Harry Potter: Witchcraft Repackaged (Who's Behind Harry Potter?)

Jeremiah Films ^ | October 2001 | Pat and Carol Matriciana

[henbane]

Seems like it's time to revisit The Hammer of Witches compiled by two Dominican friars and approved by Pope Innocent VIII.

Question #18 may be effective in answering the unbelievers.

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MALLEUS MALEFICARUM

[THE HAMMER OF WITCHES]

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THE FIRST PART

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THE FIRST PART TREATING OF THE THREE NECESSARY CONCOMITANTS OF WITCHCRAFT, WHICH ARE THE DEVIL, A WITCH, AND THE PERMISSION OF ALMIGHTY GOD

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Question I..........Whether the Belief that there are such Beings as Witches is so Essential a Part of the Catholic Faith that Obstinacy to maintain the Opposite Opinion manifestly savours of Heresy.

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Question II..........If it be in Accordance with the Catholic Faith to maintain that in Order to bring about some Effect of Magic, the Devil must intimately co-operate with the Witch, or whether one without the other, that is to say, the Devil without the Witch, or conversely, could produce such an Effect.

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Question III..........Whether Children can be Generated by Incubi and Succubi. Question IV..........By which Devils are the Operations of Incubus and Succubus Practised?

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Question V..........What is the Source of the Increase of Works of Witchcraft? Whence comes it that the Practice of Witchcraft hath so notably increased? Question VI..........Concerning Witches who copulate with Devils. Why is it that Women are chiefly addicted to Evil superstitions? Question VII..........Whether Witches can Sway the Minds of Men to Love or Hatred.

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Question VIII..........Whether Witches can Hebetate the Powers of Generation or Obstruct the Venereal Act.

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Question IX..........Whether Witches may work some Prestidigatory Illusion so that the Male Organ appears to be entirely removed and separate from the Body.

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Question X..........Whether Witches can by some Glamour Change Men into Beasts.

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Question XI..........That Witches who are Midwives in Various Ways Kill the Child Conceived in the Womb, and Procure an Abortion; or if they do not this Offer New-born Children to Devils.

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Question XII..........Whether the Permission of Almighty God is an Accompaniment of Witchcraft.

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Question XIII..........Herein is set forth the Question, concerning the Two Divine Permissions which God justly allows, namely, that the Devil, the Author or all Evil, should Sin, and that our First Parents should Fall, from which Origins the Works of Witches are justly suffered to take place.

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Solutions of the Arguments.

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Question XIV..........The Enormity of Witches is Considered, and it is shown that the Whole Matter should be rightly Set Forth and Declared.

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Question XV..........It is Shown that, on Account of the Sins of Witches, the Innocent are often Bewitched, yea, Sometimes even for their Own Sins.

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Question XVI..........The Foregoing Truths are Set out in Particular, this by a Comparison of the Works of Witches with Other Baleful Superstitions.

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Question XVII..........A Comparison of their Crimes under Fourteen Heads, with the Sins of the Devils of all and every Kind.

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Question XVIII..........Here follows the Method of Preaching against and Controverting Five Arguments of Laymen and Lewd Folk, which seem to be Variously Approved, that God does not Allow so Great Power to the Devil and Witches as is involved in the Performance of such Mighty Works of Witchcraft.

[Doctor Doom]

*ping

[strela]

Ah - another aficionado of The Devil's Dictionary!

My favorite:

HYPOCRITE, n. One who, professing virtues that he does not respect, secures the advantage of seeming to be what he depises.

[Tennessee_Bob]

Ridicule me if you will, but I am firmly convinced that the Bible is our sufficient guide to life.

That being said, I have to ask...do you feel that people are reading the Harry Potter series as a guide to life? Or are they reading it simply because it's something to read? Or is it a mixed bag, some reading it for entertainment, and some reading it as a guide to life?

If you stand against the novels because some may be reading it as a guide to life, then surely, you must stand against any sort of self-help book that isn't the Bible, after all, people don't read those for entertainment.

Do you stand against Stephen King's novels or the writings of Dean Koontz?

I read The Once and Future King years ago. Arthur is transformed by Merlin (a wizard living backwards in time) to different types of animals, in order to gain experience in different situations. There was a lot of magic in this book, but it didn't lead me into witchcraft.

