The Golden Compass: a
Child’s Primer of Satanism
by Ken McCormick
A reviewer for Kidsreads.com asked
author Philip Pullman about his popular His
Dark Materials trilogy of fantasy novels for young adults:
“Right, wrong, good, and evil.
These four words are the foundation of most fantasy and adventure stories. But
the concepts seem to be absent/muddied in the His Dark Materials series. Is this intentional? What do you want
the reader to come away with after finishing the trilogy in regard to good guys
vs. bad guys?”
Pullman’s answer:
“The concepts aren't muddied ---
they're depicted realistically. What I was trying to do was very much get away
from the ‘He's called the Dark Lord so he must be evil’ idea” (http://www.kidsreads.com/authors/au-pullman-philip.asp).
Hello?
The December 7, 2007 release of The Golden Compass, a big-budget
Hollywood production based on the first book of
Philip Pullman describes his trilogy
as
As they say, though, never trust the
teller, trust the tale. Or perhaps we
should take Mr. Pullman’s advice when he tells us “You
must always be very sceptical about what any writer says about their own work” (http://www.damaris.org/content/content.php?type=5&id=357
). I wish to emphasize that it is not my
purpose to examine Philip Pullman’s personal beliefs. The purpose of the present essay is to
examine what it is that Philip Pullman is telling our children in his
books. Whether what his books say is in
some way made “metaphorical” by reference to his own purported beliefs is quite
beside the point. In the end, we have to
ask what the books actually say, not what the author believes or says he
believes.
The plot of the trilogy concerns the
adventures of the eleven-year-old Lyra, the main character, “a coarse and
greedy little savage,” as the author describes her, who is defiant, swears like
a sailor, steals, drinks, smokes, and roams the streets and rooftops in her
free time. Her chief attribute, as she
sees it, is that she is the world’s greatest liar. In most children’s books of the past, we
might expect the main character to suffer some sort of comeuppance or to learn
some sort of lesson as a consequence of her lying, but we will see in Pullman’s
trilogy that Lyra is operating in a moral universe in which lying is not a
problem of any sort as long as one can do it well.
Lyra lives in a universe that is
parallel to our own, and she is the daughter of Lord Asriel, leader of the
“rebel angels” who seek to overthrow God.
Lord Asriel’s headquarters are in a fortress located on the shore of a
lake of fire. (Please note that Satan is
often described as “the father of lies.”)
His daughter Lyra is destined to take the place of Eve and launch a new
cosmic alignment of all the parallel universes by committing the original sin
of an act of sexual union (represented in the book by no more than a kiss
followed by a discreet panning away of the narrative camera) with her boyfriend
Will. By this act she and Will are to
become self-aware as material beings.
PLOT SUMMARY OF THE TRILOGY
In the first book, Lyra is given a
rare device called an alethiometer (“truth meter,” the “golden compass” of the
title). The alethiometer is used for
divination, and Lyra is particularly adept at interpreting the meanings of its
symbols. With it, with her skill as a
great liar, and with the help of her newfound friends the gypsies, the witches,
and the talking armored bears, Lyra is able to locate and rescue her good
friend Roger in the far North, to which he has been kidnapped by the evil
theologians of the oppressive Church for sacrifice in scientific experiments
into the nature “dust,” which refers to physical particles connected to
original sin.
Lord Asriel, however, seizes Roger
and sacrifices him in order to release the soul-energy from him and thereby to
tear open an entrance into a parallel universe.
Lord Asriel enters the parallel universe in search of the source of original
sin. Lyra follows him.
In the second book, entitled The Subtle Knife, we meet Lyra’s
to-be-boyfriend Will, who lives in the
Lyra and Will learn that there is a
special knife, Æsahættr, the “subtle knife” of the title, which they must
obtain. The knife, it will be revealed,
is the device that can cut open the windows through which one may enter parallel
universes, and it is also the only weapon capable of killing God. As the children go to seek the knife, they
come upon another young man who has assaulted and beaten the knife’s owner, an
old man named Paradisi. Will fights with
the other young man and wins possession of the knife, although he loses two
fingers in the process. This is the
result whenever the knife chooses a new bearer.
