Some Thoughts on the Harry Potter Series

Michael O'Brien is the author of eleven books, including several best-selling Catholic novels, notably, Father Elijah. He has authored children's books as well, and the critically praised assessment of the pagan invasion of children's culture, "A Landscape With Dragons: the Battle for Your Child's Mind," published by Ignatius Press.

There is currently a strong controversy raging over J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series. Because I have six children of my own, all of them avid readers with an interest in fantasy literature, I have followed it closely. It is interesting to note that the truly reasonable arguments are all on the side of caution regarding the Potter series. By contrast, the pro-Harry articles lack any serious reflection on the issues involved. Their opinions can generally be boiled down to this: "Now, now, let's not get paranoid here. Isn't it wonderful to see kids enthusiastic about reading?" That is no argument at all, because there are a great many things to be cautious about in our present secular culture (calm vigilance is not necessarily paranoia), and children are frequently enthusiastic about unhealthy interests. Librarians around the English-speaking world have noted that due to the unprecedented marketing pressure and media attention surrounding these books, and the resulting fascination young readers have for them, a spin-off phenomenon is occurring. Among the young, an interest in witchcraft, sorcery, and allied occult activity is growing at an astonishing rate. Some libraries now put their occult section beside the Potter books, to make access easier for young readers. Thus, millions of children, including large numbers of Catholic children, are getting involved in spiritually and psychologically dangerous activity. Harry Potter provided the role model.

I was not impressed by the four books in Rowling's series, despite all the media hype that tells us how wonderful they are for young readers. And I strongly disagree with those reviewers (sadly, even some Catholic reviewers) who compare her work to solid Christian fantasy writing such as C.S. Lewis's Narnia series, or J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings, or the imaginative novels of George MacDonald. The comparison is only superficial. At root, Rowling's objective is to interest the young in a spiritual path that is the converse of what healthy Christian fantasy is about. The use of "magic" in Christian fantasy is always for the reinforcing of the moral order of the universe, the development of man's proper use of freedom. Rowling, by contrast, tries to turn that order topsy-turvy. The subtle and unsubtle manipulation which she uses to control the child's mind is obvious from the first few pages, prompting one to wonder if this is a deliberate attempt at indoctrination. Among the many dubious messages, presented with charm and power, there are these: occult activity is liberating, noble, exciting, and not what your parents and Christians in general say about it. Coupled to this message is the gross characterization of traditional families, and anyone else who objects to the occult, as abusive hypocrites. The line between good and evil is significantly shifted, and the child enticed into a radically changed worldview, one in which activities known for over 4000 years to be extremely dangerous to mind and soul are now presented as positive forces.

Potter-frenzy and Potter-hype are suddenly everywhere, from school to shopping-center to library, affecting many millions of children. The promotion of such books even in Catholic schools should alert us to the fact that the Catholic community is suffering a grave loss of discernment. In a secular culture searching in all the wrong places for answers to the meaning of life, and for a "spirituality" to replace lost or weakened faith, occult movements and spiritual experimentation of all sorts are having a revival that has not been seen in the Western world since the early centuries of the Church. What is particularly disturbing is the fact that otherwise sensible people see no problem in introducing to children books that promote such activities-activities strictly forbidden by God and the Church (see Cathechism of the Catholic Church, sections 2116-2117).

The Potter series takes the old Gnostic worldview, makes it look glamorous and exciting, and does so in a way that is proving to be far more seductive than similar books in this field of children's literature. Early Gnosticism was a combination of cult and heresy that came very close to undermining Christianity at its birth, during the first few centuries of the Church. It was only defeated by the efforts of the Church Fathers as they taught, corrected, exhorted and debated with the naïve devotees of this perversion of genuine faith. And here it is again, popping up with unprecedented force, but now aimed at the most vulnerable, most impressionable part of the Body of Christ-our children. Paradoxically, the Potter books have been able to invade the Christian world due to the fact that there are a few admirable virtues promoted in them: Harry the orphan seeks a family-hey, isn't that a desirable family value? Harry the victim-innocent brings down justice on the heads of his tormentors-and don't we want to see justice done? Harry wins the reader's affection and empathy (and the child reader's identification) more readily than the bratty characters in much of children's fantasy literature-isn't it refreshing to have a "nice" boy as a hero? Harry seeks to discover his destiny and unique identity-don't we all? Yes, but in Harry's world, the ends are continually justified by the evil means (conveniently redefined as good). If the author has thrown into the plot a little moralizing for added measure, this is not a valid argument in defense of the books; indeed the whiff of morality makes them that much more deceptive. In this way, the moral order of the universe is deformed in a child's mind far more effectively than by blatantly evil books.