As I said to someone in freepmail...it's a book, for Pete's sake. It's an adventure story. If it were "Harry Potter's Guide to Witchcraft for the Complete Idiot (includes chalk for your pentagrams!)," then I might be concerned.

[Doctor Doom]

You know where the Devil's Dictionary will lead us.

My favorite

CONSERVATIVE, n. A statesman who is enamored of existing evils, as distinguished from the Liberal, who wishes to replace them with others.. :)

[strela]

No need to go to this much trouble to determine just who is a witch and who isn't. For your edification:

CROWD: A witch! A witch! A witch! A witch! We've found a witch! A witch! A witch! A witch! A witch! We've got a witch! A witch! A witch! Burn her! Burn her!
VILLAGER #1:
We have found a witch. May we burn her?
CROWD:
Burn her! Burn! Burn her! Burn her!
BEDEVERE:
How do you know she is a witch?
VILLAGER #2:
She looks like one.
CROWD:
Right! Yeah! Yeah!
BEDEVERE:
Bring her forward.
WITCH:
I'm not a witch. I'm not a witch.
BEDEVERE:
Uh, but you are dressed as one.
WITCH:
They dressed me up like this.
CROWD:
Augh, we didn't! We didn't...
WITCH:
And this isn't my nose. It's a false one.
BEDEVERE:
Well?
VILLAGER #1:
Well, we did do the nose.
BEDEVERE:
The nose?
VILLAGER #1:
And the hat, but she is a witch!
VILLAGER #2:
Yeah!
CROWD:
We burn her! Right! Yeaaah! Yeaah!
BEDEVERE:
Did you dress her up like this?
VILLAGER #1:
No!
VILLAGER #2 and 3:
No. No.
VILLAGER #1:
Yes.
VILLAGER #2:
Yes.
VILLAGER #1:
Yes. Yeah, a bit.
VILLAGER #3:
A bit.
VILLAGER #1:
She has got a wart.
BEDEVERE:
What makes you think she is a witch?
VILLAGER #3:
Well, she turned me into a newt.
BEDEVERE:
A newt?
VILLAGER #3:
I got better.
VILLAGER #2:
Burn her anyway!

[strela]

You know where the Devil's Dictionary will lead us.

Sure me. It usually leads to me staying up all night to read it again, then being grumpy and surly the next day from lack of sleep ;)

[~EagleNebula~]

EN=>this crowd can get nasty at times.

Doc D=>You have no idea.

my response:

"For God hath not given us a spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind." II Timothy 1:7

Have fun playing y'all! catch up with you tomorrow...

[strela]

Sure me.

Its started already - this should be "Sure do." ;)

[Doctor Doom]

Grumpy and surly? Ambrose would be proud.

As the great WC said, "Start each day with a smile, so you can get it over with."

(Hmmmm...someone left my lunch uncorked.)

[bjcintennessee]

ping!!!

[nopardons]

The staff to serpent trick is really a hoot ! The magician puts a huge snake to sleep ( it's like rubbing the belly of an aligator, who then goes to sleep ) , the snake become rigid, and the magician use it as a staff. Then, he rubs the head of the snake ( which is used as the handle ) , and the snake wakes up. GOD had NOTHING to do with Moses's use if this same trick, which he leared how to do, whilst a boy growing up in the palace. except that GOD told him to do it. Moses's snake ate the others snakes, as snakes are wont to do.

Witchcraft is NOT dear to me; however , through a post grad course in Comparative Religions ( hey, don't blame me for the name of the course ) and outside readings , I know enough about it, to tell you that this entire article is hogwash , you believe in fairy tales as reality, and if the Bible is the ONLY thing upon which you base your way of life, then WHY are you on line, and not out there doing what it says you are to do, in the Bible ? Do you follow the OT and the NT, or just the NT ? If both, then do you eat pork, shrimp, and lobster ? Do you, in other words do ALL that is commanded in Deuteronomy, and other laws books?

You did NOT read the entire article, yet, you have decided that the article is correct and you have ageed with it. The atircle plainly states that THE ROYALS IF ENGLAND WORSHIP SATAN, AND THE ENGLAND IS AND HAS ALWAYS BEEN A HOTBED OF WWITCHCRAFT . FYI ... the monarch of England, in this case, Queen Elizabeth II , is THE HEAD OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND! The Church of England is NOT a SATANTIC, DEVIL WORSHIPPING religion !

