Black
From SourceryForge
Black is a colour with mostly negative connotations in the western world. It is the traditional colour of mourning, sadness, and also evil.
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Physics
If you mix pigment colours of perfect red, blue and yellow in equal parts you get perfect black. Black is in fact not a colour but the total absence of light. So things that absorb all light appear black. Black cannot be mixed from coloured lights. All light has to be turned off to obtain blackness.
magical significance and symbology
Black is the colour of birth and death, of endings and of beginnings. It is the absence of colour, and contains all possible colours at the same time. It signifies potential. It also can signify the infinte, or utter nothingness. It is everything and nothing. It is an interesting philosophical question if there's really a difference between the two.
On a more down-to-earth level, black is often used for robes, temple walls and magickal equipment for various reasons, and often rather indiscriminately. More often than not it's use is more a fashion statement than anything else. Sometimes it is meant to show the practitioner's affiliation with the left-hand path, sometimes it just vaguely represents "magick". It can also just be used as a neutral background.
Black and white magic
In accordance with the traditional significance of black, certain styles of magic were traditionally called "black" or "white". Of course, black meant evil. Today, some groups style themselves as black magicians and don't subscribe to the black=evil view, but usually the "evil" ones were called black. Among magicians and others there was and is little agreement about which magic is "Black Magic". According to most authors their real or percieved rivals are black magicians.
Some sorts of magic that were labelled black:
- all magic, because the bible forbids it
- all magic exept (insert author's own teachings here)
- all left-hand path magick
- Santanism and related things
- Magic working with demons
- any magic used for selfish goals
See also:
Usage, symbolism, colloquial expressions
In the Western world, black is most often used with a negative connotation. The reasons for this are various, but the most widely accepted explanations are that night is experienced by humans as negative and dangerous. A secondary reason is that stains are most visible as dark additions to pale materials. In traditional class-based Western cultures "pale" skin indicated genteel domestic or intellectual indoor-work as opposed to rough outdoor labor in the fields. Aspects of this black/white opposition are not unique to the West, as, for example in the Indian varna system. African, Afro-Caribbean and African-American writers such as Frantz Fanon, Langston Hughes, Maya Angelou, and Ralph Ellison in particular identify a number of negative symbolisms surrounding the word "black", arguing that the good vs. bad dualism associated with white and black provide prejudiced connotations to color metaphors for race. Manifestations of centuries of racist philosophy (disseminated by whites, Arabs, and other "fair" skinned people) are evident in the continued perception of black inferiority within and outside black populations (ie. the racist stereotype that black people are more often criminals).
- A "black day", in these cultures, would refer to a sad or tragic day. The Romans already marked fasti days with white stones and nefasti days with black.
- e.g. the Black September in Jordan refers to a month in which thousands were killed.
- Black Monday, stock market crash on October 19, 1987
- Black Tuesday, stock market crash on October 29, 1929 which is the start of the Great Depression.
- Black Wednesday caused Britain to pull out of the European Exchange Rate Mechanism.
- Black Thursday``, stock market crash on October 24, 1929
- Black Friday, various tragic events. Also the day after Thanksgiving, the official start to the US holiday shopping season, though in this latter case it is a positive thing.
- many poems and songs use the word black negatively (e.g. "Paint It Black" (Rolling Stones), "Baby's In Black" (Beatles), "Black Eyed Dog" (Nick Drake), " Fade to Black" (Metallica).
- In English heraldry, black means darkness, doubt, ignorance, and uncertainty. (The American Girls Handy Book, p. 370)
- Black is often a color of mourning. Historically, widows and widowers were often expected to wear black. (However,black only replaced white as the principal mourning color in Europe in mediaeval times,and white retained this significance in China down to modern times).
- Black comedy is a form of comedy dealing with morbid and serious topics.
- Black magic is an evil form of magic, often connected with death.
- A blacklist is a list of undesirable persons or entities.
- Evil witches are sterotypically dressed in black and good fairies in white. Melodrama villains are dressed in black and heroines in white dresses. In many Hollywood Westerns, bad cowboys wear black hats while the good ones wear white. Funeral dress is black, wedding gowns are white.
- In computer security, a blackhat is an attacker with evil intentions, while a whitehat bears no such ill will. (This is derived from the Western convention.)
- The black market is illegal.
- Blackmail is illegal and is perceived as immoral.
- The black sheep of the family is the ne'er-do-well.
- The infamous "black hole of Calcutta."
- To "blackball" someone is to prevent admission.
- Black thoughts are wicked ones.
- A black mood is a bad one (e.g. Winston Churchill's depression, which he called "my black dog").
- A black cat often means bad luck and that you will probably not live.
