“The three core principles of Goddess religion are immanence,
interconnection, and community. Immanence means that the Goddess, the Gods are
embodied, that we are each a manifestation of the living being of the earth,
that nature, culture, and life in all their diversity are sacred. Immanence
calls us to live our spirituality here in the world, to take action to preserve
the life of the earth, to live with integrity and responsibility….Interconnection
is the understanding that all beings are interrelated, that we are linked with
all of the cosmos as parts of one living organism…So interconnection demands
from us compassion, the ability to feel with others so strongly that our
passion for justice is itself aroused”…pg 22 Starhawk. Spiral Dance
The very first handout the coven gives our students for their book of shadows is largely about the rules of engagement we expect from them as students and what they can expect from us as coven leaders and teachers. That handout also includes discussions on boundaries for ritual and codes of conduct in general both on a physical and metaphysical level.
When I posted the first post in this series, I postulated
that perhaps we sometimes confuse ethics with moral development. I say this
because there is a need to delineate between performance expectations within a
group setting to maintain a healthy group and when, how and why to use
witchcraft or considering the moral implications of using magic on/for yourself
or others.
I get frustrated at the several different schools of Wicca
out there that will teach you how to employ a candle to draw money to you
before they teach the student how to reasonably connect with the natural power
around them without hurting themselves or others in the process. I understand the desire to practice witchcraft
to meet a practical need but if you are destroying yourself physically and
mentally in the process is meeting the other need going to do you any good? Turning your boyfriend into a toad really isn’t
going to do you any good if you aren’t addressing your own insecurities or
emotional issues that led to the break up to begin with. Magic really does come
down to transforming ourselves before we can transform the world around us. However,
this is a slightly different issue than moral development. I don’t believe that
moral development is just a spiritual issue. It is a community issue, a
practical one.
Moral development is studied from a non religious standpoint
in modern psychology. Jean Piaget and Lawrence Kohlberg are just two examples
of psychologists who have written on the stage of moral development in children
and adults. Piaget concluded that moral development is learned through social
interactions and internalizing just behavior. Kohlberg further decided that
moral development is more involved and evolutionary than just deciding what is
right for the moment or group concession.
It is not to say that I expect my students to become
immobilized with the fear that they might be doing something to harm someone inadvertently.
Goodness no. However, I do expect my students to think through the full
ramifications of their process. Are they doing something to bind someone’s
will? That isn’t acting in unconditional love.
Do I want my neighbor who ran over my husband to move? Yes but instead
of actively wishing him harm, I ask the gods to bless him with opportunity and
fortune to either move him or move us away from him. I also pray and do spells
to protect my physical property and members of my household and have followed
every legal recourse to ensure we stay safe from harm.
I do understand that many people do not want the
responsibility of ensuring standards for social norms and social responsibility.
However, I see that one of the inherent issues in the dumbing down or our
society is that we are also not expecting any level of personal accountability
or standards of behavior either unless they are completely self serving. Yet we
are bitterly disappointed when community does not meet our level of
expectation. We can’t have it both ways. If we want our community to have accountability
and responsibility than we have to be a part of that in both the creation of
the standard that the holding others to the same standards.
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