Harry Potter and The Lost Generations; Former New Ager Explains Potter Danger.

The Cross and the Veil ^ | Nov, 2001 | Clare McGrath Merkle

[discostu]

I was quite close friends with wizards, warlocks and witches alike

You can ignore everything this guy says because of this line right here. The original definition of the word warlock is traitor. Everyone in the occult/ wicca community knows this, they'll inform you in know uncertain terms if you use the word around them. Subsequently no one, and I mean no one, in that community would ever say they were close friends with a warlock. It's like an American saying they're close friends with someone "very similar in manner and belief to Benedict Arnold", just not gonna happen.

[Random Access]

our children live in a reality steeped in violence, sex and the occult...

Not only that, most children (Chelsea might be the exception) are born as a direct result of sex.

[justshutupandtakeit]

I don't have much time for this I am on my way to burn all the fairy tales I was raised on (and shamefully warped my children with.) You know the 1000 and one Nights, Greek mythology, Cinderella, Snow White and all those other sources of evil.

As soon as the bonfire is over I hope to start worshipping flying saints. Are they all in the Order of the Leaping Virillians?

[longshadow]

Before my audience is lost too, considering me a fear-mongering, fundamentalist, unimaginative critic of the series, may I introduce myself as a former New Age "healer" and advanced yoga practitioner. Many of the delightfully described magical arts in the Harry Potter series were pretty standard fare in training courses I mastered to some degree or another, including telepathy, divination, energy-work, necromancy, geomancy and time travel, to name but a few.

It is perfectly normal for children "make believe" that fantasy is real.

It is profoundly abnormal for an adult to confuse fanatasy with reality. If this author actually thinks that telepathy and time travel and the rest of that garbage is real, the author is in dire need of psychological assistance.

[Celtjew Libertarian]

Perhaps the most revelatory aspect of the series is that Harry and the rest of the wizard cohort view all non-magical adults, called "Muggles", as stupid, antagonistic and not to be trusted. The entire Muggle world is looked upon as archaic, even grossly ignorant -

Actually this sort of elitism worries me more than anything else I've heard about the books. I disliked the "Mundanes" of "Mundania" in Piers Anthony's Xanth series, long before I disliked Piers Anthony. This sounds -- although I'll have to read the books to be sure -- like rather the same attitude.

[RayChuang88]

OH PLEASE!!

What a bunch of Barbara Streisand, as Rush Limbaugh is often wont to say. People are forgetting that the Harry Potter books are works of fiction, for gosh sakes!

Having read the books myself, there is NOTHING in these books to seriously contradict Christianity per se. After all, note that at Hogwarts they do celebrate Christmas and Easter very clearly.

The phrase get a collective life definitely applies to too many Harry Potter detractors, IMHO.

[jdege]

I find it fascinating that we've seen such a surge in Manicheanism in the evangelical church.

Orthodox Christianity rejected it as a heresy 1700 years ago.

It was a Persian idea - influenced by Zoroastrianism - and it is in direct conflict with the fundamental principles of Christianity.

For what it's worth, to view the world as a contest between good and evil is to deny the omnipotence of God. Satan is not God's peer - he is a part of God's plan, and evil exists because we choose it to exist - it is within each and every one of us, an inherent consequence of our own free will. It is not some outside force forever battling against the good.

He that saith he is in the light, and hateth his brother, is in darkness even until now. He that loveth his brother abideth in the light, and there is none occasion of stumbling in him. But he that hateth his brother is in darkness, and walketh in darkness, and knoweth not whither he goeth, because that darkness hath blinded his eyes.
- 1 John 2:9-11

[marshmallow]

The "whistling past the cemetery" crowd concerneth me not.

I'm happy if one or two find this informative.

[Slyfox]

A group of parents got together and complained about the death education classes in the Columbine school system. They were roundly dismissed as quacks. Then the Columbine massacre happened. Now the world asks how it all could have happened.

[WyldKard]

Many of the delightfully described magical arts in the Harry Potter series were pretty standard fare in training courses I mastered to some degree or another, including telepathy, divination, energy-work, necromancy, geomancy and time travel, to name but a few.

Is this guy a "pagan" or a Scientologist?

Give me a break. This yahoo is just a member of the same group that wants to warn everyone about the "eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeevils" of Harry Potter, all while making a buck off it (Buy your copy of Harry Potter: Witchcraft Repackaged now, for only $24.95!!! Hurry while supplies last!)

Could you guys maybe at least unlatch yourself from Ms. Rowlings teet before warning people of the dangers of her books? Thanks :)

[Joe Bonforte]

Is there a connection between people who can't distinguish fastasy from reality and people who are long-winded? All of the anti-Potter pieces seem rambling and semi-incoherent.

[marshmallow]

One of the rich ironies in reading some of the idiotic posts on this thread is that many of the pre-eminent scoffers concerning the occult are among the first to embrace and propagate every half-baked conspiracy theory or rumor concerning secular matters that is doing the rounds.

Lack of discernment is a seamless garment and is not compartmentalized.

[Frances_Marion]

Cripes, will all you Jack Chick wannabes get a life and worry a CLEAR AND PRESENT dangers for once!?

[jimt]

One of the rich ironies in reading some of the idiotic posts on this thread is that many of the pre-eminent scoffers concerning the occult are among the first to embrace and propagate every half-baked conspiracy theory or rumor concerning secular matters that is doing the rounds.

Believing that people, or governments, might conspire to do evil things may be a little paranoid, but believing that a children's story is a practical outline for performing magic is raving lunacy.

I haven't seen any of these practitioners winning the lottery, which surely they'd do were there anything to the "occult".

The writer is silly. She's gone from one whacked out belief to another.

[Lanza]

I totally agree with your response about not being for or against Potter. I enjoy reading these debates, and my favorite rebuttals are the pro-Harry "Bewitched made me a Satanist" ones. I have gotten some great chuckles out of reading these threads. I personally am not interested in my children reading or watching Potter. I have always been afraid of anything witchcraft or the occult. My 6 year old was afraid when she saw the movie premiere of Potter at the theater a few months ago. It appeared so very dark. However, we have lots of friends that love Harry Potter and are going to the movie. I say "go for it" it's just not for us.

[Xenalyte]

We also don't get the fact that the series of Harry Potter books . . . not only propagates occultism, but offers advanced indoctrination into it.

I gotta tell you, I've read the series three times now, and no matter what I do, I cannot blow my mother up like a balloon, or put a curly tail on my cousin. Nor will my broom do jack squat by way of flying or elevating me. And don't even get me started on my potions. Do y'all have any idea how hard it is to find a phoenix feather in Houston?

Conclusion: if these are handbooks, they're really poorly written, and should have been fact-checked and tested before publication.

[stanz]

There is NOTHING occult about the Harry Potter books. Go see the film. It will entertain you. It will bring a tear to your eye at the end because GOOD triumphs over evil.

[Celtjew Libertarian]

I say "go for it" it's just not for us.

A phrase missing from the vocabularies of far too many people of almost every political bent. Thank you.

[CatoRenasci]

Indeed. No longtime reader of The Green Egg or The Crystal Well he. Seems to me he could actually use solid courses in the history of science, Kabbalah, Western mysticism and Freemasonry. Gadzooks he seems an ignorant, if earnest and well-meaning, twit. Well, people most fear what they don't understand. "New Age" types for the most part, especially the popular sort, generally seem to me to be rather pathetically shallow people looking for meaning in all the wrong places.

[CatoRenasci]

When I think of the New Age writer, I am reminded of Leisure Suit Larry with a slightly more PC line of patter.