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Holly3278
Guest
Hi everyone. I am in a debate with someone else on another forum about the Harry Potter books/movies. I said that they promote witchcraft. I honestly believe they do. But how do they promote witchcraft?
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homewardbound
Guest
They only do if you want them to.
Just like with any book. If you want to find evil within them, you will. If you want to find good in them, you will. If you just want to find enjoyment from them, thats what you will find.
Besides using witchcraft in the books, I can’t think of how they promote the use of it in real life.
Good luck in your debate, sorry I’m not more help.
Just like with any book. If you want to find evil within them, you will. If you want to find good in them, you will. If you just want to find enjoyment from them, thats what you will find.
Besides using witchcraft in the books, I can’t think of how they promote the use of it in real life.
Good luck in your debate, sorry I’m not more help.
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Holly3278
Guest
Oh its ok. But using your logic, you could find good in the Satanic Bible. Would you say that you could find good in the Satanic Bible?
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homewardbound
Guest
I haven’t tried. But I’m sure I could find some passage and spin some good out of it.Oh its ok. But using your logic, you could find good in the Satanic Bible. Would you say that you could find good in the Satanic Bible?
I read the books and enjoyed them. I don’t think their purpose is to try to turn kids into witches and wizards, but I definitely understand parents not wanting their kids to read them. But, since I do not have kids and am an adult and can draw a line between reality and fiction I cannot offer any real answers to what exactly is harmful besides them as a whole promoting witchcraft and portraying it in a good light.
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Catholic90
Guest
Well, they don’t promote witchcraft. I, along with my 3 boys, have read, repeatedly, all 7 books. We have watched the movies several times. None of us have ever attempted to do a spell. None of us have conjured a patronus. None of us have made bugs grow larger or caused another to turn to spit slugs, etc. It just has never happened. You see, we understand it is a FICTIONAL book. We all understand the difference between a fun make-believe book and real life. They are all well grounded, well catechised Catholic kids. They love HP. They love reading.
HP is a fun series that has turned kids onto reading. It has created special memories for me and my boys of me reading it to them when they were small, of us curled up in blankets together as we turned page after page together, of us eagerly anticipating the movies together and then comparing the movie results to the book and teaching them how a book is always so much better than a movie. We have not found one negative thing in the series, except maybe that they are done!
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deb1
Guest
I used the book to explain to my children that diviniation and spells were wrong in the real world.
Witchcraft itself is a religion and the series doesn’t promote religion of any kind, althought the characters do celebrate religious holidays.
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KathleenElsie
Guest
IMHO they promote a tolerance for dark-side of man. This is because they have tended to be seen as harmless, so when the next series comes out the story can become less controversial but contain more dark items. This is how the devil works. Make something mostly ok then make it a little less ok and so on.
My daughter allowed her boys to watch Harry and now she is having to explain why things in the book are not something they should be involved in. It is much easier to not let witchcraft into the home in the first place then to correct the situation later.
My daughter allowed her boys to watch Harry and now she is having to explain why things in the book are not something they should be involved in. It is much easier to not let witchcraft into the home in the first place then to correct the situation later.
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KathleenElsie
Guest
I believe the books promote the religion of “witchcraft.” It promotes it as being benign and harmless.
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NewUlm1976_2000
Guest
It does not promote witchcraft. Read the end of Book 7 and you will see what I mean (Chapter Platform 9 3/4).
The “witchcraft” is just a literary device to move the story along in the fantasy and fiction world.
The “witchcraft” is just a literary device to move the story along in the fantasy and fiction world.
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Deo_Volente
Guest
Grace & Peace!
