Given this environment, it is small wonder that the #1 books on the best seller lists these past 3 years have been the first 3 of 7 books written by J.K. Rowling that feature Harry Potter, the boy who makes good as a wizard. Vast numbers are, indeed, just mad about Harry. The Harry Potter books are the rage among children and adults, and many children read them six or seven times apiece. They are read aloud in school classrooms and teachers have Harry Potter Days, where the students come dressed up as their favorite characters. The Harry Potter series is a sensation internationally as well, having been translated into 27 languages and selling well over 30 million copies world-wide. The TimeWarner movie deal has already been made so we will be seeing lots more of Harry Potter in the months and years to come.3 Despite their popularity, however, the series has not been without its critics. Children love the books, teachers rejoice to have a book series that captures children’s imaginations, and parents can’t believe Johnny is actually reading a book instead of playing video games, but still the nagging problem of content won’t go away.

In a way, the Harry Potter series is the boys’ version of Cinderella; it is the story of a boy who leaves a miserable human existence behind and finds friends, success and adventure when he discovers that he is actually a wizard and is to be enrolled in Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Harry, skinny and well-intentioned with glasses and unruly hair, also discovers that he has a mortal enemy in Voldemort, the evil wizard that had murdered Harry’s parents years before. The books are framed in the occult. The students at Hogwarts practice incantations, sorcery and conjuring. Friendly and not-so-friendly ghosts and a malicious poltergeist roam the halls of the school; magic mirrors, crystal balls, astrology and cases of possession are featured, and reincarnation is implied. There is a lot of humor and high adventure in these books, but they aren’t “The Addams Family” or “The Munsters” in print either, because of a hefty dose of death and horror, as seen in this excerpt: “Standing by the shivering flames in Lupin’s hand was a cloaked figure that towered to the ceiling. Its face was completely hidden beneath its hood. Harry’s eyes darted downward, and what he saw made his stomach contract. There was a hand protruding from the cloak and it was glistening, grayish, slimy-looking, and scabbed, like something dead that had decayed in water. . . .”4

Some people try to equate J.K. Rowling’s books with children’s fantasy books written by C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien, but there are fundamental differences. The author Michael O’Brien has written a timely book, A Landscape With Dragons,5 that shows how much of the children’s literature written since the 1960s has been written from a pagan world view. Classic children’s fantasy literature written from a Christian viewpoint, such as The Chronicles of Narnia and the Fellowship of the Ring, depict the main characters as maturing and growing through adversity. Magic is portrayed as seductive (think of the effect that the ring had on Bilbo Baggins), and witchcraft is portrayed as evil (remember the White Witch?). There is an ultimate good outside of the characters, exemplified in the God-like figure, Aslan. The children in the books must struggle to make the right decisions; they are not all-good or all-bad, and redemption of characters like Eustace in The Chronicles of Narnia is possible and hoped for. Traditional figures of evil, such as dragons or witches, are enemies which must be fought against without compromise.

In contrast, Harry Potter books are imaginative and exciting but weak in values. Harry and his friends break rules and lie when it’s convenient, and yet triumph whether killing trolls or outwitting their professors at Hogwarts. Magic is fun and easy for Harry right from the start, whether it’s flying broomsticks or wielding a wand. Through the books Harry is portrayed as a likable boy who is loyal to his friends, while his school rivals are vicious thugs. Harry and his friends must contend with the evil Voldemort, but there is no figure for absolute good comparable to Aslan in the Narnia series.6 There is an element of vulgar humor and spite in the Potter books that is not found in classic literature. Traditional figures of evil such as dragons, werewolves, witches and ghosts are befriended, which follows a trend in many contemporary books that Michael O’Brien warns will relax a child’s instinctive aversion to what is truly frightening, and which can, ultimately, end in exalting the diabolical.7

J.K. Rowling claims she doesn’t believe in the magic in her books, and that she is not proselyting children. Books that blatantly seek to lure children to occult practices are worse than the Harry Potter series, but still the dangers of the Rowling books are two-fold: these books desensitize children to the occult and wizardry is depicted as empowering. An ardent reader of the Harry Potter books becomes familiar with terms such as divination, casting spells, omens, portents, and the weirdness of the occult is softened. After reading the series, a child seeing a fortuneteller or palm reader sign will have a sense of recognition rather than suspicion. Many would doubt that a child’s fantasy book could spark an interest in the occult, but that would belie the recent NY Times News Service article8 on the growth of witchcraft in America. Witchcraft, it reads, “is gaining an ardent following among teenagers, mostly girls, who are in part captivated by the glossy new image of witches portrayed on television shows and in the movies.” Obviously, Shakespeare’s characterizations of witches in Macbeth as “midnight hags” and “weird sisters” are definitely behind the times.

