>>24513098 (OP)
No one who has ever claimed to practice magic turned out to be legit. Every last one of them created elaborate smoke and mirrors around what inevitably turns out to be "mental alchemy" (i.e. feelgood woo-woo) or outright bullshit. The copes are endless - "you're too sinful or unclean to witness my true power," "a closed mind can't understand the truth of magic," "your disbelief makes it impossible for you to see it," etc. Charlatans, all of them, all the way down.
This doesn't mean the supernatural doesn't exist, only that those who claim to be able to harness it are retarded fart huffers. You're better off looking at Christian monasticism and philosophical/theological thinkers for something closer to the supernatural, with the caveat that none of these people actually had magic powers and would say so to your face - all miracles and miraculous workings in Christianity are a gift from God rather than something that can be harnessed by man like a tool. Works like the Ladder of Divine Ascent or the Philokalia go into a little detail about what I mean but they're not really meant for consumption as standalone texts by random people so much as for study under the careful guidance of a spiritual elder.
I think it's possible that evil forces and demons and stuff exist but you don't want to get involved with any of that and studying it is a waste of your time at the very best.