I’ve not read any of the books, but the author has explicitly mentioned that the books revolve around Christian religious themes. Apparently, she stated this only recently for fear that, if she had spoken out earlier, the end of the series would have been easily guessed, and (I would suspect) that the popular culture would have dismissed them outright. See this article (from MTV of all places) mtv.com/news/articles/1572107/20071017/index.jhtml
Also, investigate the book “Unlocking Harry Potter: Keys for the Serious Reader” by John Granger which apparently argues that Rowling’s central themes are Christian and are expressed through the symbolic language of Christian Alchemy (once considered a sacred science). The site for the Roman Catholic journal “Second Spring” discusses the book quite favorably. Find it here: secondspring.co.uk/news/2007/08/02/the-last-enemy-that-shall-be-destroyed-is-death/
This is a salient portion of that review:
The idea that she has been trying to seduce children into the occult is ludicrous. Rowling is a Christian, and an admirer of C.S. Lewis. It may well be that when she chose as the motto of Hogwarts School the phrase ‘Never tickle a sleeping dragon’ (Draco dormiens numquam titillandus), she had in mind Lewis’s famous remark that stories of this kind can ’steal past a certain inhibition which had paralysed much of my own religion in childhood. Why did one find it so hard to feel as one was told one ought to feel about God or about the sufferings of Christ? I thought the chief reason was that one was told one ought to. An obligation to feel can freeze feelings. And reverence itself did harm. The whole subject was associated with lowered voices; almost as if it were something medical. But supposing that by casting all these things into an imaginary world, stripping them of their stained-glass and Sunday school associations, one could make them for the first time appear in their real potency? Could one not thus steal past those watchful dragons? I thought one could.’ It seems that Rowling may have felt that Lewis ‘tickled’ those dragons a bit too much, and she was determined to be even more careful.
One writer on Harry Potter, John Granger, seems to have accurately discerned the deeper structure and intention of the series - indeed, many of his predictions concerning the seventh book have come true. He also shows why the books have been so popular. One of his important insights is that Rowling uses symbolism drawn from Christian alchemy to express the journey of the human soul - Harry’s transformation in Christ. As Rowling herself said in 1998, ‘I’ve never wanted to be a witch, but an alchemist, now that’s a different matter.’ Granger explains that alchemy - as understood by Shakespeare, Blake, Milton and C.S. Lewis - is not ’stupid chemistry’ (let alone anti-Christian magic) but ‘the art of the transmutation of the soul.’ The outward work on metals and chemicals was merely a reflection of the inward work of purification, the ‘Great Work’ represented in the series by the seven years of Harry’s education at Hogwarts.
I hope this is helpful.
Under the Mercy,
Mark
Deo Gratias!
I’ve not read any of the books, but the author has explicitly mentioned that the books revolve around Christian religious themes. Apparently, she stated this only recently for fear that, if she had spoken out earlier, the end of the series would have been easily guessed, and (I would suspect) that the popular culture would have dismissed them outright. See this article (from MTV of all places) mtv.com/news/articles/1572107/20071017/index.jhtml
Also, investigate the book “Unlocking Harry Potter: Keys for the Serious Reader” by John Granger which apparently argues that Rowling’s central themes are Christian and are expressed through the symbolic language of Christian Alchemy (once considered a sacred science). The site for the Roman Catholic journal “Second Spring” discusses the book quite favorably. Find it here: secondspring.co.uk/news/2007/08/02/the-last-enemy-that-shall-be-destroyed-is-death/
This is a salient portion of that review:
The idea that she has been trying to seduce children into the occult is ludicrous. Rowling is a Christian, and an admirer of C.S. Lewis. It may well be that when she chose as the motto of Hogwarts School the phrase ‘Never tickle a sleeping dragon’ (Draco dormiens numquam titillandus), she had in mind Lewis’s famous remark that stories of this kind can ’steal past a certain inhibition which had paralysed much of my own religion in childhood. Why did one find it so hard to feel as one was told one ought to feel about God or about the sufferings of Christ? I thought the chief reason was that one was told one ought to. An obligation to feel can freeze feelings. And reverence itself did harm. The whole subject was associated with lowered voices; almost as if it were something medical. But supposing that by casting all these things into an imaginary world, stripping them of their stained-glass and Sunday school associations, one could make them for the first time appear in their real potency? Could one not thus steal past those watchful dragons? I thought one could.’ It seems that Rowling may have felt that Lewis ‘tickled’ those dragons a bit too much, and she was determined to be even more careful.
