What seperates Black Magic and Thaumaturgy, White Magic and Conjury?

[Anonymoose]

DISCLAIMER:
I know; this is way more than you bargained for.
Feel free to jump to the tl;dr at the bottom and come back for the novella if you feel a full explanation would be better.

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The world-lore on these is a bit nuanced and murky because of dev. team changes and the tacking-on of the familiar Final Fantasy job system (under Yoshida) to the reinvent-the-wheel class system (from under Tanaka). Some of this will come from each version, and I'll try to mesh it together as best as I can. Ironically, this will work best if we work chronologically - using the later-developed lore first, since they worked hard to shape it to what was already in the game.

Before we get started, though, it's important to note that the biggest factor in all of this is tradition. Aetherial manipulation is aetherial manipulation; magic is magic. How it's expressed and for what purpose has more to do with the differences than anything. But we'll get back to that later.

Of those you've listed, Black Magic came first - radically destructive magicks using environmental aether (as opposed to being limited by your internal aetherial reservoirs, as a mage usually would be) following in the traditions of Death's Handmaiden, Shatotto. White Magic was developed to counter this and restore balance - succor rather than destruction, leaning towards the Light rather than the Dark.

And here's where it gets messy and a history lesson help make sense of things.

Both of these arts developed during the Fifth Astral Era, throughout which magic was ubiquitous. Having survived the Fifth Umbral Era (aka the Age of Endless Frost) due to the (re)discovery of magic, it was the foundation of the era. Development of magickal techniques fueled competition and friendly rivalries that eventually turned sour and led to the War of the Magi, which caused the collapse of the Fifth Astral and arrival of the Sixth Umbral. The Sixth Umbral Calamity, or the Great Flood, is the reason magic was banned and various schools of the era vanished - people were terrified of magic due to the suffering it had caused and were fearful that history would repeat itself.

The end of the Sixth Umbral is where things get complicated. In the Black Shroud, where Amdapor had thrived in the Fifth Astral, the Elementals forbade living amongst the boughs of the forest. Those who remained were forced underground, building the city of Gelmorra. In the early Sixth Astral Era, the Gelmorrans believed that their situation could improve if they could commune with the Elementals. Being entities of pure aether, they decided aetherial manipulation was the best way to achieve this communion. They refined what few simple charms survived the destruction of magickal knowledge (for 50 years) until they finally achieved their goal, which led to the Pact of Gelmorra (500 years ago) and, soon after, the rise of Gridania.

As part of the Pact of Gelmorra, the Padjal were created to act as intermediaries between the Elemental. Traditionally, only the Padjal may act as stewards of White Magic. However, the charms that succeeded in contacting the Elementals continued to evolve, developing into a magic known today as Conjury. In 1.0, this was all of the elements of nature, and the mage could shape environmental natural energies into their spells. However, because Conjurer became White Mage and Thaumaturge became Black Mage (which traditionally is the master of the elements) they were forced to divide them. In ARR, it now focuses primarily on water, wind, and earth; the boons of nature that support life.

Rewind to the end of the Sixth Umbral, again. While all of this was happening in the Black Shroud, many of the mages that refused to give up magic were persecuted and exiled. Wandering together, they founded the nation of Belah'dia in Thanalan - a city of mages, by mages, for mages. Black Magic may have vanished, but traces of its DNA lived on in the magicks wielded by this city. Eventually, the Belah'dian throne gave birth to twins that both refused to let the other inherit the throne. Belah'dia split into Ul'dah and Sil'dih, and the latter was eventually destroyed when they went to war. But the mage traditions lived on, nowhere more evident than in Ul'dah's prominent religious organization: The Order of Nald'thal.

In 1.0, thaumaturgy was opposite conjury - rather than dealing with environmental aether and the elements, it channeled aether from within and molded it according to the polarities that exist within the elements (and all things): Astral and Umbral (and thus their association with Life and Death, and thus the twin gods Nald and Thal). Again. ARR muddled this up a bit due to the Conjurer / Black Mage division of the elements. In ARR, thaumaturgy has been altered to show a focus primarily on ice, fire, and lightning, the forces of natural destruction that threaten life. Lore was crafted tying these to the Order's funeral rights: Ice to stop corruption, Fire to cleanse the body, Lightning to expel sin.

Fun Fact: The Order of Nald'thal actually has two sects. Arrzaneth Ossuray, the THM guild, is associated with Thal, death, and eventual spiritual wealth. You can imagine why the game focuses more on that than the sect of Nald, life, and current material wealth over at Milvaneth Sacrarium, lol.

Again, tradition makes all the difference here. Arts just like what we call conjury and thaumaturgy today existed long ago. The Allagans knew magicks like these, even if they didn't have the same traditions and associations. That's why the answer to your question is so hard to pin down, and that's why I bothered with that rambling digression. But to break it all down and oversimplify it in a way that probably answers your questions better than all that text above?

Black Magic: Destructive magicks wrought using environmental aether, credited to Shatotto by modern historians.

White Magic: Benedictive magicks meant to bring balance against Black Magic, credited to the Amdapori by modern historians.

Conjury: Elemental magicks (especially generative elemental forces)

Thaumatugry: Polar magicks (especially destructive elemental forces)

Arcanima

You didn't request this one, but hey. Crash course!

Arcane constructs are created by temporarily splitting off a part of your own aether and fashioning it into a biddable avatar. In the Third Astral Era, the Allagans used this type of magic to create avatars shaped by the aetherial waveform signatures of primals (which were "recorded" onto their own aether by coming into contact with the aetherial mist left by a primal upon its death) to create Egi. This is the tradition of the Summoner.

In the Fifth Astral Era, Nymian magicks used an avatar designed according to the energies present in nature and fashioned into essentially a manufacted elemental bound to the soulstone, allowing it to gain experience and memories and an identity. (Faeries.) Combined with a rigorous study of mathematics and tactics, this became the Scholar tradition. Arcane geometries could also be used to shape aether into spells with myriad effects.

Today, the avatars in vogue, Carbuncles, are simply shaped according to complex geometries as part of the modern arcanist disciplines that combined traces of what remained from Nym with Lominsan arithmetic (all of this math comes from traditions from the south seas, which we know little about). The formulae that define Carbuncle shape and behavior somehow tap into the latent powers of gemstones, which is the source of the naming conventions.

In fact, the Ceruleum Servant wielded by Regula van Hydrus might be these very same mathematical manipulations achieved via magitek.