Class Four: Ethics, Magick, and Living Pagan
Ethics
Ethics is a very important part of magick. Ethics are a set of beliefs or practices that one utilizes in their everyday life to make decisions. Ethics can be used in mundane (everyday)life and in our magickal life (ritual, meditation, magicakal practices). There are things that are considered wrong to most pagans. Some of these are doing love spells on a specific person, which is making them love you against their own free will; and spells to hurt another, which is taking Divine justice and karma into your own hands.
Karma is a very important consideration when it comes to ethics. Karma is the belief that the things you do and thoughts you think can be tied to you. It is said that everything you do comes back to you three times, or threefold. Your karma can be tied to someone else if you do a spell for them or give them a spell from your book of shadows. You should always be careful what you are doing, saying and sharing so that you can make sure that good karma comes your way.
Most people follow the tennants of the Wiccan Rede. This is a basic guideline for magickal living. The short version is as follows:
Bide the Wiccan Law ye must,
In perfect love and perfect trust.
Eight words the Rede fulfuill,
An ye harm none, do what ye will.
Ever mind the rule of three,
What you send out comes back to thee.
Follow this with mind and heart,
An Merry Ye Meet and Merry Ye Part!
Blessed Be!
Psychic Defense vs. Negative Magick
Sometimes you have to defend yourself from attack from others. In order to do this, you can place a protective bubble of white light around you. When you are in a situation that is new to you, it is advisable to have this shield or bubble in place to help keep yourself safe. This can also ward off the yucky vibes you may get from others. In order to make your bubble, you need to see whatever color or design that you associate with protection. You could also have mirrors on the outside of the bubble to reflect the negative energy if you choose. In order to use it, just see the bubble of your design around you. Know that it is there at all times and that nothing is penetrating it. Remember that protecting yourself is NOT bad magick. You have to protect yourself as needed.
Negative magick is not something that Pagans generally do. Negative magick is any magick sent out to harm or prevent or force someone to do something. You can do a justice spell to ask the Divine to bring justice, or you can ask for love in your life, but you should avoid making the person's punishment and you should avoid having a specific person in mind for love spells. Make sure you question every spell you intend on doing. Ask yourself if it will harm anyone, or force anyone to do something they may not want to do. It can be easy for a simple spell to turn out negative. Make sure you do your homework and that you are prepared to accept your karma if you are doing something questionable.
As for working with magick, make sure you always have permission before you do it. If you ask your dying relative for permission to do a healing and they say no, DON"T do it! It doesn't matter if you think it is appropriate and good and only going to help, you do not have permission to violate that person. Sometimes, people are meant to die, or meant to suffer, even though we don't want to think about it being that way. You may interfere with Divine workings. It is never, ever permissable to work without permission from that person, no matter what you think about the situation.
Living Pagan
Taking Care of Yourself
In pagan belief, the body is considered to be a temple of personal power. Due to this, you should learn to love and take care of your body. There are many ways to help yourself honor your body. The things you should work on are breathing, eating, and exercising properly, and honoring the Goddess in yourself and others and celebrating the wheel of the year.
The correct way to breath is in the nose and out through the mouth, breathing slowly. This sounds easy, but it can be very hard to train yourself to breath in this manner. If you can retrain yourself to breath the right way, you find yourself a lot more relaxed and less tired during the day. You should be breathing from your diaphragm. If you place your hands over it, you will be able to tell if you breathing from there or not. You should practice proper breathing around 10-20 minutes every day and increase every week by around five minutes. Soon, you will be able to do this without even thinking about it. This may take a while to master, so don't give up, just keep practicing.
There is also the 1,2,3,4 method that you can use. This is where you simply inhale for four counts and then exhale for four counts, doing each at a slow, steady pace. You may get light headed or dizzy, and if you do then stop and next time you practice, cut it down to 2 or 3 and see if that helps. This will help increase lung capacity and will help you relax. Just keep practicing and this will become second nature as well.
As for eating correctly, this can be a very hard task to accomplish. Almost everything we take in is bad for us. Food is overprocessed and has lots of added sugar, salt, and fat. You should try to slowly convert yourself to eating three meals a day and including in those meals unprocessed, healthy foods such as vegetables. This does not mean you can't eat meat or anything like that. All food should be eaten in moderation. After a full meal for supper, do you really need that bowl of ice cream? Do you need two sodas while you eat? Do you need a double or triple helping of mashed pototoes? If you learn to eat in moderation, this will help you to lose weight and feel good. Also, keep in mind that all food is a gift from the Gods. Take some time to thank them for what they have given you. Drinking water is the next important thing. Most people don't get near enough water. Without enough water, your body does not function correctly. Your organs can't do their job, you feel tired and lack energy. It is amazing what some extra water will do for your body. You could feel 100% better just by adding antoher two or three glasses of water a day. Just make sure you don't get any more than 8 glasses a day because too much water can cause kidney failure. Do not go on an all water fasting any longer than a few days. And, if you have never drank water, please start the process slowly. Your body will have to get used to drinking that much water. You may want to increase by around one glass per week.
Exercising is one of the things most people forget to do. They don't have time or they just don't care. Exercising is very important to a body. It gets your blood flowing and helps to give you some energy. Remember to start out slow, maybe just doing a few warm ups, and then progress to more complex exercises. You can also do some walking or running to get yourself in gear. Do whatever makes you comfortable and what you know you can stick with.
In order to use your body as a temple, you need to manifest the Goddess within you. Not only must you learn to take care of yourself, you need to learn to love yourself too. This will take time, but it is very important. You have to learn to deal with things you can't change. You have to get to know yourself by exploring the innermost part of you. You have learn to let go of the things that aren't important, and fix the things that are important. You also have to learn to work with the inner child. You must heal the inner child and learn to communicate with it. You should let it express its feelings and learn to embrace or heal those feelings. You also need to learn to listen to your intuition. Usually that little voice is speaking to you because you need to stop or think. Take some time to get used to your intuition. Then you can enjoy knowing that you actually knew what was going on. Just don't take it too far. Sometimes it can be our insecurities talking. Think when you listen. Then, all you have to do is understand that the Divine is all around you and in you, and that you are apart of everything that is. You should also honor the Goddess in others. Make sure that you are treating people with respect and kindness. If they are nasty to you, just smile and walk away. You don't have to put up with it, but you don't want to be nasty either. This will help you feel better and reduce stress.
Another important part is learning to celebrate the wheel of the year. By celebrating the wheel of the year and the full moons, we attune ourselves with nature and the Goddess and the God. This helps us to reap the benefits of a great relationship with them. We will become closer to the Earth when we celebrate the wheel of the year because it gives us a chance to observe her changes. You can also do things to protect and heal the Earth to become closer to her. You can recycle, bike to the store or work, carpool, or volunteer to clean up greenspace. You can do lots of litte things for her. This helps her to replenish so she can continue to support our race. By working with animals and plants, you can become in touch with them as well. They will also help you to connect with the Divine.
HOMEWORK:
Write a list of your fears and how to prevent them.
Write a paper on how you feel about ethics. What is ethical to you?
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