9. BLACK MAGIC

Today, the expression black magic signifies something bad, some dangerous activity that must be feared. Criticism and ignorance led to certain conclusions and fear from negative influences, and thus black magic obtained an overall negative connotation. Throughout centuries, discussions about these undefined procedures caused uneasiness and opposition among people. They were not able to define its functioning. This was hidden knowledge, and thus black magic had the status of something dangerous, so dangerous that one should not even talk about it. Certain social structures surely used propaganda to intentionally create such feeling, which is still felt today. This is all very sad, as black magic was also used to do good to people, to chase away enemies, to protect domestic animals from thieves, wolfs or foxes, and the like. Although these were useful thing, black magic got a bad name. The church was in the lead of such thinking. Many analysts claim that its members used these means to keep the believers obedient. They prohibited any discussion on black magic and created the belief that this was the work of the devil, evil people, and that talking about it was the same as calling Satan. Nevertheless, they themselves did that on daily basis. In the Middle Ages, the feudal society and the church exploited this man-made belief that there is something terrible in black magic and that the society must be “cleansed” of people who do such things.

This was a dreadful period of our history, when many citizens were killed in a terrible way, on the stake, under the slogan “witch hunting”. This primarily included women who were considered to be enemies of the church, aristocracy and the governing structures of the state. Thus, the church mechanism headed by the inquisition topped it all: with public and dreadful torturing of “witches” it put fear into the heads of people that any thought or talk about black magic is life-threatening.

In the period after witch hunting, rare authors tried to write something about black magic. Their works give us a partial insight in the beliefs existing at the time and reveal their fears in relation to this taboo. Such attitude to and thinking about black magic still exist, especially among uneducated social structures, although many books have been written on this subject in the last centuries, explaining how the misconception of black magic emerged.

Nevertheless, ignorance and fear are still here, which is also proven by the following case: an acquaintance of mine told me how everything had gone wrong in his life after he bought a prohibited book on devil’s business. Since I had always been fond of books, I believed that he found something valuable and secret, and I asked him to give me the book. He did so with a great relief. I was really surprised when he brought me a photocopy of a book or, better said, notes on talisman magic. The original book “Talisman Magic” by the same author was available at almost all bookshops. “Fear of inquisition is still alive,” was my comment when I was thanking him for the gift.