I’m going out on a limb today, and I know some of you won’t like what I’m saying here. But this is my personal opinion, and if you don’t like it, I can’t really do anything about that.
My PBP post this time deals with the misconception that you should never do magic for personal gain. In the end, everything is for some form of personal gain, yours or someone else’s. The obvious example of magic for personal gain is of course money. But if you do magic to heal Mother Earth, you gain some peace of mind. If you do healing for someone else, you gain the feeling you get from helping someone else. In addition to this, doing for example money magic for yourself isn’t necessarily a bad thing, or black magic as some might call it.
Maybe you really need the money to be able to feed your kids? Where’s the harm in that? If you look back to the old days, I sincerely doubt they never did anything for personal gain. I believe this idea comes from Wicca, as do many others. Like the fact that the athame has to be dull, never used for anything at all, and should never touch blood. I believe the old ones used what they have handy, helped when they could, and harmed when they felt they had to.
I don’t have anything against Wiccans in general, but I’ve run across a few that rubbed me the wrong way, so to speak, by trying to say everything I do is wrong. Personally I believe that there’s no such thing as white, gray or black magic. The magic itself isn’t good or bad, it’s all about the intention with which it’s performed. And if that intention is personal gain, is that so bad?
I should mention that I don’t believe in the duality of good and evil forces either. Although I, of course, see the potential for evil acts in humans.
This post is part of the Pagan Blog Project, created by Rowan Pendragon.
When you put it like that, it definitely makes sense. Everything we do, we do for ourself in one way or another.
This is similar to the take on “harm none” – everything we do will cause harm to someone or something in some way…. whether it be eating plants or making sure we get the job – someone else looses out in each situation (be it the plants or someone else looking for work)….
That’s exactly what i mean. I’m glad you thought it made sense 🙂
Great post Linda! I don’t believe in the “harm none” thing, personally. I believe in an eye for an eye and protecting what is mine and my family’s. But regardless with Wiccan’s admit it or not, they do the same (just maybe in a different way) than heathens would. I see on the net, those claiming to obide the “harm none” rule but they are obnoxious in slamming other for their beliefs. “Harm none” should mean verbally as well, correct?
Your post makes a lot of sense to me. Thanks for sharing it.
I’m glad you liked it 🙂 I’m not saying all Wiccan’s are that way, just a minority. But there are many enough to annoy me when I come across one.
Thank you so much for writing this! This is exactly my own thoughts!! I feel that on some levels people take thing to such an extreme, that they fail to see the bigger picture so to speak. It saddens me when I get approached byother Pagans who tell me that I am doing this or that “wrong” or that I can or can’t do it this way. They get told they crossed over too far into my boundaries and to take care of their own backyard before meddling into mine 🙂
I’m glad people have responded so well to this post. I though I might get slammed for it 😀