Does black magic really exist in the world?

A girl I knew in high school was into divination, I thought that was interesting. Taro cards, crystals, the whole nine yards. She said I was Reiki, I just hadn't realized it and that was why I had a calming effect on people when I met them face to face.

Another guy I knew when I had started a job just out of college was a Kitchen Witch, which for us Muggles is a type of magic meant for the home. He told me I was an Energy Vampire and that I could affect the moods of other people.

I'm fairly certain that I'm neither Reiki or a Vampire and instead just have one of those personalities that can get along with anyone, even if we don't share the same views on life.

However, at the time, being the ever curious feline, I spent at least one of my nine lives going down dark alleys and places I aught not to be in search of things better left lost.

The only thing I have ever found were people with varied intentions and capabilities. What I can tell you is that there are people in this world that keep some dark shit in their homes. While I don't believe any of it was really magic, just seeing some of it was unsettling at best.

So take heart that black magic does not exist, but beware the wolves in sheep's clothing for they peddle a type of false knowledge that is worse than any amount of ignorance and black magic combined.
Look up Jim Jones if you want to see what I mean. A fair warning: the images are graphic and the story is disturbing.
In Order for any answer to this question to make sense you have to define what you mean by 'magic' and what you mean by 'real'.
Some prominant occultists define magic as pretty much any result from any deliberate action. Nothing supernatural there.
'Real' is an interesting word. It derives from the same root as 'royal' and 'real estate' brings its primary meaning to the forefront: re) what is 'real' is thus as defined by the King.
In older times that made sense for a kingdom. 'Real estate' was what was owned by your king and 'reality' was what was true as defined by your king.

Today tho the question is 'who do you name as your king?'

Obviously your government lacks the trust to weigh in on it. Religions are full of ideas that are hard to reconcile with every day experience, and following the rigors of scientific experiment either takes a lifetime or requires trust that the experimentations of others were truly objective.

The idea of the 'supernatural' seems impossible to me but not for the same reasons as other so called skeptics (manywho call themselves skeptical are merely dogmatic. A
true skeptic would only be certain of one thing: uncertainty).

My reason to doubt the supernatural is that if faeries, ghosts, deities, and ufos were actual things outside of the minds of their witnesses, then they would be part of nature and not outside it at all.

We can explain these things as hallucinations or false consciousness. We can explain them as proof of satans influence or conspiracies from Sirius minor. Delusion onone hand. Objective beings on the other extreme.

These are all words. To mistake a description for a thing is a common mistake.
You cant eat the word 'hamburger' and the irony is we can only know the objective through our subjective experience of it.

What makes an experience 'real' to you?

If you dream you're talking with a relative and they say goodbye and you wake with tears on your cheek only to hear later in the day that they've died what part of that experience is 'real' and what part is dream?

To you? To the friend you tell it to? To science?

Does it matter? To you? To your friend? To science?

Only if you start proclaiming its objectivity with certainty do you run into troubles. Then your subjective experience has to be measured against those of everyone else. And if your experience is unique, it will be considered an aberration unless you provide an extraordinary amount of evidence.

Remain uncertain and you have a story that communicates an experience. Tell anyone what it proves and mocking derision results.

It is when we draw conclusions that we make fools of ourselves. So there is room in the sky for crow and cloud. And there is magic in everything. If you want it.

The world is a magical place, but this is not the same as saying that it is supernatural.
There is no evidence that the supernatural exists in any form. Magicians know that one can create the illusion of the supernatural. And anyone who has claimed to be able to demonstrate the existence of the supernatural has been unable to reproduce these claimed effects under scientific test conditions.

Finally, we magicians can generally explain any such demonstrations though well known illusion techniques.SO ask any magician and he or she will likely tell you, "No, its pretty clear that 'real magic' does not exist."

This is a longstanding philosophical problem- but it seems the short answer is that if it exists, it is no longer defined as magic. A lot of magical things later become explained by science. However there is that famous quote:

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." - Arthur C Clarke
Try explaining to a 5-year-old how wifi works with a smartphone.Any description you give will sound like magic and when you think about it, to any previous time period in history it is actual magic.