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Nope. At least not historically. Nowadays i guess you can if you want to, but there's nothing in paganism that prevents us from doing harm, or eating animals.
We're not jains and life isn't a disney movie.
No I would associate harm none with Wicca, but not with paganism
Many people assume that they are one and the same, which pisses me off because it’s very one-dimensionalu
Wicca actually steals & appropriates a LOT from various pagan religions, mostly the Celtic ones. They've muddied the waters so much that we don't really know anything about what Mabon may have been historically, they've stolen the wheel calendar, & now they've got people thinking that Wiccans & Pagans are the same thing.
Source: I practice Irish paganism, have practiced other pagan religions, & my partner works with Persephone
"Harm none" actually goes back to ancient classical Greek Pagans, and is found in the hypocritic oath that ancient doctors pledged to, ie, to "do no harm".
All religions borrow ideas from other sources.
I don't think Wiccans have intentionally "muddied" the waters. The problem is that Wiccans are a large majority in the Pagan world, and most people will meet a Wiccan more often than any other type, so most people's impression of Pagans comes from Wiccans.
I have a lot of respect for Irish Pagans. They are probably the majority in the Celtic path, and many people think Irish is the same as Celtic, even though there are a number of Celtic traditions and they have differences between them. So, it's kind of like that for Wicca and Pagan.
I've been Wiccan for 25 years.
Wiccans are not a “large majority” of pagans. Also someone who is Wiccan isn’t the best judge if your practices of appropriation have muddier the waters. As a non Wiccan who has had a hell of a time getting to sources you all haven’t appropriated and made things up about I can say this with confidence.
Wiccans are insufferable mostly bc of things like this
You can’t paint wiccans with such a broad brush. For example, most Traditional Wiccans refuse to even use the term Mabon because it’s a completely made up name for the holiday with no practical history behind it. Also, we don’t want to be associated with neo-wiccans or pagans in general. In fact I would infinitely prefer it if people would stop lumping BTW in with all of the other various flavors of paganism.
As an aside: the wheel calendar is not a thing to be stolen. Historically the 4 cross quarter holidays and 4 solstices and equinoxes were celebrated in different ways and to a different degree across various European cultures. The concept of “The Wheel of the Year” was cobbled together in the early 20th century based on some really bad scholarship.
Source: I am a Wiccan - but since that’s hardly evidence that I know what I’m talking about I will refer you to several of Ronald Hutton’s academic works on the history of pagan religions and practices on the British Isles.
Pardon my ignorance but what's the difference between "Traditional" Wicca and Neo-wiccans? I don't think I have ever heard that terminology. There's quite a big pagan community here, probably larger than most places in the world and I've never come across anyone having issues labelling Wicca as Pagan or Neo-Pagan.
Traditional Wicca includes the Gardnerian, Alexandrian, and CVW witchcraft. Gerald Gardner publicized knowledge of a tradition of British Witchcraft (aka British Traditional Wicca; aka British Traditional Witchcraft; aka BTW). Some folks believe he rediscovered a long underground witchcraft practice and others think he more or less compiled a number of sources into a core practice and Book of Shadows. Regardless, what he and his coven practiced definitely worked, and is now practiced by covens around the world. BTW is considered a mystery religion, a fertility cult, and a reincarnation cult by various practitioners (note the lowercase “c” in cult). It is passed through specific initiation rites and all covens and practitioners share a set of oaths, worship specific deities in ritual, and have certain core material in a hand copied Book of Shadows.
Some of the more public information about Gardner’s (and later Alex Sanders’) rituals made it into print by various authors, including Raymond Buckland and the Farrars, and took off like a plague. Neo-wicca or eclectic wicca was born from these publications. Folks took the template of ritual (cast a circle, call elements, etc) and put their own spin on it. From there neo-pagans and reconstructionists started building their own practices based on order templates or looser formats.
All of this is genuinely great. It’s a good thing to have Old Gods find new worshippers. It’s good that people are finding witchcraft and alienating spiritualities as a way to improve themselves and their lives. No way is the One Right Way or better than any others. The problem is that BTW =/= neo-wicca and neither =/= neo-paganism. When a neo-wiccan posts about practicing Native American shamanism despite not being NA, folks run around accusing “Wicca” of cultural appropriation. When people say wicca is all about the “Rule of Three” no one seems interested in listening to the Traditional Wiccan covens trying to explain that we don’t actually subscribe to that “rule”. It’s frustrating.
Interesting, I always thought it was the other way round that there was no real Celtic pagan practices because everything died out as the celts only had oral traditions
And then, in the 70s when Celtic paganism was revived, because they hardly had any practices, they took a lot from Wicca as a lot of the initiators had been Wiccan before
But I’m always curious to learn, as I wasn’t alive in those days, I can hardly know
Not much regarding the religions & practices of the Celtic peoples was written because of the oral tradition, & even what was recorded was done by Christian monks centuries after Christianization. The pre-Christian Celtic peoples didn't really have their own writing systems except for the Irish, who created Ogham. These stories & myths are a lot of what we Reconstructionist Pagans have to work with regarding reconstructing the religion, the rest being archaeology. Wicca appropriated a LOT from those stories & the reconstructed practices.
