OOD:
If you must reprimand CGW for his comments, then in all fairness you need to reprimand Joasia too. Her comments were hardly Orthodox in nature.
Funny thing about this all..... If you are Orthodox making the negative comment about non-Orthodox it's okay. But non-Orthodox are almost always seen in a negative light. Why is that? hmmmmmm...... Seems to me the Orthodox should be held to a greater standard than everyone else.....after all we should know better?
Mira
EHN wrote:Might Harry Potter seem as real as life to his young fans around the world? Do children accept Harry's lessons in practical witchcraft as an open door to an occult reality?
Well, we've left Orthodoxy in these rhetorical questions. My answer is, mine don't. Other parents, of course, must answer that theirs do. This has nothing really to do with reading fantasy, or even fiction, but with reading. Even the lives of the saints, even scripture itself can give rise to this sort of misapplication: an investment of themselves in the story in defiance of/oblivion to reality. Probably every living author can tell you stories of letters they've gotten. It's not a property of the text, but of the reader.
Parents don't just have a responsibility to monitor what their kids read. They also have to monitor how their kids react to what they read. A father cannot assume, because some authority has asserted that some text is wholesome, that the result of his son reading it will be wholesome. Conversely, a mother cannot assume that the condemnation of a text by another would have the predicted effect on her daughter.
And one should especially be aware of how one interacts with reading the major media. Newsweek's first objective is to sell magazines, so their tendency on something like this is to play up the crisis. The Pagan Association is going to lean towards playing up its influence. We all need to judge ourselves in the same light: how much are we inclined to play up (or down) the situation?
OrthodoxyOrDeath wrote:Because you are not Orthodox CGW, you should understand that you don't come from the same background of teaching on what is and is not demonic. The Holy Fathers, whom I know you don't recognize as an authority, do in fact say a thing or two about things such as this.
Um, I do take the church fathers as a kind of authority. I don't take them as an absolute authority, but we've never really brushed against this distinction. We're still stuck in the issue of interpreting the fathers.
That seems to be the reason why we've shifted over to the "HP tempts people to get into the occult" argument. Splitting hairs about "demonic" as applied to the real occult is rather pointless considering that I've expressed already that people shouldn't be involved in it. We could go on about whether the Fathers are authorities about the modern occult, but that has little to do with HP. The real problem with the word "demonic" as applied to HP is that, within the context of the story, there are no demons. Within the context of the story, magic is essentially a law of the universe. And Rowling has repeated, to the point of become exasperated, that in this wise the world of the story differs from reality.
That's what is wrong with trying to apply the condemnations of the Fathers to the HP stories: it's an improper reading of the text.
Now if you want to use the word "demonic" in a technical sense as against its ordinary sense in English, you may proceed to do so as long as you provide a definition.
Those who harbor fantasies do not pray; for he that prays lifts his mind and heart towards God, whereas he that turns to fantasies diverts himself. Those who are addicted to the imagination have withdrawn from God's grace and from the realm of Divine revelation. They have abandoned the heart in which grace is revealed and have surrendered themselves to the imagination, which is devoid of all grace.
Now, I've gone through and read some others of his writings (quickly of course) and some of what he says certainly would be rejected in the West. (His imagination of human nature, for instance, is dualistic almost to the point of gnosticism.) But be that as it may, I have one positive and one negative observation.
First, to the implicit point he makes about the possibility of turning the imagined into an idol: that's plainly a valid point and one which everyone agrees upon.
Second, to the last line about the imagination: nearly everyone in the West regards this sentiment as heretical, and I'll bet it isn't the consensus of the East either. The imagination is surely of Godly origin, for it is one of the characteristics that makes humans unlike the animals and indeed, is perhaps part of the image of God in which we are made. If it is corrupt (which of course it is), it is through the contamination of the corrupted heart, the will, which directs it to ungodly purposes. It is odd that Jesus Himself would use the "graceless" imagination in his teaching, but the parables demand its use.
OOD:
If you must reprimand CGW for his comments, then in all fairness you need to reprimand Joasia too. Her comments were hardly Orthodox in nature.
Funny thing about this all..... If you are Orthodox making the negative comment about non-Orthodox it's okay. But non-Orthodox are almost always seen in a negative light. Why is that? hmmmmmm...... Seems to me the Orthodox should be held to a greater standard than everyone else.....after all we should know better?
Mariam,
I certainly strive to be fair, but in all honesty, I have very little time these days to read through all the posts. In this thread, it seemed to me that CGW was the first to crack open the door of personal criticism. It seemed to me, and perhaps I am wrong, that anything Joasia said after that may have been along the same lines as CGW, but CGW made the ground fertile and Joasia just fell on it.
I truly hope and pray that everyone here continues to engage in friendly conversation, even if they disagree.
btw, I only mentioned that CGW was not Orthodox because I did want people to keep this in mind; I often forget this myself. And it is important to know, not to place him as "second class" or anything else someone might think, but so that when people coorespond with him, they understand why he might say some of the things he says. I pray he humbles himself and submits his whole body and soul to the Church like each Orthodox Christian must do each day.
Anyway, lets just leave it at that if we can and move on. I don't think anybody is angry, at least I hope, and if anybody else was slipping toward personal criticism, then I would think they got the same message.
I make no attempt to conceal that I'm an Anglican, but please do not presume that this means I reject every Orthodox authority a priori. As an Anglican I'm very interested in what the Fathers say-- actually, I'm interested in Orthodox positions in general, but I'm not moved by the general air of inarguability that seems to surround them.
As far as the content of the books is concerned, the only acceptable authority is the books themselves. (That's why I keep the "Six Foot Shelf of Heresy and Woo-Woo".) As far as interpreting the Fathers is concerned, as I understand it none of the participants in this thread is in fact a proper authority to do so in Orthodoxy. This discussion seems, in general, to be foundering on the issue of awareness of one's own thought processes. If I go over to the fantasy thread, I might go into it further, but it seems to me that people are not aware that they are providing interpretations, and aren't aware of how crucial imagination is to their day-to-day thinking. And they aren't aware how they criticize what they are told. Ideally argument ought to be carried out so that the other side can repeat the thought and see that it is valid. What I'm seeing here is that (a) it's difficult for me to see the degree to which the citations I'm getting are representative of Orthodox thought, and (b) I'm being asked to accept interpretations of these citations strictly on the basis of the speakers' authority. For example, when I look back at the passage from the Philokalia, it seems to me that, based on my reading of similar Western material, the passage isn't germane, because it's talking about a certain sort of mystical practice. WHo is better authority to be speaking to me: the members of this group, or the Philokalia itself?
CGW,
I would like to know how you interpret, or a better term is, understand this Saint. Mind you, this is different than how you can interpret - I suppose we can twist something to mean anything we want.
God reveals Himself to the humble, who live in accordance with virtue. Those who take up the wings of the imagination attempt the flight of Ikaros and have same end. Those who harbor fantasies do not pray; for he that prays lifts his mind and heart towards God, whereas he that turns to fantasies diverts himself. Those who are addicted to the imagination have withdrawn from God's grace and from the realm of Divine revelation. They have abandoned the heart in which grace is revealed and have surrendered themselves to the imagination, which is devoid of all grace. It is only the heart that receives knowledge about things that are not apprehended by the senses, because God, Who dwells and moves within it, speaks within it and reveals to it the substance of things hoped for. "Modern Orthodox Saints, St. Nectarios of Aegina", Dr. Constantine Cavarnos, Institute for Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies, Belmont, Massachusetts., 1981., pp. 154-187
And there are others....??
