Doreen Valiente¹

One of the core ethical guides of the neo Pagan Witch religion Wicca is the Rede. It has been taken on pretty much across the board with little or no question of its origins, or in depth consideration of its theological and real life implications.

The Wiccan Rede has been said to come from Doreen Valiente, Gerald Gardner, to be a traditional piece from times of old, and its origins could be debated at great length without any real conclusion.

It is now known that Doreen Valiente didn’t write the piece, or certainly didn’t admit to it if she did. This has been stated by the Farrar’s in “A Witches Bible”, written in consultation with Doreen Valiente herself, so this source is almost certainly accurate.

In the Meaning Of Witchcraft by Gardner he stated Witches:

Although the above quote has been sited many times in previous essays on the origin of the Rede, there was no indication of who "Good King Pausol" was. It turns out that King Pausole (not "Pausol") was a literary character in the story The Adventures of King Pausole (1901) by Pierre Louÿs, a French novelist. The story was a moral of sexual ethic. Although a ready translation wasn’t available in Gardner’s time, it was also adapted into an opera which Gardner may have seen or at least been aware of.

A common theory is that it was written by Gardner, but there are no copies of it in the Book Of Shadows used by Gardner or in the Ripley’s material in Toronto, leading us to believe it was either written later than most of the other material or that he acquired it at a later date.

It is believed that the rede statement of “’An it harm none, Do what Ye Will!” is in fact a rewording of the Law of Thelema, made known to the world through the Book of Law (Ciaro 1904), channelled by the Master Therion Aleister Crowley, which says “Do what you wilt be the whole of the law”.

Doreen Valiente said of the Law of Thelema:³

Doreen Valiente spoke at the first Witches Dinner October 3^rd 1964 organised by the Witchcraft Research Association demanding tolerance between covens as well as toward the outside world. Doreen spoke the Anglo-Saxon witch formula (her own attribution) called the Wiccan Rede or wise teaching: "Eight words the Wiccan Rede fulfil, ‘An it harm none, do what ye will."

So we have our first traceable utterance of the Wiccan Rede.

In 1965 Justine Glass' book “Witchcraft, The Sixth Sense” says: ⁴

In the Spring 1975 CAW magazine “Green Egg” a High Priestess of a Welsh Tradition claimed her grandmother owned a copy of The Rede that outdated both Gardnerian Wicca and Aleister Crowley.

This 26 point version ends as always with "Eight words the Wiccan Rede fulfil, ‘An it harm none, do what ye will" with two small differences- “Eight words ye Wiccan rede fulfil; An’ it harm none, do what ye Will!”

The difference between the Thompson versions ending, and the rede uttered by Valiente is the overly archaic language of the former. Unfortunately the neo-Pagan community took the Thompson Rede on board without question, but evidence of its modern origins are eminent in the linguistic structure.

The first hole in the Thompson rede appears with sentences like ““Eight words ye Wiccan rede fulfil…” and “Elder be ye Lady’s tree- Burn it not or cursed ye’ll be”. Here I have deliberately highlighted the excessive use of the word ye as a fatal giveaway. When the word ye appears in a text, it is often mistakenly mispronounced “yee”, but the Y in question is most often actually a Y-like letter called thorn, rendered th. This seeming archaic language of old English proves problematic because assuming the Rede is “that” old, the language would have been modernised as it was handed down generation to generation. Its structural context is also misused in places which once again points to a modern origin.

The second, and perhaps more glaring error in the Thompson rede that proves its modern origins is the use of “an”. In the Thompson instance the rede statement is “an’ it harm none…” assuming the “an” in question to be an abbreviation of “and”. In the Doreen Valiente version it is in fact middle English in its origin and within its proper context it is conditional.

A prime example can be found in Shakespeare’s Hamlet:⁵

Here it is contextually correct and we see it means “in the event of” or “if”, making its context correct in the Valiente uttered Rede, but its repeated usage in the Thompson Rede for “and” proves it is more than a copyists error. Of course it could be argued this was intentional in the Thompson rede and was structured as such.