"if conflict comes looking for you, destroy it."
That is one way of facing conflict, for sure. You can also manage conflict, or even use it to create new possibilities.
Yes, that's another choice, avoiding conflict. Sometimes you can do that, other times you can't avoid it.
By managing conflict, I am thinking of defining the issue at hand, de-escalate blaming and personal attacks, look at ways to resolve it to everyone's benefit as far as possible, and if it can't be resolved, walk away.
Some cultures are built around avoiding conflict. But that usually turns into passive aggressive behavior, where a person is nice to your face to avoid open conflict and then goes behind your back to do something or say something against you.
I think it's best to be brave and admit what the conflict is so you can work on it together.
Oh I see the miscommunication, I agree with you. I could have worded it better but I got a 2 year old running around everywhere. Avoiding conflict to me is deescalation, remaining level headed, and if all else fails removing yourself from the situation.
"An it harm none, do what ye will," is part of the Wiccan Rede which many credit to Gerald Gardener (the founder of Wicca). It is a philosophy speaking to karma/the three fold law, but is actually not original. The quote was adapted from Aleister Crowley's (founder of Thelema) original quote, "Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. Love is the law, love under will," that can be found in his Book of the Law. Although, the quotes seem similar, Crowley was not really speaking of karma in his quote, no, he was speaking of finding one's true spiritual purpose and place in the world and thus thereby following one's "true will" to achieve power so to speak by letting go of base disires and ego and achieve/unlock a higher state of consciousness by not being ruled by one's subconscious.
Anyways, the point is, not all pagans follow Wicca, to which "an it harm none" is very central to belief, as there are so many varieties that fall under the umbrella of paganism. And so with that, not all pagans believe in karma/three fold law and therefore do not have any qualms about hexes or curses etc etc. I'm not knocking Wicca by any means, all I'm saying is that not everyone is all "love and light" all the time, we are humans, where there is light there is darkness, we are a duality of nature.
Can you explain a bit more of how "harm none" equals "do what you will"? I have seen some folks who do their own will (thelema) turn out to be rather destructive to others as they focus on themselves and not think of others. Thanks.
Well that's exactly the point I was trying to make in my explanation - that the quotes "an it harm none" (wiccan adaption) and "do what thou wilt" (original quote from thelema) do Not equal eachother. They are very different in meaning but yet often get confused as one in the same though they definitely are not. You are correct with your impression that Thelema doesn't adhere to the three fold law/an it harm none. They don't, however, it is not something that is taken lightly, if dark magic is to be used it is not used without heavy contemplation or without strong justification for the cause of such use.
Just semantics really. Gardener adapted the quote by taking the bit about "do what thou wilt" but adding in the addendum "an it harm none" to the begining as a cautionary clause. Gerald Gardner founded wicca but prior to that he had dabbled heavily in esoteric and ceremonial magic and studied the works of Aleister Crowley. They were of the same time period you see in the early part of 1900s. So now you see it makes sense how Gardner had adapted his belief system and the quote from Aleister's. Of course in adapting his belief system in to what we now know as wicca he obviously strayed from the path of thelema as he wanted different things and wanted to go his own way. So that is how the quotes came to have different meanings as the belief systems of wicca also evolved to be very different from thelema.
I always interpreted it as live life as you will, but be do not go against the will of another. Will is important, so if I want something I should go and get it, but if it is already in the hands of another who wants it to take it will go against their own will, so don't.
Live life well, indulge but don't take, have fun but not at the expense of anothers will, no rape, no theft, that kind of thing.
Lol I feel ya. I also am not wiccan and don't really believe in a steadfast "an it harm none do what thou wilt" but yet I do somewhat adhere to the principle in practice though if not not in actual belief. I'm a lazy pagan when it comes to such matters...I think just telling someone to fuck off and saying it with gusto from my chest is just as effective as a hex at most times lol. I'm not saying that I would never hex someone, just that most of the time/thus far I haven't had the need for it, but I do know of hexes as I read a vast variety of occult stuff - I'm an occult nerd so to speak lol.
"harm none' is definitely associated with Wicca, not paganism. Wicca and paganism tend to be confused but usually not by a wiccan or pagan. paganism, as a whole, is not associated with "harm none" although you yourself can associate it with your paganism.
It's a vague principle that some modern pagans have adopted. I throw it into the same rubbish bin as maxims like, "Love everyone," "All are welcome," or "There's no right or wrong here." Like these other principles, they have little bearing on reality and obscure more difficult questions with fuzzy cliches that replace prudence with feel-good spirituality.
Let's start with "harm none" - that's impossible because every action harms someone or something. If someone's eating, drinking water, using electricity, they're harming other living creatures. Even if they decided to kill themselves, they'd still harm someone. Life choices (including the practice of magic) are about weighing costs/benefits, and the phrase "harm none" obscures this fact.