Paradisi explains that their actions
are being directed by unseen spirits, and he bids farewell to Lyra before
committing suicide: “There is no time. You have come here for a purpose, and
maybe you don't know what that purpose is, but the angels do who brought you
here. Go. You are brave, and your friend is clever. And you have the knife. Go.”
Meanwhile, Lyra’s friends the
witches have learned that Lord Asriel is planning a new war against God. The witch queen goes off to re-join her old
lover Lord Asriel, and the clans gather to go join the fight on Lord Asriel’s
side and to protect Lyra from the minions of the Church, which knows that Lyra
is destined to become the new Eve.
Mary Malone learns to talk to the
Shadows through her computer, and she discovers that she must travel to other
worlds to find Lyra and to play the role of the serpent in bringing about a new
fall from grace.
Will’s father has been wandering in
the Arctic regions of two worlds for years, living amongst the Tartars as a
Shaman. He is accompanied by two gay
fallen angels in his quest to find the bearer of Æsahættr and to tell the
bearer to go join Lord Asriel’s forces.
As he is pursued by zeppelins containing armed agents of the Church, he
casts a magical spell which causes three of the four zeppelins to crash. He finds Will and delivers his important
message that Will must go help kill God, and then he is promptly killed by a
witch who was a spurned lover, and who then commits suicide. (This appears to be intended as an example of
passionate love as seen in
In the third book, The Amber Spyglass, Will learns from the
gay angels that angels are made of “dust.”
God was actually the first angel.
God had lied to all the younger angels and had claimed to be the creator
of all things. God was now senile and
was only a figurehead in a heavenly host that was actually ruled by the Regent
angel Metatron. Metatron had at one time
been a human being. (In Jewish occult
tradition, he is the patriarch Enoch, ascended to heaven and taking the place
of
The Church learns of Lyra’s
whereabouts and sends a troop of soldiers to kill her. They also send a specialist priest, an
assassin who always repents of his crimes before he commits them, to follow
Mary Malone in the hopes that she will lead him to Lyra in case the soldiers
fail.
Will goes to rescue Lyra from her
mother, a Church lady whose specialty is torturing witches to wring information
from them. She has drugged Lyra and
hidden her away in a cave in the
The children then journey to the
land of the dead so Lyra can find her friend Roger and Will can find his
father. The land of the dead is a sort
of Hades only worse that God has cruelly constructed to imprison the dead. Once the boatman carries the dead across the
river, they live in a grey valley where nothing ever happens and they are
tormented for all eternity by harpies who endlessly point out their
faults. The children discover a way to
use the subtle knife to exit the land of the dead. All the dead follow them to disintegrate
peacefully and meld with the universe of matter.
Mary Malone has gone to another
world to await the arrival of Lyra so that she can play the role of the
serpent. She goes to live among
intelligent creatures called the Mulefa.
While there, she continues to study “dust.” She learns that according to Mulefa belief,
the Mulefa came into being 33,000 years ago.
One day a serpent told a female Mulefa to put her claw through the
center of a seedpod and to coat it with oil.
When she did so, she was able to see “dust.” She then persuaded her mate to put his claw
through a seedpod, too, and when he had done so the Mulefa became conscious
beings. Whenever the Mulefa deliberately
do something like build a dwelling or create a work of art, more “dust” is
made.
Will cuts a window into Lord
Asriel’s world and the children emerge into a great battle between the forces
of Asriel and those of Metatron. Will
and Lyra see some angels carrying a glass casket containing God to safety. The children open the casket and allow the
feeble Being to emerge and happily dissolve into nothingness, returning to the
universe of matter from which He came.
Lyra’s mother, meanwhile, attempts
to seduce Metatron. She lures him to a
void between the worlds where she and Asriel drag him into an eternal fall
through the abyss.