And you wonder WHY people here , think that you have a problem with gullibility ?

[nopardons]

Oh, no, no, no , please, no, no ... holding up a cross, a bunch of garlic, getting my silver bulletts loaded into my gun, looking for some holy water, a stake, a hammer ; eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeek ! Have I forgottenh anything ? : - )

[Doctor Doom]

You're making an uncharacteristic amount of sense. :)

[germanshepherd]

I could be wrong, but it seemed to me that the person to whose post I was responding when I said the Bible is our sufficient guide to life, was a student of witchcraft, and turning to it as a guide to life, and that is what impelled the statement. I do not know if people reading the Potter books are using them as a guide to life. I do know that what we are reading, we are taking into our thinking. And I know for a fact that we need to be careful about what we take into our thinking, because that determines our experience. I think it's obvious that reading books friendly witchcraft (albeit perhaps not true to "real" witchcraft) is going to make the reader more friendly and open to witchcraft. Even (sometimes especially) if it is just for entertainment.

No,I do not stand against non-Bible self-help books. Of course it depends on the book as to whether or not I'd read it. I'm very particular about my reading material, but I'm not the public censor. Stephen King's novels? I've never been attracted to them. Too much pure horror. Dean Koontz' novels? I used to be an addicted fan of them. Wow, that man can really tell a story, and what an imagination. Truth be told, I love his novels. (The movies they've made from them just haven't measured up.) I stopped reading them though. Just other more important things to do.

I read The Once and Future King years ago. Arthur is transformed by Merlin (a wizard living backwards in time) to different types of animals, in order to gain experience in different situations. There was a lot of magic in this book, but it didn't lead me into witchcraft.
Haven't read it. But it sounds like a combo of fantasy and science fiction. My objection to Harry Potter is that it doesn't just have some elements of witchcraft in it as literary vehicles, as most fairy tales do. It is 100% witchcraft through and through, without any break from it. It just creeped me out, and I trust my intuitions.

[VietVet]

The reference to the King James Version of the Bible, and to those who apparently believe that St. Paul (and the author of Duteronomy) wrote in Elizabethan English, has to do with the Bible's condemnation of 'witchcraft'. There is no such word in anchient Hebrew, or in Koinic Greek. The words and phrases which the Committee that translated the Bible for King James I, in the first decade of the 17th Century rendered as 'witch' and 'witchcraft' can be translated alternately as 'poisoners', 'woman with a familiar spirit' (what we would call a medium or channeler today), 'wise man', and so on. The blanket condemnation of 'witchcraft' was as much an artifact of the language used in translation as it was a condemnation of a coherent set of beliefs and practices.

[germanshepherd]

Paragraph 1. I guess we'll have to disagree about Moses. I'm sure you have similar explanations for all of the other things he did, including parting the sea.

Paragraph 2. Well, your point is well taken about why I'm on line instead of studying. I've been asking myself the same question for about a half hour now. Yes I eat pork etc. How about yourself?

Paragraph 3. I think I already apologized for not reading the whole article before speaking out about it. I still agree with what I read, which was a critique of the movie. There's no need to yell about it.

Paragraph 4. No, -- I didn't wonder why people thought I had a problem with gullibility. I wondered why people couldn't be civil in their comments about it.

And now I need to get some sleep. Good night.

[VietVet]

If witchcraft only involves the Devil, the witches and the tacit permission of God (Who allows us to choose Evil so that we have a truely Free Will), then the magic talked about in the Harry Potter books cannot be witchcraft, because the Devil is no-where present. Indeed, worship is no-where present in those books, that I know (and I certainly have not wasted my time reading the entire series of what are, after all, childrens' books), which rules out both Satanic Witchcraft and neo-pagan Wicca. What is taught at Hoggwarts seems to be sorcery, magic as the science of manipulating non-material forces by both lawful algorythms (spells and potions) and even more by force of psychic talents.

[nopardons]

No, dear, I ALWAYS make a lot of snese. You just don't ALWAYS agree with me. LOL : - )

[nopardons]

No, dear, I ALWAYS make a lot of good sense. You just don't ALWAYS agree with me. LOL : - )