Posted on 06/28/2007 11:37:27 AM PDT by mngran
...[C]ontends author Steve Wohlberg, what many people don't know is that when Harry Potter and his Firebolt whoosh off the shelf, he's not alone. A victory for Harry Potter means a victory for Wicca, a religion that practices various forms of witchcraft.
And the acclaimed DVD program, "Harry Potter: Witchcraft Repackaged, dramatically documents Potter references to evolution, reincarnation, sorcery, divination, spells, curses and other occult factors....
Wohlberg feels allowing children to read Potter just isn't worth the risk. "There are much better things for our kids to read," he said. "My wife and I have a three-year-old son who loves stories. Daily we read to him stories that teach lessons about honesty, purity, truth-telling, respect for parents, faith, and obedience to God. In 'Harry Potter,' young Harry lies a lot, break rules at school, curses, throws temper tantrums, and even drinks 'firewhisky' (he's an underage drinker)."
"There's a big difference," said Wohlberg, between Harry Potter and other children's fantasy fare. "J.K. Rowling has publicly admitted that at least 30 percent of her novels is based on real occultism. The 'Harry Potter' novels are a unique blend of fantasy and reality."
"They refer to real places, real occultists (Aldabert Waffling and Nicholas Flamel), real practices (astrology, palmistry, fortune-telling, divination), and real occult philosophy. Based on my research, the extent of real occultism embedded into 'children's literature' is unprecedented," he continued.
(Excerpt) Read more at worldnetdaily.com ...
Heh. First time I’ve seen evolution described as “occult”. Does that make Christian theistic evolutionists Satanists?
I think that it is pretty silly to think that the books somehow glorify evil. The stories clearly distinguish which characters are good and which characters are evil.
All that to promote a made-up problem.
Kind of like the John Edwards campaign raising money based on whatever Ann Coulter said recently.
The stories clearly celebrate Christmas, Easter, etc,
plus they also clearly deliniate the good and the evil, and glorify the DEFEAT of evil.
Its fiction, for crying out loud. Lord of the Rings has magic everywhere, but there’s been book after book showing it has a Christian message. Chronicles of Narnia has the same thing. I’m not saying Harry Potter has any kind of Christian message, just having a lot of magic in it does not make a book wrong. I see nothing in Harry Potter promoting magic, it’s just a book about wizards in a fictional school/fictional England. Everyone needs to ease up a bit.
Potterping!
Kids lose interest in Wicca as soon as they find out that the spells don’t work.
I like the books very much and do not see the harm.
Except that that works. Whenever Coulter gets into a peeing contest with Edwards his campaign contributions go up and her book sales go up. Those two should send each other Christmas cards.
There’s a fine line between sanity and paranoiac imaginings of occultists under every bed. Some people have crossed over it, apparently.
I think churches need to deal with real world problems, not fiction books.
“There’s a fine line between fantasy and glorifying evil.”
No, there isn’t. The two are mutually exclusive of each other. One has nothing to do with the other.
Evil resides in the hearts of men and is real. Riding around on broomsticks and zapping people with magic wands is not. Attemting to connect fantasy with reality only serves to marginalize real evil as a form of fantasy itself.
I happen to have a little background in this sort of thing, since I know some Wiccans, did a lot of Classics and medieval history in school, and used to indulge in palmistry and Tarot card reading in my hippie years (gave that all up and never looked back a long time ago, and now I'm a Catholic, so doubly not).
But, anyhow, the Harry Potter stories don't have any real magic in them, either Wiccan or ceremonial. The spell names are mostly Latin puns (some of them excruciating), and almost all the magic is achieved by the use of words and magical objects, not actual ritual (which is how these things work). It doesn't follow any known system. The mention of occasional medieval alchemists etc. is just window-dressing.
The best way I can describe the Potter stories is that they follow a long, long line of British public (what we call private) school fiction that has been popular in England since Victorian times but has never really taken hold in America (probably because our school system is so different, except in the old NE boarding prep schools.) From Tom Brown's Schooldays through Stalky & Co. (although Kipling's book has merit on its own aside from the genre) to the Jennings and Chalet School series, these books follow a timeworn formula that everybody knows. The closest thing we have in America is probably all those football and baseball storybooks for young teenagers.
We go through about a month of this “Harry Potter is the Devil” nonsense prior to the release of each successive book. I honestly don’t think Rowling needs the publicity, but thanks just the same.
Where does your church stand on Christopher Pike and R.L. Stine?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.