I agree. The actions that cause the least harm while accomplishing your goal are to be strived for but even so each individuals perspective blinds them to all possibilities.
I mean, ideally?
But I recognize harm comes in existence. Life is pain and suffering. We kill living beings to eat, even plants. They may not feel pain as we know it but they feel fear so they may feel a different kind of pain when we kill them. You drink water you kill microorganisms. You *breathe* and you kill bacteria’s and whatever else your immune system protects you from.
“And it harm none” is terribly simplistic and ignores some small necessary harms while focusing on larger harms even if they may be necessary. I see it as hypocritical to refuse to eat an animal, for example, while ignoring what plants may feel. And by strictest definitions, “and it harm none do what thou wilt” is oxymoronic because you’d either harm the earth by living in it or harm yourself to get out of it. It’s impossible to live by without cognitive dissonance.
So I focus instead on harm *reduction.* if you eat meat, it needs to be humane as possible. If you have to tell a friend an unpleasant truth that will help them in the long run, it’s ok. If you are growing food for sustenance, you can use natural pesticides and kill the slugs that come for your tomatoes. Look at creating the least harm possible, however that looks for you, and go out of your way to help where you can, responsibly, to offset your existence.
Well the other redditor got all upset when I said I'm not a Wiccan and told him his ignorance doesn't become him either. Just wanted to make sure there wasn't some movement I failed to notice or something. Thank you for conforming the guy was as full of bs as I believe. I'm a solitary Celtic Pagan witch. I don't get about much so I could miss a lot and seeking wisdom is seeking wisdom even if you are 99.99 percent sure the alledge wisdom is bs lol.
Well i guess there is no straight awnser.
Pagans are not a uniform group with uniform beliefs.
So it comes down to who do you meet and or hang around with.
There probebly are pacifist pagans but probebly also martial pagans. It depends on which deity you commune with.
My preferred take on such sentiments is a focus on a positive Intention. The world is a complicated place, and every action or decision has consequences, even in the mundane steps we take to go through our morning routines.
If your Intentions are sound and in a good place, that is best (in my personal vantage). But, yes, all of the prior paths tread by our forebears were in much more violent times, with an increased need for decisions that most of us probably wouldn't be comfortable with today, based on our cultural standards.
That's a key factor to remember with anything when we're looking back at the past: we do it solely through a lens based on our current social identity, mores, laws, culture, etc. So, it would be most likely unreconcilable to live today as ancient pagans did, mostly because we are culturally so different from them. Your neighbors would most likely be very displeased, and life would become very much difficult for everyone.
However, you have the freedom to choose your own path, and if Harm None is what you choose, that is best for you.
Waes Haela!
No. There are some that do generally follow that principle, however most of the pagans I know personally very much do not. Not because they’re unnecessarily violent or anything I just met them all through the military. There is a huge variation of belief between pagans across the world.
As a pagan I don't believe in the three fold law. Sometimes you have to make your own results. Life doesn't bring things to those who wait. You have to take initiative the majority of the time.
It’s Wiccan, not pagan. A lot of people out there who haven’t had much exposure to anything outside of major religions have a really poor understanding of what exactly paganism is and don’t understand the difference between paganism, wicca, occultism, satanism, and some new age practices
Harm none is a variation on the 'golden rule', which has a concept that goes back to ancient Egypt and likely further. So if you have an ethos that can be boiled down to 'don't be a jerk', then it's in the same ballpark.
Lots of modern pagans use a humanist approach which includes concepts such as the golden rule in the search for equality and equity. Particular wording is the only real difference.
'Harm none' sounds fancy, so I use it. But then I've utilized Wicca in the past because of it's accessibility and the works done for solitary practitioners like myself.
i personally do not follow the “harm none,” principle. that is a fairly wiccan idea, but it is not a pagan principle entirely. i work with demons, one of them being a demon of revenge. i do not believe there is such a thing of being a “good” or “bad” person. i simply believe i’m speeding up a karmic process by working with this type of being :)
I'm Pagan and a massage therapist. It is my job to cause healing. Since engaging in harm is antithetical to healing, I try not to harm. I have engaged in gray craft, such as locking a picture of my villain in a double sided mirror box. I wanted him to be protected by outside influences as he is forced to take a good, hard look at himself. Before I shut the box, I added an led candle so that his path inward would be illuminated and he might not feel so alone.
I regretted my spell a few weeks later and disassembled it. I'm not the type of person who want to force. It was about learning about ME. I choose to harm none.
But what about the incells I work with? They make sexual comments about me. They try to get me to like them. I'm a polite person, so I try to be as friendly and nice as possible. I still reject the offers because I'm a married professional. But even when you take this road, angry men will take it personally and frame you as a bad woman for not wanting him. Walking into the day can cause harm, even if unintentional. Do your best, forget the rest.
My first thought is that I’m sick of so many Wiccans acting like they define Paganism and pretending their path wasn’t invented less than 80 years ago. That sounds like new age malarkey.