Will and Lyra emerge into the world
of the Mulefa. There Mary plays the
serpent by telling them the story of how she had been a nun, but had realized
that Christianity was simply a big mistake when she had met a man and learned
about physical love. Her story gets Lyra
to thinking, and the two children find themselves alone in a glade the next day. The church’s special priest assassin
approaches to carry out his mission of preventing the two from an act of love,
but he is killed by one of the gay angels who have been watching over Will.
Lyra offers Will a piece of fruit
which he eats from her hand. They know
love. Dust, which had been streaming out
of the world of the Mulefa through the holes cut by the subtle knife, abruptly
stops flowing out and begins to fall straight down and fertilize the world
again.
Will and Lyra make the sad discovery
that each can only live out a full life in his and her own world, and that the
windows between the worlds must be closed and the subtle knife broken so as to
repair the damage done to the universal order and preserve the integrity of
each world. They each vow to always
remember each other and to work to build a
(For a more complete summary of the
plot, see SparkNotes at http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/hisdarkmaterials/ )
SPECIFICALLY NEOPAGAN ELEMENTS IN
THE STORY
The founding church of contemporary
Satanism, the
All forms of Neopaganism such as
Wicca, Goddess Spirituality, and Satanism, share certain spiritual practices
and beliefs such as divination, spell casting and magic. Not content to simply turn
The following are some examples of
occult spirituality that
I.
Daemons – Reviewers keep
remarking on the amazing originality of
The way in which
And by what name do Satanists call
the inner beast? “Daemon.” From the
According to a Book Report article "Philip Pullman: His Wonderful
Materials," by Catherine M. Andronik (Nov/Dec 2001, Vol. 20 Issue 3, pg.
40), Mr. Pullman discovered the idea of daemons, the soul-companions of each
human in his trilogy, via automatic writing:
"
Maybe the devil whispered the idea
in his ear. Or maybe in researching his
novels he ran across the idea in his study of Satanic literature, but then that
would indicate that he deliberately set out to write a trilogy that offered
Satanism to children as an alternative or perhaps as what he saw as an antidote
to “organized religion,” wouldn’t it? Or
maybe he ran across the term in reading through Satanic literature purely out
of intellectual curiosity, and subsequently forgot about it until it jumped out
of his hand in a cryptomnesic fashion.
Such things are fairly common occurrences for writers.
II.
Divinination - Lyra and
otheers accomplish divination by means of a mechanical device called an
alethiometer. Lyra has a special talent for using the alethiometer, as she has
quickly learned to project her consciousness into it, and can read the answers
without the use of the reference books that interpret the symbols the dials
point to, but rather by a sort of intuition. On page 24, she uses the
instrument: "In the glow from the streetlight she carefully set the hands
of the alethiometer, and relaxed her mind into the shape of a question. The
needle began to sweep around the dial in a series of pauses and swings almost
too fast to watch. She had asked: ‘What
is he? A friend or an enemy?’ The
alethiometer answered: ‘He is a murderer.’
When she saw the answer, she relaxed at once. He could find food, and
show her how to reach
The alethiometer has a personality
and volition. Lyra notes that she can sense when it doesn't want to tell her
any more. On page 71 it says "In
fact. the answer was so straightforward, and came so abruptly, that Lyra was
sure the alethiometer had more to say: she was beginning to sense now that it
had moods, like a person, and to know when it wanted to tell her more."
The apparent reason the alethiometer seems to have moods is that it, together
with other methods of divination such as Mary’s computer and the I Ching, according to the book, is a
means for fallen angels or "rebel angels" to communicate with human
beings.
On page 139, Lyra laments having had the
alethiometer stolen from her: "And Will, please, I done something very
bad. Because the alethiometer told me I had to stop looking for Dust – at least
that's what I thought it said – and I had to help you. I had to help you find
your father. And I could, I could take you to wherever he is, if I had it. But
I wouldn't listen. I just done what I wanted to do, and I shouldn't...."
