A Witch's 10 Commandments

[LiadanWillows]

Before I was ever interested in being Pagan or Wiccan I was raised a Christian. So when I first started realizing that Christianity just was not working for me I went to my local book store and found the religion section. A Witch's 10 Commandments by Marian Singer happened to be the first book that caught my attention. So I started researching Wicca and Pagan and found that this faith seemed to feel right. Sadly that book sat on my book shelf for a year before I ever read it. This book pretty much outlines the basic day to day life I try to lead. So I would first like to state that the Witch's 10 Commandments are guidelines, this person is not claiming they are ACTUAL commandments like in Christianity, they are not God/dess law, just guidelines. Here are the commandments:

1. Thou Art God/dess
2. As Above, so Below, As Within, so Without
3. Spirit Abides in All things. Names and Words Have Power
4. Maintain an Attitude of Gratitude (Walk the Talk)
5. Honor Thy Ancestors, Teachers, Elders, and Leaders
6. All Life is Sacred
7. All Acts of Love and Pleasure are Sacred
8. The Threefold Law
9. Love Is the Law, Love Under Will
10. For the Greatest Good, an' It Harm None

I would just like everyone's opinion on these guidelines. How do you feel about them? Should things be added? Taken away? Do you have your own set of guidelines? What are they?
If anyone has any questions about the ten above I would be more than happy to explain in detail :-)

[Gwen]

Re: A Witch's 10 Commandments

I'm only sort of going to refer to your questions! ;D

I'm intrigued by this set. I recognize a lot of them from Neopagan source materials: #2 is modified from the Emerald Tablet and the Hermetic tradition; 7 is from Valiente's Charge of the Goddess; 9 is from Crowley (Liber Legis?); and of course 8 and 10 (and to a slightly lesser degree 1) are in wide circulation, though I'm not sure where they started. 3, 4, 5, and 6 appear to be original wordings of common Neopagan theological stances.

Overall? She's pulled together a great set, though she's definitely made some editing choices. (For example, if it were me, "if that which thou seekest thou findest not within thee, then thou wilt never find it without" would be on there, with or without the context that points to Goddess as both speaker and object sought.) I've got a bone with the format though. Why do we need 10 commandments? Why these 10? Why, for the love of all the gods, 10?

There's a long, long history in the field of comparative religion from a European Christian perspective of looking for Christianity in other religions, and it doesn't tend to lead to greater understanding. The best example I can give you is my understanding of the development of modern Hindu identity--which is a complex question! One piece of it, though, is the Orientalist scholars (that's what they were called at the time) who studied Indian religion wanted to find the Bible equivalent. One of the few texts they privileged was the Bhagavad-Gita, which I believe was already popular. However, through interfaith dialogue in the colonial context, it grew in importance, which is still maintains. I'd heard a lot about it (as you may also have), and read a longish recension of it, before I first got my hands on a copy of the Mahabharata, the epic from which it came. Now this Mahabharata was one hefty novel-sized book, which means that it's uber-uber-condensed--longer recensions fill entire bookshelves--but I was still shocked that the entire much-lauded Bhagavad-Gita was a single paragraph.

This is a long-winded way of saying: you've found a good set of rules, but I question Ms. Singer's impulse to pick 10 rules and to call them commandments. Were I she, I'd pick a number that had special meaning in my theology and work with that. Better yet, I'd craft a myth that included all the most important parts of my theology rather than writing a list of rules. You get the idea.

[thalassa]

Re: A Witch's 10 Commandments

[quote author=Gwen link=topic=728.msg11132#msg11132 date=1289298246]
This is a long-winded way of saying: you've found a good set of rules, but I question Ms. Singer's impulse to pick 10 rules and to call them commandments. Were I she, I'd pick a number that had special meaning in my theology and work with that. Better yet, I'd craft a myth that included all the most important parts of my theology rather than writing a list of rules. You get the idea.
[/quote]

From an pagan apologetics perspective in a Christian world...I can't really see any reason for questioning the choice .

If you look at them from that perspective, they are (mostly) a counterpoint to the biblical 10 commandments...

1. Thou Art God/dess (v. no other gods before me)
2. As Above, so Below, As Within, so Without (v. no idols, "whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth")
3. Spirit Abides in All things. Names and Words Have Power (v. Do not take the name of the Lord in vain)
4. Maintain an Attitude of Gratitude (Walk the Talk) (v. Remember the Sabbath and keep it holy)
5. Honor Thy Ancestors, Teachers, Elders, and Leaders (v. Honor your father and mother)
6. All Life is Sacred (v. You shall not kill/murder)
7. All Acts of Love and Pleasure are Sacred (v. You shall not commit adultery)
8. The Threefold Law (v. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor)
9. Love Is the Law, Love Under Will (v. You shall not covet your neighbor's wife)
10. For the Greatest Good, an' It Harm None (v. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbor's.)

Granted, once you get to 8, 9 and (especially) 10, the correlation breaks down a bit (#2 is probably a bit of a stretch if you don't think about what an idol really represents for a minute)...but I've always thought "no adultery" and "thou shall not covet...anything that is thy neighbor's" made #9 flatteringly (wow, they singled out the ladies) misogynistic (uh...no husbands?) but superfluous (duh, stop drooling over shit thats not yours ;D)...and I think there is only so much you can say to that anyhow (well, the cynic in me could say quite a bit about protecting the knowledge of parentage while not breaking a commandment to actually covet thy neighbor himself...).


