"It is clear from Gurdjieff's writings that hypnotism, mesmerism and various arcane methods of expanding consciousness must have played a large part in the studies of the Seekers of Truth. None of these processes, however, is to be thought of as having any bearing on what is called Black Magic, which, according to Gurdjieff, "has always one definite characteristic. It is the tendency to use people for some, even the best of aims, without their knowledge and understanding, either by producing in them faith and infatuation or by acting upon them through fear. There is, in fact, neither red, green nor yellow magic. There is "doing." Only "doing" is magic." Properly to realise the scale of what Gurdjieff meant by magic, one has to remember his continually repeated aphorism, "Only he who can be can do," and its corollary that, lacking this fundamental verb, nothing is "done," things simply "happen.""
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P. L. Travers, in "Gurdjieff" in Man, Myth and Magic : Encyclopedia of the Supernatural (1970)
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/G._I._Gurdjieff
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G. I. Gurdjieff
George Ivanovich Gurdjieff (Russian: Георгий Иванович Гюрджиев, Georgij Ivanovich Gjurdzhiev; 13 January c. 1867 – 29 October 1949) was a Greco-Armenian mystic and spiritual teacher of what came to be called "the Work" or "The Fourth Way", in which he taught people how to increase and focus their attention and energy through various awareness exercises. According to his teachings, such inner development is the beginning of a possible further process of change, and spiritual evolution.
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