Choosing to Do the Hoodoo

I've been thinking a lot over the past two years, mostly to myself, about how much I've been struggling religiously or spiritually, and how much I've been fighting against some inner change. I realize I've been in conflict with myself for pretty much all of the ten years I've been practicing witchcraft, as well as attempting to fit into any number of Pagan traditions. I've researched and gone through motions of Wicca, Druidry, Celtic Recon, Thelema, some eclectic version of Egyptian religion. I kept looking and trying because I was holding so hard onto what had developed into my identity as a religious, Pagan person. I was willing to accept anything in order to be a religious person, but the whole time, I was forcing it. And my lack of progress in these traditions was evident. My identity is changing and I am embracing it, because now I'm really beginning to understand what everyone else is talking about when they say, "It just feels right."

My makeup for opening ritual at last week's Hoodoo Fest to invite in the Ancestors.

I'm no longer a religious person. I don't believe the gods exist as anything other than archetypes. I don't believe in karma, though that's sort of old news. I'm losing faith everyday in the occurrence reincarnation. I no longer view the elements as individual, conscious energies. I'm basically an atheist.

But I still consider myself a spiritual person, because I do hold beliefs in things that aren't directly observable, things that haven't been explained (or accepted) by science. I believe there is a truth to energy manipulation. There is truth in being able to sense and respond to energy that is outside of your own. Energies that belong to the air and the soil and the plants, ponds, rivers, lightning, stones, the moon, animals, the dead. I believe that land spirits are a real thing, they are unique to their own ecosystems, and that we can learn about them by spending time in our environments, paying attention to what we feel when we're there. And I think it's because that I believe in these things that I don't need the religion anymore.

Probably the biggest influence on this personal change entered my life two years ago, when my church began its West Kentucky Hoodoo Rootworker Heritage Festival. Our third consecutive Hoodoo Fest just ended last week and each time I attend, I learn and become even more confident in leaving religion behind to pursue a craft-like approach to spirituality that is rooted in the practices of energy manipulation (magic) and ancestor reverence. And these practices also have a different quality that captivates me more than any others ever have: they're American.

One of the biggest things I've been struggling with for the last decade is that I don't know how to practice something that is so culturally-involved when I myself am not a part of that culture. Yes, my ancestors came from Ireland and England and Prussia, but I didn't. Even having lived in Europe, attending a British school, studying abroad in England, visiting Ireland, hanging out in Germany every weekend, I'm not Irish or English or German. I am American, and before I knew what hoodoo was, it seemed like there was no practice of which that I was ever going to feel truly a part. I might not be a native of the Carolinas or grew up in a household with a grandma who sprinkled brick dust and had superstitions about how to store a broom, but I don't think that matters. Since I've began my own personal research and practice, and since I've been attending hoodoo-focused workshops every year at my church, I've enjoyed success and improvement in my spiritual life that I feel I was always missing out on before. When I dress candles and write petition papers and create sachets, I feel like I'm participating in something that works and enriches my life, rather than something frustrating and discouraging.

I'm even shying away from what I called European witchcraft. There is a feeling of so much freedom in Hoodoo when my materials are just yarn, salt, paper, herbs (among other very easy to find or make ingredients). No need for wands and athamés and censers and grand gestures. Hoodoo is the kind of craft that I can practice sitting on my deck listening to the birds, wrapping string around a little piece of paper. I don't have to be chanting and raising my arms and dancing around an altar at midnight. It's a relief.

And it's also relieving to understand and come to terms with how my beliefs are evolving. I think there's a lot of pressure in the Pagan community to be a polytheist, and to adhere to a karmic worldview, and to never harm anyone or anything, even in self defense. There's a stark dichotomy between "black/dark" and "white" witchcraft that frankly, I hate. It's always been my opinion that overall, Neo-Paganism should draw its spiritual inspiration from nature and it just drives me crazy when Pagans devise all these ethical constructs and fantastic beliefs that have nothing connecting them to the natural world. Hoodoo seems so different in the still early stages of my practice because it is directly connected to the land and the community in which I live. The rainwater I collect comes from my backyard. My petition paper comes from local thrift store packaging that wraps the many jars I also purchase there. The more I learn about this craft, the more I try to use materials that I can walk outside of my house and find right in my yard. I want to personally make my materials as much as I can, like when I made my own Florida Water. Next, I'd like to make my own rose water, and try my hand at my own candles and oils.

