Ethics

Note: this is NOT intended to be a comprehensive “definition”.

What does “ethics” mean?

In my opinion, ethics is about :

a)    doing what is “right” or “good”, which I interpret as “BPM”,

b)    NOT doing what is “wrong” or “bad”, which I interpret as “nonBPM”, and

c)    refraining from acting when that is best / most appropriate,

… in  way that is “fair to all”, which I interpret as being in full compliance/fulfilment of :  human rights,  human dignity,  and  DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion), which also requires addressing structural, historic, intergenerational, and anti-human rights/human dignity/DEI  issues.

 

The three sets of actions: principles 

I have attempted, below, to develop principles for the key action aspects of ethics.

Doing what is “right” or “good” – i.e., “BPM”

·         Adequate, appropriate, and accessed/accessible knowledge

o   Awareness of and compliance with applicable laws, etc

o   Knowledge of capabilities, weaknesses, etc sufficient to enable all people to make accurate decisions, which also requires:

-          Effective communication, including checking that it has been accurately understood (which is a pre-requisite to consent);

-          Making sure knowledge is conveyed with sufficient time in advance of it being required for decision making for all concerned to be able to review, reflect, and absorb/accept/come to terms with that knowledge;

-          Ensuring the knowledge includes all requirements and options, including regulatory/government/legal requirements and options;

-          Personal commitment by the communicator to be as thorough as possible – including communicating information that may counter to the self-focused interests of the communicator (such as practitioners advising of past problems, and clients advising of financial problems – and, strictly speaking, undercover stings, which be conducted in a biased manner);

-          I consider many people who are not outright fraudsters get themselves into trouble because they are actually seeking emotional validation for their beliefs - especially if they wish to talk about or “demonstrate” proof (see Victor Zammit and  Dean I Radin's “The Conscious Universe: The Scientific Truth of Psychic Phenomena” [Harper One (2010), first pub. Harper Collins (2009), ISBN 978 0062029096, Amazon] on that topic before getting in to any debates/discourse). I strongly recommend doing the emotional work to be able to move away from physical proof and live with spiritual values and ambiguity/uncertainty - you will be more effective for yourself and others, and less likely to damage the entire field that way;

·         Ensure relevant skills are adequate for what is need – which is often interpreted as “fully up to date”, which may be excessive for specific issues but is  widely accepted  

·         Ensure boundaries and limits to acting/not acting are fairly, equitably and reasonably negotiated and agreed

·         Perspectives and key points of view must either match or adequately mesh, or the mismatch must be known and managed, not ignored  

 

NOT doing what is “wrong” or “bad” – i.e., “nonBPM” 

·         Where applicable requirements such as laws are unethical (e.g., promote hate), do not work in that jurisdiction

·         Do not abuse authority, which must only be used for who it is intended for, even if those people are not directly paying for it

·         Do not lie or distort anything, even if doing so is not in your best interest

o   Ensure any logic fallacies are resolved fairly, reasonably, and equitably

·         It is necessary to be prepared to judge worldviews – client some are unethical, and should not be acceded to in any way

o   Be aware of and manage problems such as those discussed at https://gnwmythr.blogspot.com/2026/08/post-no-3512-biggest-blocks-to-learning.html

o   Avoid past guides which are now known to be problematic, such as the Golden Mean

 

Refraining from acting when that is best / most appropriate 

·         There may be times when one’s emotional reactions, the nonBPM pressure of others (especially bigots, or those engaging in spiritual bypassing, but also those who are egregiously unbalanced towards themself or their significant others [i.e., nepotism – which may be dressed up as “family responsibility/duty”, or “family first”] – at the expense of the Highest Spiritual Good and/or the Greater Good), or the lack of information makes accurate assessment of situations unknowable.
In those cases, it may be that the safest thing to do is nothing, until the situation becomes clearer – e.g., by obtaining more information, by BPM neutralising agents of external pressure, or obtaining more information.
In at least some of those situations, it WILL be possible to ascertain what is in the BPM interests, and this must NOT be used as an excuse to try to (unethically) evade responsibilities – or being held to account for a decision/action(s) one has made;