Former
astrologer Marcia Montenegro, in discussing the occult elements of The Golden Compass, notes that the
description of the use of the alethiometer was very similar to her own
real-life experience in reading astrological charts:
“The
description of Lyra reading the alethiometer – ‘I just make my mind go clear
and then it’s sort of like looking down into water’ (Page 174 in the paperback
1995 edition of Yearling, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books ) –
eerily evoked my experiences of many years reading astrology charts, which
almost always took me into an altered state where I ‘connected’ with the chart
through its symbols. Lyra is even told that the scholar who invented this
object was trying to measure the influence of planets “according to the ideas
of astrology” (173). Lyra does indeed go into a type of trance while reading
the alethiometer: ‘she found that she could sink more and more readily into the
calm state in which the symbol meanings clarified themselves’ and describes it
to someone as a ‘different kind of knowing’ (150; also see 126). The word
‘trance’ is even used to describe this state (174, 359)” (http://www.christiananswersforthenewage.org/Articles_GoldenCompass.html ).
Regarding Lyra’s special ability to
read the alethiometer, the
On the issue of the divinatory
process’ seeming to have a personality and volition, this is a common belief
among people who engage in occult practices such as divination. Here, for example, is the testimony of John
Blofeld, a translator of the I Ching,
a real-life divinatory method accorded great respect and an endorsement,
really, for young enthusiasts, along with the imaginary methods, the
alethiometer and Mary’s computer, in His
Dark Materials:
“Like Jung, I have been struck by the extraordinary
sensation aroused by my consultations of the book, the feeling that my question
has been dealt with exactly as if by a living being in full possession of even
the unspoken facts involved in both the question and its answer. At first this sensation comes near to being
terrifying and, even now, I find myself inclined to handle and transport the
book rather as if it had feelings capable of being outraged by disrespectful
treatment....
“The very first time I did this, I was overawed to a degree
that amounted to fright, so strong was the impression of having received an
answer to my question from a living, breathing person.... Of course I do not mean to assert that the
white pages covered with black printer’s ink do in fact house a living
spiritual being.... Yet, if I were asked
to assert that the printed pages do not form the dwelling of a spritual being
or at least bring us into contact with one by some mysterious process, I think
I should be about as hesitant as I am to assert the contrary” ( E.g, John Blofeld, I Ching, New York: E.P. Dutton, 1968: pp.25-27.)
The present question is not whether
spirits or “Shadows” or fallen angels actually do lie behind divinatory
processes, but whether modern practitioners of the occult practices employed in
Satanism and other forms of Neopaganism believe they do, and whether this
belief is a part of the worldview of His
Dark Materials. Let the reader
decide.
III.
Traffic with spirits -
Witches, who are favorable characters in the books, traffic with spirits. Ruta
Skadi, the queen of the Latvian witches is described on page 43: "Serafina
had thought Mrs. Coulter beautiful, for a short-life; but Ruta Skadi was as
lovely as Mrs. Coulter, with an extra dimension of the mysterious, the uncanny.
She had trafficked with spirits, and it showed. She was vivid and passionate,
with large black eyes; it was said that Lord Asriel himself had been her
lover."
Regarding the trafficking with
spirits, it is a common practice of Neopagan ceremonies to call upon spirits,
as in this example of a Wiccan self-dedication ceremony from www.celticcrow.com/ncraft/dedication.html :
After a purification bath and period
of silent meditation, the devotee establishes a purified ritual circle, walking
the circle clockwise with sea water and incense, reciting:
I
consecrate this place of rite,
by
salted water, smoke, and firelight.
So
mote it be.
The devotee then goes to the center
of the circle to the altar space to visualize energy filling the ritual space
for a few minutes, then redraws the circle with a “magically-charged”
ceremonial dagger, a wand or the right hand.
This is done starting either in the North or the East, reciting:
This
Circle is cast
as
in days of old
to
welcome the Old Ones
and
make the
So
mote it be.
A white candle is anointed with oil
and lighted, and a further verse recited.
Then holding aloft a pentacle, the four Quarters are called to witness
the rite, starting with either North or East.
The God and Goddess are then called upon to witness the rite with a
recitation that concludes with:
By
the powers of the Old Ones
and
the magick of their ways
I
embark on my journey
May
they bless all my days.
