(long, boring) Re: Kon wa and help?!

[Rita Winston]

No: HPFGUIDX 5701

--- In HPforGrownups at egroups.com, Tala Gin <kachina_kokomis at y...> 
wrote:

> What I need to know is how you folks feel about the idea that Harry
> Potter promotes paganism-and, in turn, kids shouldn't read the 
> books.  
> 
> (`*·.¸(`*·.¸  ¸.·*´)¸.·*´)
> *¤´¨`·.¸¸*Tala Gin*¸¸.·´¨`¤*
> (¸.·*´(¸.·*´  `*·.¸)`*·.¸) 

Hi, Tala!
I also am a Wiccan, and it bugs me when there are newspaper fluff 
pieces on 'Wiccans like Harry Potter', because Harry Potter has 
NOTHING to do with us. There's no religion in those books except some 
celebration of vaguely Christian holidays like Christmas and Easter 
-- most certainly there is no polytheism or Goddess worship in there, 
much as I wish there were! Paganism is a religion which is generally 
polytheistic and nature-oriented. There is no religion in those
books. Therefore there is no Paganism in those books. Wicca is a 
Pagan religion (or possibly several Wiccas are several Pagan 
religions). There is no religion in those books. Therefore there is 
no Wicca in those books.

They don't do magic the way that Wiccans do magic. They do magic by 
an inborn special ability that only some people have, carefully 
memorized words and gestures, and hard-to-obtain ingredients like 
dragon's blood and unicorn hair. Wiccans believe that all people can 
do magic, and we do magic by visualizing the goal, raising psychic 
energy, and throwing the energy into the goal. Any words, gestures, 
or ingredients we use are just to help us visualize the goal and 
raise and tranmit the energy. 

The Hogwarts students memorise their magic words and are warned to 
pronounce them correctly and are NEVER told to visualize their goal; 
we make up our own magic words but practise for years to get better 
and better at visualization. We raise energy in many undignified
ways, such as dancing and singing (usually badly); they are taught to 
concentrate in a very dignified way -- I suppose THEY don't need to 
raise energy because the energy is already in their wands.

The word 'witch' is used in those books simply as the female of 
'wizard', so that it means a female who does magic. I wish she had 
used wizard and wizardess, or sorceror and sorceress, or mage (which 
is an ungendered term) and thus avoided all the other connotations of 
the word 'witch'. 

Which some people use to mean just any old female psychic, as a cowan 
friend who said his family believes that his grandmother must be a 
witch because she always phones at just the time that something 
newsworthy has happened. 

And some people use it as just a euphemism for 'bitch'.

And some people use it to mean anyone who practises unscholarly magic 
passed on by traditional people, like an illiterate medieval 
herbalist or a modern indigenous-people shaman or medicine person.

And some people use it to mean a Wiccan priest or priestess.

And some people use it to mean a person who has sworn allegiance to 
the Christian Devil.

And the wizards and witches in Harry Potter are none of those things 
(except Rita Skeeter IS a bitch). They're not Wiccans and they're not 
Satanists and they're not unscholarly traditional people and they're 
not untrained psychics. They study in school how to do their magic, 
which is just like using a technology, as if Hogwarts were a school 
of how to drive cars and use computers and other office equipment. 
There are occasional references to things from the Western magical 
tradition (such as Tarot cards, and the four Houses can be matched to 
the Four Elements) which are also used by Wiccans. That is NOT a 
connection to Wicca; it is because both draw on the same traditions 
that were recorded in Classical and European literature and used by 
Christian natural philosophers until science was separated from 
philosophy.

I have been given to understand that some people object to HP because 
they object to anything resembling magic or fortune telling (even 
fortune cookies) because they believe that there really is magic and 
it really does work and the way it works is that the Devil does a 
special miracle for each use of magic, as a gift to the magic user, 
in exchange for which the magic user will go to Hell upon death. 
Believing that, they can't stand for their children (or anyone else) 
to ever get the idea that it might be okay to do magic or even play 
at pretending to do magic, such as dressing up as Cinderella's fairy 
godmother for Halloween. I think the people who believe that are far 
more deluded than the people who believe it is a sin against God to 
use any technology more advanced than putting a holder around a wax 
candle to shelter it from the wind.

And I think they wouldn't get very far with the general public if 
they accurately explained their views rather than throwing around a 
whole bunch of nonsense about Minerva McGonagall and Selena Fox 
worshipping Satan.