·         There may be other situations where change is occurring so quickly that it is not possible to accurately assess what is going on, what the impacts of actions may be, AND there is a strong BPM case that it is safest to do nothing – no spiritual bypassing, putting convenience above what s right, or “tough love” rubbish.
As with the previous dot point, this must not be used as an excuse to try to (unethically) evade responsibilities, as for instance, many nations have done over even minor actions to address human rights abuses – especially genocides (there is a reasonable argument that inventing the term “ethnic cleansing” was an attempt to justify not acting in fulfillment of responsibilities under the Genocide Convention);

·         There may be circumstances where inaction is what is best for the Highest Spiritual Good and/or the Greater Good.
Such decisions need to be checked carefully – as do the preceding examples, but they may also require

o   people to have:

-          good BPM emotional competence;

-          good BPM respect for others - including their BPM growth, and their right to make mistakes if they choose to do so (without harming anyone else – which needs to be assessed without putting the personal convenience of others above the rights of the person);

-          outstanding BPM support;

o   organisations to have:

-          good BPM commitment to and proficiency with ethics, including adequate internal (and stakeholder) consultation;

-          outstanding BPM support provisions.

 

Other  relevant concepts

This topic also requires consideration of some key concepts, including :

·         mind your mӕgan :

o   I like the word mӕgan, pronounced MY-an, which I came across in Alaric Albertsson’s 2^nd book, “Wyrdworking: the Path of a Saxon Sorcerer” (pp. 13 – 14) rather than honour. Mӕgan is a quality that is diminished by acts that are, in the modern sense, dishonourable – and by breaking one’s word, replenished by acts which are, in the modern sense, honourable – and by keeping one’s word. It is also apparently, more essential – according to Mr Albertsson - for magick than willpower (willa) or knowledge (hyge - conscious thought, pronounced HU-yeh) or wód (inspiration). See also : http://godsandradicals.org/2015/04/20/honor-i-dont-think-that-word-means-what-you-think-it-means/;

o   For an explanation including associated/nearby concepts, see https://gnwmythr.blogspot.com/2015/04/post-no-694-mind-your-mgan.html;

 

·         the Highest Spiritual Good (HSG) :

o   the concept of “Highest Spiritual Good” is the idea that:
the best outcome from the point of view of the spiritual development/growth of individuals and/or groups of people in any situation
may involve events/actions/situations that are not what the individuals/groups involved consider pleasant or desirable;

-          thus, for instance, one may not receive healing to cure an illness so that one may undergo negative learning, repay a negative karmic debt, to develop endurance, or as a test of others;

-          by the same token, it may be for the Highest Spiritual Good that you achieve more than you could by your own effort, whether that is for return of your positive karmic debt, or to enable you to be of benefit to others, and hence something like a troubling health problem may have a seemingly miraculous cure;

o   key assumptions for this concept as used in this book are:

-          spiritual growth is a key part of our reason for existence;

-          we have a non-physical part of our being (actually, several) which survives the death of the physical body and may reincarnate into a different body;

-          this Earth is a form of school, and our incarnations here, are, to greater or lesser extent, for the purpose of promoting our growth – particularly of our “soul” (Higher Self);

 

·         the Greater Good

o   If someone does an act of good - perhaps is kind to a stranger, that will be fairly clearly of immediate benefit to that one person who receives the kindness.
However, the effects may flow further. The person who has received the kindness may be in a better mood and thus may also lift others, the person who did the act of kindness may feel better about themselves and thus continue to be kind (or kinder) through the day, and so on. Although the impact of these subsequent effects may be less than the original event, the total accumulated effect of the act of good (kindness) may be several times stronger than the original act.
Unfortunately, that also applies to acts of harm – i.e., nonBPM (unbalancing or out of balance and/or spiritually immature) acts.

