AN ORTHODOX VIEW OF HARRY POTTER

[Liudmilla]

I found this article on an english orthodox site.......

AN ORTHODOX VIEW OF HARRY POTTER

FR ANDREW PHILLIPS

For some time now the entertainment media of the Western world have been obsessed with the immensely profitable adventures of the sorcerer's apprentice and schoolboy wizard Harry Potter.

Some Evangelical Protestants, with their usual lack of subtlety and culture, have condemned the whole phenomenon out of hand as 'Satanic'. Self-righteously they have snatched the books from the hands of innocent children who just wanted a 'good read'. This spiritual blindness has, as usual, done the cause of the Church no good, since secular people actually identify Evangelical Protestantism with the Church. Naturally, it is not of the Church, being a collection of Protestant sects. But even if it does not reflect the viewpoint of the Church, could it have a point?

Firstly, it has to be said that the author of these children's stories, J.K. Rowling, cannot be blamed. If you do not like the stories, then do not buy the books and do not watch the film. Do not shoot the messenger because you do not like the message. Blaming her for all evil is rather like Puritan moralisers who blame television programmes for all evil: the solutions are simple: a) we are not (yet) obliged to have a television in our homes, and, b) even if we do have one, they have 'off' buttons on them. Equally, if society had not taken to the Harry Potter books and nobody had bought them, they would have been pulped, and the film, with its tens of millions of dollars of profit, would not have existed. In other words, Rowling has simply filled a spiritual vacuum in society, meeting a social need.

And what a spiritual vacuum there is in contemporary Western society! Where can you go for spiritual food? To 'churches', full of happy-clappy modernists with their self-centred, man-pleasing, self-worship? Let us be frank, since the fall of the Catholic/Protestant world in the 1960's, it is now almost impossible to find spiritual food within those denominations. No wonder so many young people become 'New Agers', or shoe-bombing Sufi Muslims or join other Non-Christian sects or religions which actually believe in something (though often, not so much 'something' as 'anything'). We live in a spiritually gutless society. 'Magic', 'wizardry', what attractive words in the hollow heart of the spiritual void of present-day Western society!

Theologically, however, we should be careful. There are only two sorts of spirits, good or evil. There is no neutral.

Sooner or later Harry Potter could become a force for the good 'magic' of the Holy Spirit, through Christ, His Mother, the saints and the angels. But this is difficult because the 'magic' of the Holy Spirit is not involuntary, it requires our participation, our effort to improve ourselves. It is one thing for Potter apparently to fight evil, but what is the weapon he uses - magic spells? Where is the Name of Christ, so obviously underpinning the works of C.S. Lewis, or Tolkien?

Or else, indeed, Harry Potter will become a force for the evil 'magic' of the demons. And this is easy, because evil 'magic' does not require any effort on our part to better ourselves, it merely requires our passiveness before the face of evil, our placid acceptance of the work of demons. Spells in the name of the demon can work.

I am worried by the Harry Potter phenomenon, because it contains within it no specifically Christian symbols or message. It is the spirituality of the vacuum and, as such, it perfectly reflects and expresses the whole amorality and emptiness of contemporary Western life, degutted of all Orthodox, or even orthodox, Christian content. In conclusion: Beware; discern the spirits; by their fruits ye shall know them.

[尼古拉前执事]

Harry Potter and the Culture of Magical Thinking
by Deacon Michael Hallford
http://www.ecclesiagoc.gr/e_index.htm

As a Christian critic of Harry Potter, it would be easy to point to the obvious occult allusions in the book.

These are so many and so blatant that I could easily fill this paper with hundreds of examples, and I will shortly outline some of the most egregious examples.

But the central problem with the books from a Christian perspective is not only their attempts to bring the occult into the mainstream and to expose children to the most pernicious forms of witchcraft in a form which makes them palatable and even entertaining, but the attempt through the books to make a whole culture of magical thinking and the occult practices behind it appear exciting and inviting to children at precisely a time when they are most susceptible to it and when they have the least resistance to its influence upon their developing minds.

Ours is a culture already satiated with magical thinking, where children are taught from the time they begin to speak of Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny, where the entertainment industry creates ad infinitum stories where the impossible happens routinely, and into such an environment, J.K.

Rowling has introduced us to Harry Potter, the child marked from birth as the chosen one, whom Voldemort the Evil One was unable to kill, and who raised by his ignorant and uncaring relatives, the Dursleys, and their incorrigible son Dudley, must discover his destiny as a great wizard, a maker of spells.

That Ms. Rowling in fashioning this tale of witchcraft has chosen images of Joseph and Jesus, and other Biblical themes seems no accident.
In fact this is the first of numerous parallels between Harry Potter and Christ, which fill this book from cover to cover.

The book begins by outlining events, which occurred prior to Harry Potter being delivered to the Dursleys, his aunt and uncle.
In explaining how Harry's parents died, Ms.
Rowling lays out the central dichotomy in the book between the witches and wizards of which Harry is one, and between the rest of the world, or the muggles, as the non-witches are called.