This raises the question: which is the most destructive form of paganism now invading children's culture? A direct assault upon faith by hard-core cultists recruiting on the streets, or an indirect seduction in the pleasant surroundings of your own home? I believe it is the latter, a "soft" form that will do the greatest damage over the long haul, because it brings a spiritually dangerous worldview into good families under the guise of promoting "values" and enthusiasm for reading. But it also prepares a child's developing imagination for worse things to follow. When he has finished reading the Potter series, what will he turn to? There is a vast industry turning out sinister material for the young that will feed their growing appetites. In the wake of likable young Harry's adventures, not-so-likable characters will appear, and they will become role models or, at the very least, images of alternative ways of living. And it should also be noted that Harry himself becomes less likable as the series gets progressively more murky. Regarding the argument sometimes put forward - "There is much good in the book, so why should we be so concerned about the flaws?" - this is not really a valid argument. The flaws in this case are grave distortions of reality in a field where such distortions have often proved disastrous. In my extended family, circle of friends and community, there are a number of people whose lives have been seriously damaged by involvement in the occult. I know three young people who have attempted suicide in acts of despair which they now attribute, years later, to dabbling in the occult. A significant factor in their attraction to the dark side of spirituality, they maintain, was their love of fantasy literature that portrayed this subculture as exciting and rewarding. Only later did they come to realize that, while occultism promises light, it actually delivers a gradual darkening of the mind and weakening of the will. I have talked with parents of children whose lives have gone seriously astray as a result of losing their moral bearings through involvement with the occult. Their anguish and puzzlement is evident as they state how their children were once stable and virtuous, how they had been so certain their child could handle anything. I have talked with priests and psychiatrists who deal with young people damaged in this fashion, and their assessment of the causes consistently points to some "experimenting" with the very activity Rowling presents as a healthy and liberating way of life. In the beginning they felt it to be no more than harmless play, simple imagining, or the acting out of fantasy. We should take note of the fact that in our sensually dominated culture the habit of acting out fantasy is becoming a widespread cultural norm. It varies from voracious consumption of expensive "toys" for all age groups, to trading in one's spouse for a new one found on the internet, to various clubs devoted to immoral activity, to high school murders. Why, then, do we presume that a sensually powerful series of children's books will not affect the young reader's interests and activities? Why have we come to assume so readily that such novels are simply entertainment, that they have no consequences, that the experience of plunging the imagination into that alternative world will remain sealed in an airtight compartment of the mind?

Of course millions of children are not going to suddenly start killing themselves and each other after reading the Harry Potter series, but studies by both secular and religious researchers demonstrate that something unhealthy is at work in the occult revival. And while we must never forget that Christ can forgive and heal the effects of any form of sin, he also calls us to guard the lambs of his flock against such sin, and the near occasions of sin. What is so often forgotten in this particular controversy is that occultism is gravely sinful. Both the Old and New Testaments warn against it with utmost urgency. Occult activity is a misreading of the nature of the war between good and evil on this planet, and the consequences of this in real life can be quite dire. Why, then, are we giving our children false tales about the nature of the war?

Fantasy literature can be a splendid way to introduce them to the great drama of existence, but we are terribly naïve if we fail to make a clear distinction between true fantasy and false fantasy-between healthy imagination and poisoned imagination. We would soon sicken and die if we applied the principle of "a little poison won't harm you" to our diet of food. Would we eat a cake in which a cook had mixed 1% cyanide with 99% good ingredients? It might not kill us, but why would we want to risk being even "mildly" poisoned. To use another metaphor, would we offer our child a bowl of fruit in which ten pieces of fruit were harmless and one had been injected with deadly poison, especially if the fruit were indistinguishable from each other?

How do we distinguish a good piece of "fruit" from a bad one, if in the mind there is no reliable criteria for doing so? How do we discern properly if we have no developed understanding of the moral order of the universe nor a consciousness of the reality of spiritual battle? If we have little or no sense of the crucial role of symbols in the healthy functioning of the mind, how can we accurately assess the spiritual realities represented by those symbols? Simply saying that the corruption of our symbol world, and in the worst cases the inversion of our symbol world, is not poison doesn't change the nature of the poisoned fruit. That's denial, not moderate reasonableness. By the same token, gathering "expert" opinions on the subject isn't very helpful either, because experts come in all varieties these days, even in Christian circles, and few are the people unaffected to some degree by the overwhelming subjectivism of our present social environment.

