Wicca 101
The Rede, the Law, & Sin
Every religion has a sacred text containing instructions for how to live life free of sin. Christianity has the Bible, and Christians follow the Ten Commandments. Islam has the Koran to guide Muslims on their religious journey. Wiccans, however, do not recognize Biblical law, so what governs their ethics and behavior? The truth is that the morality of Wiccans isn't much different from the morals of other religions. The Wiccan Rede and Law of Three are basically just the Golden Rule, rewritten.
The Wiccan Rede is a long rhyming poem containing sage advice for living, loving, Sabbat celebration, and witchcraft. Please notice that I said advice and not law. You are not required to obey; you are not sinning if you act otherwise. The Rede is tried and true wisdom designed merely to tell us what others have found best for living in harmony with the world and for working magic successfully. You would be wise to follow it, but you are not evil for disregarding it.
The Rede states that we must live in perfect love and perfect trust, which does not mean that we should strive to love and trust everyone completely with our lives and souls. It means that we should be sure of who we love and trust, so that we really know them, love them, and trust them for who they are. Our love must be unconditional, but it must be real--based on truth. We should do our best not to trust those who should not be trusted, for that would be unwise.
The Wiccan Rede tells us to be light of eye, which means you should not look in harsh judgement, and soft of touch, which means that our actions should be subtle so as not to cause harm but slight change. We must be gentle with others. In this couplet we are instructed to speak little and listen much, for the key to understanding is to hear, and the key to harmony is compassion. We are told as well to honor our elders and the ancient ones. We should be guided by love and light, not hatred and ill intent.
We are given magical advice as well, to cast the circle three times to keep away evil and to bind magic by speaking spells in rhyme. We are told which directions are best for working magic and which moon phases are best for working different kinds of magic. Certainly you can choose to go against this advice, but you'll have better results if you follow it. It speaks also of the four directions which are used in the craft and educates us about nine sacred woods of importance. A bit about each Sabbat follows.
It then returns to giving advice for life. We are told to disregard the greed of others when we have a need, which means that needs come before wants. This goes both ways. The Rede says you should not be the friend of a fool, that you should meet and part merrily, and that you should be true in love unless your lover is false. This is all advice about love and friendship. The Rede finally states the Golden Rule, the Three-fold Law: what you send forth comes back to you times three. Do unto others as you'd have done unto you. You reap what you sow.
The ending of the Wiccan Rede is the most important and the most widely quoted. It is the only part of the Rede generally accepted as Law. It states "An ye harm none, do what ye will." There you have it. Harm none. Now, we have to do harm to live. We must kill to eat, to protect ourselves, to survive. I therefore interpret it to mean do no harm that is not necessary or do as little harm as possible. Things get tricky with this law, though, for what everyone has their own opinion of what harm is and what things are more harmful than others. Therefore, this rule gives us a general standard to live by, while still allowing us to decide for ourselves what is right and wrong.
The Three-fold Law and Wiccan Rede have been condensed into a short, eight-line poem called the Wiccan Law. It begins the same as the Wiccan Rede, then skips right to the end quoting the "harm none" decree. The second verse repeats the Three-fold Law and again instructs us on the importance of following it, so that we can as we should meet and part merrily with love and trust in our hearts. That is the goal of Wiccan morality: to achieve harmony with the world, to make the world a better place, to do no harm to others.
We don't have a church dictating what our stance must be on abortion, suicide, or gay marriage. We don't have a universal ban on stealing and theft, murder, or lying. We must simply ask ourselves one question before acting: Will this action do more harm than good? Whether something is right or wrong depends on the circumstances as well as how an individual interprets harm. Certainly murdering out of anger, stealing out of greed, and lying out of spite are wrong. Does it do more harm for a suffering man to go on living than it does for him to die peacefully? Would it be better to steal to feed a starving child or to let the child die of hunger? If your wife asks you if your rear end looks big, would it be better to lie if the truth would hurt her?
What is Sin? Some would say there is no sin in Wicca, but I disagree. If our law is to do no harm, then it is a sin to deliberately do harm. When you act out of hatred, anger, or ill intent, when you deliberately hurt someone, that is a sin. When you tell the truth to be unkind, when you lie to be cruel, when you kill for revenge, that is all sin. What is the punishment for sin? Some believe it will happen after death, but must Wiccans simply believe in karma. The Three-fold Law is what punishes us, for when you are unkind to others, they are going to be unkind to you.
All will answer these questions differently. There are few things that are always right or always wrong. Whether a decision is ethical, what the best choice is in a situation, is entirely dependant upon the circumstances. Moreover, everyone has a different definition of harm. When faced with two evils, not all will agree on which is the lesser. Our law is simply to do our best, to try to do as much good and as little harm as possible. To sin is to do the opposite: to deliberately do harm, to upset the balance of life and death, to act maliciously. Go forth, and do as little harm as possible. Remember always that what you send out will return to you!