black magic

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Magic practiced for evil purposes or in league with supposed evil spirits; witchcraft.

Magic has probably been practiced since the beginning of recorded history. It evolved out of a need to explain and control an environment that was often hostile and deadly. The world, the sky, the stars and planets, birth, illness, and death were but a few of the many things that puzzled early humans. These must have seemed mysterious and controlled by unknown, powerful forces. Efforts to explain the world's mysteries, and to find ways to control at least some of them, gave rise to many magical practices and rituals to manipulate the weather, the movement of animals, fertility, illness, death, and other seemingly uncontrollable forces. In the process of exploring and explaining their world, people began to evolve a primitive science, which would eventually lead to a greater understanding of astronomy, medicine, chemistry, and other natural sciences.

Over the thousands of years that magic has been evolving it has taken on many different forms, including shamanistic magic, which involves leaving the body and communing with otherworldly spirits and teachers; tribal magic, which is practiced by more primitive cultures to influence spirits associated with the tribal group and to counter evil sorcery directed at them; voodoo, a mix of West African religions, Christianity, and local beliefs present in the West Indies at the time of the slave trade; witchcraft, originated as a synthesis of various folk religious practices and mythologies from the Middle Ages; and Satanism, the worship of the devil.

Magic is practiced in many different forms including thaumaturgy, sympathetic magic, and divination. Thaumaturgy is associated with miracle working that rises above the laws governing the physical nature of reality and is most notably found in such practices as giving blessings, performing magical healing, and in curses designed to bring harm to another. Sympathetic magic is based on the principle of "like producing like." For instance, in voodoo this would take the form of a voodoo doll representing someone whom the user wishes to harm by placing pins into the doll with the expectation of causing pain and/or death to that person. It may also be used to drive away evil by creating a representation of that evil and then doing something to it to destroy or send it away. Divination is yet another form of magical practice in which one seeks to look into the future. Diviners, those who seek to foresee or foretell the future, may use a variety of methods including cards, bones, the entrails of animals, runes, or other devices. Reading one's horoscope is a form of divination that relies on the movement of the stars and planets to guide one's intuition and behaviors in daily life.

Black magic is a type of magic that is often used to bring harm to another person. It is strongly associated with the devil and was thought to be practiced by witches who had made pacts with the devil during the Salem witch trials of 1692. It is used to call forth the powers of darkness and evil in an attempt to control natural forces through the use of spells, incantations, and other means. White magic is the opposite of black magic, and is not thought to cause harm to others. It can be hard to distinguish between the two, however, as both seek to control natural forces and both are thought to have the potential to bring harm, even when the harm is unintended (as in the use of a love charm to control another's feelings). While many people do not believe in black magic, there are also many who do. For believers, either practicing the magic or being the recipient of an evil spell, hex, or other form of harm is very real.

Witchcraft has seen a resurgence in the twentieth century with neo-pagan, Wiccan, and Dianic traditions spreading throughout the United States, Europe, South America, and Australia. Black magic is also still practiced in many traditional cultural groups around the world including the United States, where it may be seen among voodoo practitioners, brujos, and others who practice the black arts. Evil Eye is an old and fairly widespread superstition found in the Mediterranean and Aegean areas as well as among Hispanic population groups in the United States, Mexico, Central, and South America. It goes by many names including mal occhia in Italy, ayin harsha in Arabic cultures, and mal de ojo in Hispanic cultures. It is also known as bad eye, narrow eye, the look, and the wounding eye. A person with this power can cause another person harm merely by looking at them. This belief is felt in some cultures to be tied directly to the heart, and a person with the evil eye is often covetous or jealous of something that belongs to another. It is believed that anyone can have this power, though it is often ascribed more to elderly women. The possessor of the evil eye may not be aware that he or she possesses it, and any harm that is inflicted is usually unintentional. For those who use it intentionally, the evil eye is linked to witchcraft, sorcery, and black magic.

