The Threefold Law: What happens when “the witches’ code” goes wrong?

Hello, my lovely.

Across my 24 years following the witchcraft path, I’ve spent a lot of time debating luck, fate and magickal intent:

• How much of life is fated and how much is personal or magickal influence?

• Do the gods need appeasing with offerings if they have ultimate control?

• If I only practice “positive” witchcraft (previously known as “white witchcraft”) and subscribe to the idea that ‘what goes around comes around’, why is every area of my life not shimmering with delight?

These thoughts have taken up pages in my diaries, stretched out their smoky coils in my brain, and pencil-poked my lower back in the middle of the night.

What is the true extent of magick’s effects?

As many of us know, spellcraft doesn’t always turn your life around overnight when you smile and read aloud a rhyming couplet.

Any practising witch will know the labour of love it takes to research, psychologically commit to removing your emotional blockers, and put in the graft before a spell can take its deepest root.

Magick takes hard work.

But if our magickal intent is pure and good, are the good things we desire more likely to come our way, as energetic law tells us they should?

And where does that leave you when they don’t?

In this post, I want to explore one of the core tenets of many witches’ practice: The Threefold Law.

I’ll look at its history, my very personal experience and how this belief plays out in the modern world. But I also want to question: What happens when we follow this law… and it all goes wrong?

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Devoted to the code

Last year, I wrote “The witch’s code of conduct”, where I shared the five spoken and unspoken “rules” that are the foundation of a solid witchcraft practice.

First on the list: The Threefold Law.

The rule of karma or “what goes around comes around.”

I have followed this rule for over half my life, always adhering to its strict boundaries within my magickal practice and keeping to the path of light so not to incur a threefold dose of bad luck. But while writing my most recent book for adults, Underwing: A Story of Motherhood, Loss and Wild Intuition, I began to explore ideas of karma and fate, and wondered on a deeper level why the “good things happen to good people” idiom is largely a lie.

Having done my bit for the positive witchcraft movement for the past 24 years, life while writing this book wasn’t exactly sunshine and rainbows. In fact, the worst thing in the world had just happened to me (trigger warning: this linked Substack post is pretty dark – read it gently). So… what kind of magickal horrors had I committed for this despicable thing to bite me on the arse – threefold?

There seemed to be quite a bit to unpack.

My relationship with the Threefold Law goes back to childhood.

I first began practising witchcraft in the comfort of my purple, pink and turquoise-painted bedroom (I still struggle to make decisions) when I was twelve years old. There was a purple ceramic dolphin hanging over my bookcase and a stack of Mizz magazine behind the door – this was 2002, after all. But I was somehow managing to lure my parents to Borders in Speke near Liverpool (RIP to this incredible bookshop) to buy tomes on witchcraft at the weekend. Who knows how I compelled them to do so. Magick, probably.

It was here that I began to explore my fascination with Wicca.

Wicca – a denomination of witchcraft that believes in the Threefold Law, uses only positive magick and often performs elaborate ceremonies and rituals as part of its practice

The Green Witch, “A witch’s glossary: The A-Z of modern witchcraft”

To my eyes, Wicca meant four things:

• A path that revered the feminine.

• A way of speaking to spirits, nature and the other-than-human world.

• Detailed and ordered rituals involving chants, meditation and movement.

• Following a strong code of magickal witchcraft ethics, outlined in the poem The Witches’ Rede.

I would come to know this poem/creed by heart and often recited it in the schoolyard on my way to classes or while getting changed for P.E. It’s quite catchy.

(Due to its length, I’ve included the full poem at the end of this article.)

The poem on magickal morality was written and disseminated by famed witch Doreen Valiente in the 1960s – not exactly an ancient treatise (Wicca is by no means an old witchcraft path), but it does display clearly the idea of the Threefold Law.

