Today I was asked by a dear friend of mine who is a long practicing Witch whether or not I followed the Rede as espoused by Gerald Gardner. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the Rede, it is simply this: “An it harm none do what ye will” which in contemporary English simply means: “Do what you will, so long as it harms none”

While this is a very pleasant and wonderously idealistic notion, any thoughtful person will soon realize that there really isn’t much at all that a person can do without harming something somewhere. Harm is a very personal thing. The cockroach in the kitchen will feel harm if the cook in the kitchen takes steps to sanitize he kitchen. Likewise if the cook considers the cockroaches feelings, then something else must in turn be harmed.

I have long held to the notion that the Crowley rede was much more workable:
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law - Love is the Law, love under Will

It is likely that Crowley derived this rede from the writings of Francois Rabelais who in 1534 wrote:

DO AS THOU WILT because men that are free, of gentle birth, well bred and at home in civilized company possess a natural instinct that inclines them to virtue and saves them from vice. This instinct they name their honor

John Stuart Mill advocated that “the sole purpose of law should be to stop people from harming others and that should people want to participate in victimless crimes, crimes with no complaining witness, such as gambling, drug usage, engaging in prostitution, then they should not be encroached in doing so.”

In chaper 1 of his treatise “On Liberty” he defines the harm principle as follows:

The object of this Essay is to assert one very simple principle, as entitled to govern absolutely the dealings of society with the individual in the way of compulsion and control, whether the means used be physical force in the form of legal penalties, or the moral coercion of public opinion. That principle is, that the sole end for which mankind are warranted, individually or collectively, in interfering with the liberty of action of any of their number, is self-protection. That the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not sufficient warrant. He cannot rightfully be compelled to do or forbear because it will be better for him to do so, because it will make him happier, because, in the opinion of others, to do so would be wise, or even right… The only part of the conduct of anyone, for which he is amenable to society, is that which concerns others. In the part which merely concerns himself, his independence is, of right, absolute. Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign.

The foundation of the Constitution is built on this very principle, that all men are created equal and are entitled to certain basic freedoms. However our constitution doesn’t seem to go so far as Mr. Mill.

In recent years we have seen an increasing amount of legislation passed to prevent people from doing things like using drugs, or prostitution on the premise that these actions harm others. My thinking on this of course is that the motive behind most of this legislation is twofold: 1. Accumulation of power by corporate interests, 2. Pandering to fundamentilists of one flavor or another in order to further the aims of number 1.

An analysis of the structure and method of enforcement of such legislation will quickly reveal that it is largely ineffective in promoting the greater good of the members of society and therefore it is unlikely that more compassionate motives are behind it.

But getting back to harm and law. The Gardnerian Charge of the Goddes contains the following:

“Keep pure your highest ideal, strive ever towards it; let naught stop you or turn you aside, for mine is the secret door which opens upon the door of youth”

This is supposed to serve as a guide in dealing with ethical dilemas and in truth it is a pretty good one. However it doesn’t assure that great harm will not be done. Adolf Hitlers higest ideal was to promote the “Creative” races and to eliminate the dissolution that mixing with the “Emulating” or “Destructive” races caused to civilization so that once and for all a civilization could be built that would stand the tests of the ages because there would be nothing to dilute the purity of the blood of the “Creative” race.

Now I sincerely believe that Hitler stuck to his highest ideal. None the less, a great many people were harmed. As it turns out, the so called “Emulating” and “Destructive” races had more creativity than he anticipated and they kicked his behind in WWII. Lucky for anyone who was not of “pure” blood.

I love taking walks in the Woods. Nature has a beauty that is un paralelled in any human art. But how is this beauty created? What makes a tree so beautiful? Does it strive to be beautiful? I don’t think that it strives for anything but what it needs. A tree strives to fulfil it’s own needs and to make itself as healthy as it can be by reaching for the sun, and digging deep into the earth for nourishment. In so doing it creates a structure upon which we gaze and percieve beauty.

Does a tree do no harm? Of course it does harm. Other light craving plants that are unable to reach as high or as quickly as the tree, will die in it’s shadow. Yet, there are other plants that depend upon the tree’s shadow for protection from full sunlight. These latter types of plants grow up around the tree. Nature and it’s beauty come from the interplay of forces each of which seeks to fulfil it’s own ends without regard to the other beings of nature. These forces are self serving, but not intrusive. A blade of grass does not try to pass legislation against purple flowers simply because purple is a lewd and offensive color.

Each being in nature tries to meet it’s own needs and other than that, adopts a live and let live philosophy. Some of nature’s beings have learned to work together for the collective good of the group.

Mankind, took this principle much further and over the course of ages achieved a critical mass in which man was able to create a separate ecology that emulates nature while at the same time being separate from it. This ecology is referred to as civilization. While the ecology of civilization is separate from nature, individual men (and women) cannot be separated from nature and survive. We still depend upon nature to obtain that which we need for our bodies to survive. Without the bodies, the minds would loose their place in the material world, and this separate ecology called civilization would vanish into thin air.

So civilized man has a special problem that no other creature faces. He is part of 2 ecologies. The ecology of man, and the ecology of nature. To thrive he must thrive in both worlds. For 2000 years men have emphaisized the ecology of civilization, but now is the time to return our attention to the ecology of nature because we need both to survive.

What Hitler percieved to be the “Creative” races were those folks who tended to focus their attention to the ecology of civilization. Whereas those “Primitive” peoples whom he referred to as the “Destructive” races were frequently the same folks who remembered that they were part of the ecology of nature as much as the ecology of man. He was doomed to fail even if he had won the war and taken over the world because he would have tilted the balance too far in favor of civilization at the expense of the natural.

We need to be cognizant of the fact that harm is a natural part of the ecology of nature. The more dynamic a civil ecology becomes (sometimes an aspect of the civil ecology is referred to as economy, but that only describes a portion of he elephant), the more that it will emulate nature. This is because the two systems are isomorphic. Therefore as civilization progresses, it will look more and more like nature and natures law will prevail.