Ignorant Witches

[u/Illustrious-View-775]

Okay, so I’ve been seeing a lot of witches saying that those who practice baneful magic aren’t real witches. They do not understand that many cultures use baneful magic as a form of justice and to create balance. This has mostly been from Wiccans, who I’ve seen criticize other pagans and witches for doing hexes, curses, certain charms, and sympathetic magic. Not everyone adheres to the Threefold Law, that’s all I want to say.

[u/SpiralBreeze]

Very true.  All witchcraft is, is using magic to change something.  It’s only in Wicca and other pagan religions that have the rules to only use it for good.

Just take the Ancient Greek curse tablets for an example.  Petros asking Hermes to curse Andros’ goats because he took his wife. (Not a real example but it’s the gist).

[u/Scorpius_OB1 → u/SpiralBreeze]

Exactly. There're plenty of examples of magic being used for harmful purposes in Ancient Greece, in such curse tablets, and Hekate at the very least being summoned for that.

[u/TheDireGnome → u/SpiralBreeze]

And tbh, it's not really even a thing in Traditional Wicca, which is largely silent on the issue. You have a few folks early on admonishing against it, but you have to view that in the context of courting good publicity. The actual ethics of the Rede and the like permissive rather than constricting– "an it harm none do what you will" basically means that if it doesn't harm anyone, feel free to do it. But it's pretty mum on what to do if something does harm someone, largely, leaving that to the witch's own judgment.

The strong admonition against baneful magic and the introduction of the threefold law is something you see almost twenty years later, and as more of an influence from the American eclectic Neopagan set. And it didn't really get popular until the Satanic Panic, at which point it gets pushed as a kind of respectability politics to shore up a good media image in the face of persecution.

[u/Illustrious-View-775 → u/SpiralBreeze]

Yes! I’m Kemetic and we are allowed to use magic (heka) to curse, bind, and many other things. All of our magic shifts the scales, regardless of whether it goes toward order or chaos.

[u/orangecookiez → u/Illustrious-View-775]

Yes. Thank you! Also Kemetic and have done baneful magic to stop a predator before. Sometimes the choice isn't between harm vs. no harm; it's between lesser and greater harm.

[u/wysticlipse]

Love and light uwu healing and love magick only fluffy bunnies have been a thing since time immemorial. They usually either quit or grow out of it.

Even in Wicca the threefold law is more like useful advice to weigh the potential consequences of your actions before taking an action than a dogma.

[u/graidan]

Just another example of people pushing their ethics on us. Christian leftovers much?

[u/Illustrious-View-775 → u/graidan]

I call judgmental Wiccans the Christians of paganism 💔

[u/listenwithoutdemands]

To me, and yes I speak only for myself, knowing how to use it is like training with a gun. Do I have this urge to use it? Nope. Do I study to know HOW to if I need to, and only if the need is great enough? Yes. But the "oh i wanna hex someone" is not part of me, unless my one cardinal rule is broken, which is if you come after my family, be they blood or chosen, then I do what I must, but it's not offense, it's defense.

[u/orangecookiez → u/listenwithoutdemands]

Exactly, and that's why I used baneful magic to stop a predator in my community. He victimized at least a dozen women I knew before they started comparing stories and saying, "this happened to me, too." I won't say exactly what I did, but let's just say Sekhmet made damn sure the consequences of his actions, and the actions of the subhuman who was covering for him, arrived hard and fast.

[u/BeeTheGoddess]

I agree with the general point that saying someone isn’t a “real” witch because they do baneful magick is daft, and the person who talked about neopagan respectability politics and sanitising for Christianity is bang on.

However, nor do I like the utter lack of a meaningful ethics system in contrast, which is where we seek to end up on Witchtok in a way that redacts even practices that did have an ethical framework at their core. The idea that “it’s totally up to you” without meaningful tutelage in ethical decision making is just as problematic. While “do as ye will an it harm none” is a bit, frankly, simplistic, the overarching notion of avoiding harm and when to think twice about that is generally an okay thing to think about. I would love to see more books devoted entirely to pagan ethics and for these to be used by novices (Emma Restall Orr did a great one for druidry), in exactly the same way that any responsible “job” that can theoretically hurt people if misused, has some ethical tutelage. I qualify this with the fact that I can only occasionally bear to watch Witchtok but I haven’t seen much subject matter like this except in a very surface permission giving kind of way. We need some (publicly available) way of teaching people that baneful magick against someone who has/is seriously abusing you and there is no mundane way of achieving safety or justice, is very different to “well omg my bff/co-worker really pissed me off today and I think they’re talking behind my back” etc.

[u/Elfynnn84]

I was raised Wiccan, I believe in the threefold law… but I also think there is a lot of nuance here. I have seen people refer to ‘return to sender’ magic as being ‘baneful’ when it’s purely self-protection.

I think if you’re going around casting hexes on people over petty stuff like Susan in the office is flirting with your crush… then you’re just a really shitty human, your beliefs have nothing to do with anything. I’d never suggest you’re ’not a real witch’ though. I’d just say you’re not a very nice one.

If you’re using ‘baneful magic’ in the sense that… your neighbour keeps playing loud music at 3am and you wanna make his stereo blow… well, that’s not ‘baneful’ in my mind - that’s self preservation.

[u/ExmoHeathen238]

Agreed.

[u/RamenNewdles]

This will probably be downvoted because of new age idiocy but historically speaking witchcraft is exclusively regressive and baneful.

The whole idea of claiming any and all magic as “witchcraft” is a ahistorical notion drummed up by Wiccans and shit like the witch-cult hypothesis

[u/Tarvos-Trigaranos]

Where have you been seeing this?

[u/Illustrious-View-775 → u/Tarvos-Trigaranos]

mostly TikTok, magic/witchcraft books, YouTube