Witchvox Article

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Posted: October 14th. 2001
Times Viewed: 2,069

There are lots of opinions about the propriety of doing magic for one's own benefit. Many will assure you that you must never use your magical training and powers for your own benefit. If you ever do, you are assured that your powers will be taken away from you.

I brought the question with me on a visit to a friend of mine, Auntie Thesis. As it happened, she was baking cookies when I showed up.

"Well, good morning!" she said, "What brings you here?"

"Oh, not much. Those cookies smell good."

"Probably smelled them all the way over at your house, didn't you?"

"Well...."

"Never mind. Help yourself!"

"Oh! These are good! You really ought to sell these! Aren't you having any?"

"Oh, no. I couldn't."

"Why not?" I knew she liked sweets of all sorts.

"It'd be selfish. And unethical."

"Excuse me?"

"My cooking is the result of what I've learned, a gift from my teachers, and talent, given by the Gods. And I use ingredients provided by the Lord and the Lady in everything I do. It wouldn't be ethical to use all this for my own benefit."

"Oh! Well, I was going to ask you about that, but you're going off in a weird direction. I can see that kind of rule for magic, but this, " I held up a half-eaten cookie, "this isn't magic."

She looked at me over her glasses. "You've put away five of them and you don't think they're magic?"

"Oh, you know what I mean. There's spellcraft, and then there's mundane work. They're different."

"Talent is talent. Skill is skill. Knowledge is knowledge. Do you really think it makes a difference just because you're using a different kind of skill?"

"I guess not. So what are you doing about meals?"

"Oh, there's a burger joint around the corner, and lots of places deliver. And they make pretty good frozen dinners."

"Sounds dreadful. Somehow, this doesn't make any sense at all. I can't imagine that the Gods don't want us taking responsibility for ourselves. Are we really supposed to hope other people will do things for us?"

"That's certainly what it sounds like. If it's selfish to cast spells for your own benefit, it's selfish to do anything else for your own benefit. And frankly, that'd have to include any kind of work for hire."

"Now that's absurd. Work for hire is an exchange of energy. I do a service for someone, and I get a service back in return. If I get paid money, that's just my proof that I've been of service to someone. If we had to give everything away to everyone else, and hope someone gave us what we needed, it'd be total confusion. It'd never work."

"Now you're being selfish again. You're awfully concerned about your own happiness."

"True, but I'm also worrying about everyone else's happiness. If I'd find a system like that a miserable existence, I bet lots of other people would, too. If I work for myself, at least I get to choose those things that I need, and not hope someone else will think to give it to me. And I'll bet that's at least as important to everyone else, too."

"Well, magic works the same way. You know your needs. and you know what you want in your life. If you want to do a prosperity spell for yourself, you have every right. If you don't see to your wishes, who's going to do it for you?"

"Yeah, Hillel said something like that. 'If I am not for myself, who will be for me?' But he also said, 'If I am for myself alone, what am I?'"

"Which statement do you think is more important?"

That stopped me. I must have pondered that one for three whole cookies. "Well, he did put those statements together."

"Very good!" Aunt Thesis' smile was like sunshine. "He paired one with the other for balance. Why are we here?"

"Hmmmh?" The change of subject caught me off guard.

"Don't grunt with your mouth full. Why did the Gods put us here?" She peered at me expectantly.

"Well, we're here to learn. Most traditions say we reincarnate—we're reborn on this plane of existence until we've learned all we need to learn here."

"Why?"

"Um...."

"You had it not long ago. I read it in one of your essays. We're here to become happy."

"Um... Keep going please?"

She smiled again. "Happiness, as you pointed out, is not pleasure, or having fun, or being selfish. Happiness is a much deeper state of being. In a way, happiness is the feeling you have when you're following your True Will.

"Young man, why do you think the Gods bothered with creation in the first place? What do they get from it?"

"Well, maybe we're a hobby? Maybe this is part of divine love, a way to give to others."

"Again, why? Let's go back to Hillel. If you're not for yourself, you can't count on anyone else being for you. If you don't take care of your own needs, they may never be met, and you'll be of no use for anyone else. If you do attend to your own needs, you'll be stronger, and incidentally, you'll be more able to help others with their needs."

"Okay, that makes sense."

"But, if you attend only to yourself, what are you? Just as you help others by helping yourself, you help yourself by helping others."

I could only look confused at that one.

"Everyone has needs. The only person with no needs at all is a corpse. When you think about it, it is the variety and the complexity of our needs that make us human. And it is the way we meet the needs of others that define us as beings of worth. The ability to give is one of the ways to happiness, because in the balance of energy, karma if you will, those who give also receive. The more they give, the more they receive."

"Well, that's the Threefold Law, but that's an awfully simplistic way of looking at it."

"Simplistic? Or merely simple? Look at people who are happy, and look at people who are unhappy. Who is more giving, who is more taking, and who is in balance with their giving and taking? The Rede says, 'fairly take and fairly give.' It's not just talking about contract law there, it's talking about a whole array of attitudes that lead to happiness. If you're going to achieve the happiness the Gods want you to have, you have to learn to balance what you do for your own benefit with what you do for the benefit of others."

"So you're saying that there's no harm in working magic for yourself, as long as you don't make that your sole focus. I guess you made your point. Have a cookie, and when my prosperity magic kicks in, I'll take you out to a nice dinner."

"That, " she said, nibbling on a cookie, "sounds like a wonderful plan.

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John

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