Pagan Coffee Talk
Pagan Coffee Talk is hosted and brought to you by Life Temple & Seminary, a traditional witchcraft coven in Charlotte North Carolina, with a long-standing initiatory tradition. We discuss a wide range of pagan, witch, occult, Crafte, magic, and Wiccan topics from a traditionalist point of view. We also explore running and operating a coven or group, plus the challenges, conduct, and responsibilities of the pagan clergy. New episodes come out weekly. Our show is entirely unscripted, and prone to occasional foul language, and moments of SPM (spontaneous pagan mayhem!) We hope you join us. If you would like to be a guest, we are always seeking authors, traditional heads, and group leaders to join us. If you have a topic suggestion, please let us know in the comments. Check the about section for links to our social media and website. A special thanks to Darkest Era for the use of their songs: The Morrigan, & Poem to the Gael. Check them out at http://darkestera.net/.
Pagan Coffee Talk
Karma's Witchy Cousin Has Some Explaining To Do
The threefold law—the belief that whatever energy you put out returns to you three times over—has been a cornerstone teaching in modern witchcraft for decades. But does it actually make sense, or is it holding practitioners back?
This candid conversation dissects the origin and purpose of the threefold law, tracing its development as an ethical framework during witchcraft's push for legitimacy in the 90s. We explore how it differs from karma and question whether either concept reflects reality. Through real-world examples we challenge the system of cosmic justice.
Could this belief be creating self-fulfilling prophecies of failure or unintended consequences? We suggest a more empowering interpretation. This episode offers a refreshing perspective on moving beyond simplistic moral rules toward a more nuanced understanding of magical responsibility. Follow us on social media to continue the conversation about this and other thought-provoking topics in modern paganism.
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Speaker 3:Oh goodness the threefold law, the law of return. Do you actually believe it?
Speaker 2:oh geez, okay, well, let's all right. So, first off, let's start with the definition. Right, let's start with how most people see it, right. Right, most people in craft have a belief that if you do something anything good or bad, right or wrong whatever you do will come back to you threefold right, and this comes largely from the read right right. This is. This is the origin point so far as I know, and the fact that we are obsessed with threes right, everything in craft has a triple aspect, or most things right.
Speaker 2:So do we believe it All right? First off, how is this different from karma?
Speaker 3:I'm not exactly sure, right.
Speaker 2:Is it different from karma?
Speaker 3:I hear some people say it is and other people don't. The main difference I hear about the difference between the threefold law and karma is karma follows you from one lifetime to another, where the threefold law ends upon death okay, but it still, to me, means that there is a universal or spiritual entity being taken.
Speaker 2:Keep keeping score referee yes, referee is a great god of referees is sitting up there taking score, deciding what is what did.
Speaker 3:They did that actually was a good deed that they did, or well, and that's my issue was that a bad?
Speaker 2:date. That's my issue is I'm like I personally, yeah, I do not believe in karma. I not in the way that many people view it right, so I have a really hard time thinking that there's some force that is going to reverberate my energies back to me in multiple ways like that. Do I believe it could be a one for one? Yes, Really.
Speaker 2:To an extent. Yes, because my thought process is if I put something out there and there is enough strength, conviction, energy that I am investing into it, will there be a return of some sort on that investment?
Speaker 3:yes, yes, I believe that right now we call those spells yeah and it's to me that's part of faith.
Speaker 2:Right, how could we not believe that there would be an investment, a return of some sort? Now, I'm not saying that that return is always going to be exactly what we want it to be, you know. I'm not saying it's going to be an identical again, a one for one sort of balance sheet, but I do think there will be an effect. Right, there's a cause, there's an effect right what about you?
Speaker 3:when I look at the world and I see these videos where they talk about the so-called instant karma, what I see is less instant karma and more. I'm more upset and I'm not really paying attention to what's going on around me. Then I do something stupid. Are you with me?
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:You know, it's that guy that speeds along and doesn't realize there's a cop down the road and gets pulled over. Okay, I mean, is it really karma?
Speaker 2:No.
Speaker 3:Because I hate to be this way. How many of the businessmen that you know, but yet they they're still in business. They still have much. Where's the karma? Where do you see what I'm saying? Though, when I see it in life?
Speaker 2:I don't see it quite well, let's, let's break it down like anything else. I mean, first of all, karma is an eastern philosophy, right, right, and it's a lovely idea. But what is it? It's a way to keep people in line. Yeah, it's just a belief or a system to make you think before you act and to hold you accountable for those actions.
Speaker 2:That's a great idea I love this idea right, but it's morphed and it's morphed and a lot of the new agey. This is where I get a little. The new agey belief is oh, if I do good things, good will always come back to me. It's so fruity, it's so fluffy and it's so naive. That it makes no sense People just sort of use it as like this blanketed idea of always putting good out and always getting good back, and I'm like that's just not realistic.
Speaker 3:No.
Speaker 2:And these are also the people who are the most likely to be devastated.
Speaker 3:When it all blows up in their face.
Speaker 2:Or when something bad happens.
