Colours of Magic, Racism, and Reclaiming Traditional Balance

At the Standing Stone altar...

I believe Wicca has done the world a great disservice in the modern labeling of magic. Not that magic types shouldn't be labeled. It's very helpful to categorize when one is looking for reference material in a library for example, or to indicate who might be a better match to work with. And colours designations themselves are not the problem per se. Colours to describe forms of magic are traditional all over the world. However, the current use of colour terms has some very unpleasant connotations and perpetuate associations that we as spiritual practitioners must acknowledge and be aware of, especially if we decide that we must deal with the issues they present.

"White" magic is by implication almost the only desirable magic nowadays. Many practitioners, especially those who are new, go out of their way to explain that they practice only white magic. One can only assume it is because this colour has implications in English that is consistent with the image Wiccan writers and leaders wished to perpetuate. White is by implication, then, desirable, clear, pure, shining, and filled with light. And practiced by Whites. "Black" magic, on the other hand, is undesirable, dark, sinister, and practiced by the unscrupulous victimizers. And Black. These same implications have also applied to the possessors of the skin colour called "black". But why not "constructive and destructive"? Or "positive and negative"? Or even "yin" and "yang"? By the most powerful suggestions, then, the practice of Wicca has translated into delineations along racial lines. How many 'whites' can imagine a 'black' Wiccan vehemently denying that they practice 'black' magic, and only practice 'white' magic? What exactly is wrong with 'black' magic, then? And doesn't that have implications on the colour of their skin? With current usage, if I say "Black witch" or "White witch", do you know if I'm referring to the type of the practitioner's magic or the colour of their skin? By these associations, does that mean that Red magic is only practiced by North American natives? Or Yellow magic by Asians? What about Brown? Green magic must only be for space aliens...[1]

There is of course a long tradition of associating Black and Night with fear and negativity, in the Western World especially, but it becomes greatly exaggerated with the advance of Xianity and the suppression of paganism, particularity women's traditions. Modern Witchcraft, in it's evolution of thealogy, can draw upon other rich traditions and classic depictions of magic, and does not need to perpetuate the popularized Xian view of magic that associates black with harm, evil, and Satan. I accuse the newcomer Wicca as the primary source of the infection, because much of the rest of the pagan world still goes by an older system, the traditional three "gunas" found for thousands of years in most cultures. They represented the three aspects of the Goddess in her Creatrix/Virgin, Preserver/Mother, and Destroyer/Crone modes, distinguished by White, Red and Black. Being of the Celtic persuasion, when I have used those colour designations, I envision the Creatrix magic as primarily Bardic and Inspirational. Red magic is the Preserver, so I see healing, love, etc. Most cultures place fertility in this colour, although a few reasonably place this in White for birth. I guess it depends what result one hopes for. Black Destroying Crone is for battles, curses, balancing the scales, removal of cancerous circumstances or images, or the destruction of other things that have outgrown their usefulness and need to be replaced.

It is nearly impossible to discuss and manifest balance in the world with the inadequate and limiting nomenclature of the Wiccan White and Black. The White=Good, Black=Bad presents us with a very unsophisticated tool to represent our spirituality. The traditional gunas give much more freedom to our thealogy. Black, White, and Red magics have negative and positive forces in them that must be explored by the seeker. There is positive and negative destruction. Without destruction, there is no creation. The pure blank page must be destroyed to write poetry on it. The crumbling building must be destroyed before a new one can be built to house a family. The remains of last night's dinner must be put on the compost to rot and create new soil. There is negative creation. There are many ideas, constructions, and institutions that have mostly caused harm in the world, and would have been better had they never been created. Red magic negativity can express itself in harmful relationships or love obsessions, or in healing that truly believes interventions on unwilling subjects is 'for their own good'. Such unsophisticated terms also reduce our ability to deal with destruction as good and necessary, and creation as not always the best choice. As women, it reduces our power to deal with destruction in any reasonable manner, leaving us with far less skill or experience to tackle issues under the Destroyer auspices even in our own lives, such as marital arts or abortion. This is what the Goddess in all her aspects is really about: expressing and celebrating our power as women, in all it's dread and magnificent forms.

