Harry Potter is unsafe for Christians Pope Opposes Harry Potter Novels Signed Letters from Cardinal Ratzinger Now Online

The mark of the lamb and the Spirit

The people who bear physically, mentally and spiritually marks on their bodies out of some evil passion are children of the beast and are slaves of the beast. We Christians have on our foreheads the name of the Lamb and His father’s name and the mark of the Spirit and we are asked to follow wherever the Lamb leads us. “Then I looked and there was the Lamb standing on Mount Zion, and with him a hundred and forty-four thousand who had his name and his Father's name written on their foreheads” (Rev.14: 1). “I heard the number of those who had been marked with the seal, one hundred and forty-four thousand marked from every tribe of the Israelites” (Rev. 7:4). And St. Paul reminds us of the mark of the Spirit, “And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God with which you are marked with a seal for the day of redemption”, (Eph. 4: 30).

Conclusion

The Harry Potter series and the Da Vinci Code are indeed the fulfilment of the Biblical prophecies, as we have seen above. People’s minds were usually fed with sex and violence earlier. But now there are clearly four main dishes, sex, violence, deceit and the occult served even to innocent children. So the evil is actively working, destroying the innocence of both believers and the little ones. This is catching up everywhere as we see how the modern religious teachers – the so-called “animators” – ignore the divinity of Jesus Christ and speak only about his human side. St. Paul had rightly said, “For the time is coming when people will accumulate teachers for themselves to suit their own desires, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander away to myths”, (2 Tim. 4:3-4).

To make their programmes successful they have to project before the young films on sex, violence, deceit and the occult. By their actions they are fulfilling the prophecies on the coming of the two beasts in the form of Harry Potter and the Da Vinci Code. These two books stand for what St. Paul calls, “deceitful spirits and demonic instructions through the hypocrisy of liars with branded consciences,” (1 Tim. 4: 1-2).

Harry Potter film "Pottermania" has a dark side

https://www.heraldguide.com/spirit-weekly/author-warns-of-the-pottermania-dark-side/
California, USA, July 10, 2007

An author and expert on the Harry Potter phenomenon says the "Pottermania" sweeping the world with the July 2007 release of J.K. Rowling's seventh book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows and the fifth Harry Potter film, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, has a dark side of which parents and society should beware.

Steve Wohlberg, bestselling author of "Exposing Harry Potter and Witchcraft: The Menace beneath the Magic" (Destiny Image, 2007), understands that Wiccans love nature, don't believe in a "Christian devil" and are non-violent. No witch basher, he believes in religious freedom. Nevertheless, he is concerned about the social impact of the occult, Christian Newswire reported Monday.
While most consider anti-Potterism to be unwarranted, concerns remain among many parents over a surging interest in "Wicca" (witchcraft) among teens. Increasing numbers frequent Wicca websites, cast "Love and Money Spells" and practice "white magic." Wohlberg suggests it is not just fictional fun, but something truly supernatural and dangerous going on.
Wohlberg warns that Wiccans summoning "nature spirits" in their rituals enter dangerous territory. "Occultism has a dark side," he warned, "and practitioners can easily become trapped like a fly in a spider web." Ex-witches themselves share riveting testimonies in Wohlberg's book.
"There's plenty of real occultism embedded in Rowling's fantasy works," he said, "and in spite of naïve popular opinion, Pottermania is aiding Wicca's growth." Even the founder of a major Witchcraft school agrees (his website is called a "Cyber Hogwarts").


Wohlberg is the Speaker/Director of White Horse Media in Fresno, Calif., TV producer (Amazing Discoveries, Israel in Prophecy, Hour of the Witch), radio host (World News and the Bible) and the author of 14 books. He's been a guest on over 500 radio and TV shows, including CNN Radio, USA Radio, American Family Radio, Cable Radio Network, Information Radio Network, Focus 4 and The Harvest Show.

Is Harry Potter conjuring a generation of Witches?

https://www.avoidharrypotter.com/

White Horse Media and bestselling author Steve Wohlberg dis"spell" popular opinion about Harry Potter and provide compelling evidence that J.K. Rowling's series fuels interest in casting spells, mixing potions and joining Wiccan covens among kids, teens and adults.




Exposing Harry Potter and Witchcraft: The Menace Beneath the Magic by Steve Wohlberg

•Discover what Harry Potter fans don't know about Harry Potter

•Discover what real Witches don't know about Witchcraft

•Learn to relate intelligently to Witches and Pagans

•Fair. Balanced. Credible. Eye-opening

•Protect yourself and your loved ones from deceptive supernatural forces!

With B.A. and M-Div. degrees in theology, Steve Wohlberg is currently the Speaker/Director of White Horse Media (Newport, WA). Television producer, radio host, and the author of 30+ books, he has been a guest on over 500 radio and television shows, has appeared in three History Channel documentaries, and has spoken by special invitation inside the Pentagon and U.S. Senate. He currently lives in Priest River, Idaho, with his wife Kristin, and their two small children, Seth and Abigail. He also writes a monthly column for the Wisconsin Christian News.

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Your Questions Answered

In a nutshell, what's wrong with Harry Potter?

What would you say to parents who are considering buying the newest installment for their kids?

Where do you see evidence that Harry is causing an upswing in the popularity of Wicca / Witchcraft?

How does this upswing "spell trouble" for society?

How would you like readers to respond to this information?

What will your readers understand after finishing your book?

What DOES the Bible have to say about Harry Potter?

How does Harry Potter differ from other fantasy genre books aimed at youth?

Judging Harry Potter

http://www.ncregister.com/site/article/judging_harry_potter

By Fr. Alfonso Aguilar LC, August 26, 2007 (See page 167 ff.)

"I didn’t intend to write a piece on Harry Potter. I thought it would have added more fuel onto the Potter hype machine.

