Another surprise for me: people really think they can read fiction all they want without the risk that they will start to believe what the material contains. I would compare that to swimming in sewage, confident that your intact skin will protect you from cholera, etc.
The recent popularity of the Da Vinci Code is a typical case in point. "But it's FICTION!" they retort. Nevermind that the first page claims that all references to monuments and rites are factual. The reader goes away thinking that he knows the real scoop now, practically forgeting it was supposed to be "fiction."
We were warned that people with "itching ears" would believe "fables" and forget the truth of God. Harry Potter books don't soothe the itch. They make it more anxious for a good scratch. Here comes a new volume, just in time!!
It's interesting that so many consider the vilest fiction "harmless". Anything a person absorbs through their senses - sights on TV and movies, sounds, reading - it all colors the mind and heart, either for good or ill.
People who know this avoid content which defiles or pollutes. Currently, much of what is considered culturally acceptable is spiritually toxic.
People will believe anything. The Da Vinci Code is just a book, and not a very good one.
Harry Potter's not occult. Have you read them? You remind me of the people who thought Dungeons and Dragons were going to get kids sacrificing to Satan.
I read the books first before letting my siblings read them. If they had held a trace of the occult - even a whiff - I'd have rather had a millstone hung about my neck than recommend them. There were some books I previewed for them that were evil, or occultish, or just had no redeeming values, like Philip Pullman's "His Dark Materials" trilogy.
But Harry Potter is set in a moral universe - just not ours. You've got to understand the difference between fiction and reality is that all fiction is about a world a lot like this one, with some crucial difference. In HP world, that difference is that magic works, and is not necessarily evil or forbidden. If you can't figure that out, well, then this conversation is pointless to continue.