Month: July 2021

When I learned about the Wiccan Rule of Three, I often saw it associated with the concept of karma in Indian philosophy. For a long time I understood the two concepts to be essentially the same; the universe returns good for good and evil for evil. The implied moral theory is that one deserves to receive what they send out into the world. My teachers often used “karma” and “Rule of Three” interchangeably. While both principles orient moral judgments around actions and consequences, they differ significantly when analyzed critically.

In Wicca, “karma” is described by the “Rule of Three,” stating that whoever one sends out comes back to them threefold. The rule or its consequences are often casually referred to as “karma,” and the pagan community I found as an adolescent appeared aware of the concepts association with Asian religious traditions. For the most part, “karma” is the reason Wiccans caution one another against casting curses or working any destructive magic. Doing so would be foolish because the witch would eventually suffer three times the destructive force they had called down. Retribution may not be immediate or in kind, but Wiccans believe that the Rule of Three guarantees that no one escapes it forever.

The norm against cursing does not prevent self-righteous witches from crafting rituals to encourage karmic return for perceived wrongs. A person sufficiently convinced of their blamelessness can readily use the Rule of Three to spiritually bypass any self-reflection since it does not distinguish between correlation and causation. Vague misfortunes can be aligned with perceived failings, enabling one to embrace a more convenient penance than reforming their behavior or apologizing for their role in a conflict. The Rule’s loose framework allows a person to interpret moral consequences for themselves by disconnecting result from action, cutting moral introspection short.

Furthermore, the Rule of Three relies on a widely open timeline for karmic retribution. Karma can always come around at some undefined later point. When someone appears to be profiting from harm, one must assume the dues will be paid eventually, but evidence does not support that conclusion. The classic Problem of Evil asks how an infinitely good god could allow for evil in the world. The Rule of Three posits that harm is returned to the offender, a denial that evil is allowed in the world. When presented with manifest and continued evil in the world, a strict adherent of the Rule must assert their faith in some eventual corrective action. Nevertheless, an injustice that is corrected only after a century allows for many people to suffer injustice and never see retribution in their lifetimes.

Indian philosophy contains a diversity of views about karma, but the word means “action” or “deed” in Sanskrit. In the Buddhist tradition, karma represents a causal principle that binds a person to the consequences of their actions. A harmful act produces the harm itself as well as a number of additional effects, setting off a chain of events that may take a long time to unfold. Both the agent and the subject of an action experience emotions that can shape their responses to future events. The patterns formed by repeated actions and their effects prevent a person from achieving liberation from the cycle of rebirth. A person who breaks the pattern overcomes their karma, their desires, and their attachment to those things and become free.

The Buddhist account of karma enjoys a few structural strengths when compared to the Rule of Three. When framed as a cascade of cause and effect, karma becomes plausible if not trivially true. The Buddhist account of causation, dependent co-arising, understands causal relationships to include necessary conditions, sufficient conditions, and necessary and sufficient conditions, so some causal links may be remote but nevertheless logically connected. By definition a cause produces effects, and a single event can be described in such detail as to identify multiple causes of the event as well as multiple effects. Karma provides an acknowledgment that such consequences become part of an individual’s life history, whether they were the agent or patient of the event.

Karma provides an ethical framework for reflecting on the morality of one’s actions. When an agent sees themselves as the originator of later events, they can consider whether they are content to be of a piece with the results of their actions. Recognizing that one’s behavior does not reflect self-belief presents an agent with the opportunity bring themselves into alignment. Since the agent may also recognize themselves as the outcome of previous events, they gain the ability to discern the boundaries of their personal responsibility. As a moral norm, karma implies a value in taking responsibility for one’s actions and for forgiving oneself for circumstances beyond their control. Karma complements the Buddhist value of compassion by placing a person in the roles of both agent and patient to frame suffering as a shared experience.

Since Paganism and Buddhism are distinct religious traditions with their own origins and practices, there is no assumed need for Pagan concepts to conform with Buddhist definitions. One need not deny the influence of Buddhism on modern Paganism to claim that the Pagan tradition has nevertheless developed its own interpretations of shared concepts, a branch from the same root. While there is no need for Paganism to be consistent with Buddhist doctrines, analysis of the Rule of Three reveals fatal internal incoherence. The Problem of Evil raises a foundational plausibility question that the Rule has no means to address. Furthermore, the Rule of Three lacks any account of value so that one can discern good from evil. While karma also lacks such an account, it does not need one since its framework does not invoke any notion of good or evil. Desirable and undesirable consequences are relative to the agent’s desires, not to an absolute moral law. Morals derived from karmic introspection do assume valuing compassion and disvaluing suffering, and Buddhist philosophy provides accounts of those values and their relationship to karma.

