Threefold Return

Something I've been thinking about lately: the more you practice kindness, the kinder the world will be to you. It doesn't mean you won't encounter some radically disagreeable people in your travels. I think it means that, in a broad sense, the world will be what you make of it. Or, as Thich Nhat Hanh once wrote, "What we offer others we offer ourselves and vice-versa."

If you like the Law of Attraction or other New Thought systems, it makes sense. Like attracts like. But I've been considering the idea of "threefold return." For years, I scoffed at that as a kind of pseudo-Christian moralism put into Wicca for publicity reasons. And to be honest, I've thrown a curse or ten in my life and have never suffered a direct threefold payback as a result (then again, I never cursed arbitrarily and always performed divinations ahead of time).

But if I go back to the original line from Gardner's High Magick's Aid, it's more poetic than literal: "'Thou hast obeyed the Law. But mark well, when thou receivest good, so equally art bound to return good threefold.' (For this is the joke in witchcraft, the witch knows, though the initiate does not, that she will get three times what she gave, so she does not strike hard.)" In other words, the broad macrocosmic experience of my life will manifest in a certain way related to my microcosmic actions (three times what I gave, similar to how dye will expand in a glass of water).

Modern witch lore says Buckland is responsible for treating it as a more literal "law." But if I look at it as a poetic statement (an intuitive insight about how like attracts like) instead of a Christian-esque commandment, it's less absurd and limiting. All it's saying to me is that there will be consequences for my actions, not punishments.

I like that: magical cause-and-effect, not magical commandments coming down from on high. It makes me feel free instead of trapped in some kind of dogma. And aren't we witches because we love freedom?