Parents often underestimate the power of imagination in shaping a child's sense of truth. Parents forget that they themselves grew up in another time and culture. Though theirs was an imperfect world (as is every era of history), basic truths still formed the solid architecture of their times. That is no longer so. Parents also forget that they can sort through good and bad material with more immunity than a child, because they are already formed. A child is still in a state of formation, and for that reason he experiences culture in a very different way than adults do. We can sift (although on the whole even we "grown-ups" aren't doing a very good job of sifting these days), but the child is not yet trained to recognize subtle and even unsubtle falsehood. He is busy learning about the world, and usually he is learning indiscriminately. He absorbs images and understandings of the nature of reality at a foundational level.

Getting our thinking on track according to Biblical and Church principles is essential to seeing what's really happening in this war. In other words, rational discernment. Equally important is the charism of spiritual discernment. Every parent needs to pray daily for an extraordinary grace of discernment, and for divine protection for his children. This isn't extremist or alarmist. This is just normal Christianity. Tragically, Christian faith has been so weakened in the Western world that such statements now strike many an ear as somewhat extreme. We're all a little too eager to prove that we're just normal folks, that our faith doesn't turn us into unpleasant critical people. But Jesus himself calls us to constant vigilance, to exercise the critical faculty of discernment. It is the spirit of the secular world, and the spirit of our adversary, which tells us we should all just relax and stop over-reacting. Of course, it's true that over-reacting doesn't help anyone, and usually makes matters worse. But at the other end of the spectrum is denial, a refusal to face facts, an inability to recognize a real threat to our child's well-being. This, I believe, brings about far worse consequences-again, in the long run. Neither apathy nor panic will reorient our present culture toward a condition of health. What is needed here is wisdom.

And what about the unity issue? Many of the husbands or wives who write to me about the Potter problem say that they can't come to an agreement with their spouses. A general and time-tested principle in Christian family life is that on issues where husband and wife disagree over what is or is not harmful for their child, more prayer is needed. The father's role is paramount in this, because by nature and grace his job is to watch the horizon carefully for anything that threatens the well-being of his family (tigers, bears, drunk drivers, drug-pushers, heretical teachers and unprincipled hawkers of kid-kulture). In a word, his primary focus is exterior.

The mother's role tends to be primarily interior, focused on nurturing (though of course there is considerable overlapping of roles in this regard). For that reason it's inevitable that there will be differences of emphasis and judgement. Most of the parents who contact me about these questions experience some difference of opinion between husband and wife. Prayer can bring these two "lenses" into a single unified focus. By this I do not mean that spouses should resolve their difference of opinion by bartering or compromise. Neither of the lenses work properly without the other; their harmonious function depends on earnest prayer and avoiding superficial decisions. Our culture is continuously pushing us to let down our guard, to make quick judgments that feel easier because they reduce the tension of vigilance. The harassed pace and the high volume of consumption that modern culture seems to demand of us, make genuine discernment more difficult in this regard. But in prayer and waiting on God, we do come through.

As a parent, my daily prayer is: "Oh God, please give me the wisdom of Solomon, the wisdom of the Holy Spirit, today. Every day." Without it, I would soon be shaped and molded by whatever forces are flying about in this society. My kids even more so. There is so much bombarding us all the time, with unprecedented power to overwhelm the senses and to confuse our interior radar, that we scarcely have time to make sound decisions before the next wave hits. In such a climate, if one has to choose between over-caution or under-caution, I would say that in the formation of our children's minds, hearts and souls, it's better to lean in the direction of caution rather than laxity-especially during these times when a relentless indoctrination comes at our children from every level of the culture.

A balanced, intelligent and spiritually discerning collection of articles examining the Potter phenomenon is available at the website of St. Joseph's Covenant Keepers, a large international organization for Catholic fathers. The address is: www.dads.org

If you want to consider some in-depth arguments about the nature of the new paganization of children's culture, see the Ignatius Press internet website where an entire section is devoted to what well-known Catholic authors think of the Potter series. The address is: www.ignatius.com See also the highly recommended Catholic Educator's Resource Center, which has a section dealing with the Potter phenomenon. The address is www.catholiceducation.org

If you want your children to be open to receive that kind of spirit - you will reap the reward. Words are "seeds"; they are full of power. I agree.

..."By age ten, Jacqui K. was fascinated with anything supernatural. Since her parents set no limits, she read every fiction and fantasy book she could find on the magical world she craved. In her imagination, she met wizards and witches, power and excitement.

'I continued reading Harry Potter-type books through grade school, high school and into college,' she says. 'Three to five a week! The older I got, the easier they were to find. The whole time I considered myself a Christian! If someone had pointed out to me what I was doing, I would have laughed. I was a normal teenager and a leader in my church group.'

