Is black (or white) magic real?

[The Grand Nudger]

Us "enlightened atheist types" will call magic by whatever categories you "unenlightened magical thinking types" decide to create in order to hem in your fantasies.

[John V]

Simmer down, sonny, it was just a joke.

[Kirbmarc]

I've always asked myself why nobody ever talked about gray magic.

[Jackalope]

Simmer down, sonny, it was just a joke.

Q. What do you call a joke that has to be explained?

A. Not funny.

[Angrboda]

Science is magic! (It's not real.)

Friendship is magic! (It's not real. And I always knew it.)


Explain again how sheep's bladders may be employed to prevent earthquakes...

[thesummerqueen]

I've always asked myself why nobody ever talked about gray magic.

I could quote you a series of shoddy erotic fantasy novels that do - but as they bastardize one of my favorite cultures into something pseudo-vegan and Twilight-esque, I won't.

But seriously, they really did talk about gray magic. White is pacifist. Black is evil. Gray was what people got called for standing up for themselves.

[Welsh cake]

Differentiating between black and white magic. I would think you enlightened atheist types would be color blind regarding it.

Black and white aren't colours.

If we lacked the photoreceptor cells that we couldn't even see in monochrome vision, then we'd be blind full stop.

Go back to school.

[Darkstar]

I've always asked myself why nobody ever talked about gray magic.

Drain? (Heals user and damages foe). Or do you mean like Gandalf the grey?

On a more serious note:

It's not the magic that is real. It's the Denomic forces that one invites in that is.

First of all, it's pretty real (according to the passage); it wasn't some trick of the light. Unless you mean that they accomplished their deed through demonic forces, although it doesn't say that aywhere.

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Exodus 7:8-13
8 The Lord said to Moses and Aaron, 9 “When Pharaoh says to you, ‘Perform a miracle,’ then say to Aaron, ‘Take your staff and throw it down before Pharaoh,’ and it will become a snake.”

10 So Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh and did just as the Lord commanded. Aaron threw his staff down in front of Pharaoh and his officials, and it became a snake. 11 Pharaoh then summoned wise men and sorcerers, and the Egyptian magicians also did the same things by their secret arts: 12 Each one threw down his staff and it became a snake. But Aaron’s staff swallowed up their staffs. 13 Yet Pharaoh’s heart became hard and he would not listen to them, just as the Lord had said.

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Doesn't say anything about the devil. I think it refers to their magic as 'secret arts'.

[Mark 13:13]

I would think the real question is what is magic? before you can discuss whether it is real or not. When the first Europeans opened fire in the America's with their guns i'm sure the natives thought this was magic. It was very real to both natives and europeans but to them it was science. To the natives it was a new power they had no experience of so magic to the europeans it was a power they understood enough to use. So are you asking do people professing to using magic have access to sources of power not generally used consciously by us non magicians ; I would have to answer honestly yes and no. I would use hypnosis as an example that would explain some, and as someone who believes in a spiritual dimension to life I couldn't rule out other sources of power that our mind properly or improperly tuned depending on your take may have access to.