By Rev. Clete Hux
Another area in which Christians have taken license is with the Harry Potter phenomenon. Through the vehicle of creative imagination and encouraging reading among the young, the Neo-Pagan and Wiccan worldviews have been on display in Potter films and books for a long time. By the way, did you know that in addition to Harry Potter merchandise, you can get Wicca & Witchcraft for Dummies at Walmart.com? That’s right, and not only this, you can get many other “how to” books on the same topics from this same retailer known as “America’s store.” (10) This alone should alert us not only to how prevalent occultism has become in our culture, but also to how enamored our culture has become with witchcraft.
As to whether or not Harry Potter stories promote witchcraft, there should be little doubt about it. Those trying to draw Christian parallels with the series seem to be straining to make a bona fide case. The very name Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry ought to be a dead giveaway. What flows from J.K. Rowling’s books and movies, the number of which is unsurpassed in the area of children’s literature, is an occult worldview that has been glamorized and marketed specifically for children.
The proponents have said, “Oh, no! You’ve got it all wrong, Harry Potter is not real witchcraft, it’s fictional fantasy and Christian allegory!” If that is the case why use messages and symbols aligned with paganism and witchcraft rather than with Christianity? Using that which best aligns with paganism and witchcraft yet calling it Christian is nothing more than the baptism of paganism.
A warning sign to parents should be the vast number of pagan and witchcraft websites over the years that have promoted Harry Potter as representing occult practices and beliefs accurately. Consider a few of these endorsements:
“[The Harry Potter series], both as books and in movie form are a wonderful metaphor of how we, as witches/Wiccans/Pagans/Magical people, perceive our own spirituality/works/studies, and our vision of the world. The symbolism is so strong and I have found myself reacting so many times…positively, mostly thinking, “this is SO right!” Even, as I think Quirrell himself has said it so plainly…, ‘There is no good and evil, there is only power, and those too weak to seek it…’ This might actually offend some, but it hides one of the great truths of Witchcraft, that there is no White or Black Magick, there is only Magick, and it is the use we make of it that defines its purpose, although we usually see a dark use of Magick as weakness, rather than strength.”(11)
“Sure you are seeing witches in Harry Potter…But it is positive. They are friendly. They are good. The book may change the way people feel about us.” (12)
“Harry Potter happens to be one of the best things for witchcraft, and the understanding of it.”(13)
Claiming to be Christian as Rowling does and claiming that Harry Potter has a Christian allegorical meaning, while at the same time promoting a worldview contrary to Christianity, defeats the purpose of any purported Christian message. Claiming to be Christian yet promoting a worldview hostile to Christianity is contradictory. We do not promote witchcraft in order to lead someone to Christ. We do not promote something contrary to a Biblical worldview in order to promote a Biblical worldview.
While Rowling’s works can be considered fiction, they do not fit the fantasy genre. Some have likened Harry Potter to C.S. Lewis’ stories which are true fantasy. In Lewis’ stories, the setting is an alternate reality quite different from our own. Have you met any talking beavers or talking lions lately? Do people enter alternate realities through a wardrobe? Of course not, that is fantasy. However, in Harry Potter, the stories take place in our present reality. While Harry Potter may be fictional, actual occult practices are being performed by Harry, who was born a wizard from his witch mother and wizard father who also attended Hogwarts, a school very similar to the modern day boarding schools found in England. It is there that Harry, like his parents before him, is in training to learn sorcery, complete with the casting of spells, learning to use potions, rituals and divination, similar to those who participate in these practices today.
There are plenty more instances of reality-based sorcery illustrations including a real historical character, Nicholas Flamel, in the book and movie, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. The students have conversations with the dead Flamel as he walks the halls of Hogwarts, endorsing necromancy, communication with the dead. Flamel was a French alchemist who supposedly succeeded in making the Philosopher’s Stone in the late 1300’s. Students of alchemy know that the Philosopher’s Stone is a metaphor for turning our base, physical natures into our more metaphysical self’s, attaining self-actualization with the Higher Self. This inner transformation supposedly produces everlasting life. (14)
While I do not endorse Catholicism, I do however, endorse Catholic writer, Michael O’Brien, for his excellent critique of Potter. He compares Rowling’s’ Potter world to being gnostic in essence and practice saying, “The wizard world is about the pursuit of power and esoteric knowledge, and in this sense it is a modern representation of Gnosticism, the cult that came close to undermining Christianity at its birth. The so-called “Christian Gnostics” of the 2nd century were in no way Christian, for they attempted to neutralize the incarnation and to distort the concept of salvation along traditional Gnostic lines: man saves himself by obtaining secret knowledge and power.”(15)
Using gnostic-like power as ideal magical power seems to be the modus operandi in Potter. O’Brien further states, “This is consistent with the author’s confused notions of authority. In reality, magic is an attempt to bypass the limitations of human nature and the authority of God, in order to obtain power over material creation and the will of others through manipulation of the supernatural. Magic is about taking control. It is the fundamental rejection of the divine order in creation. In the first book of Samuel ({1 Sam. 15:23}) divination is equated with the spirit of rebellion.”(16) I agree with O’Brien about this being a rejection of the fundamental order in divine creation. The occult/pagan/witchcraft worldview is an upside down world. One should get a sense of this from the beginning of Harry Potter. The natural has traded places with the superstitious, the normal for the abnormal. Witchcraft is portrayed as normal while the “real” or normal (the “muggle” world) is portrayed as abnormal.
