Magickal Karma and the Pursuit of Ethics

(A statement of opinion bound to really piss *someone* off)

In my not so terribly humble opinion, Karma is a religious rationalisation of psychic backlash caused by guilt. If you don't feel guilty about, for example, a curse you have put upon someone, you'll get no psychic backlash (my experience confirms this one pretty definitively). However, if you are wracked with guilt by this terrible thing you've done, you'll probably get some nasty backlash.

Of course, "karma" could be said to exist in the sense that if you, for example, hit someone, odds on they'll hit you back if they can, or otherwise try to obtain retribution, but "universal laws" just don't come into it.

I'll also note that the use of the word "Karma" to describe things that apparently happen to you as a result of being good or bad (sounds like a cosmic Santa Claus, to be honest) is very westernised. I believe it's original meaning was something along the lines of fate... don't quote me on that.

The use of magick changes things, and almost always affects other people. Using a ritual in order to get a job may cause some more deserving individual to not get it.
For that matter, even applying for the job could have that effect. Perhaps we should all stay at home in our sterile oxygen tents.
But, of course! Using magick to get something is cheating! It's bad enough just doing it for things that don't harm others, even though that in itself involves disrupting the sacred order of the universe! (It says so in this here Holy Book.) Perhaps we should all give up on actual magick, and instead read books about it, talk about it, and feel superior and enlightened and righteous by dint of the fact that we COULD change and affect all sorts of things but don't because we're good and worthy individuals...

Bollocks! That is where rationalising the use of magick takes us, especially within a context of religious belief in a lawful and orderly universe where our every action is weighed in the balance.

Magick is a tool which, let's face it, is designed to be used to give its user an advantage. Whether this advantage be "holy" enlightenment or "crass" material gain, magick users are out for an advantage.

Sure, we can rationalise this, saying that we only use this deity-given gift for "good" - to heal; to effect the will of the aforementioned deity, perhaps, but basically, that's all it is. Rationalisation.

We're in this for ourselves, and whether we use magick to heal a loved one, to have a peek into the future, or to curse an enemy, the majority of our use of it is basically selfish.

Those of you who perform workings in aid of world peace; can you really say you'd get nothing out of it's presence?
A safer world for you and your children; the assuagance of the guilt you feel for being part of a wealthy and "civilised" country, for always having relative safety, for having regular meals, while others starve and are blown apart by land mines; the pleasure of satisfied self-righteousness, that you HAVE done something to help. Aren't you a fucking saint.

Magick doesn't judge our actions. We do.
As for the gods, if gods they be, most of them couldn't care less.
Society, the greater we, judges our actions, for it's own benefit. This makes sense. People don't want to die for the sake of a sadist's hedonistic pleasure.

When it comes down to it, that is where our species' instinct takes us. We, as individuals, MUST survive and succeed. That is imperative.
Even those of us who have no intention to breed feel the urges of our ancient instincts for survival, - for the preservation and advancement of the self, if not the genes.

Bleeding hearts are all very well when sat at home in front of your TV, but if you were forced to choose between your survival and that of a stranger - hell, that of ten, twenty, a hundred strangers - I'd be prepared to wager that you'd save your skin and screw the rest. Which is not to say you'd necessarily be happy about doing so.

Now, in my rather amoral code of ethics, if you want something, you go and get it, by the most efficient means available, magickal or otherwise, so long as it doesn't harm you (or, by extension, those things you care about).

Of course, many people, either by upbringing, or personal inclination, or whatever, care about more, or perhaps more accurately, different things than I do. I'm a self-confessed misanthropist, so don't exactly feel stricken with guilt by the knowledge that I've harmed another human, while others might.

However, not harming others because of your own beliefs, opinions, and ethics is one thing. Not harming others through fear of an artificial law, an empty threat, a religious mandate, is quite another.

Magick yourself as many advantages as you can; as you are prepared to let yourself.
Live by your own ethics and emotions, as opposed to someone else's.
Your instincts (and your ego) will thank you for it.

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