I felt the urge to write this article, though, after reading Kathleen Donovan’s letter to the editor “The Devil and Harry Potter” (NCR, August 19-25).
Mrs. Donovan was an avid reader of the Register until she found that Steven Greydanus’ critique of the fifth Potter movie Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix implied “that the Pope and the Vatican officials have not come down upon the witchcraft and occult themes in the books and films by Rowling.”
Mrs. Donovan quotes Father Gabriele Amorth, president of the International Association of Exorcists, as declaring: “Behind Harry Potter hides the signature of the king of darkness, the devil.”
Many good Christian thinkers share similar opinions. Among them we find Michael O’Brien, Susan Moore, Berit Kjos (see page 112), Vivian Dudro, Gabriele Kuby, and Richard Abanes, author of Harry Potter and the Bible: The Menace Behind the Magick.
Other good Christian writers offer, instead, a Christian interpretation of the Potter saga, as you may read in the essays by Catherine and David Deavel, Robert Trexler, Alan Jacobs, Serge Tisseron, Pietro Citati and Massimo Introvigne (see page 110), to name a few.
What to think about such a clash of opinions? Many Catholics, like Mrs. Donovan, are rightly concerned about children’s faith and formation. Is the devil somehow hiding in this best-selling story?
I read the whole Potter series, watched the first four films, and made a few comments on Rowling’s narrative in three Register articles (April and May 2003). I now intend to offer a few clarifications and distinctions that might help the reader form a better criterion for judging the Potter phenomenon and its predictable consequences.
Let us tackle four questions about the Potter books and films:

(1) Is there any Vatican endorsement or disapproval of them?

(2) Do we find in them some subtle Satanic presence?

(3) Are the contents of the books compatible with our Christian faith?

(4) Is it advisable to let children read and watch Harry Potter?


Any Vatican Position?
Headlines such as “Pope Approves Potter” (Toronto Star) littered the mainstream media after Msgr. Peter Fleetwood commented on the Harry Potter books at a Vatican press conference on the New Age in 2003.
But the Holy See takes no official position on fictional literature.
Offhand comments by Msgr. Fleetwood and members of the Roman Curia about Harry Potter are merely personal opinions.
In this category of personal opinions we should include Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger’s March 7, 2003, letter to Gabriele Kuby in response to her German book Harry Potter: Good or Evil?: “It is good that you enlighten people about Harry Potter,” he wrote, “because those are subtle seductions, which act unnoticed and by this deeply distort Christianity in the soul, before it can grow properly.”
Such an opinion is worth respect and consideration, but doesn’t bind Catholics to think in exactly the same way. Note how Cardinal Ratzinger presented his view in a private letter and not in a formal statement as a prefect of Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.


Devil’s Work?
For an accurate answer to the question, let’s make a double distinction. Let us first distinguish between the nature of Rowling’s works and their possible consequences.
Does the phenomenon bear a Satanic imprint?
Other exorcists do not see it in the way Father Amorth did.
“The books in themselves are not bad,” well-known exorcist Father José Antonio Fortea has been quoted saying. “They are merely literary fantasies in the manner of stories that have existed in Europe since the Middle Ages. I am neither in favor of condemning nor prohibiting them. To me, they are just unobjectionable stories.”
Most of the handful of exorcists who have aired their opinions in the media, including Father Fortea, show concern about the possible outcome rather than the nature of the fictional works. They warn the faithful about their potential to lead people into the occult and perhaps even to Satanism.
And here comes our second distinction.
It would be unfair to judge Rowling’s works exclusively on the basis of their references to witchcraft and the occult without taking literary symbolism into account. Exorcists are the most trustworthy experts we have on the occult — but not necessarily on literature. Harry Potter is a story, not a boy to be exorcised.
Some good Christian literary critics read Rowling’s esoteric references as a way to decry, not to promote, the occult.
“The Potter series is not about the occult or witchcraft but actually just the opposite,” explained Nancy Brown, author of the recent novel The Mystery of Harry Potter.
In his books The Hidden Key to Harry Potter and Looking for God in Harry Potter, John Granger tries to show that Rowling’s “themes, imagery, and engaging stories echo the Great Story” — the story of God who became man.
In The Gospel According to Harry Potter, Connie Neal presents counterarguments to the idea that the Potter books are about witchcraft. She also finds a lot of connections to Bible passages. John Killinger develops similar points in God, the Devil and Harry Potter.
Although I personally disagree with these authors’ main theses, they make a good point: References to the occult and the Satanic do not necessarily imply an attempt to lure people into the forbidden world, because the texts can be interpreted in different ways.
From the fact that millions of Potter readers and movie-watchers give no thought to Wicca, we may infer that Harry Potter is not, by nature, a devilish work and that it doesn’t necessarily lead people into the wrong practices.
Prudence should lead us to take various opinions, from exorcists and literary critics, into consideration.

Christian or Anti-Christian?
Our third question deals with the contents of the novels and movies. Let me propose a crucial distinction that I never find in the Potter debate — a distinction between values and philosophy in fiction.
By values, we may understand the virtues and moral teachings presented in a story.
Great values shine throughout the Potter saga and reach their climax in the seventh installment, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.
Let me mention some of them.
Harry’s mother’s love for her son and self-sacrifice saved the future hero from being killed by Lord Voldemort. In a like manner, Harry would later give himself up to save his friends. His heroic generosity plays the key role in the victory of good over evil.
Harry, Hermione and Ron are characterized by their perseverance in the fulfillment of their mission in the midst of overwhelming difficulties. They are also concerned about the lives of their enemies with no desire for revenge. Remorse is presented as a way of self-redemption. The unsound quest to master death is discouraged. High ideals are encouraged. Good family life is appealing.
These and many other values one may find in the series refresh the soul in the current suffocating environment of anti-values that are often exhibited in products of the entertainment industry. Such values can inspire people in their life.
Values are not to be confused with philosophy. By philosophy we mean the concept of God, man and the universe underlying a story plot fully developed as a worldview.
Children’s stories, such as Cinderella and Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, do not presume to portray ideas about our world and the realm of transcendence. They are short and simple stories with moral lessons. Harry Potter, instead, encompasses an implicit but integrated philosophical view of reality.
Let’s take a brief look at it.
In Potter’s world, the divine is, in my opinion, pantheistic. The only transcendent reality that exists is (white) magic. A fictional story, of course, does not have to present the Christian truths nor the Christian God. The question is whether or not there is room for a Christian God in the story. In Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, God does not show up, yet he may fit in the background as the one who gave Gandalf certain powers and a new life. Gandalf did not get them by himself.
Not so with Harry Potter.
Once the magic reigns as the ultimate level of reality, a personal God cannot fit in. Magical powers form the highest aspiration.
A certain monistic dualism, characteristic of Gnostic thought, looms over the plot, too.
Lord Voldemort’s and Death Eaters’ dark arts derive from the corruption of white magic, very much as the “dark side of the force” came from the bad use of “the force” in the Star Wars series.
Consider now the concept of man implicit in J.K. Rowling’s narrative. Humans, called “muggles,” are divided into three categories: ordinary “muggles” with no magical power who disdain the magic world (the despicable Dursley family); “muggles” who fancy the magic world but cannot reach it (Hermione Granger’s parents); and the witches and wizards.
The ideal is, no doubt, to become a good witch or wizard. What’s the way? Train yourself to look into yourself to find the magical powers within you.
Good training requires masters who help make you aware of the magical (“divine”) forces in your spirit. These are the professors at the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Albus Dumbledore, the school headmaster, is the main spiritual guide.
Year after year, through training and exercise, Harry Potter becomes ever more aware of his inner powers and can, thus, use more sophisticated spells and jinxes.
In the fourth installment, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, we read: “Harry had soon mastered the Impediment Curse, a spell to slow down and obstruct attackers; the Reductor Curse, which would enable him to blast solid objects out of his way; and the Four-Point Spell, a useful discovery of Hermione’s that would make his wand point due north, therefore enabling him to check whether he was going in the right direction within the maze.”
The Star Wars films follow a similar pattern.
There are humans and creatures who do not enjoy the use of “the force.” Only the Jedi, such as Luke Skywalker, who was trained by masters Obi-Wan Kenobi and Yoda, obtain a full control over “the force.”
In both cases, the role of the human body is downplayed, as if it were not an essential part of one’s own personhood. The spirit, where the realm of the magic or of “the force” dwells, is the inner true self. This view of man sounds Gnostic to me.
We come, finally, to the concept of the world. Harry Potter’s physical universe is not explicitly viewed as a prison for mankind created by evil demons, as it appears in classical Gnostic ideologies.
Yet it is portrayed as less “real” than the wizard world — the fantastic realm of powers whose gate can only be opened by the key of esoteric knowledge. Doesn’t the reader feel more “at home” at Hogwarts than in the boring material world of muggles?
To me, the fact that only witches and wizards are able to see the Platform Nine and Three-Quarters at King’s Cross station is meaningful. Those whose spirits are in the magic world can see “more” than ordinary people or muggles. They live in a spiritual (magical) dimension that frees them from the laws of the material world.