If we are to use a system of colour classification to broadly describe certain specializations and preferences, and I personally find it can be quite elegant and robust, there are many conventions to draw upon. Brown usually speaks of animals and other nature magic. Blue is most often Water and it's creatures. Purple is considered more on the astral plane: like travel and divination. The Indigo Children or Tribe are often said to be such. I know a Red Witch who absolutely emits sexual karuna energy, and my apprentice is envisioning herself as a Red and Brown witch. She is learning the aspects of healing, for horses and other animals as well as humans. I have heard of Orange, Lavender, Mauve, and other forms of specialization, but I'm not as clear on what their particular areas of interest are. I use Green magic to describe the primary form I focus on, that is, healing, herbs, kitchen witchery, environmental work, etc. By implication, it is seen as primarily positive. Using that to designate myself gives those who don't know me an excellent basis for how I work and what my interests are. It has helpful thealogy aspects to meditate on and I find it inherently more useful than the term "White". As well as not perpetuating any nasty stereotypes.

Green Magic is in fact a great example of the ongoing evolution of the Colour System. Green Witchcraft as a term is far more recognized than it was even ten years ago. It's almost become an agreed upon designation. That didn't come overnight, nor without controversy, and it was not in wide use until very recently. I believe that this helps demonstrate several important points: that the interest in colour designation will not fade away, that we can choose to alter the current uses, and that we can agree upon and transform colour terminology to best reflect our practices of magic and our philosophies. The Colour System does not, will not, and should not go out of use, but we can change those aspects of the modern designations that are non-traditional to witchcraft and offensive to our egalitarian philosophies.

One of the other significant benefits to the Colour System is one not widely practiced currently, but again gaining in popularity. Since many witches dedicated to a particular type of magic will often find they are most comfortable with that colour around them, they will occationally find that an aspect of their religious practice is to wear only those hues. Rather than finding it limiting, it is a vibrant expression of their spiritual practice and dedication that they can take with them in their day-to-day living, as well as provide a meditative concept. It has the same discipline as religious dietary regimes and other spiritual practices. If during the training as pagan nuns, they dedicate themselves to a Colour of Magic, I encourage them to explore the rather radical discipline of dressing in only those colours as part of their spiritual practice; in effect being garbed as a nun all the time, even if those around you never know. Some will even begin to dream that they need to have those colours enfold them. Most who take on this discipline usually choose one particular shade of their colour, and almost always mix it with Black, often seen as the traditional colour of witchcraft itself. Some use a few more colours, to indicate their different preferences. A symbolic metal will often also be selected for jewellry and accents. Gold and gold-like metals such as brass is usually for the sun and masculine energy. Silver is for the moon, of course, and copper is traditionally associated with Venus, Love, and Red Magic. White Gold would be a combination of Silver and Gold aspects, Red Gold with Copper and Gold, Bronze is often used by warriors, etc...

I personally have taken on this practice for decades. I have only worn the Colours of Dark Green, Black, and Silver since the mid-90's when I dedicated myself to living my Craft every moment of the day. With this discipline, I am constantly a Green Witch, and I am always displaying that concept to myself and those around me. For those of you who would worry about being seen as even more of a weirdo in dedicating yourself to your Craft in that way, the rest of the world, including some who have known me for years, don't usually notice the perpetual colour choices of a wardrobe. Unless it's only one colour, for some reason... I've also saved an incredible amount of money on clothes, since everything I purchase goes with everything else, and I always look put together, for the same reason. Imagine going into your closet blindfolded and coming out matching! It's really a dream...

I am obviously a huge fan of the Colour System, and find it wonderfully helpful in my own practices and assisting my students find where their own interests might lie. It is a traditional, valuable, and vibrant part of our heritage. When considering the negative, positive, and possibly neutral aspects of each colour, the Colour System gives rise to a very robust and intricate system of designations that can help us accurately define our theaologies with beauty. However, there are some serious flaws in how the Colour System is currently being used in modern Paganism. As it is in the process of evolving, it can be deliberately altered to more suit our needs as a spiritual tool, yet without continuing to perpetuate the stereotypes of the English language or our practices, to ourselves and the general public. To do this, it is vital that we insist upon purging the racism and self-loathing in the current use of the terms "White Magic" and "Black Magic", and instead begin to explore the more traditional aspects of those colours, and how they might better serve our modern sophisticated ideas of magic, it's practitioners, and our philosophies. I, for one, look forward to the day when our designations evolve to a more sophisticated level; when I can speak of magic without someone fearfully interjecting, "But you only practice White Magic, right?"

No. No, I don't. 



Footnotes and further reading:

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"Red, white, and black are the main sacred colors in Zulu symbolism. In combination, as particularly in the clothing of diviners, who also code medicines as white, black, or red (Ngubane 1977), these colors suggest an understanding of the universe and the cycle of life within it. White is associated with the ancestors, concepts of purity, calm, and good intentions, and light and divine enlightenment. In some contexts, black represents darkness, evil, death, and defilement. In other contexts, black is linked to the ancestors and carries positive connotations-it evokes the dark rain clouds necessary for the sustenance of life, for example, and Zulu pots, some sculptural objects, and the leather skirt of marriage are blackened to please the ancestors. Red is the color of blood, menstruation, and fertility, and red ochre is strongly associated with the earth and women and their fertility; white clay is associated with the ancestors (Berglund 1989)."