The Threefold Law is the premise that whatever energy you put out into the world – be it positive or negative – returns to you, times three. Cast a good luck spell for a friend on their birthday? That goodness is coming back to you, baby! Hex your ex? Likewise…

According to this law, the Universe reflects whatever energy you pour into the ether, and magnifies it back to you as a blessing or a lesson. To the power of three.

And I have believed it literally and wholeheartedly this entire time.

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Circular energy across time

Wicca is not unique in this thinking.

• In Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism, karma is the moral consequences of intentional actions. It is the belief that the things you do in life will eventually return to you, either in this life or the next.

• Christianity tells us that we reap what we sow, with consequences coming directly from our actions: generosity, love and righteousness lead to positive outcomes, while selfishness, cruelty and wrongdoing, not so much.

And the threefold idea? Where would legend, fairy tales, or general storytelling be without the three Fates, the Triple Goddess, or even the three billy goats gruff? Threes are a recurring and satisfying motif across all oral and written traditions, particularly stories with lessons around morality.

Gerald Gardner, the founder of Wicca in the 1940s, is known to have taken elements from Freemasonry and Eastern ceremonial magick (from his time spent growing up across East Asia) when creating this new strand of witchcraft. Karma now had a role to play in this shiny and very Western witchcraft practice. Eighty years later, this idea of magickal energy returning to the spellcaster has now been adopted in the broader stroke of witchcraft practices. For instance, I am no longer Wiccan but follow a green witch and animist path, and incorporate the Threefold Law into my magickal life as well as my personal one.

However, this is not the case for all witches. Read “My 5 witchcraft hot takes (as a green witch)” >

But what happens when life sends us a stumbling block? Something that turns our world upside down? Surely, if we subscribe literally to the Threefold Law, we have brought our misfortune on ourselves.

We are the cause of our troubles.

It is all our fault.

A personal conundrum

This is the battle I faced while writing Underwing. The book itself centres around my years of infertility, IVF and the loss of our daughter, Sky. During my long period of grief, I grappled intensely with ideas of blame. According to the spiritual teachings I rigidly subscribed to in my Pagan path – specifically the Threefold Law – this was all because I was a terrible person.

The Universe was seeking retribution for all my unknown serious crimes.

I took up the intense quest of doing good and desperately hoping to say “sorry, world” for every lie I’d ever told, every malicious thought, and every time I’d not refilled the cat’s water bowl after she’d studiously flipped it over.

In all honesty, I went half mad with this futile mission to change my luck.

Recently, I read Kimberley Nixon’s () book She Seems Fine to Me, detailing her experience with perinatal OCD and the debilitating fear she felt daily that she had committed a terrible crime but couldn’t remember what it was. The thoughts of feeling like she was an inherently terrible person roiled around her mind, just as they did mine. But mine took a spiritual bent.

The reason I talk about my experience here is to highlight the danger that prescriptively living by the laws of karma can bring. It was a dangerous time for me, and I was not in my right mind as I did my best to right each of my imaginary wrongs.

Once I’d realised I was making myself quite ill (a little too far down my path of intensely wide-eyed do-gooding), I decided to re-examine this element of my spiritual path.

It dawned on me that I didn’t need to follow the Threefold Law literally – as I had always done. It could be a guideline; a nudge to think more deeply about how I wanted to exist in the world. I could think mindfully about any magick or personal intentions I was putting out into the world and accept that doing so positively and consciously was largely a good thing for myself and those around me.

But I didn’t have to keep a tally of any ants I’d accidentally squashed in childhood any more.

I could focus my energies on living a generally good life – one that reflected an ethos I truly believed in. Respecting community, Mother Earth and using magickal ability to help others, without having to worry so strictly about the threefold horrors that would be winging my way.

They weren’t.

I just needed to think about my actions and live well.

