#Threefold Law

[traegorn]

There's a lot of debate among witches about the Threefold Law (I think? I mean the Law where whatever magic you cast, it will happen back at you three times as strong), which of course discourages cursing of any kind. I like using that as a challenge: like, damn that person was awful. What could I do about it/hope would happen to them? I bless that person. I hope they become a better person. I hope that they realise their faults, and that they can persevere to fix their mistakes and right their wrongdoings. (and I hope I can do that, too). I hoped to see a discussion about this, but I am not a witch and idk who else to ask to see a discussion like this.

The threefold law/law of return was a (possibly intentional) misinterpretation of a passage from Gardner's (fiction) novel High Magic's Aid created by Monique Wilson and popularized by folks like Raymond Buckland to make Wicca seem more palatable to the general public.

So I mean, do what you want. Sounds like you've come up with an interesting thought exercise for yourself. But also, if you aren't a witch (let alone a Wiccan), why were you worrying about it to begin with?

[dowsingfordivinity]

Myths about Wicca

Fantastic article by River Enodian from the Tea-Addicted Witch blog. A Tale of Two Wiccas: Tackling Misinformation Explains how eclectic Wicca and initiatory Wicca are two different things; discusses cultural appropriation in Wicca; looks at the Wiccan Rede and the Threefold Law; and explains Wicca’s relationship with Crowley, Thelema, and the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. I’ve tackled…

[iridescentalchemyst]

The Wiccan Way

Recognizing that there is more than one path to spiritual enlightenment and that Wicca is but one of many, and that Wicca holds within itself the belief that there is more than one type of step set to the spiral dance, find here listed common denominators of the Craft. That there is above all the Goddess in her three-fold aspect and many are her names. With all her names we call her Maiden,…

[wizardsaur]

Someone just reblogged a wizard-themed physics joke from me, that I myself had reblogged from @sexygaywizard

Claiming it was about the threefold law in the tags?

For every action, there is an equal but opposite reaction --- that's the Third Law of Physics. It has nothing to do with the Wiccan Threefold Law. If anything, it's the antithesis.

The Threefold Law means you get triple the same energy returned to you that you put out into the world??? Bite an ass, get your ass bitten 3x.

I drop a rubber ball, it's gonna come up almost as high as the height from which it was dropped... (but without oppressing forces, it would come up just as high. Gravity & friction)

Unless I'm missing something here???

[virgil-upinthestars]

post ep 5 - SPOILERS

okay okay okay i think billy yeeted them out of the road. we see jen clawing up from the dirt in trailer footage, i think billy just chucked em back to westview. i don't think he's quite there at murder yet, seeing his last conversation with agatha, which? slay king. as a witch and practicing pagan, love him. "no, not for me" you take that negative energy and turn it right on its fuckin head sweetheart. but also please for the love of the gods don't get carried away, don't commit murder, your father would probably have a stroke even if your mother would sit there yelling you're doing great sweetie!!

also i think the reason why rio wasn't there in the last scene was bc she was collecting alice's body. now i'm imagining her walking out, seeing billy standing there alone with lighting coming from his hands and a scarlet witch crown like

[actiwitch]

Adding to this-- the threefold law (all your magic comes back to you threefold) and wiccan rede (do no harm in your magic) are BELEIFS and MORAL GUIDELINES. Not a rule of the universe, not something everyone follows, not something to throw out unsolicited in the comment sections of baneful magic posts, and certainly not to tell novice witches will come and get them.

Just because you don't do a type of magic (baneful magic, death magic, sex magic, curses, spirit work, etc) doesn't mean other people shouldn't.

If you don't like baneful magic? OK 👍 don't do baneful magic. But also don't harass witches who do. Their practice is not yours.

[terven-queen]

Any other witches on here interested in cursing some men with me? Men who deserve it: abusers and such. Let’s curse the famous ones like J*hnny D*pp but also the ones that have personally caused hell in our lives. We are stronger as a group. Let’s make them all fucking pay.

[spicy-and-yet-sweet]

[sabrinaboglund]

The Law of Threefold Return - 5 Things You Should Know About the Universal Law of Threefold Return.

The Universal Laws help establish peace and order in the Universe, and although the Universal Laws are not created to punish anyone, it can be the consequence of unethical and incorrect behaviour or misuse of the Universal Laws. The Law of Threefold Return is one of the Universal Laws that asks you to think twice before you do or say anything. Just like with the Karma Law, there is a Consequence…

[maddiviner]

In most cases where I’ve interacted with LoA devotees, it doesn’t “skirt close” to victim blaming, but involves it pretty directly! A lot of these folks will do almost anything to avoid addressing the cognitive dissonance of the Just World Fallacy, even if it means saying something objectively untrue and downright horrible.

The emphasis on “thoughts cause everything so it’s all your fault” particularly endangers younger people who might be struggling with depression, anxiety, and the ensuing intrusive thoughts.

Suppose you’re young, spiritual, but maybe not knowledgeable yet. YouTube convinces you that not only are you to blame for any depression or anxiety you experience (for being low vibrational!) but also that your intrusive (mostly negative) thoughts are attracting more bad stuff! I think you can see why that would quickly snowball and turn into a mess.

Most LoA adherents don’t know what an “intrusive thought” is, or how mental illness actually works, though. Most don’t care.

One of my favorite LoA experiences, though, was when a couple very New Age “Wiccans” on Facebook tried to warn my boss that I was a “Satanic witch” because I told them (in comments on a post) that I didn’t believe in the LoA or the Threefold Law. The “Wiccan High Priestess” who found this terribly offensive and called me a “dark, lost soul” was going on about how she was descended from someone who was burned at the stake, etc, the usual, she had a two-hundred-year-old “Book of Shadows” that explained the true LoA, on and on...

