To Cast or Not to Cast:

A Question of Magical Ethics

by J'Karrah, 2010  

This is sort of a discussion on the ethics of magic in the modern Pagan community. It was prompted by a comment from someone about having driven by an accident scene involving a couple of cars and a concrete road barrier. There were ambulances, fire rescue, and police. Blood evidenced all over the road and she could see people being loaded into an ambulance. The storyteller, a Pagan friend of mine, said her first impulse was to say a prayer to the Goddess and send healing energy to the injured but then she stopped because that would have been black magic since she did not have permission from the people who were hurt.

Huh? How can offering a prayer or sending healing energy to an injured person ever be considered black magic?

Many people have mistakenly come to believe that the Wiccan Rede applies to everyone who identifies themselves as some variation of Pagan, and many people also believe that the Wiccan definition of black magic is THE definition of black magic. Black magic is not merely doing magic to deliberately cause harm or to screw someone over, to bend them to your will and force them to act contrary to their own better nature. Those things I can wholeheartedly agree with would fall under the definition of baneful magic. But Wicca, as dictated by the vast majority of books I have read and by the vast majority of Wiccans I have spoken to, also classes ANY magic done without the express permission and consent of the person you are doing the magic for as being “black magic.” That includes magic for health and healing, prosperity, to help them find a job, to help them overcome heartache, physical limitation, etc. These things could actually bring beneficial and comforting results to the person.

The idea behind this prohibition is that you are “interfering with their free will” or you are somehow circumventing their destiny or “higher purpose.” That somehow leaving a person to suffer, to endure pain and uncertainty when you believe you could help is somehow less evil than actually helping. Personally, I could not disagree more. If you would be compelled to render physical assistance to someone who was suffering or in trouble in an emergency, how could it possibly be considered evil to render magical assistance?

But you could be interfering with their destiny! You could be preventing them from learning an important life lesson and ruining the course of their life as dictated by their “higher self!!” You are magically taking away their free will!!! That’s EVIL!!!!

Or how about this one: they may be Christian and view even beneficial magic as “satanic” and by sending them healing magic you are causing them harm! Well, if you believe that everyone has a “higher self” that knows all and directs the course of our lives then wouldn’t that higher self have the ability to reject the energy you sent to them? Doesn’t being a decent human being and a child of the Lady and Lord mean you do whatever you can to at least offer help to someone in need, leaving it up to them (or their higher self) to accept or reject that help?

I have even heard the excuse of “well, you don’t know if that person is an evil person themselves like a rapist or child molester. By helping them magically you could be enabling their next rape making you just as karmically responsible as they are (no… I’m not kidding).”

So… if you come across someone lying on the ground writhing in pain from a compound leg fracture you should just walk on by rather than trying to help. Because how do you know that suffering the pain of a broken limb and risking potentially lethal infection which could lead to the amputation of that limb is not part of their destiny? How do you know that’s it’s not all part of some sacred plan set in motion by their higher self so that they could learn some valuable live lesson? Or how do you know that it’s not their own bad karma punishing them for their own wrongs and/or evil acts?

By rendering assistance… even by so little as calling 911 for an ambulance… you could inadvertently be committing an act of evil simply because you “interfered.” (If I had the magical guns to forcibly change a person’s destiny, to knock them off the path set before them by their higher self doesn’t that make me a god?) You should also ask them about their religious background (don’t want to insult their Christian sensitivities with our filthy Pagan assistance) and inquire about their criminal background (don’t want to risk helping someone and getting their bad karma all over our own clean aura!)

Personally, I think there are a few possible sources for this “no magic without permission” business, each more self-serving than the last:

1) In the early days of Paganism, Wicca, and magic going public was a need to reassure the mainstream, “God fearing” population that we weren’t running around casting manipulative spells willy-nilly to gain power over our neighbors. Basically saying we were not a magical threat to anyone.

2) It avoids having to take any responsibility, no matter how small, for the wellbeing of our fellow human beings. Better safe than sorry, right? Cover your own magical ass in all things!

3) Casting beneficial magic for people quietly and anonymously garners to recognition, no “gratitude,” no praise. It affords no opportunity to say “See! I told you it would work!” Let’s face it, we’re as subject to a little ego stroking as the next guy.

In many Pagan circles you still hear the very Christian admonishment that “the road to hell is paved with good intentions.” Too many Pagans use this as an excuse not to act magically to help those directly in need. While it is apparently okay to work general magic to “heal the world” and change the “destructive attitudes” of the entire human race, to work magic to help heal a specific individual in need without first gaining permission is taking the first step down the primrose path directly to hell.

Seriously?

I would like to propose an alternative way of thinking. Instead of thinking of the negatives, of potentially making an act of evil, why not think of the positives? What if the magic you cast to help actually… well….helped? What if that little bit of healing energy, that little act of anonymous magical kindness was just the thing that person needed to turn their life around? What if instead of working against the plan set forth by their higher self, you were actually helping it? What if the touch of your magic was actually an integral of their destiny without which that destiny could never be fully realized?

I think it’s high time we, as magical people, stopped being afraid to use our magic to help people directly. I think it’s time we stopped worrying about “scaring the straights.” If they really want to believe that “evil witches” are secretly running around using magic to create an army of bespelled slaves to do our bidding there is nothing we can say or do that will change their minds. I think it’s time we stopped hiding behind the excuse of “permission,” to do what is right and offer help to those who need help if we feel compelled to do so.

Does this mean I think we should go out and throw healing spells and good luck spells at random people walking down the street? Of course not. What I do think is that we need to stop being afraid of sending healing energy to the sick and injured when we come across a car accident. I think we should stop being afraid to offer a prayer for good luck and a little spell for renewed prosperity to the family on the news who just lost everything they owned in a house fire. I think we should stop being afraid to work magic to help ensure the serial rapist attacking women in the local park is caught and brought to justice.

If you wouldn’t hesitate to physically help someone in need or worry that you were somehow unintentionally committing an evil act by helping them, then don’t withhold magical help at the same time for fear that you are committing “black magic” when you know your intentions are to help not harm. Trust the universe to know if the offer of magical help and healing we are sending out to someone we see in need actually will help them or not and to gently send it back to us if it won’t.