Is Potter Good for Kids?
Suppose that my interpretation of the Potter worldview is right. One should then appreciate and learn from Rowling’s values and leave aside her philosophy. Values can be uprooted from the soil they are grounded in and become inspiring lessons. You may enjoy the look and the fragrance of flowers even as you take them from the dirt in which they blossomed.
But whether a book or a movie is harmful to its audience depends as much upon the audience as upon the narrative.
“To the right reader, Harry Potter can be as harmless as Glinda the Good Witch or Cinderella’s fairy godmother,” says Steven Greydanus in his excellent essay Harry Potter vs. Gandalf. “For another young reader, he could be a stumbling block.”
Who are the “right” Potter readers?
I believe we will find them among well-formed Christians, those who do not feel the lure of the magic, and those who can distinguish — by themselves or by with help of their tutors — the Potter values from the Potter philosophy.
Who are the “wrong” readers?
Vulnerable or at-risk children may be those who do not have a particularly strong commitment to their faith, or show a troubling pattern of general interest in magic or in dark or grotesque imagery.
We have, in short, right and wrong audiences. While many kids will get inspired for the good with no negative effect, others may be affected for worse.
That’s why we should bear in mind the warnings of exorcists and other thinkers about children’s contact with the magic.
“Just like violence and pornography, kids are desensitized by exposure,” said Matthew Arnold, producer of the three-tape set The Trouble With Harry.
In the end, parents are the best-equipped judges to discern how suitable Rowling’s works might be for their children. They may also be their best guides to let them distinguish the wheat from the chaff.
In conclusion, I suggest considering the following four criteria as common ground for reasonable discussions.
First, the reading of Harry Potter is a debatable issue, not a matter of faith.
Second, nothing proves that Rowling’s fiction is a work of the devil or a path that necessarily leads to evil practices.
Third, a distinction can be made between the narrative’s values and philosophy. Consequently, we may be able to draw the good lessons from the story while remaining untouched by whatever may be wrong in it.
Fourth, decisions about the appropriateness of the Potter novels and movies for children can only be made on a case-by-case basis.
If we keep these criteria in mind, we may leave behind some bitter clashes and gain some profit from the Potter debate."

The Next Stage in De-Christianization of Fairy Tales?

Michael D. O’Brien’s Continued Critique of Harry Potter
https://zenit.org/articles/the-next-stage-in-de-christianization-of-fairy-tales/

Combermere, Ontario, December 20, 2001

Could Harry Potter´s world of wizardry entice its young audience into the occult?

Maybe, says Michael D. O´Brien, the author of “A Landscape With Dragons: The Battle for Your Child´s Mind” (Ignatius Press, 1998) and a pointed critic of the Potter phenomenon.

Here, the Canadian writer and Catholic father of six continues his second ZENIT interview (see first part in Dec. 18 archives) on the enormously popular J.K. Rowling novels.

Q: It has been argued that the cults are in decline, and therefore it is untrue to say that children are in greater danger these days of falling under their influence.

O´Brien: Even if they are in decline, the issue does not change. Statistics can be quite misleading. How much real decline is hard to assess. A priest friend of mine who a few years ago worked in a Catholic information office in the Archdiocese of Paris, told me there were approximately 500 known pagan cults operating in the city at the time, and that a larger number were active underground.

In fact, actual occult practice is soaring, usually not associated with public cults or organizations. It is now mainstreaming, especially among the young, who are getting into witchcraft and sorcery in growing numbers through internet, occult shops, libraries, peer pressure, etc. — through private and semi-private avenues.

Father Gabriel Amorth´s book “An Exorcist Tells His Story” [Ignatius Press, 1999] examines this phenomenon. He is the chief exorcist of the Diocese of Rome, and has a lot to say about the rise of witchcraft and sorcery, and the resulting damage to the young generation through diabolic influence. He cites as a major cause the proliferation of occult lures through books, film, videos and Internet.

Q: In your articles on the subject you have referred to the Potter series as Gnostic. Isn´t this inaccurate, because the Gnostics were dualists? They saw material creation as evil, and only spiritual things as good. The world of Harry Potter is full of fun and its characters delight in adventures and parties and food and friendship. It sounds positive, full of life.

O´Brien: There was a wide variety of Gnostic sects in the first and second centuries, declining in the third century. But Gnosticism never entirely disappeared, emerging throughout the following centuries in a variety of forms, notably medieval alchemy and in the later occult movements of our own era.

