Posted on 11/21/2001 8:13:35 AM PST by marshmallow
Actually I'm constructing a rather long post about being on the "otherside" of this subsection of the Christian Community for 20+ years. Not sure if it will ever see fruition, or how quickly it will get pulled if I do polish it up. Basically it's about how annoying these people have been with their constant crusades against any form of entertainment I myself enjoy. You name it, if they say it leads to Satanism I did it (D&D, heavy metal, Doom, etc. etc. {Yul Brenner accent} ET CETERA). And while I actually did study the occult for a while the reason I did was these guys, I wanted to find out what they were talking about; what I found was that they were pretty much making stuff up off the top of their heads (pretty much, there's some funky stuff in some heavy metal but in all my years in that crowd I've only met one person that listened to any of those bands, cause they suck).
Anyway, keep an eye out for that one. I'm sure the HP bashers will be all over it, praying for my soul.
Let's look at her exact words:
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. I was quite close friends with wizards, warlocks and witches alike - all of us (psychologists, physicists, & other professionals) being in the business of the new science of the mind, defending our studies together as being of the white magic category, much like the wizardry school of Harry Potter.
Where's the ironic tone? I don't see it. She claims she "mastered" training courses in "telepathy, divination, energy-work, necromancy, geomancy and time travel." If she were stupid enough to believe in that garbage in the first taste, why should we listen to what she says now?
Are you telling us that nobody who once believed in "stupid stuff" can ever be believable again? I daresay a lot of us believed in a lot of stupid stuff --until we learned better. Perhaps you've been superior since birth.
Where's the ironic tone? I don't see it.
(1) she puts "healer" (as in "New Age 'healer'") in quotation marks. That might be a teeny-weeny hint she's being ironic;
(2) "...pretty standard fare in training courses I mastered to some degree or another..." - I think "pretty standard fare" exudes a detectable whiff of irony;
(3) "being in the business of the new science of the mind" - likewise.
But if, in the whole context of her article, you don't "see" (or perhaps hear) the irony, that's OK. Some people are tone-deaf, not their fault.
Geez, I guess it's just my superior attitude, but if somebody tells me she is an expert on the evils of Harry Potter because she trained in time travel and telepathy, I tend to think a little less of that person's judgment. It's like an adult taking classes in the reality of the Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny giving me a lecture. It's like listening to the opinion of somebody who gets their advice from Miss Cleo.
But if, in the whole context of her article, you don't "see" (or perhaps hear) the irony, that's OK. Some people are tone-deaf, not their fault.
Could you possibly be any more condescending? Can you please make an argument without your smarmy, patronizing attitude? You act as if I personally insulted you in thinking this writer is full of it. What, are you the author of the article?
And you know what I see in this article? I don't see irony -- I see a writer who has a hard time distinguishing fantasy from reality. I give her opinions about as much weight as I would give to the opinions of Shirley MacLaine.
She never said this, nor anything remotely like it.
Could you possibly be any more condescending? Can you please make an argument without your smarmy, patronizing attitude? You act as if I personally insulted you in thinking this writer is full of it. What, are you the author of the article?
Yes, yes (have already made the argument), and no.
I see a writer who has a hard time distinguishing fantasy from reality.
I see a FReeper obstinately clinging to an opinion that has no basis in the author's words.
What are you talking about? From the headline on, "Former New Ager Explains Potter Danger," to her stating her expertise as an expert on the occult, that is exactly what she is saying.
I see a FReeper obstinately clinging to an opinion that has no basis in the author's words.
What did the author say?:
So, for those readers who believe Harry Potter's world to be a harmless fantasy or the science of magic to be the stuff of educative fairy tales, let me dispel those myths (no pun or magic intended) right up front....Truth be told, I graduated from these authors in my early teens into more meaty topics such as ESP, ghost hunting and parapsychology, experimenting with Ouiji boards, telepathy games, and automatic writing.
So, you don't believe someone who admits to believing in "ESP, ghost hunting and parapsychology" and who experimented with "Ouiji boards, telepathy games, and automatic writing" as having problems distinguishing fantasy from reality? I do.
This you both accomplished by distorting the grammatical contruction of the author's words in this passage:
"...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. I was quite close friends with wizards, warlocks and witches alike - all of us (psychologists, physicists, & other professionals) being in the business of the new science of the mind, defending our studies together as being of the white magic category, much like the wizardry school of Harry Potter.
Clearly, the author's word "mastered" takes as its object the "training courses" she engaged in as a "New Age 'healer' and...practitioner" (a phase of her life to which she refers with...dare I say it?...irony).
Clearly, she is NOT claiming powers of telepathy, necromancy, time travel, and other occult "arts," but rather an understanding of the the BUSINESS of hawking them.
So the passage quoted above, by any adult reading (by an adult conversant with grammar, that is), is not some wacko listing of the author's success in witchery, but a demonstration of her qualifications for judging the Harry Potter enterprise by listing her experience in the "business of the new science of the mind."
For J.K. Rowling is doing the same thing the author used to do: hawking the occult as a business.
The main difference between Rowling and this author is that Rowling is hawking her occult wares to the young and impressionable. AND, that Rowling is making multiple millions at it.
Wiccans are real. No difference. -Brett66
So, there's no difference between militant Islam and Wicca? That certainly comes as a surprise to me. Please enlighten me by pointing out the widespread Wiccan movement that wants to forcibly convert the world to its religion and kill all nonbelievers. Or, if that's too much of a challenge, point out the tenants of Wicca that advocate violence period. I can wait a long time.
So what you're saying is, the author was a snake-oil salesman for the business of the occult. Again, why should anybody trust what she says now? Either she believed the New Age junk was real, which makes her woefully stupid, or she knew it was a fraud to begin with, which makes her a charlatan. Either way, she's not someone who is worthy of being taken seriously, especially when she is on the anti-Harry Potter soapbox.
You are again committing misrepresentation of the author's meaning, though this time you do not use grammatical legerdemain as noted in post 154, but sheer dishonesty.
The author does not "admit" to currently "believing in" ESP, ghost hunting, etc. (Nor does she say she ever "believed in" those things, for that matter.) She is speaking of her past dabblings in these practices as a teenager -- again, for the purpose of demonstrating her experience in the same areas of the occult as Rowling purveys in her books.
An honest reading of the author's article would lead to the conclusion that the author definitely does NOT now "believe in" these practices, if she ever did.
Your post 153, OTOH, again provokes the conclusion that you are, indeed, a superior person. You have never, since birth, had a foolish thought, taken a foolish class, or "believed in" a foolish thing. I bow down to your superior wisdom!
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