Yeah, I got really sarcastic after that. I said something about how her ancestor must’ve been awfully naughty to have attracted something as horrible as being immolated! I think I said something like, “I’m so sorry your ancestors were so low vibrational as to have attracted that!” At that point she started trying to PM people on my friend’s list? Or at least my boss and one other person. My boss at the time didn’t ever see or respond to the message and would’ve probably thought they were a troll, anyways, but it was kind of funny either way.

Also wanna note here that the word “manifesting” gets used in a lot of different contexts, and it alone doesn’t imply a situation involves LoA-style nonsense - some people just use that word to mean “hey, my spell works.” I also wanna say that the “Law of Attraction” isn’t the same as sympathetic magic. I do believe in using correspondences and symbolism in spellwork (obviously).

There’s a big difference between “this plant symbolizes Love, I will use it to bring myself closer to Aphrodite and get a girlfriend” and “If I think good thoughts about how I’m a great person who deserves the hottest wife ever, the Universe will deliver.” I don’t know if I’m explaining that distinction well - it’s late at night here, but I wanted to add that.

It’s, at base, an issue of metaphysics versus morality. Sympathetic magic tells you that you can influence outcomes based on the connections between concepts/forces - tugging on the web of fate, you might say. The LoA tells you that you achieve good outcomes simply by being virtuous, positive, and above all, deserving 🙄.

It's so much worse than some folks think.

[yourlocalmissingtexture]

I don’t remember if I rambled here about this or not but I’m tempted to practice tarot reading again.

I know there’s not really a set Way to do that sort of thing but I really like the idea of knowing the basic gist of the cards but mostly letting the imagery and the brain’s storytelling ability do its thing. The way I like to read isn’t formulaic whatsoever and is probably not “authentic” or “legitimate” by some standards but also I don’t care.

Most of my more effective witchy/pagan/whatever the fuck spiritual things I do sometimes stuff happened during or after rather informal and unorthodox practice. Simple prayers with little to no prep. Hastily put together spells. Finding immense beauty and comfort in watching grasshopper on my window or driving past prickly poppies.

Idk. This shit doesn’t have to be gothic cottagecore witchcore dark academia aesthetic or prim and proper to be legitimate I think. It can be, but the more basic, mundane, and improv stuff shouldn’t be overlooked.

Tl;dr: tarot is fun, also spiritual/magical elitism can suck eggs.

[just-a-queer-fanboy]

Murder and legal repercussions are not options but I have access to a secret third thing (witchcraft. Makes me sound scary but in reality I'm angrily chanting while throwing lemon juice and ghost peppers into a jar)

[cheekedupwhiteboy]

the threefold law means that whatever you do a cum tribute on will come back around to shoot thrice as many ropes on YOU. blessed be

[lunasun1verse]

Seriously, the amount of times I’ve seen people make Nyx and Hecate seem like sweet little beans…..

One literally scares the fuck out of Zeus, the other is fiercely protective of the marginalized. Do you honestly think the two of them are always love and light???

Witches and pagans stop trying to make every single female spirit and entity into a motherly-pregnancy-girlboss Goddess challenge

[breelandwalker]

Oh for fuck's sake, are we having the curse-shaming argument AGAIN??? Every time I think we're done unteaching this nonsense.....

Arright, quick rundown of the points, more or less in order, because I've already had this discussion a hundred times:

One - There is no universal moral or ethical code in witchcraft. Not every witch is a Wiccan or follows Wiccan principles. Not even all Wiccans follow every Wiccan principle, and that includes the Rule of Three / Threefold Law. The Wiccan Rede is ADVICE, not a set of hard and fast rules or divine mandates. You don't get to tell other witches what types of spells they should and should not cast.

Two - If you think the Rule of Three / Threefold Law means, "Whatever you give out comes back to you times three" or if you think it only applies to baneful magic, you don't understand the rule. The original rule, as stated by Robert Graves in "The White Goddess" (you know, the fictional novel that Gardner used as a model for Wicca) states that whatever a witch is dealt, they should deal back three times over. In fact, the passage cites a particular initiation ritual that involves symbolic flagellation, NOT a code of ethics for witchcraft.

It was picked up by later authors as "Whatever You Give" and popularized by media like The Craft and Charmed and authors like Silver Ravenwolf in the 90s when the modern witchcraft movement was having its' millennial boom. (This is a gross oversimplification, but that's when the concept became common enough in pop culture that non-witches were starting to become familiar with the term.)

Three - Karma has absolutely nothing to do with it. Karma is not instant or sentient and the bastardized version of the concept that's been worked into much of modern witchcraft literature more closely resembles the Christian concept of sin and judgment than what karma actually is. Remove the word from your vocabulary when you're talking about magic. The universe does not give one single flying fuck what you do with your spells.

Four - The word you're searching for when you talk about these concepts is CONSEQUENCES. Every action you take, every spell you cast, everything has consequences and everything has a price. This isn't a divine mandate or a cosmic law either. It's a simple fact of life. BUT. It doesn't mean that baneful spells are morally or ethically wrong or that they're going to blow up in someone's face. The only reason a baneful spell might be more likely to rebound is that it's one of the only types of spells that witches actively ward against.

Five - Witches have a right to use magic for persuasion, defense, justice, retribution, binding, prevention, or outright harm if they so choose. If you don't like those types of spells, then don't cast them.

Six - Moral puritanism is a cancer that will destroy us all. Get off your high horse, drop the holier-than-thou bullshit, and remember that being a witch does not make you immune to propaganda.

Thank you for coming to my Toad Talk.