Reflections on Harry Potter
A quote given to BBC Radio Gloucestershire's Nigel Ballard by JK Rowling, author of the Harry Potter Series: "I do think that, on occasion, the material is not suitable for six-year-olds. But you can't stop them reading it. I read things when I was very young that disturbed me but I don't think that was a terribly bad thing. My parents never censored what I read so I wouldn't say don't read them to a six-year-old, just be aware some of it does get uncomfortable."
You can click on the titles below, or just scroll down.
Harry Potter and the Paganization of Children's Culture | Bewitched by Harry Potter
Some Thoughts on the Harry Potter Series
"Harry Potter and the Paganization of Children's Culture."
Due to webspace, we cannot fit the entire article on this page. A link to the publisher, Catholic World Report, can be found at the bottom of this page.
While Rowling posits the "good" use of occult powers against their misuse, thus imparting to her sub-creation an apparent aura of morality, the cumulative effect is to shift our understanding of the battle lines between good and evil. The border is never defined. Of course, the archetype of "misuse" is Voldemort, whose savage cruelty and will to power is blatantly evil, yet the reader is lulled into minimizing or forgetting altogether that Harry himself, and many other of the "good" characters, frequently use the same powers on a lesser scale, supposedly for good ends. The false notion of "the end justifies the means" is the subtext throughout. The author's characterization and plot continually reinforce the message that if a person is "nice", if he means well, is brave and loyal to his friends, he can pretty much do as he sees fit to combat horrific evil — magic powers being the ideal weapon. This is consistent with the author's confused notions of authority. In reality, magic is an attempt to bypass the limitations of human nature and the authority of God, in order to obtain power over material creation and the will of others through manipulation of the supernatural. Magic is about taking control. It is a fundamental rejection of the divine order in creation. In the first book of Samuel (15:23) divination is equated with the spirit of rebellion. The Catechism of the Catholic Church calls divination and magic a form of idolatry.
All practices of magic or sorcery, by which one attempts to tame occult powers, so as to place them at one's service and have a supernatural power over others...are gravely contrary to the virtue of religion. (n.2117. See also n.2110-2116 and n.2138)
In Rowling's wizard world, children are taught to manipulate undefined forces, and to submit themselves to no higher law than the wizard authorities who will help them exercise their powers "wisely". However, the authorities themselves are divided, imparting to the impressionable reader the certainty that the best person to decide what is or is not a "proper use of magic" is the young witch or magician himself, guided only by the occasional intervention of a Dumbledore or some similar guru figure. The Ministry of Magic attempts to regulate the use of magic, but it is as bumbling and riddled with compromise as ordinary human governments. The author repeatedly sets up the straw man of legalism and knocks it down with unsubtle blows. The Dursleys are a parody of staid conservatism, "touchy about anything even slightly out of the ordinary." Ron's brother Percy, the most unattractive member of his family, is a caricature of the fastidious clerk, "fussy about rule-breaking." Nasty Professor Snape mouths the platitudes of the hypocritical legalist. In Hogwarts, although it is organized along a system of rules pretty much like an ordinary boarding school, Harry's disobedience is frequently overlooked and even rewarded by the school authorities. After all, he is a special boy, gifted, hated by evil incarnate, and destined for greatness. Moreover, his daring and resourcefulness (combined with a sense of fair play toward "good" fellow students) are always pitted against "bad" characters.