Among Hispanic cultures, mal de ojo is a folk illness caused by evil eye that can cause a child's blood to heat up and can lead to a variety of physical problems, including diarrhea, upset stomach, fever, vomiting, and inconsolable crying. Treatment requires the services of a traditional health practitioner, who may use prayer or other approaches to resolve the illness. Evil eye can be counteracted using a variety of methods and devices, including amulets worn around the neck and certain magical practices and prayers. As with black magic, belief in the evil eye is a problem that is sometimes encountered by modern health practitioners. In such instances the practitioner needs to recognize the patient's beliefs, and possibly include elements of traditional remedies along with modern medical approaches to treat the symptoms. Often, however, belief in such powers can keep people from seeking needed medical attention.

(SEE ALSO: Cultural Appropriateness; Ethnicity and Health; Faith Healers; Shamanic Healing)

Bibliography

Carroll, R. T. "The Evil Eye." The Skeptic's Dictionary. Available at http://www.skeptic.com.

Distasi, L. (1981). Mal Occhio: The Underside of Vision. San Francisco: North Point Press.

Drury, I., and Tillett, G. (1977). The Occult: A Sourcebook of Esoteric Wisdom. New York: Barnes & Noble.

Helman, C. (1994). Culture, Health and Illness: An Introduction for Health Professionals, 3rd edition. Bristol, UK: John Wright.

Huff, R., and Kline, M. (1999). Promoting Health in Multicultural Populations: A Handbook for Practitioners. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Whitcomb, B. (1999). The Magician's Companion: A Practical and Encyclopedic Guide to Magical and Religious Symbolism. St. Paul, MN: Llwellyn Publications.

— ROBERT M. HUFF

Black magic as practiced in medieval times may be defined as the use of the supernatural knowledge of magic for evil purposes; the invocation of diabolic and infernal powers to blind them as slaves and emissaries to man's will; in short, a perversion of legitimate mystical science. While black magicians certainly existed, there is every reason to believe that the majority of the reports of the spread of black magic were simply polemics against idealogical and personal enemies. Thus, members of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn accused Aleister Crowley of practicing black magic while Crowley complained that black magicians had perverted his system.

The existence of the black art and its attendant practices can be traced from the time of the ancient Egyptians and Persians, from the Greeks and Hebrews, to the period when reports of black magic were most numerous, during the Middle Ages, thus forming an unbroken chain. In medieval magic may be found a degraded form of popular pagan rites—the ancient gods had become devils, their mysteries orgies, their worship sorcery.

Some historians have tried to trace the areas in Europe most affected by these devilish practices. Spain is said to have excelled all in infamy, to have plumbed the depths of the abyss. The south of France next became a hotbed of sorcery, branching northward to Paris and the countries and islands beyond, southward to Italy, finally extending into the Tyrol and Germany.

Many diseases, including catalepsy, somnambulism, hysteria, and insanity, were attributed to black magic. It followed that curative medicine was also a branch of magic, not a rational science, the suggested cures being such fantastic treatments as incantations and exorcisms, amulets and talismans of precious stones, medicines rendered powerful by spells and philters and enchanted drinks. The use of herbs and chemicals, which later became the foundation of modern curative science, then had more enchanted and symbolic significance when they were first prescribed by magicians.

Folk history surely exaggerated its intimations that the followers of the black art swarmed everywhere. The fraternity had grades from the pretenders, charlatans, and diviners of the common people to the various secret societies and orders of initiates, among whom were kings, queens, popes, and dignitaries of church and state. In these advanced levels, knowledge and ritual were carefully cherished and preserved in manuscripts, some of which still exist. These ancient grimoires, variously termed the Black, the Red, the Great Grimoire, are full of weird rites, formulas, conjurations, and evocations of evil malice and lust in the names of barbaric deities; charms and bewitchments clothed in incomprehensible jargon; and ceremonial processes for the fulfillment of imprecations of misfortune, calamity, sin, and death.

