them to do something and their thinking about it, then the thing will often come to pass. The important steps have been the individual articulating his or her need and the Witch thinking of a successful outcome occuring.

–Gabby Benson, Witchcraft Wicca: A Beginners Guide