"Ornamentation of everyday use items seemed to be an obligatory component of their creation. Earthenware, ceramics, pottery, tools, vessels, dishes, pottery moulds, internal walls of houses (as shown by clay models) all exhibit a compulsory ornamentation: painted in varying earth-colours, such as white, red, ochre and black, and sometimes carved with incisions or encrusted. The decoration of items or spaces are geometrical incorporating symbols of nature (sun, moon, stars, rain, birds, trees, branches, seeds, flowers, water) and with magical symbols of the supernatural world (the eternal circle, teeth, rhombus, crosses, endless meanders, snake-patterns, lines) are so universal and repeated, that it is unlikely that the decorations were random or coincidental. Umansky believes that these ornament-symbols are of two types: “those aiding to find food and to grow crops, and those protecting people and the results of their labour”. He notes that “some items carried both the symbols of fertility and of protection, intertwined in an integral picture of the cosmos”. Videiko also supports the idea of using ornamentation as a form of protection: “the floor and the walls were painted with red and white colours and decorated with geometrical ornamental patterns to protect the inhabitants from evil spirits” (The Trypillian Culture: Introduction)."

"Graves gives the colours white, red, and black as the colours symbolic of the moon goddess. These are moon colours because the full moon is white; the moon appears red in certain atmospheric conditions and solar eclipses, and black just before the new moon. In occult tradition, white symbolises the goddess as Spring; red is Aphrodite, and black the death aspect of the goddess, say Atropos (the third of the Fates)." 4

High Magic, Low Magic: Designations Help Define Our Styles

Under my Apple tree....

I personally find designations handy. They express no limit, only a specialization. It certainly helps you anticipate how easily you can work with another and how your styles and knowledge will mesh. I know, for example, that I don't usually get on well with high magicians, or Iron John style wizards. That's darn handy to know when someone tells me that he is a necromancer and a cabbalist.

As I label myself a ReClaimist, matriarchal, bardic green witch, most of you will have an idea of what I am currently working on, where my knowledge areas lie, what my focus is, and how I express my spirituality. That doesn't mean I'll stay like that forever, or that I'm not interested in other forms of worship, but it certainly makes it easier for us to find others of the same style. Rather like nametags at a convention.

I not only see no harm in it, I encourage folks to find a useful label for their personal style practice. Makes them feel more validated, too, especially when they are first starting out.

High magic is usually the term for what the wizards do. It's rather like a Catholic mass, with all the ritual words in a sacred language, pomp and finery, ordained divine conduits, and strict adherence to detail. The power in high magic comes from without... the great universal energy that is harnessed by the correct performance of the ritual itself, with some measure from the performer (s) , but not much. They are mostly lending energy for the conduction of the spell to take place, which is why there is such an emphasis on hierarchy in high magic. It is vital that the ceremony be followed exactly with the correct people taking care of their assigned functions. The more powerful as spell, the less room for error.

The big draw for this kind of magic is that it offers a great deal of power in a relatively short period of time, but with a corresponding danger level as you ascend. The goal is to eventually control and submit the entire Universe. Nearly all wizards are male, white, and have terrible ego issues. They are usually still at the age where they feel invulnerable, since it's required that you eventually wrestle with demons, for example, and incur the wrath of extra dimensional entities by enslaving them or their friends. It is often spelt with a 'k' to delineate it from low magic. Wizards often find that sort of window dressing appealing.

Low magic is usually what witches do. Its goal is to make you one with the Universe, and therefore blissful, content, wise, with all your needs provided for. To unleash and accept your Goddess within, which is the same as the Goddess without, by giving full release to your Goddess self. This means that much attention is paid to your own instinct and the answers that are right for you, as your Goddess cannot ever be wrong, you just have to get better at hearing her. So our spells are more like mediation, sometimes with helpful symbols or foci like incense, statues, herbs, and other paraphernalia.

Most experienced witches don't bother with it, however, unless they are trying to working on something much harder than usual. To effect change in the Universe, we try to use the Butterfly effect, to tug on the string of the Great Weave that will most affect the change we want. In trying to find the string, we learn how the Universe works and so increase our wisdom. And the Universe is vast, so She often can't get to something as quick as She'd like.

It is therefore our job as Her representatives to draw her attention to inequities by blessing those who need it, to injustices by cursing those who deserve it, and other maintenance of the Continuum, thereby increasing our understanding and interaction with it.