All the evidence seems to point to the modern origins of the Thompson rede, but this does not invalidate the claims of inheritance as (a) the rede phrase (an it harm none…) may well have traditional origins, or may spring from a common source from both lines and (b) although we place the Thompson redes origins as modern, we have not defined how modern and it may in fact outdate both Lady Gwenn Thompson and her grandmother, who she claimed to inherit it from.

To explain the exact meaning of the rede, henceforth being taken as its original form, “an it harm none…” and not a later poetic version, is an enormous task so I quote from the U.S. Army Chaplains Handbook⁶:

A very open statement if we truly consider it. If we take the Rede literally, the Rede cannot be practically applied. Walking over my lawn I could be (and am) crushing an array of Flora and insects.

Since the conservation of woodlands is such a major issue in Pagan circles I will use that as my example. Let us say yet another of our beautiful woodlands is in threat of being ploughed through so that a road (or even worse, a MacDonald’s) can be built. Now let us say a witch were to perform magick to stop this desolation. By saving the woodland the witch has led to the contractor loosing work, his employees loosing work and many of them unable to feed their families as a result. To refer to this as harm none is worse than denial, it is in fact stupidity.

Some Pagans choose to not follow the Rede because they claim Wicca, a nature based religion shouldn’t have a law in contradiction to “Energy cannot be created or destroyed. It can only be changed from one state to another”. Is the law of three therefore outside the laws of nature? Those Wiccans who do not follow “An’ It Harm None” are not however immoral people. They believe in Wicca as a religion based on love and personal responsibility and have a strict personally imposed moral code. The word Rede means advise, but it is possible to be moral without the Rede.

As a person who for many years self identified as a practitioner of Witchcraft I was often asked are you a White Witch or a Black Witch? I would be lying if I said this question didn’t annoy me. There are two types of Witches, but not black and white ones.

Witches are seen in terms of modern media archetypes by most people, and these archetypes, or images of the Witch shared by everyone are created by television shows like Charmed, Sabrina the Teenage Witch, Harry Potter, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

If these are your images of the Witch, I am afraid you are confusing fiction with actual Witches. Although these programs contain some actual practices, they are created for drama and not to convey reality in any way. I’ve never met a Witch who has blown a hole in a wall by waving their hand, snapped their fingers to go to the Other Realm (sic), levitate or any other fantastical acts. They also would not perform many of these acts if they could for moral reasons.

Magick, as we understand it and know to exist, is neither black nor white. Magick is a neutral tool and is coloured by our intentions. Equally there is no such thing as a black or white witch because we are human beings, and as human beings we are not all sweetness and light or all darkness and gloom. Human beings make decisions and equally mistakes.

What defines the people we become are the decisions we make. These decisions have consequences and as Witches we accept the consequences of our actions. The religion of Wicca is based on love and ideally all acts coming from it should be performed in love, but as human beings we make decisions that may be based on jealousy, hate, greed, or other negative emotions. As human beings we make mistakes, but because we have strong moral beliefs and believe in a sense of love inherent in life, we are always drawn back to love.

Witches are not black or white, only human.

The question of Wicca vs. Witchcraft is first needed to answer this question. Wicca, from all available evidence is a modern synthesis, although there are undeniably older elements within its structure. It is a form of neo- Paganism, a modern pagan synthesis but they also consider themselves Witches because the art of magick is intrinsic in the Wiccan religion.

Witchcraft is the art of the witch, that is the person doing magick and is not necessarily religiously aligned.

As such it is a fact Witches traditionally cursed, but Wiccans, in as few years as it’s been in existence, has limited instances of cursing.

Certainly there is more than sufficient evidence of the practice of cursing in pre Wiccan times, as a quick walk around the Museum of Witchcraft in Boscastle (England) will easily prove.

Other non-Wiccan Pagan Witches have adopted the art of cursing as a part of their philosophy. This applies particularly to groups referring to themselves as “Traditional”, although few if any of them actually pre date Wicca.

A prime example is the use of the blackthorn stang in the Witchcraft of the Clan Of Tubal Cain.

