Magic, White and Black

Franz Hartmann · 1886

5.0 · 3 ratings

About the book

A Bavarian doctor's answer to the sensational occultism of his day: magic is the science of life itself, and the only real distinction between white and black is the purpose of the will behind it. Twelve chapters that read like a course in spiritual physiology.

Try the short course

Part 1 · Nature is already a magician. The first six slides, free.

Nature is already a magician

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Forget the candles and the conjured demons for a moment. Hartmann opens by taking the word back: whatever ignorance has made of it, magic's only true meaning is “The Highest Science, or Wisdom, based upon knowledge and practical experience.”

That puts magic inside nature, not above it. A power standing outside nature, or somehow located above it, would be in his words an absurdity and a superstition, contradicted by everything we actually observe.

So when he calls something magical, he is not claiming a break in the order of things. He is pointing at the order of things itself, and asking why we stopped finding it strange.

Inside the course

18 parts

Spiritual law in the natural worldFree above
The Ideal: what magic actually aims at
The real and the unreal
The physical, astral, spiritual and divine planes: the four-fold world
Form, and what shapes it
Life, the magician's raw material
Harmony
Illusions, and how they are manufactured
Elementals, and the spooks Hartmann does not believe in
Consciousness
Unconsciousness: sleep, trance, and the life below attention
Transformations
Creation: the will at work
Light — the chapter the title promises
White and black: the same forces, pointed two ways
Theosophy: where Hartmann finally stands
The practical rules scattered through the book, gathered
Hartmann among the Theosophists: what the book was for

Questions

Is Magic, White and Black free to read in Astra Trainer?

Yes. The full book opens free in the app’s reader, in English, Spanish, German, French, Italian, Polish, Portuguese, and Russian.

What is the short course?

18 short parts that walk through the book’s key ideas in slides, each with a quick quiz. The first six slides are free to try on this page.

Where do I get the app?

Astra Trainer is free on the App Store and Google Play. Magic, White and Black is waiting in the app’s library.