A Witch Who Cannot Hex, Cannot Heal
Digging into this old adage
I always love exploring the meanings behind words and phrases that we keep with us over time. This one, “A witch who cannot hex, cannot heal,” has been repeated among practitioners of natural magic from many walks, and often has been a dividing line between those who believe in the only commandment of the Craft, “An’ it harm none, do what thou will,” and those who believe harm is mandatory because “A witch who cannot hex cannot heal.”
In past posts my focus has been on the word “harm” in the “Harm none” commandment, and my conclusions usually come down to how one defines harm.
A bus is speeding toward a pedestrian who does not see it.
I push them out of the way. I am injured in the process.
I have saved the person, but harmed myself.
Have I done harm?
In this case, one could reason that the least amount of harm was done by my choice. I was merely injured, the pedestrian would have been killed.
Okay, so what if the pedestrian is a serial killer?
Or what if he’s going to get drunk and drive his car and take out a family of five next weekend?
Now have I done harm?
What if I pull a weed in my garden so the vegetables can grow better? I’m harming the weed, but helping the veggie. What if I kill termites to save my home?
See how defining harm is crucial in the commandment to harm none? In most cases, we can’t possibly know if our actions are for the greater good or not.
So I usually come down on the idea that it’s our intent that counts. If we intend no harm, truly intend no harm, and do our best to live up to that intent, then we’re probably living as close to the harm none rule as we can. We don’t just go willy nilly through life “doing what we will” without thought of repercussions. We think about our actions and weigh our choices with consideration of the ripple effects as far as we can anticipate them. We try to choose the actions of least harm.
Sidebar: it’s always fascinated me how similar are the only commandment of Wicca:
”An it harm none, do what thou will.”
and the often repeated goal of vegans,
“To live in a way that causes as little suffering to our fellow sentient beings as possible.”
And that statement might be even closer to what the Craft means by “harm none.” Because to define destruction is easy, but destruction is not always harm. Harm is difficult to define. Short term harm might bring long term gain, so then it wasn’t really harm.
But suffering? That’s easy to understand. Suffering is clear. Cause as little suffering as you possibly can? That’s a noble goal and one that’s achievable.
But what about this hexing & healing thing?
“A witch who cannot hex, cannot heal.” I don’t know the source of this line, I only know it’s been bouncing around magical circles for a century or so. But the word “hex” is specific to the Pennsylvania-Dutch “Pow-wow” practitioners of the Appalachians. Their folk traditions of magic and healing have been passed down through generations, and have powerful ties to their Germanic, Black Forest ancestors. they’ve melded over time with Native American influences and become their own, unique system of magic and healing.
You have probably seen the popular hex signs that hang on houses and barns in the northeastern United States. These signs are spells. Each symbol, shape, and color has meaning. Blessings, abundance, good luck, a lush crop, a true love, etc. Yet they are called “hex signs.” Seems like they should have evil symbolism, no?
There’s a fantastic book on the Appalachian Pow-Wow system of magic by Silver Ravenwolf who studied under legit, old school Pow-Wows. The book was first published around 1995 as HEXCRAFT: Dutch-Country Pow-Wow Magic.
Then later, it was republished as, AMERICAN FOLK MAGIC: Charms, Spells & Herbals. It’s the same book, by either title, and it’s out of print, so hunt it down used. It’s VERY worthwhile.
I was required to do a unit on this magical system when I studied with Ravenwolf’s Black Forest Clan, and it was always one of my favorite units.
The Word Hex
The word “hex,” in the system where it was born, is actually a synonym for “spell” or “magic.” It doesn’t mean anything negative.
It is not synonym for “curse” but that’s how it has come to be understood. For me, however, I believe this saying, “a witch who cannot hex, cannot heal” is saying that you have to use magic in healing. If you can’t do magic, your healing abilities aren’t up to snuff. If you don’t know how to cast a good spell, you can forget about your healing herbs working.
You see?
To me the saying, “A witch who cannot hex, cannot heal,” simply means you can’t be an effective healer without also being a hexer, a.k.a., a practitioner of magic.
A Pow-Wow was very much like your local doctor.
So that’s probably as far as we need to take this discussion. It never meant negative magic. There’s no legitimacy to the argument that it means you must meddle in black magic in order to work with white. Zero.
But just for shits and giggles…
Let’s poke around in the alternative understanding of the phrase, the insistence by some that it justifies negative magic and even requires it, thereby negating the harm none rule.
Well, IF we were to understand the word “hex” as “a negative spell,” what would it have to do with healing? How could our ability to harm relate to our ability to heal?
It takes only a little thinking to come up with a multitude of ways. For example, how does one heal an infection?
One takes antibiotics or natural remedies that will kill the bacteria causing the problem.
In order to heal, you had to harm the bacteria. You could not heal without also doing harm.
The same is true for many diseases that are germ-based, and for cancers the goal is often to kill cancer cells, or to turn off the mutated gene that produces them, putting the gene into a coma or stasis. (You can do that with diet in many cases, just so you know. That’s what I cover over on Eat Like You Give a Shit.)
In order to heal, you had to kill the cancer, and disable the gene producing the cancer cells.
You see where I’m going with this? To heal you have to kill the disease. In healing, both ends of the spectrum are required. You must destroy the harmful thing, and you must repair and heal the body it has harmed.
However, in this case, given the understandings we’ve just discussed, we are being true and faithful to our “harm none” intent, even when we’re killing the harmful element, because the destruction is for the greater good.
In this way, both of our beloved Wiccan adages are true and we are living them both simultaneously. I’m cursing and healing and doing far greater good than harm.
We did not have to choose between harm none, and killing that which does harm.
But isn’t killing the disease harming it?
Is it? Let’s think about all we know about the illusion we call death.
It is a natural part of the cycle.
It’s not frightening or awful when we experience it.
We are freed from the constriction of our physical form so we can expand into the fullness of Consciousness itself.
We grow and expand and process and evolve, and soon enough, we live again in a brand new body.
So really, is there harm in death?
Also, we’ve prevented the harm that the ongoing life of the bacteria or cancer would have wrought. So we might even be net-negative for harm here, if we consider disease and a shorter, more miserable human life span filled with unnecessary suffering to be “harm.”
Bonus: This creature (the bacteria or the cancer) we’ve removed from a body so that the body can thrive, will renew itself and try again, evolving each time and thriving as well.
This is all good stuff.
There’s no conflict
So to me, there is no disagreement between the two adages, “A witch who cannot hex, cannot heal,” and “An’ it harm none, do what thou will.”
And the now we also know the word “hex” doesn’t mean what we’ve probably always thought it meant.
A hex is a spell. To hex is to cast a spell. A hex sign is a magic sign. Hex means magic.
To harm none is impossible, since we can’t know every repercussion of our every action and decision. We can only do our best to make the choices that cause the least possible amount of suffering to ourselves and others.
There will be a special deep dive post for paid subscribers on Wednesday:
What is Evil?
This is a thank you from my heart. And also a pretty deep dive. I hope you’ll bring your thoughts and comments
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