It's a black art

Posted by Bruce Kahl on October 25, 2003

In Reply to: It's a black art posted by Bob Yeomans on October 25, 2003

: The other day, I was at a conference pertaining to a relatively new technology and someone made the comment; "it's a black art". I can't find any reference to the origin of this saying.I am assuming this has something to do with mid evil times,allthough, knowing how accurate my assumptions, are, I thought I would call on some consultants.Can anyone shed some light on this?

Black Magic is the sum of all the knowledge about evil spells and rituals.
Black as opposed to white magic is working magic that is meant to hurt, harm or to cause the loss of free will or to hinder someone else or a situation.

The term is thought to come from the confusion of the etymology of "necromancy" "nigromantia" with the L**in word "niger", which means 'black'. The Devil was also portrayed as black.

The disciple of black magic does evil with the hope that some good will emerge out of it through a miraculous violation of the laws of nature.

The word is "medieval", not "mid evil".