The deity who was worshiped and whose powers were invoked in the practice of black magic had many names: the Source and Creator of Evil, Satanas, Belial, the evil, a debased descendent of the Egyptian Set, the Persian Ahriman, the Python of the Greeks, the Jewish Serpent, Baphomet of the Templars, the Goat-deity of the Witches' Sabbat. He was said to have the head and legs of a goat and the breasts of a woman.

His followers called him by the names of forgotten deities as well as the Black One, the Black He-goat, the Black Raven, the Dog, the Wolf and Snake, the Dragon, the Hell-hound, Hell-hand, and Hell-bolt. His transformations were unlimited, as is indicated by many of his names; other favorite and familiar forms were a cat, a mouse, a toad, or worm, or again, the human form, especially a young and handsome man as he would appear on his amorous adventures. The signs by which he might be identified, though not invariably, were the cloven hoof, the goat's beard, cock's feathers, or the ox's tail.

In the Devil are embedded ancient mysteries and their symbols, the detritus of dead faiths and faded civilizations. The Greek Pan with the goat limbs masquerades as the Devil, also the goat as emblematic of fire and symbol of generation, and perhaps traces of the Jewish tradition where two goats were taken, one pure, the other impure, the first offered as sacrifice in expiation of sin, the other, the impure burdened with sins by imprecation and driven into the wilderness, in short, the scapegoat. In the Hebrew Kabala, Satan's name is Jehovah reversed. He is not a devil, but the negation of deity.

Beneath the Devil's sway were innumerable hordes and legions of demons and spirits, ready and able to procure and work any and every evil or disaster the mind of man might conceive and desire. In one grimoire, as presented in Francis Barrett's The Magus, it tells of nine orders of evil spirits, these being False Gods, Lying Spirits, Vessels of Iniquity, Revenge led by Asmodeus, Deluders by the Serpent, Turbulents by Merigum, Furies by Apollyon, Calumniators by Astaroth, and Tempters by Mammon. These demons again are named separately, the meaning of each name indicating the possessor's capacity, such as destroyer, devastator, tumult, ravage, and so forth.

Each earthly vice and calamity was personified by a demon—Moloch, who devours infants; Nisroch, god of hatred, despair, fatality; Astarte, Lilith, and Astaroth, deities of debauchery and abortion; Adramelek, of murder, and Belial, of red anarchy.

According to the grimoires, the rites and rules are multifarious, each demon demanding special invocation and procedure. The ends that might be obtained by performing the rites are indicated in such chapter headings as these: "to take possession of all kinds of treasure," "to live in opulence," "to ruin possessions," "to demolish buildings and strongholds," "to cause armed men to appear," "to excite every description of hatred, discord, failure, and vengeance," "to excite tempest," "to excite love in a virgin, or in a married person," "to procure adulteries," "to cause enchanted music and lascivious dances to appear," "to learn all secrets from those of Venus to Mars," "to render oneself invisible," "to fly in the air and travel," "to operate underwater for twenty-four hours," "to open every kind of lock without a key, without noise, and thus gain entrance to prison, larder, or charnel-house," "to innoculate the walls of houses with plague and diseases," "to bind familiar spirits," "to cause a dead body to revive," "to transform one's self," "to transform men into animals or animals into men."

These rites were classified as divination, bewitchments, and necromancy. Divination was carried out by magical readings of fire, smoke, water, or blood; by letters of names, numbers, symbols, or arrangements of dots; by lines of hand or fingernails; by birds and their flight or their entrails; by dice, cards, rings, or mirrors. Bewitchments were carried out by means of nails, animals, toads, or waxen figures and mostly to bring about suffering or death. Necromancy was the raising of the dead by evocations and sacrilegious rites, for the customary purposes of evil. These rites might take place around pits filled with blood, in a darkened and suffocating room, in a churchyard, or beneath swinging gibbets, and the number of ghosts so summoned and galvanized into life might be one of legion.