Speaker 3:Yeah, Because they're not paired for actual reality.
Speaker 2:Right and therein lies the problem?
Speaker 3:or is this because me and you were raised on the whole entire belief that, while we hope for the best, we prepare for the worst?
Speaker 2:maybe I also just attribute that to me being a bit of a pessimist, right?
Speaker 3:you a pessimist?
Speaker 2:no, but being a pessimist also means, yeah, I'm, I'm realistic about things. I don't expect that, because I do something good.
Speaker 3:Whatever that means right, that it means I'm gonna be rewarded I mean that's kind of like okay, I, I do my prayers in the morning and all this. Does that mean we get extra views?
Speaker 2:this is the gold star concept right of craft, this is what I mean. And you get a participation trophy and you get a participation. That's just not realistic. The universe doesn't view good or bad, no. So people who believe, if I'm always, I do good, I do good, I do good, you know that again, there's always going to be that, that dividend return, whatever it is but we have enough sayings in the world.
Speaker 3:We've had enough of these stories. The road to hell. Hell was paved with good intentions. Again, we keep on sitting there telling people look, sometimes this dust does not work out, sometimes the ends does not justify the means, the idea that the universe revolves around the same moral ideas that we do, as human beings, as spiritual beings is absurd well again to assume that everybody has the same moral outlook is stupid, that too, um so
Speaker 2:I'm sorry I had. This is a great. This is a great story. Um, very recently, someone I know was at the beach a little summer break and she was on the beach and she's, by the way, she is a medical professional. She was on the beach and there was a child that had blundered. She was maybe three or four years old and she's also a mom. She has four kids, all grown and she said that she could hear the parents calling for their son and she happened to be over by like a picnic area and she saw this little boy and she put two and two together and she was like sweetie, I think your family's looking for you and she, you know, she pointed over and she's like is that, is that who you're with? Yeah, he nods, okay, he has a stick typical little boy right and he's banging the stick on the ground.
Speaker 2:He's just having a time and she's trying to coax him to go back to his family without actually, like you know, picking up this random kid that she doesn't know. Right at that moment, he takes the stick, he whacks the ground and she goes. I couldn't believe my eyes. She's like a swarm of ground wasps comes up out of the ground. He hit a nest. Oh crap, crap. She being being a nurse, she's like I thought fast she goes. I grabbed the closest beach towel to me. She's like. I wrapped this kid up and I ran. Okay, she got stung 37 times. She had welts everywhere. Her face blew up. Yeah, it was bad Kiddo, not a single sting. Cool, right, yeah, and she is trying. And at this point she just I mean logic, she just took off running. What she did was she took off running in the direction of his family.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 2:So now the mom sees this and is like, oh my god, oh my freaking out. Okay, the mother's ready to call the police, thinks her child is being kidnapped, it's a whole thing. And there's angela going no, no, no, no, no, no, let me, no, hang on, hang on. And and now her husband comes running because he's like what is going on and she's like it was a shit storm right, and she's like it took 20 minutes to explain to this woman I'm not trying to kidnap your child.
Speaker 2:Here's what happened right, and here's the reason the swollen face right and now the mother is looking at her, going oh my god, your face.
Speaker 3:And she's like yeah yeah, I may need some drugs all this.
Speaker 2:Fortunately, her husband's a pharmacist. She was all right, all of this right because she was doing a good thing yes where's the, you know where's the return there?
Speaker 2:where's the anything. Now, she's a good-natured person, she's an easygoing person. She didn't think of it as anything. She, she, she attributed no retribution, no karma, nothing. She was just like. You know what it happens. Good news is that kid didn't get stung. I'll be fine. I've been on a lot of benadryl and that's it. That's it. It. You know, and I mean you know someone else might go.
Speaker 3:Oh, she's, that's payback for something she did no, it's not you know, did you really break your arm because you broke your mom's lamp, right? I just really it's coincidence.
Speaker 2:Now at the same token one could say well, the kid had good karma right, but she was there yeah, you know he didn't get stung, he's fine. But what would have happened if she hadn't been there and he hit that wasp's nest? Right he could have died he could have so a lot of things to to you know, to take into account. But yeah, now there's something else that that I love in in the threefold conversation that I've always been a little bit fascinated with all right if you point a finger at someone else, three fingers point back at you.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 2:Is that not part of our threefold system? Is that not a better illustration? I?
Speaker 3:think that is more of a better illustration. We ourselves are more of a reflection of what we're doing than exactly anything else?
Speaker 2:exactly so, the idea being, before you pass a judgment, talk shit, try to bend another's will. Right, do any of these things?
Speaker 3:stop and look in the direction you're pointing and realize, yeah, there's three fingers pointing back at you well, I find it amazing that nobody, ever that most of the people that do this never stop and goes. But what if it was me? What if I was that person that's at the center of all of this, that somebody's aiming all their malice and at me?
Speaker 2:absolutely because everybody's gun ho until it's them absolutely, and I think that that's where you know again, karma had a. There's a good concept there in terms of stop and take a minute and think about.