The mystical characters in her fantasy world filled her thoughts during the day and her dreams at night. But when some of them began talking to her, she recognized the power she had pursued:

'I cried out to God to help me, and He did. The voices stopped. I was no Bible scholar, but I recognized that they were from Satan. Some people said that I became delusional because I couldn't separate fantasy from reality. They were wrong. The problem was that I COULD, and had no idea that reading fiction could put me in contact with REAL evil.'.... link

When my child began 'seeing dead people' and heard a voice growl hello at her on an old phone that had been dead for years, I threw out the far less sinister (than Harry Potter) books she was reading, and went about the house rebuking any demons that may have been lurking. Thank God we have not had any problem since. We struggle not against flesh and blood, but something far more evil. We've found the Narnia books a much sounder choice, and I can tie them in to teachings from the Bible. I've heard that Harry Potter has sparked interest in the Narnia books, but that the Christianity in the new printings is being watered down. The devil never sleeps; neither sould Christians.

All I can say, is if their faith was that fragile that it could be destroyed -- just from the very fear of having Harry Potter in the room - then it wasn't much of a faith to begin with.

And having a fragile faith is not the fault of Harry Potter's author or publisher.

My, my, aren't we tough, and there I thought the flesh was weak. Silly me.

Faith is a thing that is built in anyone. It takes time and persistence, and indeed requires protection on the part of a parent. This is true in the case of spirituality no less than other evil influences in life. If you don't believe that then I am certain that a few harmless drinks for your kid are OK, oh and how about a little toke, there there, now that wasn't so bad, was it? Here, let's watch some light porn. Horny? Here, go masturbate, they said it's good for you in school... Now didn't that feel good? Oh, I hope she remembers to use a condom...

So it goes. But where does it stop?

You can set your standards and I'll set mine, thank you. If you feel like playing spirital chicken with your kid go right ahead. I prefer instead to focus upon finding that which has proven to be unambiguously decent, uplifting, and intellectually challenging, of which there is plenty. So why not pursue that instead?

I learned about the dark side the hard way, and it all seemed so easy: drugs, loose sex, occult spirituality, you name it. I don't recommend it. I wound up cold and homeless on the streets of Oakland and am lucky to be alive. I had to work my way out of poverty and to rediscover the freedom found in the path of obediance. I no longer think I am so smart that I can properly foresee all the consequences to marginal choices and have chosen instead to pursue my best to follow God's law and teach my children the unvarnished truth. That alone is a demanding enough intellectual and spiritual challenge that such diversions as Harry Potter seem pointless and trite by comparison to what else is available.

It takes a special kind of blindness and tautological reasoning to carry such a path for long, especially when the evidence of its destructive fruits abounds. Even if one escapes accountability by himself, citing special personal qualities for evidence, that public example becomes bait for the many who will not be so "lucky." Look to the lengths Hollywood goes to present such people as examples of success? Look at the consequences of such role models in nearly any public institution, particularly our schools. Can't you see it? As far as I am concerned, it is the flaky reasoning of the impish fool that bandies such adventures for the thrill of disobedience, citing the lack of apparent consequences for justification.

It's startling to see how many folks seem to have such passionate views on the pro-Harry side of the aisle.

If it was just Harry Potter, I don't think you'd see a "passionate" reaction. But it's everything. We must beware of Smurfs, Teletubbies, Barney and Britney Spears. They are all integral to a huge plot that is going to destroy us. Meanwhile, as OWK pointed out, we have missed our chance to say anything of import. Tinky Winky has occupied the place of prominence in our discourse.

Let me add this. As a Christian, one will be doing some sort of filtering of the culture at all times. But this is to be done internally as an individual, communally as a body of believers, and in the home as a family. It's not necessarily a subject for press releases, crusades and campaigns that only serve as platforms for people who want to be in front of the camera or behind a microphone. If you don't know "magic" is something to be considered carefully as a Christian, then you've already lost. And no amount of chicken-little articles will change that.

I really do hate to rain on your parade ; however , fairy tales, many of the works of Thorne-Smith ( though he wrote for adults ) , and cartoons did NOT turn generation of religious, GOD fearing and obeying children into spell casting, hedonistic, immoral monsters. The more people scream about the Harry Potter books, the more children are going to see something in them, that was put into their heads by adults who see that which is not there.

By your own words, you once led a desperate, horrible life. Was it a Harry Potter book that led you astray ? I doubt that. So, which nasty book was it ?

I know now that the Narnia books are supposedly "Christian" in nature. I'd never read any of them, until my daughter had to read them in lower school. I am neither stupid, no ill educated ; however , until that was pointed out here, it NEVER once occurred to me that there are Christian, let alone religious overtones to those books. Yes, I an a Christian, but if I, as an adult didn't see them, why would anyone surmise that a child would ? The same holds true for all of the gibberish about the Potter books, which are so derrivative of much better English children's books, that I can't get through one.