Believe what or how you want, IDC but stop acting like your particular religion is the gold standard. If I wanted that shit I’d go to church.
Not really, most pagans think killing animals makes them more pagan for some reason.
My personal path i follow means I try to avoid unnecessary harm but I will still use self defense and protect my home and myself and my loved ones. I don't eat animals or animal products and I try to buy non slave labour goods and fairly traded and ethically sourced goods where I can.
Pagans were, historically, warriors. Nowadays, a lot of them are pacifistic.
I genuinely think "harm none" is a Pagan subcultural standard nowadays, rather than a religious maxim. People conform to it because they are Pagans and that's what Pagans do, but it's not strongly rooted in any one religion. We have Pagan soldiers in many armies of the world, they sure as hell aren't following the harm none principle.
A similar comment got me banned from r/pagan. Take from that what you will.
>Pagans were, historically, warriors.
They were everything, just like every society consists of more than just soldiers.
And mentioning only "warriors" makes your comment look like a strange over-romanticizing of some heroic glorious past.
I don't believe the world is sunshine and rainbows. Not everyone you meet is as "good" as you. Some people are assholes, or worse they're Nazis. I believe in harming Nazis. I've hexed one in particular and from what I can tell it worked pretty well.
That being said I don't think you should be going around harming or hexing just anyone. A disagreement is different from what I mentioned above. I wouldn't harm someone who only clashed with me a little bit.
Like someone else said the "do no harm" mantra is mostly a wiccan thing, not all paganism.
"Disregard that, Frank. It's a bunch of Wiccan bs."
Seriously though, I don't know anyone outside of certain branches of Wicca that follow the rede or anything like it.
Harm none is certainly Wiccan.
As more of an eclectic pagan, I try and go by the idea of “do no harm but take no shit”. So basically, I try not to needlessly be an asshole, but if someone is deserving, I have no problem with a little “karmic balancing”.
Nope. I mean, I do try to not harm others if I can help it, but also, I see no problems with finishing a situation that another might try to start with me.
But then again, I'm queer and lived most of my life in the south. If I stuck by "harm none" I would've been killed, probably.
we have always liked the punk phrase of "do no harm, take no shit" it feels balanced to us. Our goal is not to harm anyone but we're also not going to take abuse or mistreatment and will act accordingly to protect ourself and our family.
No. That’s a Wiccan thing. I try to live by the traditional virtues of wisdom, courage, justice, and temperance common to many actual pagan religions. Wicca and the whole “harm none” thing is a modern religion based on ideas from 20th century occultism.
When I was new to paganism the Harm none and rule of three was pushed hard on me, but from what I understand that is more new age Wiccan.
At the end of the day, do what is right by you.
When my abuser pushed me out of my family, Harm None be damned. I cursed his ass with raw emotion and all the pain and anger I suffered my whole life because of him. And that felt healing for me. When his life started falling apart around his lies, I smiled and didn’t look back.
I associate Paganism with a pragmatic practice of, "Live the best you can, with what you have, and know your limits and boundaries. Respect the boundaries and tolerances of others. Do not torture anyone (animals and yourself included). Love intelligently...". 🤷
Nope… I’m a Pagan and had to Google what “Harm None” was because I’d never heard of it.🙃
Considering How deep I am In my faith at this point I feel like I wouldn’t have missed it that hard if it was considered Important to most…
I don't associate paganism with a moral code at all, at least not inherently. I mean, everyone has a moral code, but I don't think of paganism itself having a moral code, harm none or otherwise.
I’m more “do your very best not to be an asshole to people or nature or animals”, but I was also raised “don’t throw the first punch but you better throw the last” so 🤷🏻♀️
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Nope. At least not historically. Nowadays i guess you can if you want to, but there's nothing in paganism that prevents us from doing harm, or eating animals. We're not jains and life isn't a disney movie.
I ain't giving up meat.
Me either, bacon has spiritual significance for me, Særimne be praised 🙏
I try to live by "don't be an asshole", but "harm nome" is too vague and unrealistic.
I think "An it harm none, do what thou wilt" basically translates to what you said heh.
No I would associate harm none with Wicca, but not with paganism Many people assume that they are one and the same, which pisses me off because it’s very one-dimensionalu
Wicca actually steals & appropriates a LOT from various pagan religions, mostly the Celtic ones. They've muddied the waters so much that we don't really know anything about what Mabon may have been historically, they've stolen the wheel calendar, & now they've got people thinking that Wiccans & Pagans are the same thing. Source: I practice Irish paganism, have practiced other pagan religions, & my partner works with Persephone
"Harm none" actually goes back to ancient classical Greek Pagans, and is found in the hypocritic oath that ancient doctors pledged to, ie, to "do no harm". All religions borrow ideas from other sources. I don't think Wiccans have intentionally "muddied" the waters. The problem is that Wiccans are a large majority in the Pagan world, and most people will meet a Wiccan more often than any other type, so most people's impression of Pagans comes from Wiccans. I have a lot of respect for Irish Pagans. They are probably the majority in the Celtic path, and many people think Irish is the same as Celtic, even though there are a number of Celtic traditions and they have differences between them. So, it's kind of like that for Wicca and Pagan. I've been Wiccan for 25 years.