To answer the OP though...I'd probably put it on a plaque (that word never looks like its spelled correctly!) and stick it on the wall (even if it was just to annoy the in-laws and the religious solicitors ). Seriously though...for me it does really break down at 8--like, I don't follow the threefold law, nor do I really agree with the "harm none" edict. If I were to use this, I would work on those to suit myself better...but overall, its a decent list from a general wiccan-esque pagan perspective.

[B. de Corbin]

Re: A Witch's 10 Commandments

That was extraordinarily interesting, Thalassa. My head tells me I need to think about that for a while.

[thalassa]

Re: A Witch's 10 Commandments

[quote author=B. de Corbin link=topic=728.msg11148#msg11148 date=1289306089]
That was extraordinarily interesting, Thalassa. My head tells me I need to think about that for a while.
[/quote]

not too shabby for not yet 7 am, 'eh?

I'm actually working on the last three as a form of procrastination from homework. ;D

[B. de Corbin]

Re: A Witch's 10 Commandments

LOL - I've found that I do my best thinking when I'm trying to avoid doing something else...

[cesara]

Re: A Witch's 10 Commandments

Well done, Thal!

+1

[Ophidia]

Re: A Witch's 10 Commandments

I think it's ok if an individual wanted to apply these to their own life, but you can't apply them to everyone else. I don't follow the Wiccan Rede (an' it harm none & all that jazz). Not everyone believes that they themselves 'art God/dess', or that 'spirit resides in all things'.

It's really not broad-spectrum enough to cover all witches, which is a continual problem within Paganism - the umbrella's just too damned big!

[Nyx]

Re: A Witch's 10 Commandments

I agree with not wanting Paganism to be compared with Christianity. There are SO many books out there in Paganism that have the word "Bible" in the title. I don't understand it myself. It would be like saying "The Crystal Koran" or "The Wicca Koran". Put any other religious text in its place and it seems very silly. Also, it seems disrespectful to use a term specific to another religion.

[B. de Corbin]

Re: A Witch's 10 Commandments

[quote author=Nyx link=topic=728.msg11184#msg11184 date=1289319723]
I agree with not wanting Paganism to be compared with Christianity. There are SO many books out there in Paganism that have the word "Bible" in the title. I don't understand it myself. It would be like saying "The Crystal Koran" or "The Wicca Koran". Put any other religious text in its place and it seems very silly. Also, it seems disrespectful to use a term specific to another religion.
[/quote]

Because "bible" translates as "book," while Qur'an translates to something like "reading" or "recite" (if the soruce I used is correct).

[ChainLightning]

Re: A Witch's 10 Commandments

[quote author=Nyx link=topic=728.msg11184#msg11184 date=1289319723]
Also, it seems disrespectful to use a term specific to another religion.
[/quote]

I was unaware that "commandments" was a religious-specific term. And, like de Corbin, I take issue with bible or qur'an being religious terms, as well.

Are we talking common usage? Where does that leave words like witch and warlock? Religious[-specific] terms? Only one meaning/use?

[Tylluan Penry]

Re: A Witch's 10 Commandments

On a purely practical basis i hate being commanded to do anything. Usually all it succeeds in doing is getting my hackles up.

[Gwen]

Re: A Witch's 10 Commandments

[quote author=thalassa link=topic=728.msg11142#msg11142 date=1289305037]
From an pagan apologetics perspective in a Christian world...I can't really see any reason for questioning the choice .
[/quote]

A cautious nod here--I suppose I assumed this was written for people exploring Pagans rather than as an ambassador text to Christianity, and there is certainly a need for ambassador texts. (I still rather dislike it in a context of instructing Pagans.) Your Hebrew vs Pagan 10 Commandments lineup would be really instructive in that kind of interfaith dialogue. However, were I writing that book for a Christian audience, I'd want to be really, really clear that these rules do not exist in this structure in the Pagan community, and that (as has been pointed out above) few if any apply across 100% of Paganism in the way that they're worded. I'd probably follow up with a Pagan version or three as described above. (I really like incorporating ethical codes into a teaching myth, as I find it truer to our faith than bullet-point to-not-do lists).

There's great value in being able to create analogies to bridge gaps and build understanding in interreligious dialogue, but if that's all that we do, we'll probably end up giving a skewed impression of who we are. If at some point the student doesn't start studying the subject from within the subject's own frame of reference, the student learns more about herself than about that which she wants to study.

[Nyx]

Re: A Witch's 10 Commandments

[quote author=ChainLightning link=topic=728.msg11258#msg11258 date=1289338536]
I was unaware that "commandments" was a religious-specific term. And, like de Corbin, I take issue with bible or qur'an being religious terms, as well.

Are we talking common usage? Where does that leave words like witch and warlock? Religious[-specific] terms? Only one meaning/use?
[/quote]

I wasn't talking about "commandments". I was referring to book titles where the word Bible was used. Re-read my post, please.

[ChainLightning]

Re: A Witch's 10 Commandments

My mitake. I assumed you were on topic. And just used book titles as examples.

Still stands, though. Even book titles are not religion specific. Reread the thread.