drawing blood

[Sanguina Cruenta]

CursedExile

"Mind the Three-fold Laws you should three times bad and three times good.
When misfortune is enow wear the star upon your brow."

That is not the rede. That's an excerpt from a poem.

Quote:

That is stating the Law of Three otherwise known as the Karmic Law.

Where is it known as "the Karmic law", and why is it known thus?

Quote:

And the term witch, however incorrectly used generally to dub all Neo-pagans is not by any means a negative title.

Did I say it was?  

[Morgandria]

CursedExile

Sanguina Cruenta

I don't think the rede is at all connected to karma... I mean, you accrue karma by not living your dharma correctly. If your religion is not dharmic, I don't understand how karma can apply.

I'm sure we had a thread on this somewhere....

"Mind the Three-fold Laws you should three times bad and three times good.
When misfortune is enow wear the star upon your brow."

That is stating the Law of Three otherwise known as the Karmic Law. And the term witch, however incorrectly used generally to dub all Neo-pagans is not by any means a negative title.

San - you're right. The Rede has nothing to do with karma. All the Rede says is "If it harms no-one, do it freely". The thing is only 8 words long. It's hard to say much more in that amount of verbage.

What Exile is quoting is part of some doggrel rhyme written in the 1970's called "The Rede of the Wiccae". It itself is not part of the Rede proper - it is simply the advice one woman wrote down and attributes to her grandmother. It's just additional advice, written rather fancifully around the Rede's original advice.

While some witches value the advice of the Rede, and the further advice of this poem, not all witches have a place for it on their path. I certainly do not. It's foolish to assume that these things are universal.

And regardless of being called the "Karmic Law", it places the concept of karma quite out of context, and what it is used to describe is not 'karmic' at all. What the West thinks of and calls karma is not - it is nothing more than 'reap what you sow', or cause-and-effect. Proper karma is not good or bad, and does not reward, or punish - it simply is, and it is only in relation to one's dharma. The two are not meant to be separate, and become meaningless when removed from each other.

Exile: San said nothing about the term 'witch' being positive or negative. She simply asked that you don't make sweeping assumptions about pagans in general. Not all pagans are witches.  

[Esiris]

Morgandria

And regardless of being called the "Karmic Law", it places the concept of karma quite out of context, and what it is used to describe is not 'karmic' at all. What the West thinks of and calls karma is not - it is nothing more than 'reap what you sow', or cause-and-effect. Proper karma is not good or bad, and does not reward, or punish - it simply is, and it is only in relation to one's dharma. The two are not meant to be separate, and become meaningless when removed from each other.

Could you explain this more or give me a link?
I saw San post in another thread about dharmic religions- are they the only people who have dharma?  

[Sanguina Cruenta]

Esiris

Morgandria

And regardless of being called the "Karmic Law", it places the concept of karma quite out of context, and what it is used to describe is not 'karmic' at all. What the West thinks of and calls karma is not - it is nothing more than 'reap what you sow', or cause-and-effect. Proper karma is not good or bad, and does not reward, or punish - it simply is, and it is only in relation to one's dharma. The two are not meant to be separate, and become meaningless when removed from each other.

Could you explain this more or give me a link?
I saw San post in another thread about dharmic religions- are they the only people who have dharma?

Dharma in Hinduism has to do with how you live your life. This is sort of wrapped up in the caste system... so it's sort of hard outside of India. I don't know much about it myself.  

[Esiris]

Sanguina Cruenta

Dharma in Hinduism has to do with how you live your life. This is sort of wrapped up in the caste system... so it's sort of hard outside of India. I don't know much about it myself.

It looks confusing. sweatdrop
Do you have anything you'd recommend I read?  

[Sanguina Cruenta]

I say, I don't know much about it xp I sort of looked through the wikipedia page and decided I didn't care enough.  

[CursedExile]

I never said that all pagans are witches. I used it so flippantly because its difference didn't seem much of an issue. I personally know the distinction. Now about the Rede. I never knew that. I am highly eclectic. And I do a lot of Chaos magick without any binding to Wicca in general or any path of paganism. I keep in mind the Karmic Law personally from experience. I know most of the Wiccan Rede, however not enough to have it memorized. I remembered that apparently un-factual stanza.  

[Morgandria]

CursedExile

I never said that all pagans are witches. I used it so flippantly because its difference didn't seem much of an issue. I personally know the distinction. Now about the Rede. I never knew that. I am highly eclectic. And I do a lot of Chaos magick without any binding to Wicca in general or any path of paganism. I keep in mind the Karmic Law personally from experience. I know most of the Wiccan Rede, however not enough to have it memorized. I remembered that apparently un-factual stanza.