o   There are also situations where one has a choice of what to do, and in judging those, what might be needed is to compare the net total good and total harm for each of those options. An example of that is included in the definition in this book at the Greater Good;

 

·         The means shape the end - aka the end does NOT justify the means

o   Claims that “the end justifies the means”:

-          may have some validity if that is interpreted as “great” goals (e.g., trying to end world poverty, or world hunger or thirst, which are both spiritually valid and very, very, very large undertakings) deserve great efforts;

-          but do not if the interpretation is that it means sometimes one has to do things that are morally questionable, in order to achieve a goal that is for the benefit of others.
If the goal is something so big, so important, so momentous, that you could possibly consider it justified being unscrupulous, then surely it also justifies being scrupulous;

-          this is expanded with examples at means shape the end - aka the end does NOT justify the means;

o   And it is at this point that I would like to introduce the reformulation of that saying, which is that “the means shape the end”:

-          if the formation of a group involved any coercion, or any underhandedness, perhaps rumours and gossip about existing groups, then no matter how many members it has, or how well it meets their spiritual needs, the group would be tainted by the moral corruption of the methods they had used – those nonBPM misdeeds would create a psychic/moral/spiritual link from the group to the negativity of those misdeeds, and that negative link would undermine or niggle at what they are trying to achieve - even those goals were genuinely BPM spiritually worthy;

-          if one wanted to argue that “the end justifies the means”, an example of the risks one could take would be for an activist group to, perhaps, lobby only one side of politics. The (false) justification here would be that getting change was so important, it was best to pick the most likely way to get that change, and just do it. The problem with that would be that you risk having the other side of politics, at a change of government, repealing the changes you had successfully lobbied for. So in this case, what you had seemingly achieved, could be a false thing. On the other hand, if you approached the goal properly, doing things like educating everyone and gently bringing them along with you, then you would be more likely to get a lasting, beneficial, effective change. In that case, where everyone had been educated and brought gently along a path of growth, it is likely most people would have said “that end justified the means”, although what had really been applied was the idea that “the means shape the end”;

-          On “the means shape the end”, I’d like to mention a saying from the training of another spiritual group, which is: “do not be trifling, even in little things”. There is a whole wealth of reasoning behind that, drawing on several sets of philosophy – including Zen, but in terms of the notion that “the means shape the end”, it is useful. If you do something with loving care and attention, and strive to make it the best you can, then it will be infused with loving energies and, even if it is not perfect, the love is going to help it along the way. As an example, if you make a cake with love, it may taste – or seem to taste - better than a cake made using the same recipe, but made with resentment or grudgingly. In more complicated matters, remembering that “the means shape the end”, rather than trying to use “the end justifies the means” to justify taking a short-cut or approaching things in a dodgy way, may mean doing things in ways that can be tedious, difficult, or downright challenging;

-          to further broaden our horizons, the problems that can occur from thinking the ends justify the means are also visible in politics, where the distrust caused by the “anything goes” attitudes of power brokers / back room people / “grey” people underlying the Watergate scandal has ultimately contributed to a host of conspiracy fantasy rubbish such as the incredibly dangerous anti-vaxxer nonsense. A similar set of issues arise in professional / expert fields, where some experts may have the appalling habit of thinking a pronouncement without explanation or justification is fine - which isn't helped by the rabid financial cutthroatedness of consulting in the neoliberal era, nor by experts in one field thinking they don't need experts in other areas (such as communication), nor by a history of failures such as thalidomide, DDT, the West Gate bridge collapse, Chernobyl, the under-design of the Fukushima nuclear power plant, the active resistance to implementing car safety measures and addressing the climate crisis, and so on, all of which leads to distrust and problems trying to implement necessary, justifiable actions – such as addressing the climate crisis, or responding to pandemics. Trying to act in accordance with the principle that “the means shape the end” is incredibly difficult at times, but it also leads to a better result – the energy is better, as I’ve discussed, but the skills and knowledge accessed, and the views considered, are also more comprehensive and informative, and it is possible that catastrophic mistakes could be avoided.

