The Wiccan Rede and Court Testimony

Sending someone to prison isn’t “harming” them. Lying in court is harmful though, to yourself and the real victim in the crime, the person who got robbed. Jail time might be what this friend needs. Lying for them teaches them nothing.

Somethings that were left out from all this is 1: this isn’t the questioners actions that are bringing about harm. The harm, and the consequences of those actions are the defendants to deal with. 2: How much harm would the questioner bring about to others by lying in court or not testifying at all? Any further harm by this person would be shared by the one asking this question. The defendant has done this repeatedly. Burglary often leads to worse, often violent crimes, especially if they are interrupted. What happens when a victim walks in on this invasion of their life? Will he become violent to get away? Will he escalate to murder to elminate a witness? Come on, we’ve all watched the crime shows. And the news. We know this is all possible. And trying to hide behind the rede so you won’t snitch on a friend is not only unethical, it’s cowardly. Grow a spine and do what’s right.

If you do the crime, you do the time.
Remember, for every criminal, there is a victim.
You could rationalize that you are causing harm no matter what you do, either to your friend, or to the victims of his crimes.
Ask yourself who deserves to be punished and who doesn’t, and act accordingly.

Your question sounds black and white, whereas personal matters may not be black and white. Clearly your friend was harming someone by committing that crime, and was the person who initiated a cycle of harm that’s coming back to bite him in the a**.

One question is weather or not you are actually required by law to testify. It may be an unpopular idea, but if you are not required by law, I might suggest stepping out and letting the chips fall where they may– after having a very long discussion with your friend. The reason being is that you’re too personally involved, and testifying against your friend is a conflict of loyalty.

Your loyalty to your friend is clear, in that you would question what the right thing to do in this situation is. Your friend needs some serious therapy to be able to understand and change his behavior patterns. Weather or not you stand against him, you should definitely strongly suggest that he needs help. As a friend, you will have greater power to get through to him on this.

Don’t lie in court. That would be you committing a crime to cover his a**. You could wind up going to jail for that.

If you’ve been subpoenaed, ask a lawyer weather or not you’re required to share whatever information you have. If you feel a personal, religious, or moral conflict of interest, you may not be actually required. In one case you have a choice to make, in the other your friend made that choice with his actions.

The person who said burglary often leads to greater crimes is correct. You must also consider that you may do your friend greater harm by interfering with them getting punished. He may do someone else or himself greater harm if he continues on this path.

Still, the honest truth is that if it were me, and if the friend was really important to me, I probably would refuse to stand against them, and would try to get them help in some other fashion. I don’t know that I believe that the punishments of our current criminal justice system really helps rehabilitate people who make collosal mistakes. Your friend made a collosal mistake, but he’s human. We all do really stupid things occasionally.

It’s a serious issue because he harmed someone else, and if you chose not to testify you may in some way come to share his karma, because you’re helping him cover the harm he did. That’s a very weighty thing, don’t walk blind into either option. Really think about it.

Given that things are the way they are, what response of yours could foster the greatest good for all involved?

That’s not a question I can answer for you, you’ll have to think about it and see how you really feel inside. Meditate, look for guidance from whatever gives you your highest sense of truth.

Good Luck.

You shouldn’t be worrying about this.
Your “friend” (would a friend really put you in this situation?) broke the law, it’s their own darn fault. if they can’t do the time, they shouldn’t of done the crime. Simple.

They may actually find a period in jail will help them get the help they actually need. The people that work within the prison system aren’t heartless monsters. They will help (on suicide watch if needed) any prisoner that is truly in need.
Obviously the pattern of their life is doing nothing for this person. Perhaps the tough love approach will be the kick in the butt they need to sort their life out!

Tell the truth & don’t feel guilty for it!

The real harm would be to the victims of this crime if Asker allows this recidivist continue his dirty work. Karma is actually returning Her Law of Three back to him. It’s not Asker’s place to interfere.

The only thing I could add to these posts are – Honesty is the best policy. I know this works, I’ve done it, it has power that is unlike any other power. Set yourself free – tell the truth. Set the friend free – tell the truth – let the crime set on his conscience as it should. If you lie, you take the lie upon yourself. Can you live with yourself if you lie to the court where you swear to tell the truth? When you lie, you lie twice over – you lie to the other party, and then you lie to yourself that the other party bought your first lie. Don’t lie – save yourself and possibly your friend too – tell the truth!!!

I can see that you care about your friend, and would not want to do anything to hurt him, but he has put you in a precarious position. He has put you in the witness chair with a desire to perjure yourself for his benefit. While I’m not implying that he did this deliberately, he set actions in motion that has pulled you into his chaos.