Among some groups labelled “Traditional” there is a saying stating a Witch must be able to curse to be able to bless.

In Wicca instances are less frequent, for example a supposed circle by the New Forest Coven and other groups against Hitler which would break the harm none rule of Wicca, but it would have pre dated the Redes emergence in the 1960s and the actual existence of the New Forest coven is hotly disputed.

In an interview for television in 1996 Doreen Valiente, an imminent Wiccan Priestess, admitted to using a poppet and dagds to silence a blackmailer, but Ms. Valiente was also an initiate of Tubal Cain Witchcraft.

The popular consensus among the many Wiccans from an array of traditions I have spoken to is the issue is very grey, and certain individuals consider (for example) magick self defence which may cause harm an exception.

For example the Alexandrian Laws, published as an appendix of John Junes “King Of The Witches” state Wiccans did curse in the old days. Of course, this element is quite possibly one of the many modern elements of Wicca, but it contradicts the Rede.

So we are left, thus far, with a feeling the Rede is used under the directive of personal conscience.

Even without the Rede, Wicca is a socially and environmentally responsible religion.

In Spiral Dance Starhawk poses the question of if we have removed the concept of sin, how can we be ethical. How can we be ethical if we remove the all-knowing, vengeful god force? Another very valid question she poses is “If the Goddess is immanent in the world, why work towards change or strive towards an ideal. Why not bask in the divinity?”

She goes on to say⁷:

She has little about the rede, and its magickal cousin the law of three, instead focusing on the moral responsibility of the Witch.

Perhaps we should acknowledge Wicca as a modern religion and should therefore source our ethics from a text with more modern origins for a more valid moral code. I find this in The Charge Of The Goddess by Doreen Valiente⁸.

And perhaps we should define our ethics by fundamental human standards like the Christian ideal of “Love thy neighbour”.

Unfortunately the myth lives on as many New Age writers write not about crystals and dolphins, but about DIY Wicca.

I recently came across a book solely dedicated to the Wiccan Rede. Excited by a potentially serious study I read the book only to find it claimed to put the rede in its context (certainly not a historical one) and used the Thompson Rede as its model. So the myth lives on, yet this author could easily have found much of the information presented here via a simple web search, but instead he chose to base his studies on another modern Wiccan myth.

In the end of this exploration, the history of the rede has been called into question, but as the more broad history of the Paganisms we practice today has proven, a lack of an ancient historical base does not invalidate the modern implementation, so what validity does the Rede hold for the modern Pagan?

It is a statement of ideals, one which although we will often fall in trying to achieve, it governs our intentions, both spiritual and mundane and it is on both of these levels the Rede holds validity.

Yes, there are problems in its perfect implementation, but as an ideal we strive towards it, not necessarily always being able to keep it as our constant practice, but it is a point of ideal which we aim towards every time we make a decision.

Although we can define our ethic as Pagans in different ways such as the nine noble virtues of Asatru, the rede stands as a fundamental symbol of the moral responsibility of the many branches of Paganism and an outward expression of our life philosophies to the larger world.

(1) Valiente, Doreen “Witchcraft For Tomorrow” (1978) p.173

(2) Gardner, Gerald “The Meaning of Witchcraft” (1982) p.127

(3) Doreen Valiente, “Witchcraft for Tomorrow” (1978) p. 44

(4) Glass, Justine “Witchcraft, The Sixth Sense And Us” (1973)

(5) Shakespeare, William “Hamlet” (1603)

(6) US Army Chaplains Handbook: “Religious Requirements and Practices of Certain Selected Groups: A Handbook for Chaplains” (1990)

(7) Starhawk “Spiral Dance” (Harper SanFrancisco 1999) p.35-36

(8) Traditional Craft myth written by Doreen Valiente- written no sooner than the early 1950’s.

Bott, Adrian “The Wiccan Rede: Ancient Wisdom That Is Neither Ancient Nor Wise” White Dragon, August 2003

John, June “King Of The Witches”

Thompson, Lady Gwenn “Wiccan-Pagan Pot-Pourri” Green Egg Vol. 69 Spring 1975