It is significant that the late corruptions of traditional fairy tales — by which I mean the taming of timeless symbols of evil, and sometimes the inversion of the metaphors of good and evil — were brought about by writers who were involved in the esoteric religious movements of the 19th and 20th centuries.

A number of modern film adaptations of classic fairy tales are actually de-Christianized versions of literature that once reinforced the moral order of the universe, and no longer does so. Harry Potter represents the next stage in that process.

When I say that the Potter series is Gnostic, I am referring to the essence of Gnosticism. It is true that a majority of the early sects were dualist, that is, they despised material creation and exalted the spiritual — definitely an anti-incarnational cosmology. But some sects were pantheistic, believing that what they called the “divine emanations” could be found within nature.

There was even a so-called Christian Gnosticism that tried to incorporate elements of Christian faith into their pagan worldview. They saw Christianity as a myth that contained some truths, and that Gnosticism was the full truth. Common to all of them, pantheist and dualist alike, was the belief that obtaining secret gnosis or knowledge was salvation. I would refer your readers to the studies of modern Gnosticism by Eric Voegelin, Thomas Molnar and Wolfgang Smith.

Q: There is no reference in the Potter series to anything spiritual. There are no religious practices described. So how can you really say that magic in Potter-world is anything like witchcraft in the real world?

O´Brien: There is no formal religion of witchcraft as such in the books. But how does secular culture understand and define “spiritual”? The immaterial, an unseen force, a power that interfaces with human existence? By this definition, Potter world is filled with religion. Furthermore, it must be seen in the context of the modern world, where materialism has 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 go into, to some extent reading each student´s character and influencing his or her destiny. There is an inference of supernatural gnosis here, a hint of some “higher” power. There is also divination in various forms ranging from silly to deadly earnest. There are ghosts attached to each house, again implying access to spiritual dimensions.

Then there´s the matter of curriculum: Some of the book titles in Harry´s training are lifted straight out of the world of real witchcraft. Children can type those titles into a search engine on the Internet and be instantly connected to a variety of sites offering them portals into the real world of witchcraft, sorcery and even overt Satanism.
Many of the practices developed in the books are the same as the real thing — though they are sanitized, made to appear scary but fun, and without long-term consequences. They do show that some activities can be physically dangerous, but the message in this is, as long as you have enough knowledge and skill, you can get through the dangers quite fine.

When people defend the books by saying the stories disconnect witchcraft from spiritual realities, and therefore there is no danger of a child wanting to go from fantasy witchcraft to actual witchcraft, they´re leaping to a big conclusion without empirical evidence.

The books seem at first glance to disconnect witchcraft from the spiritual. They present it as very exciting and in no way spiritually dangerous. But this makes the series potentially more corrupting, because it gives to the child a false sense of what witchcraft is really about.

I urge your readers to visit the CANA Web site, where Marcia Montenegro, a former occult practitioner, outlines in great detail the close relationship between the “fantasy” magic of Harry Potter´s world and the world of real witchcraft and sorcery. Montenegro has done painstaking and well-documented research on this aspect of the series.

I am also intrigued by the way Rowling consistently portrays those characters who are critical or afraid of magic as vicious abusers or utterly ignorant. I wonder if this is an authorial pre-emptive strike against critics, or perhaps an attempt to soften a child reader´s instinctive aversion to the horrible, or to override whatever cautions against witchcraft and sorcery a child may have learned from parents or the Church.

The Dursleys, for example, are utterly despicable characters, very against magic. In Volume 4 we learn that Voldemort, the archetype of radical evil, began life as a student named Riddle, whom the author tells us was abandoned by his father as a child, and that this father was against magic. In short, the greatest evils, according to the narrative, have their root cause in anti-magic people.

Q: By saying that witchcraft is evil, aren´t you promoting a witch hunt mentality? Isn´t there a danger of more Salem witch trials?

O´Brien: I for one do not want more Salem witch trials. I think the danger of this is so small as to be almost nonexistent. No, the real danger lies in the opposite direction. The modern witch will be left free to do pretty much as she pleases — perhaps have an interview on a talk show, write a best-selling book, make a presentation to a grade-school class doing a project on witchcraft, or found a Women´s Spirituality department at a Catholic university.

Q: Some academic figures have stated that anti-Potter critics deny the autonomy of culture.

O´Brien: Such commentators, even as they exalt the “autonomy of culture,” are minimizing the significance of culture´s power to influence how we think, how we feel, how we perceive the world. In this sense they unwittingly reduce the importance of culture.

They are overlooking the fact that children and adolescents are highly impressionable. Children read fiction with a different consciousness than, say, a university professor. Children are in a state of formation, their understanding of reality is being formed at every turn. And a powerful work of fantasy that is packed full of emotional stimuli can be a major force in planting concepts and symbols deep in a child´s imagination — one could even say in the architecture of their minds.

Look at your children watching a video, or reading an engrossing book. Their faces are open, innocent, reflecting a deep and unfiltered vulnerability to the content of the author´s message.

Many academics are applying limited sociopolitical templates to cultural phenomena such as the Potter series without serious consideration of other dimensions. Key factors are being neglected: For example the question of how, precisely, faith and culture can interrelate in a way that fosters the best possible fruit for souls, and for societies.

Much of Vatican II and the pontificate of John Paul II has focused on this crucial symbiotic relationship. How does a faulty understanding of that relationship contribute to bad fruit? Can autonomous social forces really be divorced from the whole configuration of life in the human community — the relationship between freedom and responsibility?

In the Potter debate there has not been enough examination of the pagan assimilation of Christians through the vehicle of culture. Nor has there been much discussion of symbology, the power of symbols to distort or to nourish consciousness.

Q: But some of the pro-Potter writers in Catholic circles are considered to be orthodox Catholics.

O´Brien: They may very well be orthodox in terms of Church doctrine. Part of the problem is that for them the Potter issue does not appear to be a doctrinal issue. The cloak of “literature” or “culture” or “inculturation” has protected the books from an examination of how these stories may violate the teachings of the Church, or can lead the next generation closer to violation of those teachings.

Q: Would you say the Catholic world is divided on the Potter issue?

O´Brien: To a certain extent, yes. But differences of opinion can be a catalyst for deeper thought.

I would like to emphasize that the rightness or wrongness of the Potter series cannot be determined by weighing the ratio of pro-Potter and anti-Potter votes, as if to say that if there are 10 pros and 9 contras, or vice versa, then the jury has delivered a reliable verdict. Juries are often wrong. Again, the issue must be discerned according to first principles.