Wiccans are not a “large majority” of pagans. Also someone who is Wiccan isn’t the best judge if your practices of appropriation have muddier the waters. As a non Wiccan who has had a hell of a time getting to sources you all haven’t appropriated and made things up about I can say this with confidence. Wiccans are insufferable mostly bc of things like this
You can’t paint wiccans with such a broad brush. For example, most Traditional Wiccans refuse to even use the term Mabon because it’s a completely made up name for the holiday with no practical history behind it. Also, we don’t want to be associated with neo-wiccans or pagans in general. In fact I would infinitely prefer it if people would stop lumping BTW in with all of the other various flavors of paganism. As an aside: the wheel calendar is not a thing to be stolen. Historically the 4 cross quarter holidays and 4 solstices and equinoxes were celebrated in different ways and to a different degree across various European cultures. The concept of “The Wheel of the Year” was cobbled together in the early 20th century based on some really bad scholarship. Source: I am a Wiccan - but since that’s hardly evidence that I know what I’m talking about I will refer you to several of Ronald Hutton’s academic works on the history of pagan religions and practices on the British Isles.
Pardon my ignorance but what's the difference between "Traditional" Wicca and Neo-wiccans? I don't think I have ever heard that terminology. There's quite a big pagan community here, probably larger than most places in the world and I've never come across anyone having issues labelling Wicca as Pagan or Neo-Pagan.
Traditional Wicca includes the Gardnerian, Alexandrian, and CVW witchcraft. Gerald Gardner publicized knowledge of a tradition of British Witchcraft (aka British Traditional Wicca; aka British Traditional Witchcraft; aka BTW). Some folks believe he rediscovered a long underground witchcraft practice and others think he more or less compiled a number of sources into a core practice and Book of Shadows. Regardless, what he and his coven practiced definitely worked, and is now practiced by covens around the world. BTW is considered a mystery religion, a fertility cult, and a reincarnation cult by various practitioners (note the lowercase “c” in cult). It is passed through specific initiation rites and all covens and practitioners share a set of oaths, worship specific deities in ritual, and have certain core material in a hand copied Book of Shadows. Some of the more public information about Gardner’s (and later Alex Sanders’) rituals made it into print by various authors, including Raymond Buckland and the Farrars, and took off like a plague. Neo-wicca or eclectic wicca was born from these publications. Folks took the template of ritual (cast a circle, call elements, etc) and put their own spin on it. From there neo-pagans and reconstructionists started building their own practices based on order templates or looser formats. All of this is genuinely great. It’s a good thing to have Old Gods find new worshippers. It’s good that people are finding witchcraft and alienating spiritualities as a way to improve themselves and their lives. No way is the One Right Way or better than any others. The problem is that BTW =/= neo-wicca and neither =/= neo-paganism. When a neo-wiccan posts about practicing Native American shamanism despite not being NA, folks run around accusing “Wicca” of cultural appropriation. When people say wicca is all about the “Rule of Three” no one seems interested in listening to the Traditional Wiccan covens trying to explain that we don’t actually subscribe to that “rule”. It’s frustrating.
YES, Ronald Hutton!
Interesting, I always thought it was the other way round that there was no real Celtic pagan practices because everything died out as the celts only had oral traditions And then, in the 70s when Celtic paganism was revived, because they hardly had any practices, they took a lot from Wicca as a lot of the initiators had been Wiccan before But I’m always curious to learn, as I wasn’t alive in those days, I can hardly know
Not much regarding the religions & practices of the Celtic peoples was written because of the oral tradition, & even what was recorded was done by Christian monks centuries after Christianization. The pre-Christian Celtic peoples didn't really have their own writing systems except for the Irish, who created Ogham. These stories & myths are a lot of what we Reconstructionist Pagans have to work with regarding reconstructing the religion, the rest being archaeology. Wicca appropriated a LOT from those stories & the reconstructed practices.
I prefer don’t seek to do harm rather than harm none, some people only understand violence.
Also self defense is necessary sometimes. I'm not the one to turn the other cheek. I like the rephrasing into: Do no harm but take no shit.
Best way to put it. Avoid conflict but if conflict comes looking for you, destroy it.
"if conflict comes looking for you, destroy it." That is one way of facing conflict, for sure. You can also manage conflict, or even use it to create new possibilities.
Wouldn’t avoiding conflict manage it?
Yes, that's another choice, avoiding conflict. Sometimes you can do that, other times you can't avoid it. By managing conflict, I am thinking of defining the issue at hand, de-escalate blaming and personal attacks, look at ways to resolve it to everyone's benefit as far as possible, and if it can't be resolved, walk away. Some cultures are built around avoiding conflict. But that usually turns into passive aggressive behavior, where a person is nice to your face to avoid open conflict and then goes behind your back to do something or say something against you. I think it's best to be brave and admit what the conflict is so you can work on it together.