So
mote it be.
The devotee adopts a “craft name”
and makes a long prose pledge to the gathered spirit witnesses. This pledge is to come from the heart, but a
suggested example includes “I…, within the circle of the wise to symbolize my
rebirth, do pledge to honor the God and the Goddess in all areas of my
life. I will strive to understand their
great mysteries, and the mystery of myself.
I will share this knowledge and this path with all who sincerely seek
such enlightenment. I will protect and
guard the
The devotee introduces himself or
herself to the Quarters. Further verses
thank the God and Goddess for their witness, release the Quarters, bless the
Old Ones, and close the ritual circle.
The
“Don’t be disturbed or frightened or
think you’re crazy when you feel at one with the Dark Ones you conjure forth,
or by the magical results you begin to produce. You’re not crazy for feeling
the way you do about the hypocrisy, blindness and incompetence you see all
around you. Nor are you crazy to see the results of your magic.”
Another statement from the “Youth
Communiqué” highlights the belief that occult practices will confer on the
practitioner, as on the witch Ruta Skadi, a livelier personality: “The best way
you can represent Satanism, at any age, is by providing a living example of how
the diabolical arts have made you a stronger, more focused, joyful person. The
results will speak louder than any logical argument you can present.”
A central goal of Neopaganism as
influenced by the Swiss psychoanalyst Carl Jung is the integration into the conscious
personality of previously repressed impulses.
It is thought that access to previously subconscious aspects of the
personality will move a person closer to the wellsprings of existence. Satanists believe that practitioners will
thereby gain a greater “self-consciousness” (http://www.xeper.org/pub/lib/xp_FS_lib.htm ) and “presence.”
The introductory paragraph of the Church of Satan’s “welcome” page cited
above describes the spiritual followers of what the Judeo-Christian tradition
would term the “good” as “desiccated,” describes the dark force which we call
Satan as “the fountainhead of existence,” and asserts that Satanists “exist by
flowing naturally with the dread Price of Darkness.” Please consider this when reading
IV. The Subtle Knife – The physical function of the knife Æsahættr in
being manipulated by a trance-like state in the mind of the bearer to cut the
fabric between parallel worlds in Pullman’s fantasy is virtually identical to
the spiritual use of the ceremonial daggers called “athames” used in Satanist
and other Neopagan rituals. The below
information on the athame was provided by Marcia Montenegro:
(Concerning) the subtle knife as a
parallel to the use of the athame in witchcraft
rituals, the athame is seen more as an extension of self when used in rituals,
although it is used with the idea of doing something magical, mainly casting
the
circle:
http://www.paganlore.com/athame.aspx
=We consider the Athame to be a tool of center, of self, of evocation
and banishing. The Athame is the tool wielded of one's own will, thoughts,
emotions, and intuition, over all of the Elements and over ALL. We use it to
command, even, the spirits that we evoke, invoke, and banish.==
http://www.geocities.com/avirtualcoven/tools.html
===The athame is purely ceremonial and is not used to cut anything, being
mainly
a tool of direction - casting the circle and evoking the elements. It is also
used for mixing ritual substances such as salt and water, marking them with the
sign of the pentagram, and consecrating your equipment. The athame is the most
personal and powerful instrument in your magick toolkit, and is the one thing
you should not really share. ====
http://www.witchvox.com/va/dt_va.html?a=usfl&c=basics&id=2874
===The athame can be used to cast the magick circle, call the
"quarters" or
elements, and is part of many an opening ritual, handfasting (wedding) or
initiation rite. It is associated with the element of Fire and the South. It is
customary in some traditions to have your blade given to you as a gift. Some
Witches or ceremonial workers give their tools a magickal "name". ==
http://www.celticcrow.com/ncraft/glossary.html
==ATHAME or RITUAL KNIFE - Usually a black handled knife, The Athame is charged
with the energy of the owner and is used as a pointer to define space (such as
casting a sacred circle) and as a conductor of the owner's will and energy. An
Athame is usually never used to cut anything physically.===
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_circle
===In order to leave a circle and keep it intact, Wiccans believe a door must
be
cut in the energy of the circle. Using the athame, a doorway is "cut"
in the
circle, at which point anything may pass through without harming the
circle.====
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_circle
===In order to leave a circle and keep it intact, Wiccans believe a door must
be
cut in the energy of the circle. Using the athame, a doorway is "cut"
in the
circle, at which point anything may pass through without harming the
circle.====
This site makes an interesting statement about the athame choosing you, very
much like what Pullman says in his book:
http://www.wicca.utvinternet.com/athame.htm
===Choosing an Athame is one of the Witches first important acts. It must be a
blade that they 'resonate' with; a knife that feels comfortable to handle and
feels 'right'. In this respect, it can be said that it chooses you as much as
you choose it. ===
The same site also says:
==The purpose of consecrating the Athame is to produce an astral double of it;
to give it its own 'soul'. For this reason it is given its own 'name'. ====
As for the athame’s “resonating” with the user and the knife choosing the
bearer, please compare this to
"I don't want it," said Will. "I don't want
anything to do
with it."