Again, this is another example where intention does not change meaning. The problem that most Christians have in trying to Christianize Harry Potter may not be that they do not understand that the Bible speaks against witchcraft and sorcery. Their problem is twofold: They really do not understand witchcraft and they really do not understand the Biblical teaching against such pagan practices. It needs to be said that we are not given Biblical liberty to mimic forbidden practices. To be honest, this is where the church has failed. It is not enough to say “stay away from witchcraft” if believers do not understand what they are supposed to stay away from. It appears that believers have not been properly warned enough to “abstain from all forms of evil” or that light does not fellowship with darkness.
Conclusion
In closing, Yoga and Harry Potter are just two of many examples that fit the mold of the “Trojan Horse” that has been camping out in Christian circles for a number of years. In Part Two, we will look at the Enneagram craze and the Contemplative Prayer Movement, both of which are penetrating the church.
Scriptures both warn and encourage us to see things from a Biblical perspective. God, through the prophet Isaiah says, “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts” (Isa. 55:8-9). Judges 21:25 tells us “In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in his own eyes.” Proverbs 21:2 says, “Every man’s way is right in his own eyes, But the LORD weighs the hearts.” Further, Proverbs 14:12 says, “There is a way which seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death.” Against such warnings we are encouraged to “Trust in the LORD with all our hearts, and lean not to your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight” (Prov.3:5-6).
It is easy to get off base when popular human opinion or experience has become the reference point for interpreting life instead of the scriptures being the only rule of faith and practice. Unfortunately, some are using the Bible as merely one rule and not the only rule of faith and practice. It was for freedom that Christ has set us free. But we are set free to do His will, not ours! Since we have been set free, we are to bring every thought captive to the obedience of Christ (II Cor. 10:5).
Footnotes:
1Rev. Clete Hux. Attempts to Secularize Yoga in Alabama Schools. https://1593137887-da8479395cd0c713.wp-transfer.sgvps.net/product/2020-spring-worldviews-newsletter/
2Dr Peter Jones. Confronting Neo-Paganism Part 1. https://truthxchange.com/2019/08/confronting-neo-paganism-part-1/
3Swami Param, New age yoga: Old age theft and surrender. The Costal News Group March 25, 2013. (internet article accessed at https://www.thecoastnews.com/new-age-yoga-old-age-theft-and-surrender/ )
4Alabama Administrative Code (AAC), Rule 290-040-040-.02, Certain Teaching Techniques, (1) d, e.
5see: www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/testing-prayer/201908/why-christian-yoga
6 Ibid
7 Hans Ulrich Rieker, The Yoga of Light: Hatha Yoga Pradipika, New York: Seabury Press, 1971, p. 101, ( cited in Ankerberg and Weldon, Encyclopedia of New Age Beliefs, 606. )
8Rev. Clete Hux, The Evangelical Dictionary of World Religions. Baker Books, Grand Rapids, Michigan. Kundalini p. 295
9 Swami Param, New age yoga: Old age theft and surrender. The Costal News Group March 25, 2013. (internet article accessed at https://www.thecoastnews.com/new-age-yoga-old-age-theft-and-surrender/ )
10 Diane Smith, Wicca and Witchcraft for Dummies. https://www.walmart.com/ip/For-Dummies-Wicca-and-Witchcraft-for-Dummies-Paperback-9780764578342/3401529
11 Richard Abanes, Fantasy and Your Family (Camp Hill, PA: Christian Publications, 2002), 194-195.
12Phyllis Curott, witch, as quoted in Buck Wolfe, “Witches Bless Harry Potter,” ABC Newscom. August 18,1999.
13quote from witchnox.net by “Heather.” Message #1432, November 24, 2001
14 Richard Abanes, Harry Potter and the Bible (Camp Hill, PA: Christian Publications, 2001), 26.
15Michael O’Brien’s Harry Potter and the Paganization of Children’s Culture https://1593137887-da8479395cd0c713.wp-transfer.sgvps.net/culture/harry-potter-and-the-paganization-of-childrens-culture/
16 Ibid
