V. White and Black Magic

Now, however, the magician differs from both the clairvoyant and the initiate. For someone who can see into the higher worlds, it does not follow that he can already control and apply the forces that are at work in the material world. Or do you think that a person who has brought knowledge of the locomotive, the steamship and the steam engine to a region could also build such a machine? He can tell them what such things look like, but he will not immediately understand how to build them. The fact that the clairvoyant can see into the higher worlds does not yet mean that he also knows how to control and apply the forces that work in the sensory world. Only he is a magician or adept who knows how to apply the higher forces, of which all physical events are an expression, in the world here, who is thus able not only to call upon the physical forces and powers when something is at stake in his actions, but who can set the higher forces in motion. In our time, it is no small thing to be a magician or adept. There has never been a time in the development of humanity when the path of the magician or adept was so completely opposed to our own as it is today. And today, under certain circumstances, one best serves humanity by limiting oneself to spreading the knowledge of the higher worlds, and even - perhaps with a bleeding heart - refraining from it in cases where the application of magical powers might be appropriate. For today's public life is so alien to the concept of magistery that under certain circumstances the influence of higher worlds on this world would mean a setback if magical powers were applied directly. He who has practised the use of these powers to a certain extent, and who has acquired the knowledge of the mechanism as well, must in certain cases refrain from using these powers, for the simple reason that it is impossible today to go against the current of the world. Not only clairvoyance and initiation belong to the magician, but also practice. That is what it is all about. The magician must practice certain tasks with great dedication over a long period of time. Just think about how much you can know - even in the physical world - without being able to actually do what you can talk about, what you know something about. You can be initiated into many things. You can know exactly how a locomotive is constructed, but without anyone giving you the order to build a locomotive, because he would risk throwing the money out the window. It is the same in the higher realms. Practice makes the magician, perception in the higher worlds makes the clairvoyant, knowledge and realization of the laws in the higher worlds makes the initiate.