But I think the debate is useful, because it is helping to raise the questions that should be asked, and will be asked again and again in the coming years. There will be more Harry Potter books and films, and there will be a new generation of clone-books hot on their heels. This is only the beginning. We need to wake up now to the nature of this struggle, and we need to do some clear thinking about the issues involved.

Harry Potter: What Does God Have To Say?

http://www.lasttrumpetministries.org/tracts/tract7.html

By David J. Meyer

I am writing this urgent message because I was once a witch. I lived by the stars as an astrologer and numerologist casting horoscopes and spells. I lived in the mysterious and shadowy realm of the occult.
By means of spells and magic, I was able to invoke the powers of the controlling unknown' and fly upon the night winds transcending the astral plane. Halloween was my favorite time of the year and I was intrigued and absorbed in the realm of Wiccan witchcraft. All of this was happening in the decade of the 1960's when witchcraft was just starting to come out of the broom closet.
It was during that decade of the 1960's, in the year 1966 that a woman named J.K. Rowling was born. This is the woman who has captivated the world in this year of 2000 with four books known as the 'Harry Potter Series.'
These books are orientation and instructional manuals of witchcraft woven into the format of entertainment. These four books by J.K. Rowling teach witchcraft!  I know this because I was once very much a part of that world.
Witchcraft was very different in the 1960's. There were a lot fewer witches, and the craft was far more secretive. At the end of that spiritually troubled decade, I was miraculously saved by the power of Jesus Christ and His saving blood. I was also delivered from every evil spirit that lived in me and was set free. As time went on, I watched the so-called 'Christian' churches compromising and unifying. I also watched with amazement as teachings from Eastern religions and 'New Age' doctrine began to captivate congregations. It was a satanic set-up, and I saw it coming. Illuministic conspirators were bringing forth a one-world religion with a cleverly concealed element of occultism interwoven in its teachings.
In order to succeed in bringing witchcraft to the world and thus complete satanic control, an entire generation would have to be induced and taught to think like witches, talk like witches, dress like witches, and act like witches. The occult songs of the 1960's launched the Luciferian project of capturing the minds of an entire generation. In the song 'Sound Of Silence' by Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel, we were told of seeds that were left while an entire generation was sleeping, and that the 'vision that was planted in my brain still remains.'
Now it is the year 2000. All of the foundations for occultism and Witchcraft are in place. The Illuminists have to move quickly, because time is running out.
It was the Communist revolutionary Lenin who said, 'Give me one generation of youth, and I will transform the entire world.' Now an entire generation of youth has been given to a woman named J.K. Rowling and her four books on witchcraft, known as the Harry Potter Series.
As a former witch, I can speak with authority when I say that I have examined the works of Rowling and that the Harry Potter books are training manuals for the occult. Untold millions of young people are being taught to think, speak, dress and act like witches by filling their heads with the contents of these books. Children are obsessed with the Harry Potter books that they have left television and video games to read these witchcraft manuals.
The first book of the series, entitled 'Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone', finds the orphan, Harry Potter, embarking into a new realm when he is taken to 'Hogwart's School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.' At this occult school, Harry Potter learns how to obtain and use witchcraft equipment. Harry also learns a new vocabulary, including words such as 'Azkaban', Circe', 'Draco ', 'Erised', 'Hermes', and 'Slytherin'; all of which are names of real devils or demons. These are not characters of fiction!
How serious is this? By reading these materials, many millions of young people are learning how to work with demon spirits. They are getting to know them by name. Vast numbers of children professing to be Christians are also filling their hearts and minds, while willingly ignorant parents look the other way. The titles of the books should be warning enough to make us realize how satanic and anti-Christ these books are. The afore-mentioned title of the first book, 'Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone', was a real give away. The second book was called 'Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets', While the third book was entitled 'Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.'
This is the oldest con game ever hatched out of hell. As a real witch, I learned about the two sides of 'the force.' Apparently, so do many Christian' leaders. When real witches have sabats and esbats and meet as a coven, they greet each other by saying 'Blessed be', and when they part, they say 'The Force be with you.' Both sides of this 'Force' are Satan.  It is not a good side of the force that overcomes the bad side of the force, but rather it's the blood of Jesus Christ that destroys both supposed sides of the satanic 'Force.'
High level witches believe that there are seven satanic princes and that the seventh, which is assigned to Christians, has no name. In coven meetings, he is called 'the nameless one.' In the Harry Potter books, there is a character called 'Voldemort.' The pronunciation guide says of this being 'He who must not be named.'
On July 8 at midnight, bookstores everywhere were stormed by millions of children to obtain the latest and fourth book of the series known as 'Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.' These books were taken into homes everywhere with a real evil spirit following each copy to curse those homes.
July 8th was also the 18th day (three sixes in numerology) from the witches' sabat of midsummer. July 8th was also the 13th day from the signing of the United Religions Charter in San Francisco. Now we have learned that the public school system is planning to use the magic of Harry Potter in the classrooms making the public schools centers of witchcraft training. What does God have to say about such books as the Harry Potter series? In the Bible in the book of Acts, we read the following in the 19^th chapter, verses 18 - 20:  'And many that believed came, and confessed, and shewed their deeds. Many of them also which used curious arts brought their books together and burned them before all men: and they counted the price of them, and found it fifty thousand pieces of silver. So mightily grew the Word of God and prevailed.'
As parents, we will answer to God if we allow our children to read witchcraft books. The Word of God will prevail mightily in your life only if such things of Satan are destroyed.