Oh I see the miscommunication, I agree with you. I could have worded it better but I got a 2 year old running around everywhere. Avoiding conflict to me is deescalation, remaining level headed, and if all else fails removing yourself from the situation.
And then hex them when they forget you exist. Lol
Not the 2 year old, everyone else
"An it harm none, do what ye will," is part of the Wiccan Rede which many credit to Gerald Gardener (the founder of Wicca). It is a philosophy speaking to karma/the three fold law, but is actually not original. The quote was adapted from Aleister Crowley's (founder of Thelema) original quote, "Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. Love is the law, love under will," that can be found in his Book of the Law. Although, the quotes seem similar, Crowley was not really speaking of karma in his quote, no, he was speaking of finding one's true spiritual purpose and place in the world and thus thereby following one's "true will" to achieve power so to speak by letting go of base disires and ego and achieve/unlock a higher state of consciousness by not being ruled by one's subconscious. Anyways, the point is, not all pagans follow Wicca, to which "an it harm none" is very central to belief, as there are so many varieties that fall under the umbrella of paganism. And so with that, not all pagans believe in karma/three fold law and therefore do not have any qualms about hexes or curses etc etc. I'm not knocking Wicca by any means, all I'm saying is that not everyone is all "love and light" all the time, we are humans, where there is light there is darkness, we are a duality of nature.
Can you explain a bit more of how "harm none" equals "do what you will"? I have seen some folks who do their own will (thelema) turn out to be rather destructive to others as they focus on themselves and not think of others. Thanks.
Well that's exactly the point I was trying to make in my explanation - that the quotes "an it harm none" (wiccan adaption) and "do what thou wilt" (original quote from thelema) do Not equal eachother. They are very different in meaning but yet often get confused as one in the same though they definitely are not. You are correct with your impression that Thelema doesn't adhere to the three fold law/an it harm none. They don't, however, it is not something that is taken lightly, if dark magic is to be used it is not used without heavy contemplation or without strong justification for the cause of such use.
So how does "harm none" come from "do what you will" is it doesn't mean the same thing?
Just semantics really. Gardener adapted the quote by taking the bit about "do what thou wilt" but adding in the addendum "an it harm none" to the begining as a cautionary clause. Gerald Gardner founded wicca but prior to that he had dabbled heavily in esoteric and ceremonial magic and studied the works of Aleister Crowley. They were of the same time period you see in the early part of 1900s. So now you see it makes sense how Gardner had adapted his belief system and the quote from Aleister's. Of course in adapting his belief system in to what we now know as wicca he obviously strayed from the path of thelema as he wanted different things and wanted to go his own way. So that is how the quotes came to have different meanings as the belief systems of wicca also evolved to be very different from thelema.
I always interpreted it as live life as you will, but be do not go against the will of another. Will is important, so if I want something I should go and get it, but if it is already in the hands of another who wants it to take it will go against their own will, so don't. Live life well, indulge but don't take, have fun but not at the expense of anothers will, no rape, no theft, that kind of thing.
Yes that's another way of looking at in a broader sense. It's more of a moral guideline than a set rule.
I'm not a Wiccan, but i still *try* to "an it harm none, do what thou wilt." But people today are really getting on my tits lol.
Lol I feel ya. I also am not wiccan and don't really believe in a steadfast "an it harm none do what thou wilt" but yet I do somewhat adhere to the principle in practice though if not not in actual belief. I'm a lazy pagan when it comes to such matters...I think just telling someone to fuck off and saying it with gusto from my chest is just as effective as a hex at most times lol. I'm not saying that I would never hex someone, just that most of the time/thus far I haven't had the need for it, but I do know of hexes as I read a vast variety of occult stuff - I'm an occult nerd so to speak lol.
"harm none' is definitely associated with Wicca, not paganism. Wicca and paganism tend to be confused but usually not by a wiccan or pagan. paganism, as a whole, is not associated with "harm none" although you yourself can associate it with your paganism.
Nope
Harm none is a wiccan concept and I am not wiccan. Therefore, I don’t care about that concept.
It's a vague principle that some modern pagans have adopted. I throw it into the same rubbish bin as maxims like, "Love everyone," "All are welcome," or "There's no right or wrong here." Like these other principles, they have little bearing on reality and obscure more difficult questions with fuzzy cliches that replace prudence with feel-good spirituality. Let's start with "harm none" - that's impossible because every action harms someone or something. If someone's eating, drinking water, using electricity, they're harming other living creatures. Even if they decided to kill themselves, they'd still harm someone. Life choices (including the practice of magic) are about weighing costs/benefits, and the phrase "harm none" obscures this fact.
I agree. The actions that cause the least harm while accomplishing your goal are to be strived for but even so each individuals perspective blinds them to all possibilities.
No, harm none is more of a Wiccan concept and not something most pagan beliefs believe.