Wicca is like high magic for witches. It calls upon the spirits and entities in a very ritualized format with specific assignments to the members, but primarily uses the inner energies of the group or individual to do the prescribed task. There is therefore no backlash if done incorrectly. But they do seem very fond of their accoutrements...

Most women choose the style of Low magic because it is more like their usual style of being: persuading and joining, rather than controlling. The sex of the practitioner doesn't enter into it, other than gender training in their culture helping them have certain inclinations... That explains the overwhelming majority of practitioners in the Middle Ages being clergy. They often went into the priesthood for reasons OTHER than piety, like power and wealth, they were learned, and they had access to all sorts of magical formula, arcane materials, etc. So High magic, or ceremonial magic, was almost entirely Christian and clerical in the Middle Ages.

It is indeed all the same power. However, I can cure myself, clean my house, or get rid of my weeds and insects in my garden through chemicals created in a lab, or I can use chemicals in herbs and natural liquids. Some are just as dangerous to the environment and myself but most aren't.

Chemicals, like magic, are all made of the same components essentially but how they inter-react and perform is completely variable depending on how they were generated and used. They can be naturally gentle and persuading, or they can be artificially harsh, brutal, and destructive.

You've probably have heard of the phrase "As above, so below". Only one interpretation is rendered as "As in Heaven, so it happens down here." Another, more widely used and helpful meaning is "Change or events Outside affect the Internal, and vise versa." 'High' in the case of magic means 'external', 'low' means 'internal'. ONLY when hierarchy becomes so predominate in this culture, and High implies more powerful, and consequently more male, does High and Low magic take on some connotations that some people today take umbrage with. It's not a personal insult to our style.

Now. When was the last time you enslaved a demon, deity, or angel to unwillingly do your bidding? How about binding your local ghosts, fairies, and spirits as your personal gophers? I don't remember when it was that I forced the dead to come back in an unquiet rest to speak about the secrets of the Universe... High magic involves the use of formula and ritual to achieve just such dog collars on the Powers of the Universe. It isn't the end in and of itself. The spell is usually to DO something, but it is the elemental being that figures out how to achieve the goal.

This kind of style offers much to recommend it to those that want a lot of power fast. Sure, High magicians have to keep their will focused on the spell for it to work, but only for the ritual itself. For the results of the spell to be efficacious, it doesn't have to be PERSONAL, internal power that is bringing it about. That's what the Harnesses of the Universe are for, like Jewish magic squares, Keys of Solomon, which can energize, activate, and execute many different kinds of spells simply by being performed correctly. However, the perils increase correspondingly.

I've seen a young wizard tell me that Hunters from the spirit world are stalking him, and we did a little complex ritual around a lamppost to confuse them so they can't follow. I mean, I never saw them, but that doesn't mean they weren't there, so I won't doubt his word. Much. But I'll tell you. I've never done anything in my magic work to invoke their wrath in the first place.

I am not comparing levels of power here. A very experienced or instinctive witch who is close to the Warp and Weft of the Universe can indeed stop a storm with a thought. Unfortunately, that takes a great deal of Enlightenment to reach that point, so most of us don't get there in a hurry, if ever. Now, it takes a wizard of far less experience, personal power, and self-mastery to achieve the same ends by going through the rigmarole to capture the power of the Storm God and just fire away or let Him do the work. It's not easy, but it's a hellova lot easier than becoming one with the Forces of a Hurricane and personally knowing on an unconscious level what strings to pull.

With these kind of benefits attached to High magic, including the hierarchy, the feeling of mastery and the practice of invincibility, it's no wonder that most wizards are men. But there is no such thing as a free lunch. Most powers that are so bound in High magic are not only interested in becoming Unbound as soon as possible, they would also like to wreak revenge on the mortals who dared to commit such an atrocity.

Which is why my little wizard friend was almost PROUD at the Things following him. The quality of a wizard is told by the quality of his enemies, after all... I don't know of many women who have the same disregard for personal safety as many men do, either, btw...

Now, the next time you try to harness the Angel of Life and Death to cure yourself of cancer by invoking the Necronomacon and creating a doorway to Hell in your closet, rather than simply lighting a candle and envisioning the cancer going away, then you can tell me that High magic and Low magic are the same.

You must admit, the first one, if done correctly, has a much greater probability of curing you quickly and permanently, but so much can go wrong. The latter requires a deeply Enlightened, experienced, or otherwise powerful witch, and you might not be able to find one before you croak, but at least you don't have to worry about your relatives falling through to the Second Circle when they put their coats away at your wake.

Reprinted from Witchvox.