Well, the Rede itself isn't Wiccan. The Rede first appeared ten years after the founding of Wicca, in a speech by Doreen Valiente. It isn't a part of the core of Wiccan practice, or the Ardanes - so it's just the Rede.

Also, the Rede itself is only 8 words: "An' it harm none, do as ye will." That's it. People have grafted other things onto it for their own purposes, but the Rede itself is pretty short and to the point.

The "long" Rede is a poem called "The Rede of the Wiccae" by Gwen Thompson, and it first appeared in Green Egg magazine in 1974. She attributed it to her grandmother, Adriana Porter.

The most important thing to remember about the word 'rede' is that it means 'advice'. It's not a law or a commandment, and it's not mandatory for everyone to follow. A Rede only gives you advice. Whether the rede in question is 8 words, or 8 stanzas, they're not written in stone. Take it or leave it, as you choose.

I have no experience with any law such as the so-called 'Karmic' law. I'm pretty good with the physical laws of our universe, myself. 'Any action causes an equal and opposite reaction' makes more sense to me than any kind of "three-fold" law.  

[CursedExile]

I've heard the karmic law/threefold law used in various places. It simply means that whatever energy you put out, comes back three times. It's a simple conveyance of the balance inherit in magick and how you use it.  

[Morgandria]

CursedExile

I've heard the karmic law/threefold law used in various places. It simply means that whatever energy you put out, comes back three times. It's a simple conveyance of the balance inherit in magick and how you use it.

I mean...magic is simply will shaped with intent, and sent outwards to work that will. That will and intent can be whatever a person desires - magic itself is simply a tool. There isn't an inherent set of checks and balances, outside a person's own personal morality. Magic will do what you intend it to do.

The 'Three-fold' law and the like are nothing more than someone's personal idea about the morality of spellcasting, and an attempt to make people think about what they're doing before they do it - similar to the intent of the Rede. For those people who have their own morality already, or already think their spellcasting intent through completely, before undertaking a working, these sorts of 'laws' are redundant, and seem like unnescessary, nagging dogma.

The energy work involved is no different than any other form of energy transference. You're putting energy to work for a specific purpose. Magical energy is still just energy. All other energy in the universe follows the same physical law. What would make magical energy require its' own separate law?

If a person rejects these ideas, nothing will happen to them. The same as if one accept these ideas: the energy still only works within the physical laws of our universe. You cannot violate the laws of time and space.  

[CursedExile]

Morgandria

CursedExile

I've heard the karmic law/threefold law used in various places. It simply means that whatever energy you put out, comes back three times. It's a simple conveyance of the balance inherit in magick and how you use it.

I mean...magic is simply will shaped with intent, and sent outwards to work that will. That will and intent can be whatever a person desires - magic itself is simply a tool. There isn't an inherent set of checks and balances, outside a person's own personal morality. Magic will do what you intend it to do.

The 'Three-fold' law and the like are nothing more than someone's personal idea about the morality of spellcasting, and an attempt to make people think about what they're doing before they do it - similar to the intent of the Rede. For those people who have their own morality already, or already think their spellcasting intent through completely, before undertaking a working, these sorts of 'laws' are redundant, and seem like unnescessary, nagging dogma.

The energy work involved is no different than any other form of energy transference. You're putting energy to work for a specific purpose. Magical energy is still just energy. All other energy in the universe follows the same physical law. What would make magical energy require its' own separate law?

If a person rejects these ideas, nothing will happen to them. The same as if one accept these ideas: the energy still only works within the physical laws of our universe. You cannot violate the laws of time and space.

It all depends on what you believe in. If you intend to use magick to hurt another, I believe it will come back to you. Written law or not.  

[Esiris]

CursedExile

It all depends on what you believe in. If you intend to use magick to hurt another, I believe it will come back to you. Written law or not.

Could you help me understand why it's based on belief? If you believe something will happen and I believe it won't, what's the result?  

[CursedExile]

Esiris

CursedExile

It all depends on what you believe in. If you intend to use magick to hurt another, I believe it will come back to you. Written law or not.

Could you help me understand why it's based on belief? If you believe something will happen and I believe it won't, what's the result?

I'm saying it depends to avoid argument. You can believe it won't. I believe it does. Varying opinions. *shrugs*