"You haven't got the
choice," said the old man. "You are the bearer now."
"I thought you said you was," said Lyra.
"My time is over," he said. "The knife knows when to leave one
hand and settle in another, and I know how to tell. You don't believe me?
Look!"
He held up his own left hand. The
little finger and the finger next to it were missing, just like Will's.
"Yes," he said, "me
too. I fought and lost the same fingers, the badge of the wearer."'
V.
Original Sin – There is no
mention of the name Satan in
Lyra may be seen in the role of
antichrist. It is prophesied that she is
destined to perform an act that will heal the universe. She dies but doesn't
die, goes to the land of the dead and preaches to the suffering people there
and finally leads them out of the land of the dead. The act that heals the
universe is re-enacting the original sin of Adam and Eve. The act of Christ was to atone for sin. The act of the antichrist is to affirm sin.
The notion of Lucifer as the
liberator of mankind through the awakening of the Will (notice how Will is
capitalized in Satanist literature) in the Garden of Eden goes back at least as
far as Helena Blavatsky in the 19th century. It is not found in
“To have the faintest stirring of sexual desire is to be
guilty of lust. In order to ensure the
propagation of humanity, nature made lust the second most powerful instinct,
the first being self-preservation.
Realizing this, the Christian Church made fornication the “Original Sin.” In this way they made sure no one would
escape sin.” (Anton Szandor LaVey, New
York: Avon Books, 1969: p. 47.)
Any Christian theologian will say
that the original sin depicted in Genesis
was disobedience to God that was motivated by Eve’s desire to become like God,
herself – precisely what
“Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild
animals the Lord God had made. He said
to the woman, ‘Did God really say, “You must not eat from any tree in the
garden”’?
“The woman said to the serpent, ‘We may eat fruit from the
trees in the garden, but God did say, “You must not eat fruit from the tree
that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will
die.’”
‘“You will not surely die,’ the serpent said to the
woman. ‘For God knows that when you eat
of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and
evil.’
“When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for
food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took
some and ate it. She also gave some to
her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.
Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were
naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.
“Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God
as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the
Lord God among the trees of the garden.”
(Genesis 3: 1-8, N.I.V.)
“Now the reason that the falling in love business is linked
with the coming of wisdom, is that this is what happens to us – at the age of
adolescence, when our bodies begin to change, when we have strange new,
exciting, troubling, passionate feelings towards other people, towards members
of the other sex usually, that’s also the age at which we become passionate
intellectually too. We develop a passionate interest in mathematics or chess or
art or science or biology or whatever it might happen to be. It’s all part of
this great opening up, this great coming to maturity. That’s all I’m saying.”
Tony Watkins, interviewer: “It feels that you’re stretching it to compare that
with what is going on back in
Pullman: “Yes, because you’re looking at it
from the other point of view.”