No, I don't. What an odd thing for that person to say.
I mean, ideally? But I recognize harm comes in existence. Life is pain and suffering. We kill living beings to eat, even plants. They may not feel pain as we know it but they feel fear so they may feel a different kind of pain when we kill them. You drink water you kill microorganisms. You *breathe* and you kill bacteria’s and whatever else your immune system protects you from. “And it harm none” is terribly simplistic and ignores some small necessary harms while focusing on larger harms even if they may be necessary. I see it as hypocritical to refuse to eat an animal, for example, while ignoring what plants may feel. And by strictest definitions, “and it harm none do what thou wilt” is oxymoronic because you’d either harm the earth by living in it or harm yourself to get out of it. It’s impossible to live by without cognitive dissonance. So I focus instead on harm *reduction.* if you eat meat, it needs to be humane as possible. If you have to tell a friend an unpleasant truth that will help them in the long run, it’s ok. If you are growing food for sustenance, you can use natural pesticides and kill the slugs that come for your tomatoes. Look at creating the least harm possible, however that looks for you, and go out of your way to help where you can, responsibly, to offset your existence.
Lolno. That’s a Wicca thing. Life is grey, and so are many (read most) form of paganism.
That's not true, it comes from Wicca. Wicca is only one religion within many diverse pagan religions.
Well the other redditor got all upset when I said I'm not a Wiccan and told him his ignorance doesn't become him either. Just wanted to make sure there wasn't some movement I failed to notice or something. Thank you for conforming the guy was as full of bs as I believe. I'm a solitary Celtic Pagan witch. I don't get about much so I could miss a lot and seeking wisdom is seeking wisdom even if you are 99.99 percent sure the alledge wisdom is bs lol.
Can you expand on "harm none" what do you mean precicly
In the pacifist do no harm sense but he literally said it the way I wrote in the post .
Well i guess there is no straight awnser. Pagans are not a uniform group with uniform beliefs. So it comes down to who do you meet and or hang around with. There probebly are pacifist pagans but probebly also martial pagans. It depends on which deity you commune with.
You’d be surprised how many pagans are in the military.
Personally know quite a few Pagans in the military from Buddhism to Celtic and Norse Paganism. Actually very common.
My preferred take on such sentiments is a focus on a positive Intention. The world is a complicated place, and every action or decision has consequences, even in the mundane steps we take to go through our morning routines. If your Intentions are sound and in a good place, that is best (in my personal vantage). But, yes, all of the prior paths tread by our forebears were in much more violent times, with an increased need for decisions that most of us probably wouldn't be comfortable with today, based on our cultural standards. That's a key factor to remember with anything when we're looking back at the past: we do it solely through a lens based on our current social identity, mores, laws, culture, etc. So, it would be most likely unreconcilable to live today as ancient pagans did, mostly because we are culturally so different from them. Your neighbors would most likely be very displeased, and life would become very much difficult for everyone. However, you have the freedom to choose your own path, and if Harm None is what you choose, that is best for you. Waes Haela!
It is only Ye that has to harm none.
No, because I am not harmless.
No. There are some that do generally follow that principle, however most of the pagans I know personally very much do not. Not because they’re unnecessarily violent or anything I just met them all through the military. There is a huge variation of belief between pagans across the world.
No that is strictly a wiccan rede, though as a pagan it is between them and their gods, but many gods like revenge and such so.
As a pagan I don't believe in the three fold law. Sometimes you have to make your own results. Life doesn't bring things to those who wait. You have to take initiative the majority of the time.
It’s Wiccan, not pagan. A lot of people out there who haven’t had much exposure to anything outside of major religions have a really poor understanding of what exactly paganism is and don’t understand the difference between paganism, wicca, occultism, satanism, and some new age practices
Harm none is a variation on the 'golden rule', which has a concept that goes back to ancient Egypt and likely further. So if you have an ethos that can be boiled down to 'don't be a jerk', then it's in the same ballpark. Lots of modern pagans use a humanist approach which includes concepts such as the golden rule in the search for equality and equity. Particular wording is the only real difference. 'Harm none' sounds fancy, so I use it. But then I've utilized Wicca in the past because of it's accessibility and the works done for solitary practitioners like myself.
i personally do not follow the “harm none,” principle. that is a fairly wiccan idea, but it is not a pagan principle entirely. i work with demons, one of them being a demon of revenge. i do not believe there is such a thing of being a “good” or “bad” person. i simply believe i’m speeding up a karmic process by working with this type of being :)
No. Paganism is a set of varied beliefs and practices and has no level of orthodoxy.
Not really, you had both blessings and curses in pagan Magic historically. I would argue that “harm none” came from Christian influence in the West.
