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I have a book at home, it explains what Wicca is and is not in great detail, I came across a section on black magick/prayer, says that a black prayer can be a prayer intended to harm or to send any energies to a person without their knowledge.

Okay, I have a friend who lost her grandfather a while back, I was seriously worried because she tends to go into deep depression when things like that happen. So I prayed that she would pull through because I hadn't seen her in a while.
I then ended up talking to a woman in the shop, she also said that 'any energies sent without the resipetents knowledge still counts as a black prayer."

What do you think?
What do you count as a black prayer?

A prayer is a way to speak to deity. This should be remembered. One should also keep in mind that just because you ask for something doesn't mean it will come to pass. Asking the Goddess to help a friend isn't bad in any way. Why would it be? It's not like casting a spell to help a friend, which is a bit Bad Form really if you don't ask them first. It's asking a deity to help them. The action is the deity's, not yours. If the god you called upon decided that helping your friend would be clashing with her free will and didn't help, that's their decision to make. If they decided to help her, that's up to them. The god in question might have been going to help her anyway. You are asking for assistance, not for them to bind the person's will in any way.

Let's consider "malevolent prayer" for a moment, too. Would you really ask a god to harm someone? Putting aside the person you want to harm for a minute... why would you expect the gods to fulfill such a request? They aren't minions, to be sent to cause harm to others. They might take such a request to be an almighty insult. And that will be more damaging to you than karma could ever be, I'd wager. I feel that people should do their own dirty work, and I'd say a fair number of gods would feel the same way. Dangerous business, that lol

Now, for magick.... as Starlock has already mentioned, there is no black or white magick. Magick just is. As far as casting beneficial spells on others without their knowledge... it's considered very Bad Form and it's rather iffy ethically. Firstly, it could be thought of as messing with free will, which is generally considered to be uncool. But if you were sending, for example, energy in the form of strength, you're not messing with free will at all.

Basically, this is all up to you. You decide whether something counts as good or bad, because these terms are purely relative. If you think that sending someone strength is good, then it's good. If you think it's bad, then it's bad. I have sent energy in the past to help someone be strong or brave. But that was just energy sent to them, for them to use as they saw fit. What they did with the strength or courage was up to them. I didn't mess with their free will and therefore, to me, that's Okay. I don't consider that to be either a prayer or a spell. You might not consider that sort of thing to be Okay. It's your call.