The Peril of Solipsism in Magical PracticeThis article was posted during this last week over at WitchVox and I felt it would make a good subject to bring up to you all here. The lesson here is one I've often seen overlooked. The article is somewhat lengthy, but a skim read should give you the jist of it.
At core, the article speaks to one of the major issues of magical ethics: responsibility. If you're like most persuing the Neopagan path, you've ran across a general ethic of 'taking responsibility for one's actions' in various books you've read or people you've talked to. Many of them will discuss responsibility from a wholely personal perspective: YOU are responsible for your own actions and nobody else, ever. It's seen as something empowering in most contexts. Instead of placing the control in someone else, you are the only one who exerts control.
Ellwood points out the flaws in this logic, points which are very well known to anybody who has studied a whiff of psychology. In the States in particular, we're so enamored with the notion of "free will" we take statements like this and forget that no, we aren't in control of everything. An empowering sense of personal responsibility is one thing, but taking it to the point that you fail to acknowledge how YOU influence others (or how others influence you) is to be blindsighted.
arrow When you encountered the standard rhetoric on 'personal responsibility' how did it strike you? Where did you agree and disagree with it?
arrow What do you think of Ellwood's addition to responsibility, expanding it to how you influence everything around you (and vice versa)? How much more challenging might this be? Does that challenge make doing this unrealistic?
arrow How does the idea of interconnectedness play into all this? Does that make us somehow responsible for everything or nearly everything? (sure changes the rules on the silly 'blame game' dosen't it?
whee )
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