If you are at all concerned with working magick, you must try your best never to lie; for various reasons, but the magickal reason is that if you lie, your belief in yourself (which is essential to any magick) is diminished. Even if no ones knows your have lied, you know, and you also know that you cannot believe in yourself, because you are a liar. So, always try to tell the truth, whether under oath or not. Truth and belief are two sides of the Witch’s Triangle.

While I can understand the testifier wanting to protect the friend, it is still important to understand and remember that the friend did the actions leading him to go to jail. Committing perjury will only hurt the testifier, not the friend. Being emotionally fragile is not easy, but there are things that a friend can do in order to help him through such a difficult time. If really concerned about the friend’s well-being, a protection spell could help. I see that neither of them want the friend to go to jail, but as others mentioned before, he did the crime and admitted it. At least he was honest instead of making it worse for himself.

Has he no brains? If he thinks that testifying against his friend would violate the Rede in sending him to jail then surely he must know that it would be an even bigger violation to NOT testify as many others could be harmed if his friend continues to burglarize others. What an idiot!

This is exactly what Paganism and Wicca (not sure why we separate them) should not turn into, which is another religion filled with so much dogma that its followers can’t think for themselves without referencing some doctrine or saying.

Might as well stone your child to death if he or she ever disobeys or talks back to you too, but wait; Christians were smart enough to stop following that rule, so can we please be smart enough to do the same?

Sorry for the attitude, but this stuff really gets to me. Yes Pagans strive to be peaceful, but DO NOT forget those who came before us. The ancients were warriors and we could use to tap into their warrior mentality a little more these days.

Lying under oath in court is a crime known as perjury. The burglar is a criminal already. He stole from other people, and seems to be on the way to making it a career. If the letter writer lies then the burglar has managed to make someone else a criminal, on top of all the other harm he has caused. The LW needs to stop the cycle of harm by testifying truthfully.

This person is your friend, that is true, & prison is a very tough place for some. I am not sure how you know he committed this crime-I assume he told you. If we set aside the legal aspect of testifying-as I think you know that & the consequences of lying-and we just look at the personal aspects. Your friend is prepared to lie, steal, hurt other people, all for his own gain. You say he has broken the law before, so obviously he has not learnt from that.

Let me ask you a simple question, what if you do lie & he gets off with this then commits another crime & someone gets hurt or even killed? The question here is can you live with allowing him to go free, or to lying under oath? If you can you know the answer & what to do on the day. Do you feel it is right to lie under oath to protect someone who is guilty? Is your friend my important than the victim/s of the crime/s he committed? As a Pagan is lying something that is justified or a breach of your beliefs?

At the end of the day you have to decide what you can live with, what is right for you, who you are being true to. I wish you all the best.

I would add one thing, I have been the victim of crime where those guilty were not convicted. It is not a nice thing to have to deal with daily.

I would like to know what you actually do on the day, & for About to place that in a future About newsletter.

Sounds to me like you want someone to tell you it will be ok to lie in court. It’s not. My grandfather used to say that if you can lie,you can steal. And if you can steal you can murder.
Your friend has to deal with what will be dealt to him.
Be there for him during his time in jail,be a good friend,the kind that helps him to be a better person.

A very tough decision indeed. But your intuition is already telling you what to do- that’s why you have sought advice here, because you know that, ultimately, you have a duty to act for the highest good, which is to prevent others from harm. Your friend ‘harmed’ people not you..do you want to further harm them??
Often, if you just turn a situation on it’s head, it will be easy to decide. For example; would you want someone to testify against the criminal if you were in the victims’ shoes? What if someone stole from your child? By not testifying you are accepting the possibility that at some point in the future others may not act in a way that benefits you.
Your friend didn’t have to commit these crimes. Even drug addicts have a higher self that they can commune with if they really want to; it’s all a matter of willpower. Willpower is available to anyone if they really put their mind to it.
The way I see it, is that you may be meddling with someone’s life lessons here. What’s the betting that there will be a next time? Having said that, when you take away somebody’s employability, they are left in a worse position than before…unless they have done time before, in which case there is less to loose…
But the thing to remember is that, as so many people have said- they absolutely have to accept personal responsibility by taking the punishment given, after all- they have created the situation where they may be unemployable for themself! This is where the willpower and life lessons come in; are they strong-and wise-enough not to reoffend in the future?

The whole point to the ” harm none’ of the read is to teach personal responsibility for ones actions. It is your personal responsibility to not bring harm to yourself and comitting purgery in court would definatly be bringing harm to yourself. Your friend needs to take personal responsibility for his own actions and face the consequences of those said actions. If you lie in court you will be putting your own freedom in jeopardy and harming the people that your friend victimized.

It would harm him more if he did not receive the consequence of his actions. If he spends four years in jail because of his actions he well reflect on the wisdom of his actions; if you prevent him from doing this, the next time may be more serious and a much longer spell in prison…

You are not harming him, he harmed himself. He didn’t follow the threefold law and this is the consequence.