For the muggles, the world is mundane and predictable, and from the perspective of Harry void of both excitement and compassion.
The muggles treat Harry with derision, even forcing him to sleep in a cupboard rather than a bed.

That the muggles are universally portrayed in the book as thoughtless and uncaring, and the witches as compassionate and protecting is one of the book=s underlying motifs and in its repeated contrasts between the world of the muggles and the world of the witches, the book seems written in the style of a recruitment manual, one in which a child is given a clear choice between the mundane uncaring and unmagical world of the muggles and the magical and infinitely more exciting world of the witches.

What clearly is not explicitly explained in the book is the very real world of the occult, which the book imitates.

From a Christian perspective there is another clear dichotomy in the world, between those who walk in the light and those who walk in darkness, from those who follow Christ and those who follow the devil.
In contrast to this dichotomy there is a second dichotomy outlined in the book, between those who practice so-called «white magic» and those like Voldemort who have given into the «dark magic».

This reminds me of the whole «force» motif from the Star Wars movies, where one can either be in the dark side or the light side of the «force».
That this book parallels the Star Wars movies in its master-apprentice structure seems no surprise, given both of these works occult underpinnings, and the whole structure of Hogwarts School of Magic mirrors the Jedi structure of the master magician teaching the neophyte the ways of the Wizard.

From the very first pages of the book, J.K.
Rowling is determined to point out to children that the mundane world in which they find themselves is merely an illusion, behind this world is another world, where owls act as personal messengers, where invisible trains take would-be magicians to strange castles, where anything imaginable can happen.

There are dragons, and three- headed dogs, and centaurs and unicorns, in a world in which people can fly and become invisible.
To a child, how can these things not seem exciting, and it is precisely because of this presentation that it opens children up to delve into the whole world of the occult.

It is precisely this level of acceptability, this geniality so to speak, which makes Harry Potter most dangerous from a Christian perspective.
The whole occult tradition, beginning in the pagan mystery religions, through the underground movements in the middle ages, and into the modern new age movement has at its heart this belief in man's ability to become a god, to exercise godlike powers over the physical world.
It is the promise of the serpent to know good and evil, to have power over the forces of nature.

This belief is expressed in the spells and the potions and incantations of the witches.

Of course, from an Orthodox Christian perspective the only true way to become a god is through union with Christ in glorification or Theosis.
The church has taught consistently that other attempts to manipulate the physical world apart from Christ are demonically inspired.

In Harry Potter this occult tradition of attempting to manipulate the physical world is made to seem perfectly normal, and it is masked in the whole culture of magical thinking which permeates our society.
My chief criticism of the book is not that it is too demonic, which would be an easy criticism, but that it is too innocuous, that it tries too hard to make its occult underpinnings acceptable to a mainstream Christian culture, masking it in the same Christian dressing that Santa Claus has been masked in the past two hundred years.

It came as no surprise to me that the witches at Hogwarts would celebrate Christmas.
A whole chapter in the book is devoted to the pagan festivities of Christmas, such as trees and gifts.
What J.K.Rowling has attempted is to create a bridge from the most pernicious practices of witchcraft to the remaining vestiges of Christian culture.

That the book can be read by a nominally Christian audience and not be seen as an occult manifesto is most disheartening.

Iam sure the legion of Harry Potter admirers have no idea how deeply entrenched in the occult paradigm the book really is.

They would not realize how ideas from the church of Wicca, or from Satanism, or from the Druids, or from the pagan mystery religions are all blended together into a potpourri of occult symbolism.

That the actual practices of real witches are outlined in the book, that there have in fact been real schools of witchcraft, would not interest them, because they see the book as only fantasy.

It is this view, which provides the impetus, which might lead children to later investigate the real world of the occult, which is not as innocuous as portrayed in the book.

It is precisely to protect children from this possibility that Christians should discourage their children from reading the Harry Potter books.
Yes, they may seem like simple fantasies, but beneath them lay the entire hidden world of the occult.

[Moronikos]

I'll see your priest and deacon and raise you a bishop--Bishop Auxentios of Photiki.

Did any of you ever read HP? I read the first HP book about a month or so ago. HP is less dangerous than the checkout line at the grocery store.

[OrthodoxyOrDeath]

Moronikos (sounds like a Greek name ),

Do you have children?

[Moronikos]

Moronikos (sounds like a Greek name ),

Do you have children?

Yes, I have two children, 11 and 6. I would let my 11-year old son read HP, but my Baptist wife won't.

[Грешник]

Moronikos,

Can you tell me of the redeeming factors of HP? I have seen the previews for the movies and as far as I have gotten inside the books is the cover. lol. Could you give me some insight into the good of HP?

Juvenaly

[Moronikos]

Juvenaly,

The bishop says some good things about HP and also some good/bad things about the way HP has been reviewed. I blogged about HP here.