Dear jilly4ski,
Cordial greetings and thankyou for your reply to my post.
No commentator who has written a thoughtful critique of the Potter tales has ever suggested that there is a formal religion of witchcraft as such in the novels. But how does secular culture today understand and define “spiritual”?; the immaterial, an unseen force, a power that interfaces with human existence? By this definition Potter-world is replete with religion. Moreover, it must be viewed in the context of the modern world, where materialism has, alas, blurred the lines between formal religion and spiritualities.
In the Potter books there are rituals, for example the Sorting Hat scene, in which an undefined power determines which of the four houses of Hogwarts the student witches and wizards will enter, to some extent reading each student’s character and influencing his destiny. There is an inference of supernatural gnosis here, or a hint of some higher power. There is also divination in various forms ranging from the silly to the deadly earnest. There are ghosts attached to each house, again implying access to spiritual dimensions.
The sorting hat “ritual” really? The hat that places them in a “house” at school so they can get to know friends who have the same goals and values, and in no way affects the students character or destiny. I am confused, now reference to any kind of supernatural is bad? What about God, he is supernatural last time I checked. We as Catholics believe in the existence of the supernatural, in angels, and demons. Oh and the ghosts in HP have no connection with the “other world” They are merely another being in this world like the house elves, goblins, giants, etc.
Then we have the issue of the curriculum: some of the book titles in Harry’s training are appropriated from the real world of witchcraft. This is very alarming because children can google those titles on the internet and be instantly connected to a variety of sights offering them portals into the real world of witchcraft, sorcery and even overt Satanism. As Christian parent’s does all this really sit comfortably with our Catholicism and, for that matter, is it even compatible with it?
So you oppose all fantasy fiction that has any reference to magic what so ever right? Even Narnia and LOTRs, because what you say can be imputed to all fantasy fiction.
Many of the practices in the books are the same as the real thing, but they are sanitized, made to appear scary but fun, without any long-term consequences. To be fair, they do show that some activities can be physically dangerous, but the dominant message throughout is that if one has enough knowledge and skill then one can get through the dangers.
Like what?
When people defend these unwholesome books by remarking that the tales disconnect witchcraft from spiritual realities, and that there really is no danger of the child wanting to go from fantasy fiction witchcraft to actual witchcraft, they are leaping to a huge conclusion devoid of emprical evidence.
So are you when you claim the opposite.
It is quite true that the books appear at first glance to disconnect witchcraft from the spiritual and present it all as exciting stuff and in no way spiritually dangerous. However, herein lies the danger because it makes the Potter series potentially more corrupting by giving the child a false sense of what witchcraft is really all about.
Finally, I am quite intrigued by the way Rowling consistently portrays those characters who are critical or fearful of magic as vicious abusers or utterly ignorant. Is this an oblique authorial pre-emptive strike against any who dare criticise her work?, or perhaps an attempt to soften a child reader’s instinctive aversion to the horrible?, or to subtly override whatever cautions against witchcraft and sorcery a child may have learned from his parent’s or the Church?
Sigh, because the magic in HP is an inherited innate trait, not something you can teach yourself. So the fact that people are critical or fearful of magic, it is a problem, because the witches and wizards in HP have to learn how to use their magic or accidents can happen, like when Harry made his Aunt swell, or let the snake out of its cage. To hate magic in HP is to hate people, like hating the mutants in the X-men. Or how unreasonable it would be for you to hate tall people, or short people, or etc.
The Dursley’s, for example, are utterly despicable characters and decidedly against magic. In volume 4 we learn Voldemort, the archetype of radical evil, began life as student named Riddle, whom the author informs us was abandoned by his father as child, and that his father was against magic. In short, the greatest evils, according to the narrative, have their root cause in anti-magic types!
Indeed hatred against what people are can be the root of many evils. Can you deny this. The Dursleys hate magic and the people who can’t help it that they have magic. Kind of like Hitler hated the Jews, even ones who no longer practiced that faith…
Warmest good wishes,
Portrait
Pax
And I’m 32!