The terms "magic" (M), "Black Magic" (BM), and "White Magic" (WM) are used in a variety of ways by a variety of groups.
Here is how the Temple of Set uses them [which is not to say that you need to]. But before we get to those terms, we have to identify two environments:
The Objective Universe (OU): This is the physical totality of matter & energy, including your own physical body, extending in four dimensions.
The Subjective Universe (SU): This is the creation of the individual's consciousness. It may be a perception or interpretation of the OU, or it may be something entirely different. An individual may also generate more than one SU, simultaneously or consecutively. An SU may have an intended purpose [e.g. for the accomplishment or comprehension of something], or it may be merely reverie, dreaming, allowing one's consciousness to "run wild".
As beings with OU bodily extensions, we can choose, as most noninitiates do, to interact with the OU on a purely-mechanical, stimulus/response basis. This is the realm, the ideology of materialism. It also implies, whether or not such people think about it, atheism [of both an external god/gods or a self-god]. There is no M here.
M enters the picture the moment a god/gods/selfgod appears. M is the language by which G/Gs/SG communicate with the OU & SU: sense/understand them, embrace/reject them, control them. Hence M is not a phenomenon exclusively of either the OU or the SU; it is a transition, a medium between them.
Now we get to the two basic divisions of M, "White M" (WM) and "Black M" (BM). These have nothing whatever to do with "good" and "evil", except in a very advanced initiatory sense beyond this post.
If an individual consciousness (
ka, psyche, soul) fears, denies, and or rejects its distinction and isolation from the OU, it seeks to rejoin it, to be absorbed into it, to become indistinguishable from it. It attempts this through the generation of a SU which is as identical to, or at least as harmonious with the OU as possible, then obliterating its distinction and difference from that OU. This, in its many varieties, is WM. Its theoretical culmination is known by such names as Grace, Samadhi, Nirvana, etc. However WM is nevertheless an illusion, an act of self-deception or self-anesthetizing. It is never actual absorption into the OU, but only a SU construction of same. The most that the isolate consciousness can do is to stupefy itself until its physical extensions cease [in "death"], whereupon it lacks all coherence, becomes a "mindless mind": existing but having no focus or concept of this existence.
BM is divided into two major types: "Lesser BM" (LBM) and "Greater BM" (GBM).
LBM is the influencing of beings, processes, or objects in the OU by the application of obscure physical or behavioral laws.
LBM is an impelling (encouraging, convincing, increasing of probability) measure, not a compelling (forcing, making inevitable) one. The object is to make something happen without expending the time and energy to make it happen through direct cause-and-effect.
Note that the isolate self here has no interest in self-absorption/annihilation. It sees the OU as something separate and wishes to act upon it. It could of course do this by conspicuously-OU means. But LBM explores and experiments other than the ordinary. It does this both for the pure entertainment of it and for additional effects upon other beings' SUs permeating and overlapping the same arena. Indeed the prime goal of a LBM working may be such other-SU impact, and only incidentally upon the OU.
GBM is the causing of change to occur in one's SU in accordance with the will. This change in the SU may cause a similar and proportionate change in the OU.
Examine this definition. A deliberate effort is made to alter one’s subjective frame of reference, so that a thing which used to be conceptualized one way is now conceptualized in another. A distasteful situation may be adjusted to produce a favorable outcome; a live enemy may be adjusted to be thwarted or nonexistent; a desire of any sort may be realized. This begins with full, willful control over the SU. But as GBM continues, the self's entire juxtaposition to, perception & interpretation of, and attitude towards the OU alters. The OU is absorbed gradually and finally completely into one's consciousness. It is thus the inverse of WM: Instead of the individual being absorbed into the OU, the OU is absorbed into the individual, who thereby becomes its final, true god (indeed God). This god transcends and redefines the four OU dimensions, thereby rendering OU "death" meaningless. Indeed he can reshape, destroy, recreate the OU as desired, or many of them. The SU/OU distinction disappears.
More recently we coined the term "Medial BM" (MBM) to describe works blending LBM & GBM. Examples of this are many, from Adolf Hitler's Germany to Walt Disney's Disneyland. LBM is concentrated, elaborated, and interwoven to such an extent that OU phenomena begin to be affected, ostensibly through physical change but consequently in the SUs of others who enter such environments.
Well, that's the "short version".
Michael A. Aquino
