Magick is the technique of harnessing the secret powers of Nature and seeking to influence events for one's own purpose.

If the influence is beneficial it is known as white magick, but if it is intended to bring harm to others, or to destroy property, it is regarded as black magick.

Magicians employ a variety of ritual procedures. Sometimes, as in imitative magick, they seek to imitate the end-result desired by using models of real people or objects, or by dressing in ceremonial regalia in order to identify symbolically with a particular deity..

In certain black magick procedures, it is believed that harm can be inflicted upon a person by burning a wax doll or sticking pins into it, as if it were the real person. Sometimes "positive" effects are sought by similar procedures.

The 'Magus' - a classical textbook on magick includes a "scapegoat" ritual for transferring illness and pain from a sick woman to an unsuspecting frog: "Take the eye of a frog, which must beextricated before sunrise, and bind them to the breast of a woman who be ill. Then let the frog go blind into the water again and as he goes so will the woman be rid of her pains..."

Here, removing the eyes of the frog confirms the magician's mastery over the animal, who can no longer jump for freedom.  The woman's breasts, with their life-giving milk, represent health, and the casting of the frog into water is a
ritual act of cleansing. Taken overall, the frog literally carries the disease away.

Modern Western Magick- especially as practiced by the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, has as its main function the self-initiation of its members and must be regarded as primarily a form of white magick.However, there have been cases of alleged magickal attack and ritual practices that summon bestial or demonic forces, which clearly are more related to black magick.

White Magicians- seek to activate the spiritual archtypes in the unconscious mind by identifying with such life-sustaining deities as Osiris, Thoth, Apollo, Ra, and Horus (male), and Isis, Aphrodite, Hathor, Demeter, and Persephone (female).

Black Magicians--- worship such animal-human prototypes as the Devil, the Horned God, Lilith, and a variety of other personifications of darkness and evil.

See also

Celestial Magick,

 Ceremonial Magick,  Contagious Magick

Defensive Magick,  Destructive Magick

Enochian Magick,  High Magick

Image Magick,  Imitative Magick

Low Magick,  Mortuary Magick

Natural Magick,  Protective Magick

Sexual Magick,   Sympathetic Magick

White Magick