One writer on Harry Potter, John Granger, seems to have accurately discerned the deeper structure and intention of the series - indeed, many of his predictions concerning the seventh book have come true. He also shows why the books have been so popular. One of his important insights is that Rowling uses symbolism drawn from Christian alchemy to express the journey of the human soul - Harry’s transformation in Christ. As Rowling herself said in 1998, ‘I’ve never wanted to be a witch, but an alchemist, now that’s a different matter.’ Granger explains that alchemy - as understood by Shakespeare, Blake, Milton and C.S. Lewis - is not ’stupid chemistry’ (let alone anti-Christian magic) but ‘the art of the transmutation of the soul.’ The outward work on metals and chemicals was merely a reflection of the inward work of purification, the ‘Great Work’ represented in the series by the seven years of Harry’s education at Hogwarts.
I hope this is helpful.
Under the Mercy,
Mark
Deo Gratias!
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dessert
Guest
I just saw my first one the other day on the TV because there wasn’t anything else on, and something I can share with my dh, he likes them. It was the prisoner of something or somehwere, it really twisted my brain around and was a bit tricky. But I liked it. It reminded me of the Polar Express, (which I think taught a moral ideas) but we know Santa is you know our wish, but I would worry about crossing over if you can keep telling yourself I am not in Kansas anymore than just remember it is fiction, because some of it seems real.
The movies seem to try to appear feasible when they are not.
Are the Lord of the Rings series of movies any different?
At least Harry has real people names.
The movies seem to try to appear feasible when they are not.
Are the Lord of the Rings series of movies any different?
At least Harry has real people names.
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estesbob
Guest
Well since I read them I am holding weekl black masses in my basement and afterwards we try spells on each other. Havent beem sucessfull yet-I suspect its because the cat hair core in my wand is not as effective as a Phoenix feather.
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Windmill
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I guess we are also all warped because we watched Star Wars which promoted telekinesis, mindreading, and New Age-ism (nature religion) aka. the Force.
Harry Potter and the Christian Critics
By Mark Shea
Harry Potter and the Christian Critics
By Mark Shea
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Contarini
Guest
They don’t. If you think they do, you should have a reason. If you are looking for a reason, that indicates that you hold your opinion simply out of unconsidered prejudice. Otherwise, why ask others to give you a reason for your own opinion? That’s pretty weird.
Edwin
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Rand_Al_Thor
Guest
They do not promote witchcraft or any bad things. I am getting tired of people–usually people who have not read the books–saying this.
“The last ememy to be conquered is death.”
That quote appears on Harry’s parent’s grave. And guess who wrote it first? St. Paul.
In Christ,
Rand
“The last ememy to be conquered is death.”
That quote appears on Harry’s parent’s grave. And guess who wrote it first? St. Paul.
In Christ,
Rand
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KathleenElsie
Guest
Read them, listened to them on tape and watched them. Adults know the difference between fantasy and reality I hope. But children do not always discern between the two.
So I will agree with PAPA Benedict and say they are not profitable for children.
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estesbob
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Joe_5859
Guest
I understand where you are coming from. I used to feel the same way. The more I have looked into it, the more I have come to believe that Harry Potter does not promote witchcraft. Let me explain.
Catholic author Amy Welborn (who has written numerous books against “The Da Vinci Code”) sums it up quite succinctly in an article on her website:
If these books came out 30 years ago, there would not have been any controversy whatsoever. The rise of Wicca has muddied the waters.
Can people take Harry Potter the wrong way? Absolutely. People do the same thing with “The Lord of the Rings.” People have also used the Bible to promote bad things at times. Just because something can be misused does not automatically mean there is something inherently wrong with the thing itself.
A good book on the subject from a Catholic perspective is The Mystery of Harry Potter by Nancy Carpentier Brown. She gives some good insights into the differences between real-world witchcraft and that employed in Potter. As in the Mark Shea article linked to above (a great article by the way), Potter magic is incantational, not invocational. Magical abilities are something you’re born with in Potter world, not something that requires an appeal to evil forces.
It’s an interesting phenomenon. High-profile “traditional” Catholics who normally agree on everything find themselves on opposite sides of the spectrum when it comes to Harry Potter. What is most needed I think is charity in our discussion on these matters.
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deb1
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I could guess by the font that you use that you were an evil, evil man.
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estesbob
Guest
***smileys.smileycentral.com/cat/15/15_4_127.gif**Really? smileys.smileycentral.com/cat/36/36_1_16.gifI could guess by the font that you use that you were an evil, evil man.
smileycentral.com/sig.jsp?pc=ZSzeb114&pp=ZS*
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