Oh, and yes, I did read every single book that my daughter had to read for English classes, throughout her entire schooling ; including college.I'd read most of them, and it was a good way to engage her in conversations about what she was reading / learning. It also allowed me to find a VERY dreadful book, and get the school to get it off their required summer reading list. Now, THAT book pushed extreme liberal views , was not well written, and was most assurredly not age appropriate. Not the same holds true for the Potter series, at all.

re : I learned about the dark side the hard way, and it all seemed so easy: drugs, loose sex, occult spirituality, you name it. I don't recommend it.

I think this is what divides people most on subjects like this.

Read any article on drugs, drink or any type of life style done to excess and you will always get an someone who lived that life who is warning you of the dangers of the slippery slope.

The fact is for every person who slipped down that slope there are hundreds if not thousands of us who didn’t.

I have gambled once or twice but I am not a gambler, I like drink but I am not an alcoholic, I was even trapped in a room with a load of New Age recruiters for a wacky sect once, I enjoyed the experience but I did not decide to shave my head and give them all my money.

In law we have the ruling of the reasonable man, what would a reasonable man do in such a such a case.

Well some people would tell us that the reasonable man or child is a weak thing easy to manipulate, that we must protect them as they are almost incapable of protecting them self’s. I don’t think this means that these people want to dominate or restrict are freedom, but is possibly based on personal experience where when push came to shove they were weak.

If I was to describe a reasonable man or child I would say a lot stronger both mentally and emotionally because I would judge it on my own experiences, my life was not apple pie, and I went through and mixed with some rough people but I came out ok.

There will always be those who no matter what you do are determined to screw there life up somehow and when asked hwy they will always point to the latest fad and say it or they made me do it.

Tony

The fact is for every person who slipped down that slope there are hundreds if not thousands of us who didn’t.

Statistically, this is pure BS. Yeah, for every kid who tried loose sex, there are hundreds of thousands who didn't wind up single parents? Rates of HPV leading to cerivcal cancer and AIDS alone blie your assertion. There are hundreds of thousands who don't have drinking or drug problems? There are hundreds of thousands whose educations werent put on hold?

Hogwash.

No, for Every Madonna there are hundreds of thousands of urban poor, whose problems include all of what I spoke, including AIDS. I never became a drunk and didn't get hooked on smack. I didn't get beat up, wind up in jail and taken for a "wife." I was lucky.

Now think of the costs that people who do fall pose to you, taxpayer.

Was it a Harry Potter book that led you astray ? I doubt that.

You should, wrong decade.

So, which nasty book was it?

It wasn't any one thing, it was cumulative. That is what the point about the Potter books suggests. Your argument ignores my main thesis to paint my position in a manner that you can justify your own choices. That defensiveness proves my thesis which I will repeat in a condensed form:

Why read anything less than the unambiguously excellent when there is so much of it?

Perhaps your child, having missed the point in the Chronicles, suggests more about your training of your child than you might think? Sorry, that's accountability. Here is what my kid wrote. She was barely eight years old at the time. She is now nine and will be ready for college level courses next year.

Oh, and yes, I did read every single book that my daughter had to read for English classes, throughout her entire schooling...

I didn't say you weren't doing good things, did I? Note your defensive tone. Whence did it derive? Did I hit a nerve?

I don’t trust stats never have never will people will make stats say anything.

Gotcha!

Instead lets deal with me and you, you fell down the slope I didn’t why what was so different about you and me.

Answer me this Why should I and people like me be held to the same set of rules as those who make a mess of their life.

It is fascinating that people turn so ugly when defending their pleasures. Like nopardons above, you miss my thesis which was:

Why read anything less than that which is unambiguously excellent when there is so much of it?

You avoid that question and make me the issue. You are paying for it, like it or not. Now that you are smarting I'll give you the answer that you don't want to hear:

Because it is better for a society to follow God's Law than to pretend that WE KNOW better of the knowledge of good and evil.

Pretty simple, isn't it? If more people were following that law and operating according to my thesis above, would YOU be better off? Would we have a nation of people, so capable that we wouldn't need the welfare state? Would we have a nation of people who would be responsible enough to realize the blessings of liberty? So when someone who has paid those prices makes an argument that says, "Not because you will necessarily fall down the slippery slope should you avoid such things, but because a) some will; b) you'll pay for that; and c) there is a superior alternative" you attack their life as evidence to ignore the thesis and justify your choices.

Aren't you clever?

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