The Goddess will give him the strength to take his punishment and hopefully maintain his dignity while learning to respect himself and others.

Blessed Be the way

If you don’t have to go to court…don’t go,don’t get tangled up in that mess,if you do have to go to court…tell the truth.Purgery (lying) is a serious offence!you could go to jail. Let your friend clean up his own mess.

Telling the TRUTH is NOT a violation of the rede.
It’s common sense.

A Few Key Points:
First- Your friend was arrested and is awaiting trial because he was accused of the crime. You know he’s guilty. He knows he’s guilty. What’s the point of lying?!
Second-It is my assumption that other evidence accusing your “Friend” of this crime has come to light or else there would be no point of him or you going to court, correct? Again, what is the point of lying?
Third- It is always easier to hide behind muddied beliefs than it is to stand and speak what you truly believe. It’s not easy to stand up to a friend either, especially one you care about (as you seem to in this case) but it is sometimes necessary. But is he a true friend?

I don’t know that a true friend would bring such negative and disrespectful circumstances to your door.
My advice is that your problem is more serious than a possible violation of one part of the rede, (which I don’t believe has very much foundations in your case)i believe your problem is more about self-respect.
The rede encomposses many, many things. A few of the things that jumped out at me while reading your question was, Integrity. Self-respect. Honor. Truth. The one thing that stood clear and strong throughout this entire board was “Choice”.
In the end you have to make the choice and what you choose right for you may not be right for me so I say good luck in your quest for advice. You choose a great place to start as you will find some of the greatest advie here.
I would also like to note that I agree with Stepheninleeds. i would like to know the outcome of your situation and the choices you made as well as more details on the circumstances if you are comfortable.

Although I understand that “lying under oath” is considered a crime…..um…being Wiccan….if I was asked to place my hand on the Christian bible and lie…it would mean nothing to me….I don’t believe in that book. Therefore, that ends the whole “lying under oath” bit.

Now the harm none part is also simple. Although he is your friend…if he is burglarizing people and/or stealing than you are harming others (his future victims). By telling the truth you are helping others from your friends future shenanigans, and you are also helping him. I know 4 years doesn’t sound like you are helping him… but it appears your friend is acting out with his crimes. So I would say tell the truth and the Rede still applies.

You would probably be violating the harm none part of the Rede, in the respect that you would be enabling him to continue to harm himself. If he goes to jail he will have to face the consequences of his actions and he also will have to face his issues and decide if that is the path he wants to follow or if he wants to get the help it appears that he needs in order to get himself together.

Seriously? Talk about using the Rede as an excuse to NOT do the right thing (and a flimsy excuse at that). Your friend commited the crime – someone else was a victim of his heartless action. It has already been stated that this wasn’t the first time, so it certainly wasn’t a momentary lapse of judgement. You may indeed care about your friend, but it’s time for some tough love. Testify, tell the truth. THAT is the honorable thing.

Lying in court would be the act of an enabler – : one who enables another to persist in self-destructive behavior by providing excuses or by helping that individual avoid the consequences of such behavior.
Thus, lying in court would actually harm your friend.

Your friend harmed himself by committing the crime(s).
You can still support your friend, even while making him accountable.

Although I can understand the emaotional dilemma involved, the demands of friendship should not require one friend lying to keep the other criminal “friend” out of jail. Anyone wishing to stay out of jail ahould avoid it in other ways – like not breaking, enetering and stealing from the homes of others. The responsibility for going to jail or not lies squarely with the burgler, regardless of what the friend does. Therefore, the friend would do well to care for himself in this situation and tell the truth. I agree with the previous poster about the power of the truth being told.

The Wiccan Rede is all about harming none.

Remember, that is including yourself. He needs to take responsibility for his own action.

Everyone should take responsibility for their own actions. If you friend is guilty, he should own up and take responsibility for his actions (which is go to court and take what sentence the judge gives him). It is not for you to decide what his fate should be, nor should you break the law to protect him either.

Are you serious???? I do not see how you can mix up the meaning of the Rede in that manner.

Youre in court standing for the prosicution against your friend and youre concerned about the wiccan rede?

Pull the other one. Youre looking for someone to tell you what youre doing is ok. Its not ok. Youre ‘forced’ to testify against your friend, that means you got caught doing something and to get out of it youre betraying your friendship, everyone who has ever been loyal and putting him in a position where you know hes going to suffer so no human compassion either. Cowardly vile disgrace of a person, if these people are happy to be associated with you through neopaganism. Im not.

Justify it any way you want to, you may avoid jail but once you blot your copybook its remembered forever.

Stop thinking of your friend as weak and fragile. He’s got you wrapped around his finger. He has put you in a position where you are willing to sacrifice yourself solely for his benefit. Don’t worry about him; he is a survivor. He will find someone else to take care of him while he is in prison. Stop propping him up, and make him stand on his own. It’s time for him to grow up.