- If you sink the black eight-ball in billiards before all others are out of play, you lose. (The ball with which you sink all others is the white cue ball.)
- A black mark against you is a bad thing.
- A black-hearted person is mean and unloving.
- Black propaganda is the use of known falsehoods, partial truths, or masquerades in propaganda to confuse an opponent.
positive symbolism of black
- In the Maasai tribes of Kenya and Tanzania, the color black is associated with rain clouds, becoming a symbol of life and prosperity.
- In Western fashion, black is considered reliably stylish. This seems to be for reasons of contrast with the white skin (conversely, white t-shirts or suits are always stylish among African-Americans).
- The colloquialism "the new black" is a reference to the latest trend or fad, on the basis that black is always fashionable.
- Black can also be seen as the colour of prestige: for example, limousines are usually in black, and black tuxedos are worn at black tie functions.
- Black is seen as a color of seriousness and authority.
- Many priests of the older religious denominations traditionally wear black.
- Lawyers and judges often wear black robes, as do university graduates (see Academic dress).
- The beltzak ("blacks" after their uniform) are the riot control units of the Basque Autonomous Police
- Traditionally, Police vehicles ("Panda cars") were in black and white.
- Black Watch is the senior Highland Regiment of the British Army.
- To say one's accounts are "in the black" is used to mean that one is free of debt.
- (Being "in the red" is to be in debt--in traditional bookkeeping, negative amounts, such as costs, were printed in red ink, and positive amounts, like revenues, were printed in black ink, so that if "the bottom line" is printed in black, the firm is profiting.)
- In martial arts,the black belt is the rank whose attainment divides the master of the art from the student.
- Cathar Perfects wore black (Cathars viewed black as a color of perfection).
- Dreaming of a black cat, or seeing a black cat walking towards you, was originally a sign of bad omen; today however, it is increasing viewed as meaning good luck.
neutral symbolism
- The term black is often used in the West to denote race for persons whose skin color ranges from light to darker shades of brown. For a discussion of usage, see the main entry at Black (people) and Color metaphors for race.
- In arguments, things can be black-and-white, meaning that the issue at hand is dichotomized. However, this dualism is fraught with danger, as one may assign the colors "black and white" to bad and good, respectively. Also, few arguments have only two opposing sides.
- Black frequently symbolizes ambiguity, secrecy, and the unknown.
- A black box is any device whose internal workings are unknown or inexplicable.
- A black project is a secretive project, like Enigma Decryption, Narcotics, or police sting operations.
- The blackshirts were Italian Fascist militias (negative for anti-fascists, but presumably positive for the original fascists themselves)
- Some organizations are called "black" when they keep a low profile, like Sociétés Anonymes and secret societies.
- From 1988 until his death in the 2001 Daytona 500, NASCAR driver Dale Earnhardt was famous for driving a black Chevrolet.
- The term "black hole" is applied to collapsed stars. This term is metaphorical in the extreme, because few properties of black objects or black voids apply to black holes. However, light emitted within a black hole's event horizon cannot escape, hence a black hole cannot be directly observed.
- The national rugby team of New Zealand is called the All Blacks, in reference to their black outfits.
- Association football (soccer) referees traditionally wear all-black uniforms, however nowadays other uniform colors may also be worn.
- In auto racing, a black flag signals a certain driver to go into the pits.
- Black is also used for anarchist symbolism, sometimes split in diagonal with other colors for further symbolism. The plain black flag is explained as the opposite of a white flag signalling surrender. It is also sometimes an anarchist dress code, with a practical benefit of not attracting attention and making later identification of a subject difficult. This strategy referred to as a black bloc.
- In German politics 'black' is used colloquially to refer to the conservative parties CDU and CSU.
- In Portuguese politics, black is the party colour of the Leftwing Bloc.
- In ancient China, black was the symbol of North and Water, one of the main five colors. There is no negative or positive meaning associated with it.
- A polished black mirror is used for scrying, and is thought to help see into the paranormal world without interference or distraction.
- Members of the modern subculture of Goths dress predominantly in black.
- Many performers of classical or other "serious" art music dress in all-black clothes for a concert or recital.
- A large number of sports teams have uniforms designed with black colors - many feeling the color sometimes imparts a psychological advantage in its wearers. Among the more famous (or infamous) include the Oakland Raiders and Pittsburgh Steelers of the NFL, the San Antonio Spurs of the NBA, and Inter Milan of the Serie A of the Italian soccer leagues.
- Interestingly, among the Chinese communities of South-East Asian countries such as Singapore & Malaysia, "hak gau peh" which literally means "black dog beer" in Cantonese refers to Guinness Stout.
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