Instead of Black and White Magic, Read Selfish and Unselfish Motive

William Quan Judge · Black versus White Magic Series · 7 pages

Judge's contribution to the question, published in The Path in March 1887, and the plainest statement of it anywhere in the series. His proposal is in the title: that the terms black and white magic are misleading, and that what is actually being distinguished is selfish motive from unselfish motive. Nothing in the operation differs; only the will behind it does.

He opens by observing that a great deal was then being heard of occult science and that a great deal more was likely to be heard — and that this should simply be accepted, since all things have their day and revolve in cycles, coming and going and coming again, though never twice the same. Even our thoughts, he adds, conform to that law. From there he turns to Pythagoras, whose life, teachings and fate he takes as the pattern of how such knowledge is received and then lost. At seven pages this is the shortest route into the argument the whole series is making, and the least encumbered by nineteenth-century controversy.

Read the full text (PDF, 0.4 MB, 7 pages)