Are fairy tales evil?

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fakename

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That is, are they cases of occult practice?

I have been thinking about it and occult practice seems to mean soliciting info. or effects by using naturally and causally inadequate means through the help of knowledge gained through the devil, spirits, etc. Also, I know at least some of it can be effective even with tacit invocations (invoking even w/o belief). In my opinion it could be the case that any of it could be sinful w/o belief.

So given that, would a story where a guy divines something be good because even though the audience doesn’t believe in what is happening, again it could be bad even w/o belief. venially sinful w/o belief yes, but still sinful and also, possibly gateways for the devil.

your thoughts?
 
fakename said:
That is, are they cases of occult practice?
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No. They are stories.
fakename said:
I have been thinking about it and occult practice seems to mean soliciting info. or effects by using naturally and causally inadequate means through the help of knowledge gained through the devil, spirits, etc. Also, I know at least some of it can be effective even with tacit invocations (invoking even w/o belief). In my opinion it could be the case that any of it could be sinful w/o belief.

So given that, would a story where a guy divines something be good because even though the audience doesn’t believe in what is happening, again it could be bad even w/o belief. venially sinful w/o belief yes, but still sinful and also, possibly gateways for the devil.

your thoughts?
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What you said above makes absolutely no sense to me.
 
I think you are over thinking it. As the first respondent stated, fairy tales are just stories. They are fiction, not reality. They are a type of fictional story where the author makes up people, places and new species to express a deeper principal or meaning. If fairy tales as a genre are sinful (evil) then I dare say that the fictional genre as a whole would be considered sinful as well. That would place even Jesus in a state of sin since he told parables.

Here is a link to a site where you can read a not-so-well-known essay written by Tolkien on the subject of Fairy Tales. Peter Kreeft has said that it is the wisest thing he has ever read on the subject. (Dr. Kreeft is one of the finest teachers of the Catholic Faith around today.)

brainstorm-services.com/wcu-2004/fairystories-tolkien.html
 
It sounds like you have something in mind but haven’t been specific enough about it. I’m thinking of some of the old fairy tales, not Alice in Wonderland, Harry Potter or Narnia type tales, but the Grimms Brothers. There were evil characters, wicked withces, nasty stepmothers, trolls, but nothing that I can recall would invoke the evil one.
 
It seems to me that the old fairy tales had evil characters (witches, trolls, a dragon=symbol of evil) that lost. In murder mysteries, the killer gets caught. These stories have a good message. Without that, there might be a danger of glamourizing evil.
 
For ages, children must have been told stories that were enhanced with verbal intonation and perhaps some acting out. Today, there are multimedia tales for children, where the visual and auditory components are greatly enhanced.

It certainly may be that the significance of the fairy tales may be too much for the children to comprehend, it may be over their head. I think they can “pick up” on the sympathetic characters and the non-sympathetic characters.

But, fairy tales today have ulterior motives, like creating demand for items that are for sale.

They can also mislead children about reality. Don’t tell me to explain it, but…my niece’s son had to be taken out of his pre-school session one day. He heard the Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer song, and he became hysterical at the line “you’ll go down in history.”

Much later, after a lot of intervention, he explained to mom that he thought Rudolph was going away and never coming back. Even when reassured, he has been very nervous about this whenever it comes up. It’s hard to dodge that favorite Santa song at Christmas.

He’s otherwise an impressively smart four-year-old, but he couldn’t handle this thing that he didn’t understand.

So, the answer to the thread question is also, it depends on the child.
 
I suppose that what I meant to say was that it doesn’t take any specific intention to summon bad spirits or to commit the sin of superstition. It only matters that you perform the act intentionally (you don’t have to think anything will happen, you just have to intentionally perform the act of say, divination). But actions are not just physical they are also mental. And so my concern was that in a cartoon or some such thing that featured divination, where the charm of the story stems from the divining, the viewer/listener must necessarily mentally go through the act of divination in order to get the story. Regardless of belief he is still, by my definitions -which I picked out of the catholic encyclopedia- divining the future.

But I asked my question because this conclusion seemed rather improbable that is, fairy tales are always told and nothing ever happens and if people were accidentally falling into the sin of superstition, you would think the church would warn people more often.
 
