"Generational Karma" is NOT a thing, kids!
Ugh, Facebook Witchcraft groups again.
Last night I saw a meme that listed off "Signs you have bad Karma." And one was "You have Toxic parents."
So you're telling abused children that it's their own fault they are abused? That the reason they have bad parents is because they did something to deserve it?
When I voiced my horror at this idea someone (I managed to refer to them without swearing, go me!) commented with "Generational Karma is a thing."
Okay, Generational Karma is not Buddhist or Wiccan, or even Neo Pagan.
If you Google "What is Generational Karma" you get a social media answer saying that it's Karama carried by your very DNA and your soul. The fact that it mentions DNA should be a clue that this has no basis in any actual spiritual belief.
Even modern Wicca pre-dates the notion of "carried in your DNA" Karma.
So here's what I said about generational Karma being "a thing.
No, it's not. Not really. "The sins of the Father" is a mostly Christian concept to punish entire families for the offenses of an ancestor. If your great grandfather robbed a bank, little Timmy shouldn't be punished for that.
Generational TRAUMA is a thing, not Generational Karma. Generational Karma, as a term, was invented by the TikTok generation to justify hating the children of the wealthy. It's the sort of mindset that lead to children being executed or tortured / abused to death (See Marie Antoinette's son) during the French revolution for who their parents were.
Don't ever justify something so monstrous, it's the same sort of reasoning Christian people have used to hate Jews. "They killed our savior. That crime is carried through the generations." And it has also been used against women. "Women experience menstruation and birth pain because of Eve's original sin."
How DARE you use that here and pretend it's real! That's the sort of justification for burning a child at the stake with her mother because the mother was accused of witchcraft.
"Generational Karma" is the most anti-Witch thing you can believe in! The concept of “Generational Karma” fundamentally contradicts a major tenant of Karma, which is personal accountability. You can’t take “personal accountability” if you think your good fortune is built into your DNA because your great aunt donated to a children’s hospital in the 30s, or that your parents abused you because your great grandfather stole a cow. _________________
Update: A Meagan Rothwell responded on the Facebook post where I saw this nonsense. She tried to claim that the concept of generational Karma goes back thousands of years and that I obviously never suffered in my life, and that's why I don't believe in it. WTF?! How does that even make sense? It's BECAUSE I've experienced bad things (quite a few actually) that I don't pretend it's the result of generational Karma! That strips me of agency, it removes accountability from anyone who wronged me. It's a dangerous concept because it conflates actual Karmatic beliefs with things like divine right (of kings to rule), and "sins of the father." It takes things like the Christian notion that Eve passed on the "Original Sin" and that's why women bleed and experience pain during child birth. The Christian idea of inherited guilt has also been used for antisemitic purposes such as blaming present day Jewish people for the death of Jesus. Generational Karma doesn't just explain away suffering as a sort of deserved / inherited curse, it also justifies billionaires like Elon Musk as deserving of their good fortune because of some wonderful goodness innate in his family line. The concept of Karma goes back thousands of years, not "generational Karma". Generational Karma bastardizes and twists the notion of Karma into a possibly politically influenced justification for things like caste systems. In fact if you Google "Generational Karma" The first things that come up are a Quora thread and a Reddit thread. There's no wikia on it at all. And the Reddit explanation of it is debunked in the very first comment. The next search result after that is using it to describe traits passed from the mother in the womb, actual medical traits, not spiritual Karma. Generational TRAUMA is a thing, and yes, you can inherit genetic traits, but not "negative energy because your great grandfather was a bad person." It doesn't work like that. a major aspect of the belief in actual Karma is self-accountability. When I tried to talk to this person directly about it, she told me I obviously don't believe in reincarnation (just like she said I have obviously never suffered.) That's a gross simplification of the concept of reincarnation if you justify things like disabilities (which she did), or child abuse or billionaire wealth hording as punishmetns and rewards for past lives. Also that felt like changing the goal posts, we had been discussing generational Karma, as in passed down the blood, not as a result of past life transgressions. She was changing the goal posts and then denied that's what she was doing. She was so insulting and rude that I finally blocked her (after caliing her a monster in my frustration at the things she was saying.) The first definition of Generational Karama that comes up when you Google it is one that describes Karama as being carried in your genes and DNA, which tells me the author doesn't know how genetics works. The concept simply can't date back thousands of years because the discovery of DNA is still pretty new. Again, Karma dates back thousands of years. The idea of divine punishment or reward for who your family is- that is ancient, I'll give you that, but it was never called "Generational Karma" nor was it tied in the original teachings of Buddhism or Hinduism. It's a dangerous idea that can justify abuse, and keep men born to wealth and comfort in power because "it must be deserved." Here's where the argument happened: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2230198120480118/posts/2967040823462507?comment_id=2967149033451686&reply_comment_id=2967220753444514
