About Black Magic

One thing to understand is that the term "Black Magic" has different connotations. For the non-initiated, the term is synonymous with "devil worshiping" or "hurtful or bad magic". For the mystic and the magician, it is more like a contrasting landscape where what is in the foreground, "in the light", is white magic. It is what you can easily see and utilize with an illuminated mind. It is the type of magic that allows you to navigate an intricate and treacherous terrain. Black magic, on the other hand, would be the background. It is for the magician the shadows of the landscape, the things that are obviously there but you cannot see eye to eye. It is the dark things you see and touch all around you but do not confront to directly, nor for too long. It can also be seen as the dissonant note in music, or the silent spaces between clear sounds. So, for the magician, the stuff black magic is made of is not necessarily bad, it's there as a natural contrast to those things that are illuminated. If this contrast is eliminated, then you have a gray and undifferentiated landscape that becomes impossible to navigate (and there is a magical tradition that see things this way as well).

Now, the second point that would help in your search, is that black magic grows most of the time as a response to the particular make up of the region where the magician lives. Black magic has a lot in common with fringe groups in society. A strong police enforcement, judicial system, and economic practice (which could be seen as the equivalent of white magic in a peaceful society) gives rises to a mafia, gangs, terrorist groups, etc. (which would be akin to the black magic practitioners in that society). See, the latter surge as a response to what the former left untouched. The stronger one becomes, the more the other has to struggle to maintain a balance of power. If the fringe groups become too powerful, then they tend to become and merge with those who where before part of the light, the white. That leaves room for other powers that emerge as a response (for instance, if the mafia becomes so powerful that they and the police become indistinguishable, then you get vigilantes, guerrilla groups, messiahs, terrorists, etc., who will come to alter the status quo once again).

Finally, I'll leave you with a third key to understanding black magic: all groups and all struggles need currency. The magical struggle, and the magical practice, uses power as a currency. There is a constant and fluid exchange of power for the magician. There are payments to be made where power is the medium of exchange. In this light, what is it that the magician is looking for? What is the black magician looking for? What makes him or her function? What are they after? What do love spells and mind control have to do with power? Why do they practice these things? What effects do they look for?