Commentary: Harry Potter 's Magic Is Moral Madness

By Caryl Matrisciana - Jesus Journal-ANS, Jun 19, 2003

MENIFEE, CA - J.K. Rowling admits her Harry Potter books teach “morality” but many argue it is an anti-Christian morality forwarding lying, cheating and stealing, all of which Harry is rewarded for when caught. The newest installment, “Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix," continues that sordid saga.

The relativistic worldview supports much of the content of Outcome Based Education and Goals 2000 which is taught in public schools today. Perhaps that’s why the Potter books based on dubious values, life after death, elevation of nature and animals above humans and other pagan values is endorsed by educators and mainstream society. Paganism is mainstream it appears and mainstream has gone pagan.

Today, millions of children take Harry’s curse mark on their own foreheads to show their allegiance to Harry. The Bible teaches that at the ruling of the One World leader in the end times, the whole world will take “the mark of the beast” on their foreheads to show their loyalty to him. Are our children being conditioned for something much bigger than even we understand?

8.5 million copies of “The Order of the Phoenix” have been printed for the US market and millions will be able to purchase it on Saturday.

Britain’s Amazon.com, the internet booksellers, have 300,000 copies securely tucked away in a dedicated warehouse in the English countryside ready to send to UK buyers on its Saturday release. UK book chain Waterstones children’s book buyer said, the “books are arriving in sealed boxes. We need to keep them locked off from the shop floor until 12 0’clock. We have to make sure the customers can’t get to them, and staff can’t get to them, apart from the one person who has the key.”

The wait has been 3 years for Potter fans since book #4’s release in July 2000. They did however get their Harry-fix through Warner Brother’s blockbuster movies based on the first two books. Warner Bros. proudly flaunted that film #1 based on book #1 was “an accurate portrayal of Witchcraft”.

The young Wiccan, Harry Potter, then only 11 years has taken the world by storm. According to the Pagan Federation of England the interest of thousands of teens to learn about witchcraft has been stimulated through Harry Potter and television programs like Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Sabrina The Teenage Witch.

Pacific News Service says that in the Spanish speaking world, where Harry’s sales top the bestseller lists in Mexico, Argentina, Chile and Venezuela, Latin American, critics complain “that the world of magic through which Harry Potter travels is a metaphor for the New Age philosophy that is hostile to the Christian faith, and thus Harry Potter is an assault on Latin American values.”

In the Siberian City of Novosibirsk, after the release of book #4, Harry Potter fans were believed to have been poisoned after drinking a “magic potion” inspired by the Potter books. Local police suspected that older children had stolen from a school lab and fed copper sulfate to 23 young children, who were taken to hospital, after a Potter initiation ceremony.

While critics say Rowling’s use of witchcraft in the Potter series is only a literary device, the sited examples only go to show that children believe the so-called fantasy of Harry to be real and a possible tool for the power they crave in their lives.

J.K. Rowlings promised “The books are getting darker….Harry’s going to have quite a bit to deal with as he gets older. Sorry if they get too scary!” In a Newsnight interview on BBC2 TV last week she tells how “she cried after killing off a ‘significant’ character” in her new fifth book.

The first three books were heavily promoted through the American school system by their American publisher Scholastic Inc who have provided school curriculum materials for over 80 years. It is a problem that while the teaching of Christianity has been banned from schools (through suppression of Bible reading, prayer or posting the Ten Commandments), the witchcraft and wizardry of Harry Potter can be read aloud in American classrooms.