The "magic" in the HP books isn't Wiccan or any other kind of magic practiced by real people. It's fairy tale stuff - and no more to be believed than fairy tales.
Kids do go through a stage when they wish a story were true - my best friend and I as 7 or 8 year olds kept opening closet doors hoping we would find Narnia inside. (But we always remembered, as Lewis perpetually reminds his readers in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, that "it is a very foolish thing to shut oneself into a wardrobe.") :-D
Seriously, the article is very accurate in its depiction of Harry Potter. So are you. I've read stuff by real witches and this isn't it.
Harry Potter is also a brilliant series. It's popularity isn't the result of hype. I devour the books because I enjoy reading them. I don't care how popular they are, but their popularity isn't just because of the hype. I think these books will stand with the Lord of the Rings series as classics. Rowling better keep herself healthy. I want to know how the series ends, and at the rate she's working, that may take another six or seven years. I also want her to stay away from George Lucas. Note to Ms. Rowling, at the first mention of Ewoks, we revolt!
That's debatable. The point is that these books are correlated with a rise in interest in the occult, as the largest pagan organization in England attests.
In England, the Pagan Federation has been barraged with so many inquiries about Wicca, mostly from teenage girls, that the group has appointed a youth officer whose primary responsibility will be to respond to Harry Potter fans who want to know how to become witches.If you can't trust the Pagan Federation, who can you trust? 8-o“It is quite probably linked to things like Harry Potter, 'Sabrina the Teenage Witch' and 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer,'” Pagan Federation Media Officer Andy Norfolk told "This Is London," a British news Web site.
Wiccans and other pagans consider Harry Potter a good example for would-be witches ...