I have to agree with everyone as well.. If you friend was truely harming none he would have not done what he did and YOU are breaking the Rede yourself by NOT being truthful..yea there are those who dont’ follow it.. But do you need to BE LIKE THAT??? I don’t care what others may or may not be doing I do it be cause I Love and Respect Our dieties!!! I not going to lie that is not what harming none is about! or when it is convient for you. And that is not what it means He is Harming and need to be punished.. even the Universe agrees with that… Tell the truth. Maybe he might learn something! and may again he might not. Do what is right! period!

Our belief to harm none is something we all take to heart and believe in. However your friend who committed a crime caused harm to someone, this is not the first time this person has been in trouble. You would be committing a crime if you lie about it. He has to take responsibility for his actions, we all do it’s called Karma. For you to lie on his behalf you then enable him to continue along the path that has caused him so much trouble to begin with. You should do what is right, tell the truth and he has to accept the consequences of his actions, this is not your fault. You did not commit the crime with him did you? If not, then do what is right admit what he did. You are not breaking our laws, he broke the law.

I most certainly agree that the person asking this question should testify. I don’t believe that the “Harm None” is the actual question here. This person feels sorry for their friend and feels that they will be the one to blame if something were to happen to the friend while serving time. The guy who committed the crime … committed a crime! It’s that simple. EVERYONE must understand that when you do something wrong that has traumatized, injured, threatened the life of another or burglurized a HOME, they MUST pay the consequences for their actions. He already committed a crime before, should he get off so easy? Absolutely not. If they don’t testify then in essence they would be harming someone because this person who committed the crime will only do it again and harm another family and take their belongings. He already sealed his Karma by committing this crime in the first place… testifying is the right thing especially if the friend already knows they are guilty. The Gods won’t see it as Harming…it’s Justice!

First lying is againist the Rede. And I love dont beleive in the bible either but no matter what I’m taking an oath to I am bound to tell the truth. The fact is I feel the same as another posted you are using the Rede to justify not telling the truth. Very sad we are freethinkers and need to do our Goddesses will for us and that includes being honest and true to ourselves. He has harmed others without care and if you lie to “help” him three-fold and his Karma becomes yours as well. Blessed Be )O(

Is it better to lie and harm yourself and the victim of the burglary or tell the truth and let justice take it’s course?

How is it fair to the person he robbed? He deserves to go to jail. Period.

everyone here seems to be of the same thoughts.. and altho i was not going to comment i have to commend everyone here for voicing their opinions. i have always taught my children, if what you are about to do makes you question yourself or you think you may regret it later, dont do it… sounds to me like you are questioning yourself.. and you already knew the answer to the question before you asked it.. you need to look inside yourself.. if you were the victim and i were you, what would you expect me to do? the answer is: the right thing…. period.

When you’ve been Robbed or someone has entered the privacy of your own home … where you’re supposed to feel safe, you instead feel very much Violated, as though you’ve been forced upon and you feel raped – This feeling is very frightening and leaves the victim with a greater emotional weakness than they can imagine.

You are as guilty as the perpitrator if you try to protect him.
He needs to take responsibility for the things he does.he got himself into this, he can get himself out of this.

The Perpitrator was not so emotionally weak as it is claimed.
Anyone who can break into someone’s Private Space (Their Home) is certainly NOT emotionally weak. That takes a dumb courage NOT EMOTIONAL WEAKNESS to do that – and it’s cruel and Stupid.

Friend or Foe, The Perpitrator needs to be punished for his crime. It is time to stop Coddling Criminals with dumb excusses. If that was MY friend, I’d be say Arriva Dertchi, Adios, Hit the road Jack and don’t you come back no more. Besides – Jail isn’t so bad, they apparently treat you reall good there. They treat prisoners better than they do Senior Citizens.

People who use “Friends” to help them out in Crimes, are NOT YOUR Friends. Sorry if that sounds hard and cold – In reality, It’s the Truth.

If you truly believe in the Rede than you must know you will be subject to the threefold part or the Law by not allowing him to face his consequences. To aid your friend who has done harm makes me believe you believe him to be innocent due to his fragile state,
but consequences for his actions are his responsibility. Hes a criminal by choice, and by your own words a second offender. You will do him and his victims an injustice by lying or skirting your responsibility if called upon.

“An harm none”

Think of those the burglar has harmed. Testifying in which you save your friend harms those which he committed the crime against.
Do the right thing.

If youre testimony is the only vidence and you don’t want him to go to jail, make sure the jury don’t believe you. Damage your credibility in court by acting like you don’t give a shit. Then if all goes well he will owe you big time.

Call it what you will I think I can say we all believe in some form of karma. His crime, his responsibility, his choice.