Besides familiarizing children with occult terms, the Harry Potter books portray the occult as empowering. Harry is transformed from a besieged and misunderstood youngster into a hero through wizardry. In stark contrast to the pathetic, usually cruel humans he lived with before Hogwarts, the wizards are larger-than-life, brave, wise and kindly; even the evil wizards have more pizzazz than the humans. (Always referred to as “muggles” in the books, humans are depicted as ignorant and vile, and pointedly intolerant of the occult!) No matter what the scrapes Harry gets into, or against what evil adversaries, he always comes out on top. Harry Potter is a sympathetic hero, and children identify with him. At a recent book signing, every child came with a book in hand and a Harry Potter lightning bolt on their foreheads. A child without guidance from parents and searching for the transcendent in his life could wish he could tap into power like that, too.

Father Pacwa writes in Catholics and the New Age: “Humans are made to be spiritual. St. Augustine wrote in his Confessions, ‘Our hearts are restless until they rest in You.’ When people reject the spiritual life offered by God, they opt for a bogus spirituality.”9 Increasingly, that bogus spirituality takes the form of occult practices such as astrology. Surveys have indicated that those most influenced by astrology are young people who are interested in religion but not affiliated with organized religion and those who see their social situation as unstable.10 Unfortunately, many young, spiritually illiterate Catholics coming from broken families fit that description. It should be a wake-up call that a Newsweek poll conducted in 1996 found that 49% of Catholic respondents believed in astrology.11 Heaven help us if more Catholics believe in astrology than believe in the True Presence of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament; obviously serious catechetical work needs to be done.

Our best defense is to know our Catholic Faith and live it. The Catechism of the Catholic Church makes it clear that the occult is not morally neutral: “All forms of divination are to be rejected: recourse to Satan or demons, conjuring up the dead or other practices falsely supposed to ‘unveil’ the future. Consulting horoscopes, astrology, palm reading, interpretation of omens and lots, the phenomena of clairvoyance, and recourse to mediums all conceal a desire for power over time, history, and, in the last analysis, other human beings, as well as a wish to conciliate hidden powers. They contradict the honor, respect, and loving fear that we owe to God alone. All practices of magic or sorcery, by which one attempts to tame occult powers, so as to place them at one’s service and have a supernatural power over others—even if this were for the sake of restoring their health—are gravely contrary to the virtue of religion. These practices are even more to be condemned when accompanied by the intention of harming someone, or when they have recourse to the intervention of demons. Wearing charms is also reprehensible. Spiritism often implies divination or magical practices; the Church for her part warns the faithful against it.”12

You can’t get more clear than that. It is naïve to think that a book series that showcases the occult in an appealing way belongs in the hands of impressionable children in our homes or in our Catholic schools. This is particularly true in an age which is witnessing an increase in overt occult belief, including the recognition of Wicca as a religion by the government, complete with tax-exempt status. Parents have a grave responsibility to make clear to their children that the occult is not make-believe, that it is filled with deceptions and should be avoided.

Blessed Josemaria Escriva has written, “These world crises are crises of saints.” Our response as Catholics to the rise of paganism and the occult must be to know and live our Faith, to pray, and to have recourse to our Blessed Mother. To fight the anti-culture, the culture of death, we must overcome evil with an abundance of good. We as parents and educators have the opportunity and joy of offering the best literature to our children to help instill in their hearts a truly Christian culture. There are many excellent book lists available, but a great place to start would be the extensive list of recommended books included in A Landscape with Dragons.13 Instead of wringing our hands about the lack of values in our culture, let’s give our children the satisfaction of reading good books that will really help them in life. That is where our priorities should be, rather than following to the latest fads in books without regard to the books’ value. High standards are particularly necessary in our Catholic schools, whose self-evident mission should be to educate children in Christian values.

Nietzsche has been right with his predictions so far, but he left out one factor in his equation: God; and God has the last say. The pope has heralded the coming of a New Springtime in the Church. The Faith will blossom forth, and it won’t do so on “osteoporotic skeletons” of social conventions and mores that have crumbled these past 40 years. It will spring up anew more vibrantly than ever, thanks to the life-giving Blood of Christ mercifully poured out on his Church every day. Unlike Harry Potter though, Jesus does not “work magic;” it is our faith, or lack of it, that limits his renewal of the Church. Possibly it was easier being Catholic in years past, at least in some ways, but it is our calling to witness to him today, both in our families and in our schools. We must not do less. Perhaps we need the bumper sticker “Christ has Risen, and Grace is still at work” to remind us of reality.

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