The Threefold Law is a point of some contention in Traditional Wicca. Some priestesses, like Phyllis Curott, suggest that the Threefold Law is a remnant of Christianized thinking and amounts to a threat of punishment for doing bad things, which is incompatible with Pagan belief structures and should be rejected. Others, like Raven Grimassi, suggest that the law is not meant to be literal but rather a reminder that every action has consequences for mind, body, and spirit. Still others argue that the Threefold Law amounts to a literal obligation by Wiccans to return threefold that which was visited upon them, whether for bad or for good.
My first experience with the Threefold Law was with my very first teacher, Marcia Young, who was affectionately known to our group as Grandmother Willow after her magickal name of Salyx. Marcy taught me that the Law meant that what we send out into the world magnifies as it manifests, and that it wasn’t a law of exact numbers so much as a reminder that we reap what we sow.
Marcy likened the Threefold Law to planting a tomato seed. When you plant a tomato seed, you don’t just get one tomato when the seed germinates, grows, flowers, and produces fruit. You get lots of tomatoes. And if you take good care of the seed/plant, you get good tomatoes that you can slice or fry or can, and if you neglect the seed/plant, you get bug-eaten tomatoes that aren’t good for anything. If you plant a healthy seed, you get a healthy plant. If you plant a diseased seed, you get a diseased plant. And if you plant a dead seed, you don’t get anything at all.
The idea here is that when you think or speak or act or do magick, those thoughts and words and actions and spells take on a life of their own as they move through time, space, and reality to manifest. Like the seed, full of potential, it grows according to its nature, and you reap from it what you have sown.
There was another part to the Threefold Law, one which I didn’t learn until I was advancing in my studies and reading the primary texts. This part of the Threefold Law comes from the Gardnerian second-degree elevation ritual, where the candidate to elevation returns three times upon the initiator what was given to them at the first-degree initiation ritual.
The Magus says: “Learn, in Witchcraft, thou must ever return triple. As I scourged thee, so thou must scourge me, but triple. So where you received 3, return 9; where you received 7, return 21; where you received 9, return 27; where you received 21, return 63.” Witch scourges Magus as instructed, 120 strokes total. The Magus says: “Thou hast obeyed the Law. But mark well, when thou receivest good, so equally art bound to return good threefold.”
Doreen Valiente was taught this Law, but she disagreed with it. She stated in an interview for FireHeart Magazine, “I think old Gerald cooked it up in one of his rituals, and people took it terribly literally. Personally, I’ve always been skeptical about it because it doesn’t seem to me to make sense. I don’t see why there has to be one special law of karma for Witches and a different one for everybody else. I don’t buy that.”
Raven Grimassi, on the other hand, popularized a different notion of the Threefold Law in his book A Traveler’s Guide to the Well-Worn Path, namely that what one sends out affects the body, the mind, and the spirit. I find that I agree with this interpretation as well, as it sits well with the interpretation that Marcy first taught me. Our thoughts, words, actions, and magick have power, and they do affect us even as we generate and manifest them. For example, if you focus on your worries, you become physically stressed, mentally anxious, and spiritually tired. If you focus on your gratitudes, you become physically relaxed, mentally easygoing, and spiritually resilient. We reap what we sow, when it has grown and manifested in our lives.
I believe it’s totally appropriate for Wicca as a religion to embrace the idea of the Threefold Law as a reminder guideline that we manifest that which we put out into the world. This is in keeping with what we know about the natural world and empowers us with a sense of personal responsibility which is in keeping with the highest law of the Craft: an’ it harm none do what ye will.