Hi Frater SP Welcome to MB,

There are many definaitions of being a Christian too, would love to hear more about your ritual magic

I was wondering do you happen to know the paragraphs in the Bible that refer to witchcraft, psychics and occult and mediums, talking to the dead etc?  I have lost my list.

To clarify my previous statements in which I referenced darkness as synonamous with evil, this is an analogy, not a literal reference.

Nor was I making any correlation between white and black as colors of the light spectrum.

Nor any reference to a color being either good or evil...

In the context of my posting in which we are discussing an Occultists
perspective on evil , darkness refers to the absence of light, not light as in daylight or the light from a lamp but the light which is the life force, collective spirit, truth, absolute and life giving energy.

Analogies are comparisons or stories which help to add understanding to abstract concepts which much of spirituality is, as our human perception is limited by the words and vocabulary that we have to express it.

A common analogy "The Allegory of the Cave" comes from philosoper Plato
which is not literal, but a story used to describe the abstract concepts of truth, reality, light and darkness;

"Imagine prisoners, who have been chained since their childhood deep inside a cave: not only are their limbs immobilized by the chains; their heads are chained as well, so that their gaze is fixed on a wall.

Behind the prisoners is an enormous fire, and between the fire and the prisoners is a raised walkway, along which statues of various animals, plants, and other things are carried by people.

The statues cast shadows on the wall, and the prisoners watch these shadows. When one of the statue-carriers speaks, an echo against the wall causes the prisoners to believe that the words come from the shadows.

The prisoners engage in what appears to us to be a game: naming the shapes as they come by. This, however, is the only reality that they know, even though they are seeing merely shadows of images. They are thus conditioned to judge the quality of one another by their skill in quickly naming the shapes and dislike those who begin to play poorly.

Suppose a prisoner is released and compelled to stand up and turn around. At that moment his eyes will be blinded by the firelight, and the shapes passing will appear less real than their shadows.

Similarly, if he is dragged up out of the cave into the sunlight, his eyes will be so blinded that he will not be able to see anything. At first, he will be able to see darker shapes such as shadows and, only later, brighter and brighter objects.

The last object he would be able to see is the sun, which, in time, he would learn to see as that object which provides the seasons and the courses of the year, presides over all things in the visible region, and is in some way the cause of all these things that he has seen."
(The Republic, book VII 531d-534e.)

Similarly but not all inclusive this analogy can be used to perceive the meaning of evil, as an illusion, which exists (as do the shadows to the human perception) and are real inside the cave, which can be interpreted as the confines of our own minds or world view.

However, through spiritual enlightenment (escaping the prison of our minds) and seeing the truth of the light (the fire and the sun) we realize that the shadows are not true reality, but are created when light is blocked.

The Allegory of the cave also makes reference to our tendency to judge others who do not have the same or similar perception as our own;

"  The prisoners engage in what appears to us to be a game: naming the shapes as they come by. This, however, is the only reality that they know, even though they are seeing merely shadows of images. They are thus conditioned to judge the quality of one another by their skill in quickly naming the shapes and dislike those who begin to play poorly.
"

The Allegory of the Cave and the Allegory of the Sun have been used as a tool to comprehend reality, illusion by using the analogy of light and dark.

Additionally, it is important to comment on cultural perceptions of good and evil, the majority are the same, however expressed or perceived differently, the importance is in understanding that different does not mean right or wrong, simply another perspective on universal concepts.

The German philosopher Friedrich Nietzche spent most of his life attacking Christianity and Christian morality and making unforgivable comments about women, he declared himself an immoralist and insisted on the aesthetic value of reality.

Nietchze was the radical contemporary philosopher who declared "God is Dead" and thus rejected the concept of truth altogether and that at that time in history the influence of the Judeo-Christian church was false and a hypocracy, Nietchze focused rather on the importance of self expression, personal power and creativity.

Nietchze's philosophy and beliefs about society, morality and religion are still alive and popular with counter-culture and radical minded individuals as he left the legacy that the moral constructs of "civilized society" should always be questioned and challenged.