Speaking of the growing phenomenon of diabolical possession and other forms of bondage to evil, Amorth points to sorcery as the most frequent cause. (p. 57) He warns that ultimately there is no real difference between "white" and "black" magic. Every form of magic is practiced with recourse to Satan, he says — either knowingly or unknowingly, the practitioner of magic exposes himself to diabolic influence. (p.60) "Scripture warns us that witchcraft is one of the most common means used by the devil to bind men to himself and to dehumanize them. Directly or indirectly, witchcraft is a cult of Satan." (p. 143)
With occult themes now a part of mainstream culture, the Potter series is juxtaposed between a growing amount of blatantly diabolical material for the young on one hand, and on the other a tide of cultural material that redefines good and evil in subtler ways. Thus, it appears as a healthier specimen of what has been more or less normalized all around us. As Postman warned, the strange and disordered no longer strikes us as such. Our society is saturated in the false notion that a lesser evil (in this case, "good sorcery") is preferable to the great evil of Satanism, a message further reinforced by the books' condemnation of the extremes of diabolical behavior. What we so often forget is that the "lesser evil" concept is a classic adversarial tactic in the great war between good and evil — the real war in which we are all immersed. The evil spirits seek to attract us to evil behavior by first offering us evil thoughts disguised as good. In opposition to these, they set up great evils from which we naturally recoil, and offer the lesser evils as the antidote. If the lesser evil is presented with a little window-dressing of virtue or morality (or the modern term "values"), we can turn to it assuming we are making a choice for a good. This dynamic can be observed in the way film classification has gradually altered our judgements and consequent viewing habits. We have come to assume that a film rated PG is better than an X rated film, forgetting that what is now called PG would have been completely objectionable a generation ago. This is Postman's "adjustment." This is reality-shift. This is, to put it simply, loss of discernment.
Children are dependent on adults to make careful discernments in the area of culture because they do not have the advantage of age and experience. They are in a state of formation, absorbing impressions about the nature of reality at a fundamental level, and few things in life are as powerful as culture for defining reality — for defining good and evil. In the case of the Harry Potter series discernment has been difficult for many people because these novels seem at first glance to reject evil by dissociating magic from the diabolic. Yet in the real world they are always associated. We must ask ourselves if they really can be separated without negative consequences. If magic is presented as a good, or as morally neutral, is there not an increased likelihood that when a young person encounters opportunities to explore the world of real magic he will be less able to resist its attractions? Of course, children are not so naïve as to think they can have Harry's powers and adventures; they know full well the story is make-believe. But on the subconscious level they have absorbed it as experience, and this experience tells them that the mysterious forbidden is highly rewarding.
What long-term effects do fictional heroes and heroines have on the mind's ability to distinguish truth from falsehood? A novel about a boy who regularly skips along a tightrope across Niagara Falls without falling is no real threat to one's child, because he instantly recognizes the absurdity of the notion. The danger is immediately perceived and the practise rejected. But a novel about a boy who skips along a tightrope across an eternal abyss is a real threat, for the danger is difficult to recognize without knowledge of moral absolutes and a developed sense of the immediacy of spiritual combat. Parents' warnings about abstract dangers can pale in a child's mind when compared to tales packed with potent images that have lodged deeply in his imagination.
Regardless of how few or many children are prompted to venture into occult activity after reading the Potter series, it will have a strong effect on most, in the sense of what educators call the propaeduetic — preparing the ground for later developments. If the natural and spiritual guard has been lowered in a child's mind, if his concept of morality has been skewed and authority undermined, what other kinds of disordered interests and activities will follow as he makes his choices later in life? This is no longer an academic question. A recent search of the internet for Harry Potter references yielded more than 500,000 "hits" or sites where the books are being discussed, including those of major libraries. Selective searches turned up more than a hundred high-profile websites devoted to the series, many of which offer cross-links to advanced occult websites under titles such as "Learn More about the Secrets of the Occult" and "How to Become a Witch." In an interview with Newsweek, a spokesman for the Pagan Federation in England reported that he receives an average of 100 inquiries a month from young people who want to become witches — an unprecedented phenomenon which he attributes in part to the Potter books. An article in the December 17, 2000, issue of Time magazine reports that a similar organization in Germany deals with an increasing number of inquiries, which it also credits to the Potter factor. Rowling herself has expressed surprise at the volume of mail she receives from young readers writing to her as if Hogwarts were real, wanting to know how they can enter the school in order to become witches and wizards.
