One night I dreamt I was in ancient Africa, there two men lived and raised cattle. Now one of the men was a good man and priest who served God and the spirits faithfully. Over time however a conflict emerged between the two men and they grew to hate each other. One day the other man attacked and killed the faithful man's cattle. Enraged over the death of his livelihood and being as he was a powerful magician, the priest decided to take his revenge. He raised up the spirit of a dead man, who had until then faithfully served God and set the shade upon his enemy. The dead spirit swiftly found the priest's enemy and killing him, he feasted on the man's blood. As he feasted on his victim the man's blood ran into the spirit and darkened this nature. Seeing what he had wrought the priest put aside his need for God and in his mind put himself in God's place. And the spirit who was bound to him was sad, because it had been lowered by this act and in its heart it wanted to serve God not the man.
We as practitioners of ATR traditions are in a unique position of responsibly, if we are good at what we do, we are given access to a huge amount of power by our spirits. Not only this but we are free to excise this power without much in the way of a visible backlash in response. If I wanted to for example I could hex my neighbours, perform magic to dominate any individual in any way I wished. If it worked and had severe and long lasting consequences, there would no police knocking down my door to interrogate me over my actions, I could essentially get away with this scot free This goes beyond the realms of hypothetical, I've met good people whose lives have been ruined by disputes solved through the use of hexes and cursing without any recourse to justice. But just because we can do something without immediate consequence doesn't mean we should (in fact perhaps we should if anything put more thought into our actions because of this).
I took a strong message away from the above dream, we are not God. We don't have an automatic right for revenge and by thoughtlessly acting malevolently we can make the world just that little bit worse, not just for our fellow man but for our spirits as well. As for our actions having no consequence, is that really the case? In Sanse we are taught that every action has an opposite and equal reaction. What we deal out will be dealt back to us either in this life or the next. Even if you don't practise Sanse or believe that the universe punishes certain behaviours its worth noting that in many cases people who are abused often became abusers themselves.
Now I'm not saying that aggressive magic should never be done, or that I myself am above things like petty revenge (as i'm really not sometimes). But I do believe that true justice is about more then a personal need for revenge, it should be about impartiality, higher law and tempered with compassion and integrity. Otherwise we could just as well be animals fighting in the mud.
