Magic has no color!!!!

For the last few months, this meme has become increasingly popular here in chatter even among mods. I will frequently see someone new to the site or even people who have been here for a while say something like: Oh hey, I want to learn black/white magic! only to be met with snarling yaps and grumbles about how there is no color to magic or that the person in question is a "fluffy" because "everyone" knows that "real" magic has no color.

This I think is very off-putting to new members, expecially since at the top of the page it says:

SPELLS OF MAGIC.COM
Where the world learns black magic, white magic, pagan, wiccan and occult arts.

So, my point of view is this:

While ye, in an academic way, magic is simply energy and has no color, a users intentions "color" it. However, popular culture for the last few thousand years has pretty much labeled and catagorized magic as falling into the catagories of black or white magic. Right hand path, left hand path. Yin and Yang. Good and evil. We are creatures of duality and like labelling things.

So I would just like to see the "magic has no color" rhetoric toned down a bit. Most people that are new to magic have no real refence point for understanding why you are yelling at them and even experienced casters generally understand the difference between black and white magic.

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I take offense to your comment about mods yelling at someone that says they wish to learn "black or white". I am a mod and I have said there is no color in magick, but I also say it in a way to not offend anyone. I simply state that magick has no color that it is intent. I do not see that as yelling I see that as trying to help the person understand. We all have been beginners and have said the exact same thing. The only way for one to learn is to be told there is no difference. Please do not label everyone in the same category. Thank you.

People also have categorized magic into other colors such as green, red, and blue. We use green candles for money magic, Red for love magic, and Blue for protective magic. Black and White are just the major colors for magic.

So..we should continue to let people think there is a difference in magick via colors instead of intent, continue to let people feed into this idea and thus remain ignorant to the truth because it...hurts their feelings?

Sorry. Not doing it.

Sorry Sue, I didn't mean to imply that mods were the ones doing the yelling. I just meant that I have seen mods jump on the "Magic has no color" meme. Usually the "yellers" are other members. The mods as always remain calm and detached, as I said I have just seen them chime in with "Magic has no color".

I suppose it just annoys me because like I said, it's right there at the top of the page and any new person to the site might feel alienated by having a group of people tell them they are wrong while at the same time having the words black magic and white magic right there.

And no Rashnu, I am not asking for you to not tell people you opinion of magic; I am just asking for civility. In the last few months I have seen more than one new member get told how wrong they are for believing magic has a color. It just seems silly to me to tell some new member who looks up at the top of the page, click the "White Magic" link and read:

What is white magic and what makes it white? At the heart all magic is the same and has no color, however, it is common today to believe that different types of magic has different color.
Different colors in magic have been made common place due to their use in movies, television and video games. Typically colors like red or pink are love magic, green is for money and wealth, black is evil and white is good.

When people talk about white magic, then generally refer to healing and helping magic spells. Keeping your spellbook color-coded, red for love spells, green for money, black for death and white for healing is fairly common but not required. An important thing to remember is that all magic is magic, and there really is no such thing as evil magic or good magic.

http://www.spellsofmagic.com/white_magic.html

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So let's pretend that new member "Example" has joined, has poked around a little, read that link, has a general grasp of the idea that magic is colorless but gathers from the above passage that color-coding magic is useful shorthand for what you want to accomplish. They then hop into chatter and ask for a teacher or coven who can teach them white magic... at which point a half dozen other chatterers chime in with "magic has no color!!"

So, just to clarify, I am not asking anyone to not tell people their own opinions about magics color or lack thereof - it just feels at certain times like some people here get a little smug and condescending over the "color coding". I guess I just catch chatter at bad times when everyone is sick of a whole day of new members arriving and saying they want to learn (color) spells and by the time I start following chatter all I see is walls of terse replies consisting of "Magic has no color."

Again, I apologize Sue for implying that the mods were anything less than courteous.

Perhaps less new members would be confused if magic colors weren't everywhere on the site.

wow, thanks so much for this!!

As for colors in candles and such yes they do have different meanings. However magick it's self does not have a color to it. There is no black or white or green magick. It is ones intent that makes the magick. This is why we need to let the new people know there is a difference so they do not continue to think there is black or white magick, but magick is magick. :-)

Magic is energy manipulation and you can not put a color on the manipulation of energy however you can use a color to describe the type of manipulation. The reason so many are confused by this statement is because the color used to describe an energy manipulation is different for each person. What you might call white magic another could see as black. This is because intent is what you are trying to describe.

Color is just another human construct like good and evil. It is all relative to your perception of the two. Though for ease describing magic as white/good and black/bad is not a hard and fast rule. What is considered as white magic can be used to harm just as black magic can be used to help. It really does come down to the intent of the caster and how they describe their energy manipulations.

What is generally described as black magic is energy manipulations that have a negative connotation like a hex. To many a hex is negative and associated with a curse however the truth is that a hex can be a positive piece of protection magic. Take the hex sign for example. These are signs that have symbols on them to ward off evil. they hex evil to stay away ;)

The only reason we say magick with colours is to say the effects of the magick with few words.

From the way of its effects the magick is known as White, Gray and Black.
From the way it is casted, it is known as High Magick(Or Ceremonial magick) and Low Magick (Or Earth Magick).

Emperor This is a greatly needed post so I thank you for posting it. There are some that are quick to jump the gun on "Magick has no color, new person." I hope some of those yellers come and have a peak at this post and learn to just mellow the tone and say the statement in a civil manner.