Librarians in diverse social settings report that children in increasing numbers are requesting material from the occult sections of their collections. Kimbra W. Gish, a librarian at Vanderbilt University who specializes in children's and young adult's reading, discusses the controversy in the May/June 2000 issue of the librarians' journal The Horn Book Magazine. Gish writes, "For many librarians, teachers and parents, the world of children's literature and that of the Bible represent different kingdoms whose border continues to be debated as parents and others raise questions about the appropriateness of certain titles. This is a passionate issue: few things stir the heart like one's true faith or one's love for sharing books with children."
In explaining Christian concerns about the Potter series, she outlines how the books repeatedly portray in a positive light the very activities that are condemned in both Old and New Testaments in the strongest possible terms. She cites Deuteronomy 18:9-12, a passage in which enchanting, divination, charms, consulting with familiar spirits or a wizard or a necromancer are described as an "abomination" in the eyes of God, and must be driven out. She notes numerous other passages forbidding the practice of witchcraft and wizardry or consultation with mediums or diviners (Leviticus 19:31, 20:6, 27; Isaiah 8:19, 19:3; Galatians 5:19-21; Revelation 21:8; 2 Kings 21:6, 23:24; 2 Chronicles 33:6. See also the confrontation between St. Paul and a magician in the Acts of the Apostles 13:6-12).
Gish points out that modern culture can desensitize people to the corruptive nature of such activities, through "casual exposure to the occult through media sources such as television, movies, games and books." While some parents are alarmed by any portrayal of occult practices in children's fiction, she says, others feel that context is the key: "Is the witch portrayed positively, negatively, or ambivalently? Is the practice shown as an acceptable or enjoyable thing to do, or something stupid or dangerous?" Like many reflective literate people who love both children and children's literature, Gish favors the latter approach. She comes down firmly against J. K. Rowling's Potter series, and enthusiastically for fantasy in the line of J.R.R. Tolkien's and C.S. Lewis's sub-creations. For her, as for many Christian parents, the problem is not the presence of magic in a book, but how magic is represented.
In his great fantasy epic, The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien also portrays magic as deception. Supernatural powers that do not rightly belong to man are repeatedly shown as having a corrupting influence on man. While it is true that Gandalf, one of the central characters, is called a "wizard" throughout, he is not in fact a classical sorcerer. Tolkien maintains that Gandalf is rather a kind of moral guardian, similar to guardian angels but more incarnate. (Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, edited by Humphrey Carpenter and Christopher Tolkien, Boston, Houghton Mifflin, 1981) In letters 155, 156 and 228 he explains his depiction of matter and spirit, and the distinction between good magic and evil magic. In essence Tolkien's "good magic" is not in fact what we think of as magic in the real world. Gandalf's task is primarily to advise, instruct, and arouse to resistance the minds and hearts of those threatened by Sauron, the Dark Lord of this saga. Gandalf does not do the work for them; they must use their natural gifts — and in this we see an image of grace building on nature, never overwhelming nature or replacing it. Gandalf's gifts are used sparingly, and then only so far as they assist the other creatures in the exercise of their free will and their moral choices.
The central character, Frodo Baggins, is asked by Gandalf to bear a ring of magical power to a volcanic mountain in a region ruled by Sauron, in order to destroy the ring in the volcano's fires and thus weaken the grip that Sauron has over the world. Frodo agrees to undertake the journey but soon realizes that the ring has a seductive hold on him. As he carries the very thing that could ruin the world, he is constantly tempted to use it for the good. But he learns that to use its supernatural powers for such short-range "goods" increases the probability of long-range disaster, both for the world and for himself.
Supernatural powers, Tolkien demonstrates repeatedly, are very much a domain infested by the "deceits of the Enemy", used for domination of other creatures' free will. As such they are metaphors of sin and spiritual bondage. By contrast, Gandalf's very limited use of preternatural powers is never used to overwhelm, deceive or defile. Even so, the author mentions more than once in the epic that these powers must pass away from the world as the "Old Age" ends and the "Age of Man" (and by inference the Age of the Incarnation) approaches.
