Questioning the Law

I am very well aware that Wicca is not a perfect religion. Our history is a little questionable when it comes to Gardner, who claimed he had rediscovered an ancient Goddess religion. There are also many contradictory views about our gods: are They male and female?, do They have names?, are we Them?, etc. Lately, though, I’ve been noticing a trend towards questioning the “Wiccanness” of the Threefold Law.

Simply put, the Threefold Law states that any action we do, for good or bad, will return to us three times. To me this seems too reminiscent of those punishment/reward faiths that so many of us have tried to leave behind. Wicca isn’t this sort of religion, and I feel that we don’t need this sort of law.

As Wiccans, we believe that all people and all things are part of the divine. We also have the Wiccan Rede (An it harm none, do as thou will.) to help guide our actions. With both these things forever in our hearts, it is obvious that any action we do will affect ourselves through that connection. Also, if we are truly aware of our Will, as the Rede requires us to be, we shouldn’t have to worry about preforming actions that we would need to be karmically or divinely punished for.

None of us are perfect though, right? So what about those times when we do something exceptionally good or exceptionally bad? Here is where we run into a little bit of difficulty. As I have said, I don’t believe in the punishment/reward form of religion, where a deity judges each of our actions. Instead, I believe in cause and effect; our actions influence what will happen to us. I’m not trying to say what you are asking for or deserve any bad or unkind things that happen to you. Rather, it is more like if you walk around with a bad attitude, it is more likely that you will attract others with similar bad attitudes, with predictable results. And, conversely, if you always have a good attitude, you are more likely to attract similar.