Tony Watkins: “Yes, exactly. The Christian
understanding of what Satan says is that he’s saying you’re going to be like
God in what you know, knowing good and evil. In fact, they’ve already known
good – they’ve known good all their lives up to that point and nothing but
good. And they’ve known almost absolute freedom, just with this one restriction
and by embracing that one restriction and going for that, they’re actually not
finding wisdom, but they’re embracing rebellion, they’re embracing evil.
They’re . . .”
Pullman: “I might say you’re stretching the truth to call it evil. I
think they’re taking the first steps on the long, painful, difficult road
towards wisdom. They’re leaving innocence behind and setting out towards
wisdom. These are the two ends of the spectrum of human experience. Blake
called them innocence and experience. I call them innocence and wisdom.
Experience is what you need to get through in order to get to wisdom” (http://www.damaris.org/content/content.php?type=5&id=357 ).
The reader will note
that
Almost all reviewers
have seemed fond of repeating the assertion that Mr. Pullman is an atheist, and
that his books are therefore an expression of atheism. If the trilogy were the expression of what is
normally thought of as an atheistic worldview, the climax of the three-volume
tale would not be the healing of the universe through the re-enactment of the
Fall, for that asserts that sin is real and relevant, and what is sin, after
all, in an atheistic universe? If the
novels were truly atheistic, Lyra and Will would make out or do whatever it was
they did in the glade and the wounded universe would not be healed. Nothing would happen, except that maybe Lyra
would get pregnant. All of the
prophesies, the magical events and practices, the divination, and the sin in
the story assert a spiritual reality. It
could be said that since there is no God within the worldview of the books,
they are literally atheistic, but that would be misleading. It would be like calling Buddhists atheists
instead of Buddhists. Let’s call
CONCLUSION
Many elements of contemporary
occultism that I haven’t mentioned such as magic and spell-casting and the idea
of spirit as an aspect of matter rather than the transcendent deity of
Christianity are found in Pullman’s fantasy.
The description of the books as “
Pullman has spoken about his
loathing for C. S. Lewis’ Narnia
children’s fantasy series, with its richly Christian worldview. What he has done in this case is to write an
anti-Narnia.
That this worldview should be so
enthusiastically promoted to children by the publishing and entertainment
industries is truly a sign of the times.
What is especially troubling is that this brazen assault on some of the
core values of our civilization has aroused only a whimper of public outcry,
and no outcry at all from the critical and educational communities. Far from it.
Pullman’s novel The Golden Compass has earned the following awards:
Winner of the Carnegie Medal
(England)
Winner of the Guardian Fiction Prize (England)
An ALA Notable Book
An ALA Top Ten Best Book for Young Adults
A Horn Book Fanfare Honor Book
A Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books Blue Ribbon book
A Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year
A Booklist Editors’ Choice – “Top of the List”
A Book-of-the-Month Club Main Selection
A Children’s ABBY Honor Book
The final book of the series, The Amber Spyglass, the novel in which
God dies, was awarded both the prestigious 2001 Whitbread Prize for best children's book and the Whitbread Book of the Year prize in January 2002.
The Amber Spyglass was the
first children's book ever to receive the Book of the Year award.
In 2005
Here’s what the critics have said
about The Golden Compass:
"Very
grand indeed."
- The New York Times
"Powerful…
a fantasy adventure that sparkles with childlike wonder."
- The
"Marvelous…
the writing is elegant and challenging."
- The New Yorker
"Superb…
all-stops-out thrilling."
- The
And here is an example of how the
movie is being used to promote the books in the public schools. This is the text from an e-mailed flyer from
a public school English teacher in the
* *
* * *
* * *
* *
(At the online book discussions at
Bridge to the Stars.net) we'll discuss:
Nov. 1 st -- DO YOU BELIEVE in parallel universes and alternate realities that
we can't perceive? Then this is the book for you. In chapters 1-6, we'll find
that Lyra is a young girl who seems to be abandoned by her parents- professors,
researchers and highpower types, but she loves her alternate life. She is
pulled into an alternate universe and befriends characters that challenge all
her imagination - gypsies, armored bears, and a boy not from her world. We'll
kick off a competition to design the best personal "daemon."
