Secular Universes and our current culture; the self

[Chris Parnell]

No: HPFGUIDX 34383

Eileen wrote a good comment:

I'm rather guessing that the answer is that JKR has, as much as
possible, excised religion from her tale, for the simple reason that
any way you go, you'll have problems in such a setting. Little
remnants from her cultural background still exist: like Draco's
"invocations" of God, the monk ghost, the saint names, the godfather,
but, on the whole, it's not there. I don't know if we can deduce the
relative piety or not of Hogwarts students, wizarding population etc.
then, because it seems that something that definitely exists in real
life just doesn't get mentioned or noticed in any way.


I am a Hindu, actually, and I'd like to make a small contribution to
this thread. Not about Hinduism, but about the fact that religion no
longer has the moral role and social binding force, that it used to
have.  Nor does religion the capacity to make a closed culture like it
used to, particularly Christianity, although Northern Ireland may be
an exception to this suggestion I render.

On all fronts, religion is losing its excessive moral control over
people's lives, and that is a good thing. People used to die in fear
of the Divine, and that was a terrible thing. So I agree, and take
Eileen's comments even further, that JKR is simply reflecting culture
as it is today, with the vestiges of religion as the binding force in
the background, or being the forgotten structure that actually binds
society. It is largely a secular Potterverse with Christian roots.

I dont want to take that any further except to say that it seems
appropriate that all these clues are in the background. Harry Potter
and co are dealing with a reality that is permeated with the workings
of spirit, albeit via wands. What is gradually happening and it may
spread, as Mad Eye was trying to teach in DADA, that the real doer or
force or power of  magic and witchcraft is the self, which lies
within. Witness Mad Eye trying to teach students in DADA to resist the
Imperius Curse by force of their mind and will, elements of that inner
self.


My two sickles.


CP