Much of the neopagan use of magic is the converse of this. It is frequently used to overwhelm, deceive and defile. In the Harry Potter series, for example, Harry resists and eventually overcomes Voldemort with the very powers the Dark Lord himself uses. Harry is the reverse image of Frodo. Rowling portrays his victory over evil as the fruit of esoteric knowledge and power. This is Gnosticism. Tolkien portrays Frodo's victory over evil as the fruit of humility, obedience and courage in a state of radical suffering. This is Christianity. Harry's world is about pride, Frodo's about sacrificial love. There is, of course, plenty of courage and love in the Harry Potter series, but it is this very mixing of truth and untruth which makes it so deceptive. Courage and love can be found in all peoples, even those involved in the worst forms of paganism. The presence of such virtues does not automatically justify an error-filled work of fiction. In Potter-world the characters are engaged in activities which in real life corrupt us, weaken the will, darken the mind, and pull the practitioner down into spiritual bondage. Rowling's characters go deeper and deeper into that world without displaying any negative side effects, only an increase in "character". This is a lie. Moreover, it is the Satanic lie which deceived us in Eden: You can have knowledge of good and evil, you can have Godly powers, and you will not die, you will not even be harmed by it — you will have enhanced life. There is so much that dazzles and delights in Rowling's sub-creation, the reader must exercise a certain effort to see these interior contradictions and mixed messages.
But why has it become so difficult for us to discern the penetration? Psychiatrist Paul C. Vitz, in his Psychology as Religion: the Cult of Self-Worship, discusses the psychology at work in our lack of resistance:
...the heterogeneity of American culture, with its increasingly complex mosaic of different religions and cultures, is a social-structural analogue to the intellectual world of New Age. Just as the act of rejecting a person because of his or her beliefs is considered antisocial or undemocratic, so also to reject religious or spiritual understandings is interpreted in the same way....When tolerance is the primary accepted social virtue, commitment to a particular faith is viewed as fundamentally antisocial and even threatening. (2nd edition, Eerdmans, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1994)Click Here to Return to Top of this Page
The following is an excerpt from an Article by Berit Kjos entitled
"Bewitched by Harry Potter"
Due to webspace, we cannot fit the entire article on this page. A link to the Kjos website can be found at the bottom of this page.
Harry, like other students at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry travels back and forth between two worlds: the mystical world of magic and the mundane world of muggles – those boring, blinded, and biased humans who either don’t believe in the world of witches or who despise it as evil. Harry’s cruel aunt and uncle fit the last category. And, from Harry’s point of view, so would you if you see witchcraft as dangerous and demonic.
Adults and children alike have, in their imagination, followed Harry through that mystical veil between ordinary reality and occult fantasy. Most find it hard to put the book down once they start it, and when finished, many read it again and again. Immersed in this mystical world of spiritual forces, they feel Harry’s struggles and share his fears. They sit with him through his classes on Potions, Spells, Transfiguration ("turning something into something else") and Divination, and, like him, learn some tricks of the old Craft. They sense the pain of his miserable return visits to London, and they soar with him above the earth on a magical and magnificent broomstick.
Page after exciting page brings the reader into the timeless battle between good and evil, then trains them to see the opposing forces from a pagan, not a Biblical perspective. In this mystical realm, "good" occult spirits are naturally pitted against bad occult spirits, just as in pagan cultures where frightened victims would offer sacrifices to "benevolent" spirits who could help ward off evil curses and other threats. Few readers realize that from the Biblical perspective, all occult forces are dangerous. But today, it seems more tolerant and exciting to believe this illusion than to oppose the lies. The words of Old Testament prophet Isaiah ring as true now as they did over 2000 years ago: "Woe to those who call evil good and good evil…." (Isaiah 5:20)
Once introduced to spiritism, astrology, palmistry, shape-shifting, time-travel (the third book) and the latest version of popular occultism, many crave more. They can easily find it. In their neighborhoods and schools, our children are surrounded by peers who are fascinated by occult empowerment and would love to share their fun discoveries.
