Ethics III: Free Will and Harm
“The price of greatness is responsibility.”
The Myth of Free Will
One of the loudest ethics mantras you’ll hear in modern Witchcraft is: “Never interfere with free will.” It gets tossed around like gospel, as if it were an unshakable law.
But let’s be honest: magic always interferes with something.
Cast a protection spell, and you interfere with the free will of someone who intended to harm you. Cast a prosperity spell, and you interfere with who gets hired, who loses, who’s passed over. Cast a healing spell, and you interfere with the body’s natural course.
Magic bends currents. It interrupts, redirects, and reshapes. To pretend it doesn’t is naïve at best, dishonest at worst.
Where the Idea Came From
This obsession with “not interfering” didn’t come from some ancient Witch’s code. It’s a modern invention, part of the same PR push that gave us the Rede and the Threefold Law.
It was crafted to soothe outsiders, to make Witchcraft look “safe” and harmless. “Look,” the books said, “we’re not scary. We’d never violate free will.”
But that’s a sales pitch, not the truth of the Craft.
Every Spell Is Interference
Think about it.
You light a candle for love → You are tugging at the threads of another person’s heart.
You bind a curse → You are constraining someone’s action.
You cast for clarity → You are interfering with confusion, forcing the fog to lift.
You hex a predator → You are interfering with their ability to keep harming.
Interference is not the exception. It’s the nature of the work.
The real question isn’t “Am I interfering?” but “Is this interference justified, necessary, and worth the cost?”
Harm Is Inevitable
Here’s the uncomfortable truth: harm cannot be erased.
Every choice, magical or mundane, causes ripples. To act is to change something. To change something is to displace something else. Someone always benefits more. Someone always loses something.
You heal one person, and the illness must go somewhere. You curse someone, and the current you raised must run through you first. You bless yourself with prosperity, and the coin must come from a hand, a system, a shift somewhere else.
This isn’t meant to paralyze you. It’s meant to sober you. To wake you up to the weight of your choices.
So What Makes a Spell Ethical?
If harmlessness is impossible, if interference is inevitable, then what does ethical magic look like?
It looks like clarity:
Knowing your reasons.
Owning your results.
Being prepared to carry the weight of your choice.
It looks like responsibility:
Warding before you curse.
Cleansing after you heal.
Offering when you take.
Divining before you leap.
It looks like discernment:
Knowing when to escalate.
Knowing when to hold back.
Knowing when your desire is clouded by ego, rage, or fear — and still choosing consciously.
The Double Standard
Strangely, most people who preach “never interfere with free will” don’t extend that rule to everyday life.
Doctors interfere with illness. Lawyers interfere with injustice. Parents interfere with their children’s impulses.
Why should witches be the only ones told to sit quietly and do nothing? Why is our interference cast as dangerous while everyone else’s is seen as duty?
The truth: witches have always interfered. That’s why people feared us. That’s why people sought us out. And that’s why the Craft has teeth.
Reframing the Question
The ethical question is not “Am I interfering with free will?” The answer to that will always be yes.
The question then becomes:
Is this interference aligned with my ethics, my gods, my spirits?
Am I willing to carry the consequences?
Is this the right current, at the right time, for the right reason?
If you can answer yes, then work your spell. If you cannot, step back.
Stop hiding behind free will as an excuse for inaction. Stop pretending you are harmless when every breath you take has impact.
You are a Witch. Your work changes things. Own it.
Don’t ask, “Will this interfere with free will?” Ask, “Am I ready to live with the storm I’m about to call?”
Because in the end, interference is inevitable. Responsibility is optional. Choose wisely.