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4 ways to bring the Threefold Law into all areas of a modern witchcraft practice

In today’s world, greed, ruthlessness and egotistical behaviour are celebrated character traits, ones that would have got us unceremoniously kicked out of the tribe when we lived in more close-knit communities. The workplace is a “dog-eat-dog” world, and many modern-day Pagans find themselves opting out of environments that value hierarchy over community or reciprocity. I explore my personal experience with this in my book, The Wheel: A Witch’s Path Back to the Ancient Self >

Living an intentional and heartfelt life, in line with the “Threefold Guideline”, means engaging more with our local and magickal communities. It means living less hyper-individualistically and more for the greater good.

Here are 4 ways you can do this in a way that is positive for your mental health, and steers clear of damaging ideas around spiritual blame:

1. Pause before you cast a spell. Before doing any spell that affects another person, ask yourself what you are actually trying to change – and whether there is a way to achieve the same outcome without overriding somebody else’s agency. Sometimes the most ethical spell is the one that changes your own circumstances, rather than trying to control somebody else.

2. Practise reciprocity rather than transaction. If the Earth, your community or your spiritual relationships give something to you, look for ways to give something back. Feed the birds, pick up litter, support a local independent business, volunteer your time, and leave a place better than you found it.

3. Use magick to amplify positive action, not replace it. A prosperity spell might sit alongside budgeting and applying for a role in a new career. A healing ritual might accompany medical care and rest. A protection spell might accompany the very mundane work of setting boundaries. Magick can be part of the work without pretending to be the whole solution.

4. Let consequences teach you without turning them into punishment. If something you have done causes harm, repair what you can, apologise where appropriate, learn from it and change your behaviour. You don’t need to believe the Universe is keeping a cosmic spreadsheet of your mistakes in order to take responsibility for them.

This reinterpretation of the Threefold Law has completely changed my outlook on life.

I no longer see it as a cosmic punishment system. I am choosing to always do good not out of fear of some spiritual sledgehammer, but because I know my thoughts and actions are contributing to the wider good.

It just took me 24 years to figure it out.

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I hope you’ve enjoyed this weekend’s piece – I’ll be delving more into witchcraft’s big themes this autumn on The Green Witch.

Brightest blessings on the first weekend of the “-ber” months. See you next weekend! Let me know your thoughts on the Threefold Law in the comments below.

Jennifer x

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The Witches’ Rede

by Doreen Valiente

Bide the Wiccan laws ye must,

in perfect love and perfect trust.

Live and let live, fairly take and fairly give.

Cast the Circle thrice about

to keep the evil spirits out.

To bind the spell every time,

let the spell be spake in rhyme.

Soft of eye and light of touch,

speak little, listen much.

Deosil go by the waxing Moon,

sing and dance the Wiccan rune.

Widdershins go when the moon doth wane,

and the Werewolf howls by the dread Wolfsbane.

When the Lady’s Moon is new,

kiss thy hand to Her times two.

When the Moon rides at Her peak

then your heart’s desire seek.

Heed the Northwind’s mighty gale;

lock the door and drop the sail.

When the wind comes from the South,

love will kiss thee on the mouth.

When the wind blows from the East,

expect the new and set the feast.

When the West wind blows o’er thee,

departed spirits restless be.

Nine woods in the Cauldron go,

burn them quick a’ burn them slow.

Elder be ye Lady’s tree;

burn it not or cursed ye’ll be.

When the Wheel begins to turn,

let the Beltane fires burn.

When the Wheel has turned at Yule,

light the log and let Pan rule.

Heed ye flower bush and tree,

by the Lady Bless’d Be.

Where the rippling waters go

cast a stone and truth ye’ll know.

When find that ye have need,

hearken not to others’ greed.

With the fool no season spend

or be counted as his friend.

Merry meet and merry part,

bright the cheeks and warm the heart.

Mind the Threefold Law ye should,

three times bad and three times good.

When misfortune is enow,

wear the Blue Star on thy brow.

True in love ever be

unless thy lover’s false to thee.

Eight words ye Wiccan Rede fulfil:

An’ it harm none, do what ye will.

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Originally published on Substack