Regardless of desired outcome the procedure usually included profanation of Christian ritual, such as diabolical masses and administration of polluted sacraments to animals and reptiles; bloody sacrifices of animals, often of children; of orgiastic dances, generally of circular formation, such as that of the Witches' Sabbat.

For paraphernalia and accessories the sorcerers scoured the world and the imagination and mind of man and bent all things, beautiful or horrible, to their service. Because different planets were believed to rule over certain objects and states and invocations, such would be of great potency if delivered under the planets' auspices. Mars favored wars and strife, Venus love, Jupiter ambition and intrigue, Saturn malediction and death.

Vestments and symbols proper to the occasion were donned. The furs of the panther, lynx, and cat added their quota of influence to the ceremonies. Colors were also observed and suitable ornaments. For operations of vengeance, the robe had to be the hue of leaping flame, or rust and blood, with belt and bracelets of steel, and crown of rue and wormwood. Blue, green, and rose were the colors for amorous incantations; black for encompassing death, with belt of lead and wreath of cypress, amid loathsome incense of sulphur and assafoetida.

Precious stones and metals also influenced spells. Geometrical figures, stars, pentagrams, columns, and triangles were used; also herbs, such as belladonna and assafoetida; flowers, honeysuckle, being the witches' ladder, the arum, deadly nightshade, and black poppies; distillations and philters composed of the virus of loathsome diseases, venom of reptiles, secretions of animals, and poisonous sap, fungi, and fruits, such as the fatal manchineel, pulverized flint, impure ashes, and human blood. Amulets and talismans were made of the skins of criminals wrought from the skulls of hanged men, ornaments rifled from corpses and thus of special virtue, or the pared nails of an executed thief.

To make themselves invisible, it is said that sorcerers used an unguent compounded from the incinerated bodies of newborn infants mixed with the blood of nightbirds. For personal preparation, the sorceror fasted for 15 days, then got drunk every five days, after sundown, on wine in which poppies and hemp had been steeped.

For the actual rites the light came from candles made from the fat of corpses and fashioned in the form of a cross; the bowls were made from skulls, those of parricides being of greatest virtue; the fires were fed with cypress branches, with the wood of desecrated crucifixes and bloodstained gibbets; the magic fork was fashioned of hazel or almond, severed at one blow; the ceremonial cloth, was to be woven by a prostitute, and around the mystic circle were the embers of a polluted cross. Another potent instrument of magic was the mandragora, unearthed from beneath gallows where corpses were suspended, tied to a dog. The dog was then killed by a mortal blow, after which its soul was to pass into the fantastic root, attracting also that of the hanged man.

Widespread belief in black magic pervaded the Middle Ages. Machinations and counter-machinations engaged church and state, rich and poor, learned and ignorant. In persecutions and prosecutions, the persecutor and judge often met the same fate they dealt to the victim and condemned. In this dreadful phantasmagoria and procession can be found the haughty Templars, the blood-stained Gilles de Laval, the original of Bluebeard, Catherine de Medici the Marshals of France, as well as popes, princes, and priests. Literature divulges traces of black magic in weird legends and monstrous tales, in stories of spells and enchantments. The tale of Dr. Faustus recounts his pact with the Devil, his pleasures and their penalty when he must forfeit his soul to Hell. Traces exist in lewd verses and songs. Infernal influence is seen in pictures, sculptures, and carvings decorating palaces and cathedrals; the Devil's likeness peeps out from carven screen and stall, and his demons appear in gargoyles grinning and leering from niche and corner and clustering beneath the eaves.

The atmosphere of superstition and fevered imagination coexisted with religious dogma and repression. The great witchcraft manias flourished from the Middle Ages onward. The thousands of innocent men, women, and children who were brutally tortured and executed have left a deep stain on the church.

Sources:

Cavendish, Richard. The Black Arts. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1967.

The noun has one meaning:

Meaning #1: the belief in magical spells that harness occult forces or evil spirits to produce unnatural effects in the world
  Synonyms: sorcery, black art