Nov. 16 th – WHAT DOES YOUR SOUL look like like? Lyra's is on the outside and
it changes shape? In Chapters 7-12, Lyra's life is turned upside down. Lord
Asriel is not what he seems, and for that matter, neither is the power-hungry
Mrs. Coulter. Lyra must be dependent on no one but
herself and reliant upon a few trustworthy friends. Bring a friend, bring an
artist, bring your artistic rendition of the daemon.
Nov. 30 th – WHY ARE RELIGION, POWER, and SCIENCE all connected? In the final
third (chapters 13-17) of Phillip Pullman's The Golden Compass Lyra discovers
who Lord Asriel is, but the truth is still being uncovered? Did you like the
end? Should you come to see the movie? Will read the other books?
Dec. 7th --- Matinee Outing and Ice Cream
*
* * *
* * *
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In case you’re wondering if since
this whole business is so completely outrageous I must have made it up, you can
check it out at Snopes.com: http://www.snopes.com/politics/religion/compass.asp
So am I the only one who finds this Golden Compass affair to be just a wee
bit creepy?
Hello?
ADDENDA
The
Puritan John Milton’s view of sex:
So spake our general Mother, and
with eyes
Of conjugal attraction unreprov’d,
And meek surrender, half-embracing
lean’d
On our first father, half her
swelling Breast
Naked met his under the flowing Gold
Of her loose tresses hid: he in
delight
Both of her beauty and submissive
Charms
Smil’d with superior Love, as
Jupiter
On Juno smiles, when he impregns the
Clouds
That shed May Flowers; and press’d
her Matron lip
With kisses pure; aside the Devil
turn’d
For envy, yet with jealous leer
malign
Ey’d them askance, and to himself
thus ‘plain’d.
“Sight
hateful, sight tormenting! thus these
two
Imparadis’t in one another’s arms
The happier
Of bliss on bliss, while I to Hell
am thrust,
Where neither joy nor love, but
fierce desire,
Among our other torments not the
least,
Still unfulfill’d with pain of
longing pines...
This
said unanimous, and other Rites
Observing none, but adoration pure
Which God likes best, into their
inmost bower
Handed they went; and eased the
putting off
These troublesome disguises which
wee wear,
Straight side by side were laid, nor
turn’d I ween
Adam from his fair spouse, nor Eve
the Rites
Mysterious of connubial Love
refuse’d;
Whatever Hypocrites austerely talk
Of purity and place and innocence,
Defaming as impure what God declares
Pure, and commands to some, leaves
free to all.
Our Maker bids increase, who bids
abstain
But our Destroyer, foe to God and
Man?
Hail wedded love, mysterious Law,
true source
Of human offspring, sole propriety,
In Paradise of all things common
else.
By thee adulterous lust was driv’n
from men
Among the bestial herds to range, by
thee
Founded in Reason, Loyal, Just, and
Pure,
Relations dear, and all the
Charities
Of Father, Son, and Brother first
were known.
Far be it, that I should write thee
sin or blame,
Or think thee unbefitting holiest
place,
Perpetual fountain of Domestic
sweets
Whose Bed is undefil’d and chaste
pronounce’t,
Present, or past, as Saints and
Patriarchs us’d.
Here Love his golden shafts employs,
here lights
His constant Lamp, and waves his
purple wings,
Reigns here and revels; not in the
bought smile
Of Harlots, loveless, joyless,
unendear’d,
Casual fruition, nor in Court Amours
Mixt Dance, or wanton Masque, or
Midnight Ball,
Or Serenade, which the starv’d Lover
sings
To his proud fair, best quitted with
disdain.
(
Links:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nopotter - Discussion group
http://www.sebts.edu/olivepressonline/index.cfm?PgType=2&ArticleID=614 - Article by Daniel Heimbach, Professor of Christian
Ethics, Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary
http://www.cwipp.org/articles.asp?id=256685§ion=Newsletter - Newsletter article by Dr. Peter Jones, adjunct Professor
of New Testament at Westminster Seminary