 

·         Know Thyself

o   If one is self-aware, or seeking to be self-aware, it is quite possible to become aware of one’s flaws, and then doing something about them – whether that is contain the damage they do, or actually change oneself so the problems have been either transformed or resolved.

As an example of that, when I was a kid I became aware that I have a bad temper, largely because of my involvement in personal growth / spiritual development/evolution, including – as a teenager - Buddhism. Knowing, because of that personal growth work, that I am a “work in progress”, I was able to make the decision to use my anger, rather than being a tool for that anger (or, more accurately, whatever was behind it) to express itself.

f I’d been caught up in some sections of the New Age movement, I would have been focused on the “accept and love oneself as one is” view, and thus failed to acknowledge the value of, and need for, transforming and integrating that aspect of oneself so one becomes a better, more effective person.

The process for doing that is often referred to as shadow work.

This concept and terminology has, however, a much older lineage – one which goes back to the Temple of Delphi in ancient Greece, where it was the first of three sayings.

o   For additional links and information, see Know Thyself.

 

Other perspectives

For other views on this, consider reading (these are to stimulate your thinking - I do NOT necessarily endorse any of the following links):

·         https://ethics.org.au/ethics-explainer-ethics/; 

·         https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/ethics-and-morality; 

·         https://www.scu.edu/ethics/ethics-resources/ethical-decision-making/what-is-ethics/;

·         https://www.niehs.nih.gov/research/resources/bioethics/whatis/index.cfm;

·         https://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/code-of-ethics.asp;

·         https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotle-ethics/;

·         https://www.philosophos.org/ethical-theories-virtue-ethics-utilitarianism-deontology;

·         https://iep.utm.edu/category/value/ethics/;

·         https://philopedia.org/topics/ethics/;

·         https://philosophy.institute/ancient-medieval/ethics-philosophy-moral-principles-conduct/;

·         https://www.britannica.com/topic/ethics-philosophy;

·         https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ethics&oldid=1152021628  and  https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Outline_of_ethics&oldid=1369745706 .

The following links are from an excellent online course in human rights: 

·         Introduction to Human Rights | Lesson 1: "Notions of Public Ethics I" ;

·         Introduction to Human Rights | Lesson 2: "Notions of Public Ethics II" ; 

·         Introduction to Human Rights | Lesson 27: "Environment and Human Rights" ; 

·         Introduction to Human Rights | Lesson 28: "Anti-Corruption I" ; 

·         Introduction to Human Rights | Lesson 29: "Anti-Corruption II" ; 

·         Introduction to Human Rights | Lesson 30: "Transitional Justice" ; and 

·         Introduction to Human Rights | Lesson 33: "Bioethics and Human Rights" .

 

Specific (example) guidelines

There are a number of contextually specific guidelines for this, including various guidelines for psychic/spiritual matters.

Some of those specific guidelines are not directly transferable to other situations (e.g., declaration of financial holdings by elected representatives), but the principles underlying those often are (e.g., ensuring any vulnerabilities to breaches of ethics, such as bribery/corruption, etc, which is part of the necessity for elected representatives to declare their financial situations, including what they have received).

Specific guidelines which are applicable to the work of my blog, including this book, include:

·         “Post No. 3,114 - IONS proposed Code of Ethics”   https://gnwmythr.blogspot.com/2025/05/post-no-3114-ions-proposed-code-of.html   which is now publicly available at   “Ethics in Channeling and Mediumship | ConnectIONS Live”   https://youtu.be/wShpqvrkgXc   

·         The Australian Psychics Association has a Code of Ethics which is not bad, but seems a bit anti-Wiccan/Pagan, and fails to cover the following:

o   any attempt at fraud by me is actionable under law;

o   any client's attempt to blackmail or threaten me is also covered by relevant laws - that is, I am protected;

o   any failure of me to be inclusive (i.e. any incident where I discriminate on the basis of sexuality, gender identity, race, religion, etc.) may also be actionable under law;

o   any client's discriminatory (i.e., offensive) behaviour against me ;

·         other groups such as Correllians and spiritualists also have codes of conduct or ethical rules, and it is worth considering these (if you can access them).
Note that I am not going to try to endorse any of these, as they ay change over time.