As a witch I believe that I should consider the consequences of my actions both magical and mundane. Recognizing suffering as an ill, I believe that I should avoid causing it and rectify it where I am able. To fulfill these duties effectively, I need to understand the scope of my ability to influence events directly and indirectly. The Rule of Three leaves too many of these questions open to interpretation and cannot account for its own plausibility. The Buddhist account of karma fulfills these needs and withstands critical analysis. As such, I prefer to adopt the more robust view of karma even though it distances me from a core Wiccan tradition.

The demand for more rigorous proof marked a turning point in my spiritual practice. Like most teenagers who discovered contemporary paganism through books, I had little means to differentiate reliable sources from fabrication. Teachers and elders in the craft sometimes corrected inaccuracies, but the information they supplied often turned out to lack any more robust grounding. I set aside my practice for a while because I could find no truth to support it.

As a young Wiccan, I learned about karma, reincarnation, and chakras. While I knew that those ideas originated in Indian philosophy, I read only shallowly in Buddhist and Brahmanic sources. My understanding was shaped by the Pagans around me and the books I read. High school history classes brushed these subjects broadly in order to encapsulate a deep literary tradition in a few sentences, so I had no more reliable source available.

At university, I took courses on religions in Asia and philosophy of mind. My professors assigned yoga sutras and sermons of the Buddha. I began practicing meditation again, this time under the direction of classical Zen teachings. As a graduate student, I served as teaching assistant for a class on Indian philosophy. The professor was scholar, linguist, and storyteller. He asked his students to read primary sources, and in class he decoded them, ornamenting them in history, vocabulary, literary style, and philosophical argument. While he was not a member of the philosophy department, I learned more from him than any academic philosopher.

Karma and reincarnation all appeared in his lectures. They sat among dissections of Buddhist logic and Vedantana phenomenology. Yet they appeared very differently than they did in the Wiccan books where I first encountered them. My studies into the occult resumed so that I could trace the concepts back from Wicca to their introduction by Theosophy and embrace by the Golden Dawn. With the rise of more generic New Age thought, the meaning had twisted into reflections of Christian retribution and transmigration of the soul.

The concepts as understood by their original traditions contain much more robust philosophical foundations. As a cause and effect framework, karma calls attention to the myriad consequences of our actions and how those consequences follow us until the chain of causation is exhausted. When embedded into Brahmanic or Buddhist metaphysics, rebirth describes little more than the Law of Conservation of Matter. Wicca had appropriated these concepts and wove brittle shells of themselves into its core metaphysics. From that perspective, I saw Wicca as foolish because the tradition anchored itself on mistaken interpretations that cannot withstand critical analysis. They did not note the weakness in their views and seek to repair it.

The religious traditions I learned from the cradle had clear chains of authority. Evangelical Baptists point to the literal words of the Bible, but individual congregants tend to defer to their pastor who in turn references the received view of the Southern Baptist Convention. The Roman Catholic Church codifies its doctrines and the processes by which those doctrines are altered. While authority can be confining when one disagrees, it provides certainty about the boundaries of theology. Paganism, and occult traditions in general, lack any doctrinal authority, so the theology remains unbounded. Beyond common anchors in the practice of ritual magic, polytheism, and animism, internal metaphysics can run wild.

With a heavy emphasis on introspection and mysticism, personal gnosis plays a prominent role in Pagan spirituality. The gnosis drawn from a visionary experience or deep meditation may provide a guiding light for one’s practice and core beliefs. William James discusses the power of such insights in The Varieties of Religious Experience. According to James, mystical experiences form the foundation of religious traditions as insights become codified in doctrine and ritual. Since the experience can be so powerful, James allows that the mystic has every reason to believe the content of their own insight and apply the lessons they draw from it.

However, the same cannot be said for those people who have not had the same experience. Altered states of consciousness can be described, but one must experience them to have a complete understanding. Instead, one must judge the mystic’s message by the observable outcomes that arise from it. The content of the insight cannot impose any justification to believe absent directly sharing the experience. An insight so profound that it cannot be expressed in words cannot be readily transferred to someone else. As such, the mystic can spread their message and demonstrate the good it has done for them, but every other individual may decide to accept or reject that message based on their own experience and observations.

In the Pagan community I encountered, knowledge was learned through books and personal gnosis, often shared through word of mouth. Covens and circles of fellow travelers engaged in a dialogic exercise around asserting personal gnosis and collectively reframing it to harmonize everyone’s paradigm. The resulting consensus usually degrades over time as individuals have new experiences or read new books or pick up ideas from new people. Critical analysis did not have a significant place in this exercise. Rejections were discouraged as intolerant or narrow-minded, so only modifications and reframing were permitted. As a result the Pagan theology I learned from my teachers consisted of ad hoc metaphors threaded with inconsistent principles.

