Witchcraft 101

Morality in witchcraft

I spent a lot of time trying to work out which order this chapter and the next should I go in, and I've decided to put this one first.

Cultural Appropriation

Cultural appropriation is unfortunately quite widespread within witchcraft. Now obviously, this isn't right.

There are some practices within witchcraft that are known as "closed practices". This means that you have to be born into it, or invited in to take part. You cannot just pick up a book about it and start practicing.

It is always best to research where certain types of magic come from and whether or not they are closed or open. Try even to reach out to people who follow those paths to ask if it is closed or open or if you would need to be formally invited into it - in the age of the internet it is far easier to contact people from many different cultures. (Although be aware that obviously they are a real person and not a dictionary about their cultures branch of witchcraft)

EDIT: 24/11/23. So a lot of people go into this with the mindset of "if you're xyz you can't do xyz it's automatically approporiation", or with the thought that there is a monolith consensus within groups about what is cultural appropriation. As a white person from the UK, obviously I'm not the person to be saying what you can and can't practise.
Most common types of appropriation I see are from Native American cultures (ex. smudging, palo santo) and Jewish cultures (ex. Lilith worship) and Black cultures (ex. voodoo), but within those groups there is disagreement, and also there is nuance such as someone from that culture inviting a white friend to participate. Basically, be respectful, and if someone tells you what you are doing is appropriation, don't get overly defensive - there's a lot of work to be done decolonising witchcraft especially when you look at people like Aleister Crowley and Gerald Gardner (often considered the founders of modern witchcraft) and all the appropriation they got up to. (End of Edit)

Love spells

It is widely regarded as extremely wrong to do a love potion with the intention of making someone fall in love with you. This is for two main reasons: a) you are directly trying to manipulate someone's free will and b) the person would not have given their consent, making it very very wrong.

Those sorts of love spells are however very different from self-love spells - presumably you would have your own consent for self-love!

Cursing

Different paths and branches have different opinions on cursing and other such baneful magics.

For example, in the Wiccan religion there is a concept of the "Three-Fold Law", which basically states that whatever you put out into the universe will come back to you multiplied by 3. The Wiccan Rede also says not to do harm. So a Wiccan approach to cursing would be that cursing is not recommended as it could cause harm and may come back to you.

There are other concepts that say that whatever you put out into the universe will come back to you, such as in Hinduism there is the concept of karma.

However not all witches will necessary believe that whatever you do will come back to you eventually. Therefore they might be comfortable with using curses.

It is down to your own personal beliefs whether you use curses as part of your magic, but it is always important to respect other witches choices regarding cursing. Anyway, at a beginner stage, it isn't recommended to do cursing because curses are very advanced magic, so if you are a beginner you don't need to worry about figuring out your stance on cursing just yet.

Other important things to note

Some of these are common sense rather than anything to do with morality, but they seem to fit with this chapter.

- Witchcraft is not a replacement for medicine or science. All the healing spells in the world will not get rid of a bacterial infection. Go see your doctor and get antibiotics. Same applies for disease prevention - herbs are not going to do anything like a vaccine and hand sanitizer will

- Always search for a non-magic explanation first. If something feels wrong, don't immediately jump to "I've been cursed/hexed". Think - have you eaten/drank water/slept/had a wash/etc recently? Could you be sick? Rule out any non-magic explanations before starting a curse breaking spell

- Respect other people's beliefs. No path of witchcraft is inherently better than any other. Neither is any religion.

- You don't have to be religious. Witches can be atheist, agnostic, secular, etc. Many associate witchcraft with the religion of Wicca - but you don't have to be Wiccan or of any religion.

That's all for now, hopefully this is helpful as a basis for different beliefs surrounding witchcraft. Next chapter will be about religion and witchcraft, and after that I will look at explaining more about magic.
- Lunaria