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To: Bob J

Regarding the occult question.

One movie deals with it as good/evil, with limited abilities by humans to invoke. The other deals with it as good and evil coming from the same place, with no recognition of the difference. The choice as to whether magic is good or evil depends on the intentions of the sorcerer at the moment the magic is invoked.

Potter invokes magic with no observance of a God. "Magic" - to call what happens in both movies the same while comparing the differences, in Potter is invoking the powers of the unseen which can be, and are regularly, dark forces. Tho Potter has a pretense that he is a good guy, his magic stems from the same place as the dark magic. This is then a defacto admission that his magic is also dark, and he is therefore inherently evil.

In Narnia, only two beings are actually capable of Magic. Others may have some gift, but the gifts do what Aslan perscribes, such as Lucy's potion. Lucy is incapable of any Magic that does not involve the potion. Narnia invokes "magic" based on the word of Aslan (God) and the Ice Queen. The Ice Queen knows the "deep magic" because she was a witch before Narnia was created, but she does not know the deepest secrets of God, and therefore thinks she can kill God and in doing so become God. In Narnia, the magic is performed by characters that are clearly supernatural, not the humans, nor even the animals.

In later books, you will be introduced to Tash, who is the God of Calorman. Tash is another evil god, but short of appearing, I dont recall him performing magic. The last book has characters pretending to speak for God and perform magic, and then having to face the Gods they pretended to speak for.


256 posted on 12/27/2005 3:20:12 PM PST by RainMan
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To: RainMan

Where does the magic the Ice Queen evokes come from?


266 posted on 12/27/2005 3:32:29 PM PST by Bob J (RIGHTALK.com...a conservative alternative to NPR!)
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To: RainMan
I understand your comments but I'm not sure I agree with all of them.

Occult (black magic) is bad because it comes from evil forces. Good magic (what does one call "good magic"?) is not because it emanates from God. Agreed.

however, you state all magic in Potter must bad because it comes from the same place as dark magic, but I'm not sure that position is supportable. The potter movies don't make as much about the origin of the magic and if definitely does not carry the same heavy religious themes such as the death and resurrection of Aslan. However, in Potter they celebrate Christmas...the school closes, they go home and give and receive presents, etc. so while one may reasonably argue the themes running through it are not as pronounced as Narnia I do not think you can say they are absent.

Although it is not stated flatly, one might conclude the "good" characters in Potter are Christians and therefore they're magic may very well emanate from God, just as Alsan.

The characters in Potter do not wear crosses, go to church or recite Bible verses..but neither do the characters in Narnia.
271 posted on 12/27/2005 4:02:36 PM PST by Bob J (RIGHTALK.com...a conservative alternative to NPR!)
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To: RainMan; Bob J
Lewis is very careful to differentiate between "magic" as the occult . . . i.e. attempts to control the natural world through supernatural means . . . and relying on the natural world and the intervention of Aslan (which he analogizes to prayer.)

He comes back to this point over and over, in many of the books, but probably the best illustration of this is in The Silver Chair, when Eustace and Jill are trying to hide from the school bullies, and decide they should try to get back to Narnia to escape. Eustace tells Jill you can only get there by magic, and Jill asks, "Do you mean drawing circles on the ground and incantations, and things like that?" and Eustace replies, "No -- and I don't think he'd like that." They make what amounts to a prayer, but before they can finish it events catapult them into Narnia - so their prayer was answered before it was made. Lewis has a lot to say in his more serious books about the problem of temporal prayer to an eternal God. As Eustace says to Jill in a later book, "It's the usual muddle about times, Pole."

321 posted on 12/27/2005 6:56:50 PM PST by AnAmericanMother (. . . Ministrix of ye Chace (recess appointment), TTGC Ladies' Auxiliary . . .)
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