In time, epistemology helped me sort the substance from the fluff. Epistemology is the study of knowledge, what it is, and how we get it. Classical epistemologists defined knowledge as beliefs that are both true and justified. While there are many views among epistemologists and metaphysicians on what makes a belief “true” or “justified”, a belief that lacks either direct sensory evidence or other robust indicator of truth will not pass muster. Many grandiose claims about “energy” with regard to working magic fall flat when the believer is asked “How do you know that?” With that perspective I began to reason about Pagan concepts and my own experiences. In the process I rejected many of the specific beliefs and practices I learned as an initiate, making it difficult to engage with the Pagan community for a long time.

Scholarly study and critical inquiry became important boundaries for my spiritual journey. Buddhist philosophy became a more prominent influence on my daily practice although Pagan imagery continued to provide metaphors and structure for ritual magic. I read more widely in the occult, especially authors that my Pagan elders discouraged. Many streams of influence have fed my curiosity and informed my practice, but no single framework pulls all of them into view. These entries are helping me build that framework as my studies continue.

Delta Paganism advises seekers to take only what is freely given, so it must supply some way to make that judgment. The motivation for this principle is avoiding cultural appropriation, specifically colonizer cultures adopting elements of colonized cultures to augment their spiritual practice. Cultural exchange benefits individuals and communities by creating ways for people to learn about one another and interact in a shared space. Cultural appropriation lacks equality between participants, removing the mutual respect required for shared understanding. The Delta Pagan’s journey should not be an expedition to plunder the wonders of the world’s traditions. Instead, the journey should be characterized by authentic study and respectful exchange.

Some religious traditions frame experience of the divine within a very specific location and environment. The tradition changes over time, both organically and through cultural exchange, but connection with the rhythms of a specific place remain a prominent feature. Rituals and regular observances may be impossible to conduct outside of the tradition’s home region. Where the religious experience attaches to holy sites or local seasonal cycles, adherents may have difficulty traveling with their faith. A person who moves to a region where such a tradition thrives may take a long time to become folded into the religion, if they ever do. Usually, an adherent is born into a regional tradition and passes through rites of passage to mark life transitions.

Some religious traditions value spreading their doctrines to others and bringing new adherents into the fold. When they thrive, these traditions tend to take root well beyond their original location, carried by missionaries. Initiation rituals welcome new members into the community whether they are born or converted to it. Converts tend to incorporate core doctrines into local practices, introducing new ideas into the tradition. A missionary tradition then becomes a nexus of core doctrines, internal developments, and syncretism.

Mystery traditions keep their doctrines and rituals secret, only selectively admitting candidates. An aspiring member often must study or undergo a ritualized ordeal before being formally initiated into the religion. Rituals of initiation form a common thread with regional, missionary, and mystery religions. Regional religions may have rites of passage to mark stages of life but no formal ritual to initiate new members. Missionary religions typically have a formal initiation ritual, and they may develop or incorporate rites of passage from regional religions. The former assumes that new members enter only through birth, but the latter allows that new members may join as adults. Initiation rites form a centerpiece of a mystery tradition as it serves as a boundary between those allowed to know and those who are kept ignorant.

A spiritual journey might wind through traditions that belong to all of these categories, and the seeker cannot help but be influenced by what they encounter. At the same time, every seeker exists in relation to their history, in particular their ancestral relationship to imperialism and colonization. Members of privileged classes and colonizer cultures should consider the historical relationship between themselves and the traditions they study. White people who study Buddhism should be aware of the “Orientalization” that characterized the original popularization of Buddhism in Europe and North America. While Missionary traditions invite exchange, regional traditions with a history of suppression by colonizers might find syncretism disrespectful. Without developing strong personal ties by growing up in the area or spending a significant phase of life there, one may not think of regional traditions as being freely given.

Colonizer cultures cannot demand the same respect for their traditions because they have made an active effort to export their culture and force colonized people to conform to it. An individual dislocated from their culture’s original home and isolated from their traditions will adopt what they are given and make it their own. When colonizer cultures erase the traditions of colonized people, those descendants will necessarily inherit the colonizer’s traditions. Even though a living individual may not have participated in any historical atrocities, they benefit from that history and enjoy a position built on that violence. While no one person can correct past injustices, one can and should avoid reproducing colonization dynamics when studying or interacting with cultural tradition that are not one’s own. Nothing that a colonizer has taken is freely given.