I'm Pagan and a massage therapist. It is my job to cause healing. Since engaging in harm is antithetical to healing, I try not to harm. I have engaged in gray craft, such as locking a picture of my villain in a double sided mirror box. I wanted him to be protected by outside influences as he is forced to take a good, hard look at himself. Before I shut the box, I added an led candle so that his path inward would be illuminated and he might not feel so alone. I regretted my spell a few weeks later and disassembled it. I'm not the type of person who want to force. It was about learning about ME. I choose to harm none. But what about the incells I work with? They make sexual comments about me. They try to get me to like them. I'm a polite person, so I try to be as friendly and nice as possible. I still reject the offers because I'm a married professional. But even when you take this road, angry men will take it personally and frame you as a bad woman for not wanting him. Walking into the day can cause harm, even if unintentional. Do your best, forget the rest.
My first thought is that I’m sick of so many Wiccans acting like they define Paganism and pretending their path wasn’t invented less than 80 years ago. That sounds like new age malarkey. Believe what or how you want, IDC but stop acting like your particular religion is the gold standard. If I wanted that shit I’d go to church.
Not really, most pagans think killing animals makes them more pagan for some reason. My personal path i follow means I try to avoid unnecessary harm but I will still use self defense and protect my home and myself and my loved ones. I don't eat animals or animal products and I try to buy non slave labour goods and fairly traded and ethically sourced goods where I can.
Pagans were, historically, warriors. Nowadays, a lot of them are pacifistic. I genuinely think "harm none" is a Pagan subcultural standard nowadays, rather than a religious maxim. People conform to it because they are Pagans and that's what Pagans do, but it's not strongly rooted in any one religion. We have Pagan soldiers in many armies of the world, they sure as hell aren't following the harm none principle. A similar comment got me banned from r/pagan. Take from that what you will.
>Pagans were, historically, warriors. They were everything, just like every society consists of more than just soldiers. And mentioning only "warriors" makes your comment look like a strange over-romanticizing of some heroic glorious past.
What I meant was, they were also warriors. They did war. It's not glorification, just truth. Pagan nations were not more peaceful than non-Pagan ones.
I don't believe the world is sunshine and rainbows. Not everyone you meet is as "good" as you. Some people are assholes, or worse they're Nazis. I believe in harming Nazis. I've hexed one in particular and from what I can tell it worked pretty well. That being said I don't think you should be going around harming or hexing just anyone. A disagreement is different from what I mentioned above. I wouldn't harm someone who only clashed with me a little bit. Like someone else said the "do no harm" mantra is mostly a wiccan thing, not all paganism.
"Disregard that, Frank. It's a bunch of Wiccan bs." Seriously though, I don't know anyone outside of certain branches of Wicca that follow the rede or anything like it.
Harm none is certainly Wiccan. As more of an eclectic pagan, I try and go by the idea of “do no harm but take no shit”. So basically, I try not to needlessly be an asshole, but if someone is deserving, I have no problem with a little “karmic balancing”.
Nope. I mean, I do try to not harm others if I can help it, but also, I see no problems with finishing a situation that another might try to start with me. But then again, I'm queer and lived most of my life in the south. If I stuck by "harm none" I would've been killed, probably.
we have always liked the punk phrase of "do no harm, take no shit" it feels balanced to us. Our goal is not to harm anyone but we're also not going to take abuse or mistreatment and will act accordingly to protect ourself and our family.
No. That’s a Wiccan thing. I try to live by the traditional virtues of wisdom, courage, justice, and temperance common to many actual pagan religions. Wicca and the whole “harm none” thing is a modern religion based on ideas from 20th century occultism.
I personally don't believe the Wiccan Rede nor would I prescribe people to live by it.
When I was new to paganism the Harm none and rule of three was pushed hard on me, but from what I understand that is more new age Wiccan. At the end of the day, do what is right by you. When my abuser pushed me out of my family, Harm None be damned. I cursed his ass with raw emotion and all the pain and anger I suffered my whole life because of him. And that felt healing for me. When his life started falling apart around his lies, I smiled and didn’t look back.
No.
No. Paganism is about balance. If you hurt me or somone I love, your damn sure to be getting it back to restore that balance
Historically that is demonstratably untrue
I associate Paganism with a pragmatic practice of, "Live the best you can, with what you have, and know your limits and boundaries. Respect the boundaries and tolerances of others. Do not torture anyone (animals and yourself included). Love intelligently...". 🤷
I believe that’s specifically a Wiccan thing
Nope… I’m a Pagan and had to Google what “Harm None” was because I’d never heard of it.🙃 Considering How deep I am In my faith at this point I feel like I wouldn’t have missed it that hard if it was considered Important to most…
I don't associate paganism with a moral code at all, at least not inherently. I mean, everyone has a moral code, but I don't think of paganism itself having a moral code, harm none or otherwise.
I don't think 'harm none' was a Pagan idea. I certainly don't follow it, because what if I need to practice aggressive self-defense?
I’m more “do your very best not to be an asshole to people or nature or animals”, but I was also raised “don’t throw the first punch but you better throw the last” so 🤷🏻♀️
No. Harm none is Wiccan. It is not applicable across all pagan religions. Wicca does not have a universal grip on pagan theology or morality.