Thread drift warning

Favorite fairy tale quote, from Chesterton:

“When we step into the family, by the act of being born, we do step into a world which is incalculable, into a world which has its own strange laws, into a world which could do without us, into a world we have not made. In other words, when we step into the family we step into a fairy-tale.”
 
fakename said:
I suppose that what I meant to say was that it doesn’t take any specific intention to summon bad spirits or to commit the sin of superstition. It only matters that you perform the act intentionally (you don’t have to think anything will happen, you just have to intentionally perform the act of say, divination). But actions are not just physical they are also mental. And so my concern was that in a cartoon or some such thing that featured divination, where the charm of the story stems from the divining, the viewer/listener must necessarily mentally go through the act of divination in order to get the story. Regardless of belief he is still, by my definitions -which I picked out of the catholic encyclopedia- divining the future.

But I asked my question because this conclusion seemed rather improbable that is, fairy tales are always told and nothing ever happens and if people were accidentally falling into the sin of superstition, you would think the church would warn people more often.
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I think that perhaps you are overly scrupulous.
 
No, there is nothing wrong with fantasy stories and ferry tales.

You’re not alone in your thinking though, considering all the people here who say Harry Potter books are evil. It’s just silliness.
 
tafan said:
Thread drift warning

Favorite fairy tale quote, from Chesterton:

“When we step into the family, by the act of being born, we do step into a world which is incalculable, into a world which has its own strange laws, into a world which could do without us, into a world we have not made. In other words, when we step into the family we step into a fairy-tale.”
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Dang… Beat me to it. Yes, read “Orthodoxy” by G.K. Chesterton. You will think Fairy Tales are more real than reality.

What could be a bigger fairy tale than a guy born of a virgin who fully man and fully God who died so that we could be saved from sin and then rose from the dead?

Yes victoria, there is a Santa Clause.

-Tim-
 
TimothyH said:
Dang… Beat me to it. Yes, read “Orthodoxy” by G.K. Chesterton. You will think Fairy Tales are more real than reality.

What could be a bigger fairy tale than a guy born of a virgin who fully man and fully God who died so that we could be saved from sin and then rose from the dead?

Yes victoria, there is a Santa Clause.

-Tim-
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Glad you appreciated it, and I like your followup very much. We are Catholics, the supernatural should be very real to us. Fairy tales are not only not evil, they are a good thing for young minds. The world of the supernatural should be a wonder at a young age, its easy to sort out the true from the not-so-true later on. Much harder to accept the supernatural later on if all you have been taught is the natural.
 
Debora123 said:
No, there is nothing wrong with fantasy stories and ferry tales.

You’re not alone in your thinking though, considering all the people here who say Harry Potter books are evil. It’s just silliness.
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You’re just silliness.
 
I seriously doubt that fairy tales are evil. I mean, they are just stories which are the product of the author’s imagination. What is so evil about using one’s imagination to come up with a story which just so happens to be a fairy tale?
 
Debora123 said:
No, there is nothing wrong with fantasy stories and ferry tales.

You’re not alone in your thinking though, considering all the people here who say Harry Potter books are evil. It’s just silliness.
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I don’t like Harry Potter books. However, that does not mean that the books in and of themselves are evil. I don’t like them because I believe that a child or teenager may somehow be inspired to try and practice Occult magic which is evil due to reading them. Now, granted, not all children and teenagers are going to be inspired to practice Occult magic just by reading Harry Potter. That is why I say that the books themselves are not evil.
 
fakename said:
That is, are they cases of occult practice?

I have been thinking about it and occult practice seems to mean soliciting info. or effects by using naturally and causally inadequate means through the help of knowledge gained through the devil, spirits, etc. Also, I know at least some of it can be effective even with tacit invocations (invoking even w/o belief). In my opinion it could be the case that any of it could be sinful w/o belief.

So given that, would a story where a guy divines something be good because even though the audience doesn’t believe in what is happening, again it could be bad even w/o belief. venially sinful w/o belief yes, but still sinful and also, possibly gateways for the devil.

your thoughts?
Click to expand...
They are not any kind of “practice”. They are simply fictional stories.
 
Holly3278 said:
I don’t like Harry Potter books. However, that does not mean that the books in and of themselves are evil. I don’t like them because I believe that a child or teenager may somehow be inspired to try and practice Occult magic which is evil due to reading them. Now, granted, not all children and teenagers are going to be inspired to practice Occult magic just by reading Harry Potter. That is why I say that the books themselves are not evil.
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Any person can be inspired to do anything by reading anything.

I’ve heard of cases of people doing some horrible, HORRIBLE things… supposedly all influenced by some crazy interpretation of something they read in the BIBLE.

You are right. Most books themselves are not evil - including Harry Potter.
 
They seem to be a gateway to religion. Theist Parents know this and it helps them to make a distinction to their child about which stories are real.
 
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