A Potter Betrayal - The Treachery of J.K. Rowling

https://zenit.org/articles/benedict-xvi-s-pep-talk-a-potter-betrayal/

By Elizabeth Lev, Rome, November 2, 2007

One of the bitterest blows of last week was J.K. Rowling's betrayal of her readers. Author of the beloved Harry Potter books, Rowling casually announced during a book reading of the last installment of the seven-part epic, that her character Dumbledore was homosexual.
For those of you who never fell under the spell of these books, Harry Potter is a boy magician who attends a magic school called Hogwarts. Together with his friends, Harry fights the ultimate force of evil, represented by Lord Voldemort, and is assisted by the school headmaster, Dumbledore, a paradigm of wisdom, courage and self-sacrificing love.
Over the 10 years that these books have been published, some Christians lamented that so many children were reading books that presented magic as harmless.
Many parents, myself included, thought the books were simply fun, the author's presentation of magic merely a harmless device, and were pleased that the stories clearly presented good and evil without blurring the lines between the two.
But now, Rowling, who is now the wealthiest woman in England thanks to the lack of political, social or moral propaganda in her books, has indeed blurred those lines. The last book completed, her bank account safely assured, she disclosed that the beloved headmaster was a homosexual and that many of his actions resulted from a frustrated love for another man.
My first thought was frankly, yuck! My second was a mounting rage as I realized the scope of Rowling's deceit. She wrote seven books without discussing homosexuality. Even Severus Snape, who for six of the stories appeared as the one character who might be described as having effeminate tendencies, turns out to have been motivated toward good by the love for a woman.
J.K. Rowling crafted Dumbledore as a father figure, and through the years Harry Potter, and through him, countless children learned to rely on his wisdom. Dumbledore was inseparable from his school, his devotion to Hogwarts and his students as complete and all-consuming as a marriage. For young and old readers, Dumbledore signified safety and stability. The charismatic Harry Potter defended his headmaster tooth and nail against all odds, even when faced with ridicule, torture and death, and through him children learned to do the same.
Now, with her books sold and millions of children committed, the author tries to turn Dumbledore into a poster child for the gay lobby. Rowling's wilful deception and wrongful manipulation of young people is worthy of her own Death Eaters.
How are we now to understand those hours between Harry and Dumbledore, spent in the privacy of the latter's closed office? How are we to understand their friendship that seemed so noble, so pure and so uplifting?
One wonders what Dante Alighieri, another writer who navigated readers through the supernatural, might think. Dante, banished, poor and writing as he wandered from town to town, knew well the power of literature and the responsibility of those who write.
He might find a place for Rowling among those condemned for fraud, like Bertran de Born, a troubadour whose songs delighted and charmed courts far and wide, but feeling himself fit for politics, divided father and son, falsely advising the young king of France.
But the Florentine poet fully understood the gravity of treachery and relegated traitors to the lowest pit in the Inferno, near Judas and Brutus eternally imprisoned in the mouth of Lucifer.
There, where those who earned love, accepted love and then betrayed love are encased in thick ice, the gelid air comes from the frozen souls who took trust and deceived it. And no amount of magic or money can warm it.
Disappointed in Dumbledore

In our family every single one of us over the age of 1 reads the books and I haven't the heart to tell the younger ones, but the older ones of course have heard the news. Yours [Benedict XVI's Pep Talk; A Potter Betrayal] is the ONLY article I have read that expresses the abyss of disappointment.

I wonder if you might go deeper [...] into the betrayal on a theological level. Because I do think that that is what homosexuality is -- a betrayal of the unitive and procreative meaning of marriage that is built into human beings as man and woman.
If only some good could come out of this? Maybe a book that explains the Church's teaching on homosexuality through this? With a title along the lines of "Disappointed in Dumbledore: the Betrayal by J.K. Rowling." -Karen D'Anselmi Mother of 7, ages 1 to 17 [e-mail].


My Dumbledore

Here is my take [Benedict XVI's Pep Talk; A Potter Betrayal]. Dumbledore was a hero. If the author now tells me he was a homosexual, then I say he was a struggling hero. He was chaste. He did not stray. It is no sin to be a homosexual. It is a only a sin to engage in homosexual thoughts and acts, and Dumbledore did not. I have proof. I have seven books in which Dumbledore was a model of virtue.

Therefore, he may serve as a model for other homosexuals. He had a healthy, loving and chaste relationship with a younger male. He remained pure in deed and, as far as we know, pure in thought. Unless she wants to write another book, bring Dumbledore back from the dead, and turn him into a degenerate, not even J.K. Rowling can bring down the great professor. -Stephan Melancon [e-mail]

More on Hogwarts - Dumbledore's Homosexuality Has No Textual Basis

https://zenit.org/articles/more-on-hogwarts-st-therese-visits-rome/

By Elizabeth Lev, Rome, November 15, 2007

In the wake of my last column, I received a deluge of e-mail regarding the piece on J.K. Rowling's betrayal of her readers. I pointed out that declaring one of the principal characters, Dumbledore, to be homosexual after having sold millions of books to children is a deceitful act.
The responses to this piece were very revealing. I was duly chastised by those who had never succumbed to the books, who noted that secularist literature was bound to carry "a sting in its tail."
Most ZENIT readers, from teenagers to grandparents, responded with brief and enthusiastic messages. Others, however, criticized the harsh tone I took in the piece, interpreting this as lack of charity toward my homosexual Christian brothers and sisters. The column was about Rowling and her deceptive behavior, not Dumbledore, who is a fictional character. Any struggles with his sexuality or decision to live chastely are merely figments of the reader's imagination, since they aren't even hinted at in the text.
The character only exists insofar as what Rowling describes on the pages. We don't know what he does when not appearing in the chapters. In her seven books, Rowling developed her headmaster as a devoted teacher and a moral anchor when it comes to good and evil. To add a sexual dimension to the character is not only untruthful, but also tricky.
What if, at her next conference, she announces that Dumbledore had a few homosexual experiences when a young man at Hogwarts? What if she then reveals a tortured double life he was forced to lead away from judgmental eyes? Once you've opened the door to an aspect unsupported by the text, anything becomes possible.
Which brings me back to the point. This is not about Dumbledore, this is a piece about the integrity of an author who wrote books for children and then decided to pander to her adult audience.
Rowling is an artist. She transmitted a captivating vision of an imaginary world through her words and storytelling. To retroactively try to use her art as propaganda is like pop stars discussing politics.
Homosexual, by definition, contains an erotic element. It defines not merely the feeling of affection or love for a person of the same sex, but a physical desire. It introduces a sexual dimension which is not only unnecessary, but inappropriate for children's books.
Rowling's magical world has no homosexual dimension. There aren't even unmarried people living together. Thousands of parents combed the text looking for inappropriate moral models while Rowling wisely remained silent about all of her characters’ sexuality. The sudden addition of a sexual element has no root in the magical world she created.
The exegesis of Dumbledore's admission that he was strongly influenced by a close friend makes a sad commentary on how our age has reverted to the pagan era of equating love with sensuality.
In the final book when Dumbledore admits to Harry that he was swayed by his friend, he says, "You have no idea of how much his words inflamed me." Silly me, I thought of my old art history teacher and how I moved to another country to study with her.
What never occurred to me was that Dumbledore was describing a sexual longing. Not a crush, which does not a homosexual make, but desire for physical union with another man. How disappointing that Rowling, so creative and brilliant in other matters, should reduce this to a matter of sexuality.
Most of the critical letters were framed in charitable terms, but a few e-mails, ostentatiously signed by Ph.D.s or professors, illustrated the error of my ways in patronizing tones I would not take with even my most recalcitrant students.
I didn't write the piece for academics, but for Christian parents, pastors and children, who feel rightly betrayed. It was a word of solidarity to people who work and live at the frenetic pace of this age and who find challenges to good Christian formation at every turn.
Rowling took their money, seduced their children and then tried to influence their offspring into thinking about, and ultimately embracing homosexuality.
Sophistry and the doublespeak of tolerance try to confound harried parents who want to live the Christian mission to love, but the good people who were let down by Rowling should not be made to feel "homophobic" or less Christian because they denounce what was a wrongful act on the part of a children's author. Nor should they be belittled as if their Christian conscience were no match for the sophisticated arguments of the intelligentsia.