"When you come into the land which the Lord your God is giving you, you shall not learn to follow the abominations of the nations. Let there not be found among you anyone who immolates his son or daughter in the fire, nor a fortuneteller, soothsayer, charmer, diviner, or caster of spells, nor one who consults ghosts and spirits or seeks oracles from the dead. For all who do these things are an abomination to the Lord…." (Deuteronomy 18:9-12)
These stories are every bit as spiritual as Christian literature, but the spiritual power they promote does not come from God. If you treasure God's truth, may I suggest you encourage your children not to read these books? I know such parental intervention sounds grossly offensive, in fact, downright muggleish, to children who love Harry’s magical world and reject Biblical absolutes. Yet, just as "progressive" leaders fear the influence of Biblical truth on budding world citizens, so Christians parents need to guard their children against all kinds of occult "counsel:"
"Blessed are those who do not follow the counsel of the wicked or unGodly, Nor stands in the path of sinners, nor sit in company with scoffers. But his delight is in the law of the Lord; and his law he meditates day and night." (Psalm 1:1-6)
God's way to multicultural understanding and global unity is essential today. He cares for people in every culture, longs to set them free, and wants to love them through us. Harry Potter may conquor evil forces with witchcraft, but in the real spiritual world, no pagan power can counter the frightening consequences of dealing with demons. Only God can.Click Here to Return to Top of this Page
The following is an excerpt from an article by Michael O'Brian entitled
"Some Thoughts on the Harry Potter Series."
Due to webspace, we cannot fit the entire article on this page. A link to the publisher, National Catholic Register, can be found at the bottom of this page.
Parents often underestimate the power of imagination in shaping a child's sense of truth. Parents forget that they themselves grew up in another time and culture. Though theirs was an imperfect world (as is every era of history), basic truths still formed the solid architecture of their times. That is no longer so. Parents also forget that they can sort through good and bad material with more immunity than a child, because they are already formed. A child is still in a state of formation, and for that reason he experiences culture in a very different way than adults do. We can sift (although on the whole even we "grown-ups" aren't doing a very good job of sifting these days), but the child is not yet trained to recognize subtle and even unsubtle falsehood. He is busy learning about the world, and usually he is learning indiscriminately. He absorbs images and understandings of the nature of reality at a foundational level.
Getting our thinking on track according to Biblical and Church principles is essential to seeing what's really happening in this war. In other words, rational discernment. Equally important is the charism of spiritual discernment. Every parent needs to pray daily for an extraordinary grace of discernment, and for divine protection for his children. This isn't extremist or alarmist. This is just normal Christianity. Tragically, Christian faith has been so weakened in the Western world that such statements now strike many an ear as somewhat extreme. We're all a little too eager to prove that we're just normal folks, that our faith doesn't turn us into unpleasant critical people. But Jesus himself calls us to constant vigilance, to exercise the critical faculty of discernment. It is the spirit of the secular world, and the spirit of our adversary, which tells us we should all just relax and stop over-reacting. Of course, it's true that over-reacting doesn't help anyone, and usually makes matters worse. But at the other end of the spectrum is denial, a refusal to face facts, an inability to recognize a real threat to our child's well-being. This, I believe, brings about far worse consequences - again, in the long run. Neither apathy nor panic will reorient our present culture toward a condition of health. What is needed here is wisdom.
As a parent, my daily prayer is: "Oh God, please give me the wisdom of Solomon, the wisdom of the Holy Spirit, today. Every day." Without it, I would soon be shaped and molded by whatever forces are flying about in this society. My kids even more so. There is so much bombarding us all the time, with unprecedented power to overwhelm the senses and to confuse our interior radar, that we scarcely have time to make sound decisions before the next wave hits. In such a climate, if one has to choose between over-caution or under-caution, I would say that in the formation of our children's minds, hearts and souls, it's better to lean in the direction of caution rather than laxity - especially during these times when a relentless indoctrination comes at our children from every level of the culture.Click Here to Return to Top of this Page Catholic World Report - "Harry Potter and the Paganization of Children's Culture"
Kjos Ministries - "Bewitched by Harry Potter"
National Catholic Register - "Some Thoughts on the Harry Potter Series"
Return to Christian Parenting Page
Return to Byzantine Peace Offering Home
Created Background for this Page
Children of the Fallen Soldiers Relief Fund