Hoodoo to me represents a practice of self-accountability, responsibility, and creativity. It provides so many opportunities for an individual to experience self-growth through trial and error and learning at one's own pace, along with practicing traditional methods. Specifically to me, it allows me to figure out my own ethics and beliefs without the requirement of belief in gods and karma and all the other things that hang me up about other spiritual/religious systems. But it's flexible enough that many practitioners of it (at least most of the people I've met), do approach it from a religious point of view. Some even identify as Christian or at least work the magic within a Christian context, using psalms, calling on Mary and Jesus. It's that flexibility that really makes hoodoo a true craft to me, not just a spiritual activity. From all I've learned and done so far, it's not a meditate-y, prayerful, fluffy bunny, unconditional love and peace type of spirituality. And I need that because nature and life and my own experience are sometimes rarely those things. I need a practice that is grounded in the type of reality that I'm looking at everyday. I don't want a religion or a spirituality for which I have to set time aside, or get into the right (somewhat altered) mindset to participate, or ignore my education as a scientist, or any other ways of removing myself from this world. I'm looking for a spirituality that isn't supernatural, but is still mysterious, with concepts and skills to learn throughout my life.

I believe ultimately that spirituality should be about enriching one's life in the present. I also believe that the enrichment should be driven by oneself, through study, active practice, learning from mistakes and remembering successes for next time. The practice of hoodoo allows these things to happen for the individual, for me, and it's because of that that I don't think I'll be looking back at much of anything else as I move forward. The deeper I go into the study and practice of hoodoo, the farther away these inner conflicts about gods and religion and fitting in with other Neo-Pagans become. This system of American folk magic makes me feel like I know what home is. And home to me is not worshipping deities and drawing down the moon and turning the other cheek until there's nothing left because performing a curse is "wrong." Home is reading and coffee and little red bags filled with lodestones and herbs, enjoying a breeze, sitting with friends, sprinkling salt in the corners of the house, cooking and beer and laughter. Religion or spirituality should not be separated from everyday life, and it just feels right to finally be experiencing them together.

The Unnecessary Threefold Law

I wanted to take some time to talk about rant all over the place about one of my personal positions for which I've received some pretty heavy criticism in the past. I know what follows might seem pretty ridiculous; I'm going to talk about a commonly-held belief that I don't think is grounded in nature or science, despite the fact that I practice witchcraft, I'm a polytheist, and believe in many things for which there is not really a scientific foundation. Having said that, I will try not to sound too inane, and  please keep in mind that I'm not singling out any person/group in particular, and that I'm not attempting to offend anyone either, including the authors I've cited. I welcome any feedback or explanations that can be given, but please do not tell me that you think I'm naïve or absurd or displaying arrogance and hubris. I've been told all of that before, I've had my share of mistakes, but I've also had a lot of success, and I arrived at the following (non)beliefs through years of personal practice and experience. Thank you for reading, and I hope there's a good point somewhere in all this.

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Karma. I can't do it, regarding any definition, but especially the basic American definition - for that concept, there is no room in my worldview. What I really have a problem with, and was actually one of the main theological issues that drove me away from Wicca, is the American version of karma (good things happen to people who do good, bad things happen to people who do bad) and further, the Threefold Law (the consequences of one's actions, whether good or bad, return to the actor three times over). The latter especially grinds my teeth, and is made even worse because so many Wiccans seem to believe in the Threefold Law in a literal sense. I've never once experienced any event that could be clearly attributed to karma. I don't see others experiencing such events either, though their own interpretation might be different. I don't see any evidence for karma, in particular the Threefold Law, in nature. And aren't our religions as Pagans and Neo-Pagans, most of us anyway, nature-based? Shouldn't those of us practicing nature-religion, as Wiccans are, take our laws for life from what is observable in nature, and not try to make man-made laws work within a natural concept that does not support them?

Sometimes I feel like I might be missing what the Threefold Law actually teaches. It's hard to know how watered-down the modern American Wiccan version is from what must have been in the original Gardnerian and other British Traditional teachings. I'm not against living as if the Law does happen in reality with the realization that it doesn't actually, but that isn't how it is taught or represented, at least in the literature. It is explained to be literally what is happening out in the universe every time an action is made:

• "This couplet outlines the belief that the energy attached to any good or bad action that a Wiccan performs will be revisited upon the practitioner threefold (also known as the Law of Return). The threefold attribution is specific to the practice of Wicca, but the general law of cosmic consequence to an action or behavior is not unique." -Arin Murphy-Hiscock, from Solitary Wicca for Life (2005), referring to the couplet concerning the Threefold Law in Lady Gwen Thompson's Wiccan Rede.
• "Karma is the Sanskrit term for the energy generated by our actions, particularly in relationship to future incarnations. Witches see it as an extension of the Law of Three: what you do will come back to you threefold. Seen from an ethical viewpoint, karma could mean that one who does 'good' acts get rewarded with good and one who performs 'bad' actions gets punished with bad events." -Christopher Penczak, from The Inner Temple of Witchcraft (2002).
• "We believe in the Threefold Law and its justice. This has to do with cause and effect. What this means is that every action taken and every deed performed - whether good or bad - is calculated by karma at triple value, then sent back to us." -Dorothy Morrison, from The Craft (2001).
• "Witches believe that you get your rewards and punishments during this lifetime, according to how you live it. Do good and you will get back good. But do evil and evil will return. More than that, though, it is a three-fold retribution. Do good and you will get back three times the good; do evil and you will receive three times the evil." -Raymond Buckland, from Buckland's Complete Book of Witchcraft (2002).

In the last quote, Buckland goes on to say it might not be literally threefold, but uses the example of getting punched in the eye. If you punch someone in the eye, you might not be punched back three times, but at some vague point in the future, you might break your leg, which is three times the punishment to being punched in the eye. That just sounds a little ridiculous to me.

Penczak might be onto something in his own work, and he is already known for looking at witchcraft and Wicca with somewhat scientific eyes. He explains the Threefold Law as the energy generated from action gathering inertia out in the universe before returning to the sender. He thinks the number three is arbitrary, but that the inertia of the sent energy is what accounts for the reward or punishment's increase. 

However, the worst, and the most commonly-observed in my opinion, is Morrison's outline of the Threefold Law in which karma is viewed as something conscious, or at least as a cosmic justice system. Karma calculates our actions and doles out rewards and punishments. I can't help but imagine a Dutch businessman in the 1500s sitting at a table with a scale, setting all the actions on one side, and adding enough weight to the other to be three times as heavy. Then giving his reward or punishment to some sort of karmic mailman with a Return to Sender stamp. I don't mean to poke fun at an ethical guideline that is so important to Wiccans, but it's the literalism by which it is upheld that just baffles me. 

Why is the existence of this mythical threefold return necessary as an ethical foundation? If you believe in no form of cosmic retribution, actions all still have consequences and its the avoidance or gain of negative or positive consequences that motivates our behavior. Receipt of pleasure and avoidance of pain is the system that already exists in nature. Wolf packs hunt and share food together, monkeys groom each other, parent birds protect their nests and offspring, vampire bats share blood meals with each other. Their rewards are health, bonding, survival. This non-karmic system of consequences is observable and effective, without having to try to figure out how to explain an unseen universal force (my Dutch businessman) deciding when and how each person will pay their karmic debts and cash out on their karmic rewards.

Karma isn't, and furthermore shouldn't, be needed to live by the Wiccan Rede: an' it harm none, do what ye will. We live in a causal universe. Actions have reactions, and we as humans interpret the quality of those reactions as good or bad. We can make decisions based on those consequences, whether predicting them or learning from previous experience. We can be good people, and harm none, because being so enriches our lives through friendship, overall positivity, love, and even the perhaps more baser expectation of reciprocal altruism. The Threefold Law is an unnecessary, unfounded ethical premise that, in my opinion, does nothing to actually enhance the practice of witchcraft or Wicca. If you engage in spell-crafting (or any other activity for that matter) without a clear head, a focused plan, and a careful consideration of the consequences, then you deserve what happens. And if you do take the time to consider all the possibilities, alternative solutions, and have a focused goal, then you also deserve the good that can come your way. But attributing such consequences -- whether they are good or bad -- to a cosmic justice system removes responsibility away from the practitioner and places it onto something invisible and ultimately unreachable. I fear that this lack of true responsibility can lead to misinformed, unreliable, and maybe even dangerous spell-crafting. (As a worst case scenario, of course.) It can cause a lack of growth of the practitioner because attributing every 'punishment' or 'reward' to a universal force that they have no way of controlling, instead of recognizing and admitting a mistake or a victory, prevents learning through self accountability.

That's why I call it the Unnecessary Threefold Law. I don't think it's bad, and I even think sometimes it could be nice if the good energy I send out could amplified back to me. But it isn't realistic. It isn't really logical. It isn't nature, and it isn't life.

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Tell me what you think in the comments. Do you agree with me? Disagree? Why?

If you believe in the Threefold Law, where and how do you see it happening?