Expert supports Pope's fears about Harry Potter

http://www.cathnews.com/news/801/54.php

January 16, 2008

Harry Potter has made headlines in the Vatican’s newspaper which has published “good” versus “evil” takes on the bestselling books. AFP reports English literature expert Edoardo Rialti argues in L'Osservatore Romano under the headline The Double Face of Harry Potter that Pope Benedict was “right to worry”.
In 2003, the then Cardinal Ratzinger was criticised when he voiced his fears over "subtle seductions" in the saga that could undermine children's religious development by blurring the line between good and evil.
In the opposing view, Catholic essayist and writer Paolo Gulisano wrote that "behind the fabulous adventures of the different characters you can see the author's anthropological vision." “Rowling, writing for a post-modern" and individualistic world, wants to help the young reader understand that doing good is the best thing to do," Gulisano wrote.
Cardinal Ratzinger's fears were contained in a March 2003 letter to German Catholic sociologist Gabriele Kuby, author of the book Harry Potter - Good or Evil. She made the letter public in July 2005.
Source__Good_vs._evil_debate_on_Harry_Potter_in_Vatican_mouthpiece,_(AFP_15/01/08)_Archive'>Source
Good vs. evil debate on Harry Potter in Vatican mouthpiece, (AFP 15/01/08)
Archive

Jesuit dismisses reporting of Pope condemnation of Harry Potter (CathNews 15/7/05)
Website claims Pope opposes Harry Potter (CathNews 29/6/05)
Vatican ´no problems´ with Harry Potter (CathNews 4/2/03)
Harry Potter can help us explain Word of God (CathNews 8/8/03)

Good vs. evil debate on Harry Potter in Vatican mouthpiece

https://aaj.tv/2008/01/good-vs-evil-debate-on-harry-potter-in-vatican-mouthpiece/

Vatican City, January 15, 2008

The Vatican newspaper published Monday good versus evil takes on the Harry Potter books, the fictional boy wizard star of the runaway best-selling books by J.K. Rowling.

The series drew criticism from the future Pope Benedict XVI in 2003 when he voiced fears over "subtle seductions" in the saga that could undermine children's religious development by blurring the line between good and evil.

Under the headline "The Double Face of Harry Potter," an expert in English literature, Edoardo Rialti, argues in L'Osservatore Romano that the then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was right to worry.

In the opposing view, Catholic essayist and writer Paolo Gulisano wrote that "behind the fabulous adventures of the different characters you can see the author's anthropological vision."

Rowling, writing for a "post-modern" and individualistic world, "wants to help the young reader understand that 'doing good' is the best thing to do," Gulisano wrote.

Ratzinger's fears were contained in a March 2003 letter to German Catholic sociologist Gabriele Kuby, author of the book "Harry Potter - Good or Evil." She made the letter public in July 2005.

"It is good that you shed light and inform us on the Harry Potter matter, for these are subtle seductions that are barely noticeable and precisely because of that deeply affect (children) and corrupt the Christian faith in souls even before it could properly grow and mature," Cardinal Ratzinger wrote.

He voiced the fear that young minds will "lose the spirit of discernment between good and evil and that they will not have the necessary strength and knowledge to withstand the temptations to evil."

Related News

Harry Potter a 'wrong kind of hero': Vatican

The Vatican Revives the Harry Potter Debate

JK Rowling's Harry Potter condemned in Vatican newspaper

Jesuit dismisses reporting of Pope condemnation of Harry Potter
http://www.cathnews.com/news/507/84.php

http://www.ratzingerfanclub.com/blog/2005/07/pope-benedict-xvi-and-harry-potter.html

July 15, 2005

Fr Michael Kelly told a breakfast TV presenter this morning that reporting of Pope Benedict´s private views about the children´s literature phenomenon Harry Potter do not constitute an authoritative Church statement.
Fr Kelly, CEO of Church Resources, was commenting on widespread media attention being given to private letters written by Cardinal Ratzinger in 2003, which have been used to suggest that he disapproves of Harry Potter in his present capacity as Pontiff. In the cardinal´s letter, excerpted on the website of a German academic, he praised the academic´s attempt to "enlighten people about Harry Potter", and the possible "subtle seductions" that can distort children´s thinking before they mature in the Christian faith. This was put forward by some groups - such as the Canadian lifesite.net website - as a papal condemnation, and subsequently widely reported in the media. "It does not represent the Catholic view," Fr Kelly told Channel 7´s national Sunrise program. "He was writing as a private individual."
He suggested that the resurrection of the old letters - first reported by CathNews last month - was a publicity stunt, ahead of tomorrow´s release of the sixth book in the series, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.

"The publishers have sat on the letter for some time," he said. "It´s a bit like getting a world leader to announce the publication."