 

Additional links

The following, which include ways of finding other articles I have written which relate to, sometimes only partially, this topic, may also be of some use/relevance :

·         “The seemingly “little” things matter”   https://politicalmusingsofkayleen.blogspot.com/2021/04/the-seemingly-little-things-matter.html;

·         “National interests vs. ethics”   https://politicalmusingsofkayleen.blogspot.com/2019/09/national-interests-vs-ethics.html;

·         “Post No. 1,417 - Unethical magic”   https://gnwmythr.blogspot.com/2019/09/post-no-1417-unethical-magic.html;

·         “Post No. 1,261 - Ethical Limits”   https://gnwmythr.blogspot.com/2019/01/post-no-1261-ethical-limits.html;

·         “Doing a Joe Biden”   https://politicalmusingsofkayleen.blogspot.com/2024/08/doing-joe-biden.html  

·         “Fight bigotry whenever and wherever it appears, UN chief declares”   https://news.un.org/en/story/2024/08/1152786  

·         “Post No. 2,943 - On hexing”   https://gnwmythr.blogspot.com/2024/11/post-no-2943-on-hexing.html   

·         "Post No. 2,649 - An offset: one advantage to not having been diagnosed as neurodivergent while working"   https://gnwmythr.blogspot.com/2023/12/post-no-2649-offset-one-advantage-to.html  

·         “Post No. 2,143 - Fixing avoidable problems after the fact”   https://gnwmythr.blogspot.com/2022/01/post-no-2143-fixing-avoidable-problems.html;   

·         “Post No. 1,807 - Magickal Battle of the World - Weekly Meditation - Week No. 45 - How to work in a group or movement with ethics and integrity”   https://gnwmythr.blogspot.com/2021/03/post-no-1807-magickal-battle-of-world.html;   

·         “Post No. 1,988 - a perspective on ethics and oaths”   https://gnwmythr.blogspot.com/2021/08/post-no-1988-perspective-on-ethics-and.html;   

·         “Post No. 1,782 - DRAFT healing course [Content Warning: harm, limits of acceptable behaviour, need for consent, need for legal advice, need for psychic protection, ethics]”   https://gnwmythr.blogspot.com/2021/02/post-no-1782-draft-healing-course.html;   

·         “Post No. 1,552 - Spoons of Courage”   https://gnwmythr.blogspot.com/2020/05/post-no-1552-spoons-of-courage.html;   

·         “Post No. 1,496 - Responsible, Informed, and Ethical Influence”   https://gnwmythr.blogspot.com/2020/02/post-no-1496-responsible-informed-and.html;   

·         “Post No. 832 - Lifestyle Vulnerabilities”   http://gnwmythr.blogspot.com.au/2016/03/post-no-832-lifestyle-vulnerabilities.html;   

·         “Post No. 1,235 - Frustration”   https://gnwmythr.blogspot.com/2018/11/post-no-1235-frustration.html;   

·         “Post No. 115 - "Briefing for the Landing on Planet Earth" and "Aliens Among Us": a Personal View”   http://gnwmythr.blogspot.com/2010/05/briefing-for-landing-on-planet-earth.html;   

·         “Post No. 132 - Ethics”   http://gnwmythr.blogspot.com/2010/07/ethics.html;   

·         “Post No. 119 - Hatred, and pouring oil onto ... oil”   http://gnwmythr.blogspot.com/2010/06/hatred-and-pouring-oil-onto-oil.html;   

·         “Post No. 105 - A change of affirmation”   http://gnwmythr.blogspot.com/2010/04/change-of-affirmation.html;   

·         “Which careers help the most people?”   https://80000hours.org/career-guide/high-impact-jobs/;

·         https://gnwmythr.blogspot.com/search/label/ethics  

·         https://gnwmythr.blogspot.com/search?q=ethics   

 

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