Speaker 2:You're not perfect no and whatever your issue is with someone else, somebody else might have the same issue with you. I mean, there's so many variables there, so I yeah there. The. The threefold law, I believe, was always meant to create check and balance, and the reality is you can't have witches running around doing whatever they want. No, and the threefold law became the antidote, if you will, to any harm.
Speaker 3:None doest thou will, because it's that doest thou will part that gets people in trouble well and the majority of times people wind up, but on the other hand, I do see people use that as a hammer to beat people into some submission and which is not what it was meant to do.
Speaker 2:No, but also think about the origin, right, we had guys like alistair Crowley running around with impunity, right, basically going do whatever you want to do.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And-.
Speaker 3:The whole of the law.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Trust me, I understand.
Speaker 2:And then you had people like Doreen Valiente and some of Gardner know offshoots and and other people within other founding members. If you will going wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute.
Speaker 3:That's a bad idea right, because I remember the whole 90s we were.
Speaker 2:We were unethical people and we had yeah there had to be a way if we were going to be taken seriously as a faith and as a religion. We couldn't just shrug our shoulders and go well, yeah, we do whatever we want. We don't have a moral code. That's a problem societally. Now it may not be a problem for the individual, but from a societal standpoint that made us a liability to some people yeah to a lot of people.
Speaker 2:You know other faiths that made us who. What do you mean? There's no compass here. You know what do you mean but we had compasses.
Speaker 3:It's just different kind of company.
Speaker 2:It's just different kind yeah, no, mine faces north, thanks, but yeah like we didn't, but it was totally different. We didn't see it the same way. So this was the yes.
Speaker 3:This is why in the world during the 90s, everybody just talks about ethics and morals.
Speaker 2:And I mean it was all. And we still have so many people that harp on the threefold law and I'm like, so again, it makes me say, now, here's the bigger thing that I think is important. Me say, now, here's the bigger thing that I think is important. If you're, if you're a witch, if you are contemplating a magical working, if you're in the middle of a magical working, if your mind wanders to the idea that whatever you're about to do is going to come back and smack you like a dump truck, three times harder.
Speaker 2:It just did you are fucked right why would you even want that thought to invade your working or even come close to it? Yes, that causes a lot of stress and a lot of anxiety for a lot of mages, that's not good and it doesn't help the spell at all. No, you are not supposed to enter into a working with fear, anxiety or doubt. Hay, yeah, that's, yeah, that and and but yet.
Speaker 3:But yet we've created this what we've made it part of the damn spells now. Oh it to the harm none and so so you're sticking that thought already in there that it could possibly.
Speaker 2:Bad idea.
Speaker 3:Just saying Bad idea.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I remember having that thought in my head. I remember being apprehensive or concerned, or, and guess what?
Speaker 3:What was the really like? The first time you realized that was all wrong and you had you could?
Speaker 2:you could. It took I I am embarrassed to say it took me longer than it should have to really come to terms with that and to understand it, because it used to be look, my 20s were a mess, I mean absolute tragedy. And I wonder, I genuinely wonder, how much of that was my own doing, because I had that fear instilled in my workings. I really question that. Now I'm like, oh boy, I did that. I created a boomerang where there shouldn't have been one.
Speaker 3:At all.
Speaker 2:And now I think back and I go oi, I mean, yeah, there shouldn't have been one at all.
Speaker 3:And now I think back and I go oh, I mean yeah, because because, again, by the time you get done, by the time you've realized how much psychology and and behavioral science we actually learn, sitting there, and, I'm sorry, manipulating your co-workers and other people around you becomes way too easy.
Speaker 2:And it does and it. But I think, I think that the thing is, if we train our initiates, well, yes, and we train ethics and morals and we give people sound advice that allows them to create their own moral compass, right then there is no concern for this, no, we don't have to worry about it and we can let the threefold law kind of just be be a nice little nice poem.
Speaker 3:It's a nice poem. It's a nice, it's a nice golden rule. If we could ever achieve that. But absolutely right now, where it's not nowhere close absolutely.
Speaker 2:And and the other thing is please, please, please, please, don't overlap the idea of the triple goddess and the threefold law. Oh god, no, they are not the same thing right sometimes people see the fates and the three faces of the and they think of it in those terms and I'm like whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. They are separate, they are totally different. You're mixing apples and crocodiles, right? You're not even in fruit anymore.
Speaker 3:No, yeah, no, but just because the numbers match up.
Speaker 2:But that's what we do. We like patterns, we love patterns. Yeah, patterns are good people find patterns and then they associate them to one another and it's like stop it. That doesn't work the same way there's a face on mars.
Speaker 3:It's not a pattern.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know you know what I would like to manifest, threefold right now coffee yeah thanks for Join us next week for another episode.
Speaker 1:Pagan Coffee Talk is brought to you by Life Temple and Seminary. Please visit us at lifetempleseminaryorg for more information, as well as links to our social media Facebook, discord, twitter, youtube and Reddit.
Speaker 4:We travel down this trodden path, the maze of stone and mire, youtube and Reddit me till morning breaks, and so it is the end of our days, so walk with me till morning.