Fr Kelly explained his view that if Catholics are obliged to ignore Harry Potter, it could equally be argued that under Pope John Paul II, they were required to join the Holy Father in supporting the Liverpool football team.
But he hesitated to either endorse or condemn the new Potter book, instead suggesting that it feeds the imagination.
"It´s about young minds imagining the way things are," he said. "It´s about growing the imagination, which is a good and healthy thing."
The Vatican press office said yesterday it would have no comment on the letter since Pope Benedict XVI and his secretary were on vacation in the northern Italian Alps. Catholic News Service reports that a former Vatican official said Harry Potter books must be read as children´s literature, not theology.
Monsignor Peter Fleetwood, formerly of the Pontifical Council for Culture told Catholic News Service yesterday that on a moral level, the books "pit good against evil, and good always wins."
But he said the most appropriate way to judge Harry Potter is not on the basis of theology, but according to the criteria of children´s literature and whether children will read the books willingly.
SOURCE Channel 7 Sunrise (no transcript)
New attention given to 2003 Cardinal Ratzinger letter on Harry Potter (Catholic News Service 14/7/05)
LINKS The Problem of Harry Potter (LifeSite)
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (Amazon)
Vatican official has kind word for Harry Potter´s magical world (National Catholic Reporter 21/2/03)
Gabriele-Kuby.de | Harry Potter
Pope sticks up for Potter books (BBC 3/2/03)

Website claims Pope opposes Harry Potter

http://www.cathnews.com/news/506/159.php

June 29, 2005

Ahead of the release of J.K. Rowling's sixth Harry Potter novel, a Canadian pro-life website has challenged the prevailing wisdom that the Church regards the children's literature phenomenon as harmless, or even imbued with Christian morals.
A report published yesterday on Lifesite.net says that German Potter critic Gabriele Kuby received a letter from the Holy Father when he was Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger praising her for her anti-Potter activism. The Cardinal told her he agreed that there were "subtle seductions that are barely noticeable and precisely because of that deeply affect (children) and corrupt the Christian faith in souls even before it (the Faith) could properly grow and mature".
Before the release of the previous Potter book in 2003, former Pontifical Council for Culture official Fr Peter Fleetwood said that magicians, witches, spirits and angels - which Rowling depicts in the novels - "are not bad things" He suggested the books are not anti-Christian, and that in fact they help children to understand the conflict between good and evil.
Kuby, on the other hand, argues that the books corrupt the hearts of the young, preventing them from developing a properly ordered sense of good and evil, thus harming their relationship with God while that relationship is still in its infancy. LifeSite asserts that Fleetwood's comments were "off-hand", and taken too seriously be headline writers who subsequently made false claims such as "Pope Sticks Up for Potter Books" (BBC).
Source

Pope Benedict Opposes Harry Potter Novels (LifeSiteNews.com 27/6/05)
Links

Gabriele-Kuby.de
Pope sticks up for Potter books (BBC 3/2/03)

Vatican 'no problems' with Harry Potter

http://www.cathnews.com/news/302/10.php

February 4, 2003

The good versus evil plot of the best-selling J.K. Rowling books are imbued with Christian morals, a Vatican press conference was told yesterday. Secretary of the European Conference of Bishops Fr Don Peter Fleetwood said: "I don't see any, any problems in the Harry Potter series."
Fleetwood was responding to questions following the release of a new Vatican document on the New Age phenomenon, which he helped draft as a member of the Pontifical Council for Culture.
Fleetwood was asked whether the magic embraced by Harry Potter and his friends at the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry was problematic for the Catholic Church. Some evangelical groups have condemned the series for glamorizing magic and the occult. "I don't think there's anyone in this room who grew up without fairies, magic and angels in their imaginary world," said Fleetwood, who is British. "They aren't bad. They aren't serving as a banner for an anti-Christian ideology. "If I have understood well the intentions of Harry Potter's author, they help children to see the difference between good and evil," said Fleetwood, currently in the secretariat of the European Episcopal Conference. "And she is very clear on this." He said British author J.K. Rowling was "Christian by conviction, is Christian in her mode of living, even in her way of writing."

Source AP
Links Rome's chief exorcist warns parents against Harry Potter (4/1/02)

Rome's chief exorcist warns parents against Harry Potter
http://www.cathtelecom.com/news/201/17.php
January 4, 2002

Rome's official exorcist, Fr Gabriele Amorth, has warned parents against J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter books, suggesting that Satan is behind the works. Fr Amorth, who is also the president of the International Association of Exorcists, told the Italian ANSA news agency, Rev. Amorth said "Behind Harry Potter hides the signature of the king of the darkness, the devil."

He said that Rowling's books contain innumerable positive references to magic, "the satanic art". Amorth noted that the books attempt to make a false distinction between black and white magic, when in fact, the distinction "does not exist, because magic is always a turn to the devil." In the interview which was published in papers across Europe, Fr Amorth also criticised the disordered morality presented in Rowling's works, noting that they suggest that rules can be contravened and lying is justified when they work to one's benefit.
Source Lifesite.ca

Potter spell gets Pell

http://www.sydney.catholic.org.au/Archbishop/STC/2007/2007916_1619.shtml

By Cardinal George Pell, Archbishop of Sydney, September 16, 2007

The Harry Potter phenomenon is big; in fact bigger than any other publishing event.  The series of seven books has been translated into 66 languages with sales of 400 million copies.  Publicists claim that the final volume "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" will have 70 million readers in 93 countries and almost 574,000 copies were sold in Australia on the first day.  Not even Charles Dickens enjoyed sales like these.

Although I had read the first volume and seen a couple of the films, my Potter-wise friends told me that I was at a disadvantage approaching volume seven through not reading the intervening novels.

In fact it was a struggle to enter into the storyline and I must confess my reluctance to give up the time to read any book of 600 pages.   However the magic eventually worked on me as I was caught up into the chase, the succession of violent encounters as Harry, Hermione and Ron flee for their lives and squabble with one another before the final confrontation of good and evil.

Why is Harry Potter so popular among all types of young people and many parents?  Does this popularity explain much about young people today?

Harry Potter not only has many readers but a large number of enthusiastic and loyal followers who do not like him being criticized.  This is particularly true of those who have grown up with him, his peers who have read each volume and stuck with him to the very end; the first Harry Potter generation.

We should remember that young people today are so used to the marvels of technology that magical fantasies are less exceptional for them than for their parents and grandparents.  As always most children love entering the world of magic, fairy stories, escaping the limits of normality (I wasn't one of these) and readers love a fast moving tale, especially when the adventures are exotic, the trumpets are calling the good to battle and the narrative is strong and racy.

Through television and computers young people know much more than their predecessors, but often only at a surface level.  They are encouraged to be curious, provided the curiosity is not costly or demanding and many have an itch for novelty, a fascination with technological marvels, the mysterious and abnormal, especially if they are ignorant of genuine religious traditions.

Many of this last group are restless and rootless, seeking limits, yearning for a good cause and more than happy to identify with the victims of injustice, with those who bravely confront evil and loyally stick with one another.

Harry Potter fits their bill as a hero, although he also appeals to good young Christians.

The series deserves to be widely read, but I am unsure why it is so hugely popular.  We live in an uneasy, somewhat empty time of change.

It is also my suspicion that future generations will wonder why we made such a fuss of Harry Potter.