Wands and other things

[Geoff Bannister]

No: HPFGUIDX 147703

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "susanbones2003" <rkdas at ...> 
wrote:
 
Renee:
> > AFAIK, John Granger is not a proponent of the way of alchemical
> > liberation. His views are - I hope to do them justice now - that 
> the
> > HP books are Christian literature in the tradition of the 
Inklings,
> > notably Lewis and Tolkien. But while the message itself is 
> Christian,
> > but JKR presents it by using the imagery and symbolism of 
spiritual
> > alchemy as developed in the European alchemical tradition. The 
> medium
> > is not the message, though, at least not in the eyes of John 
> Granger,
> > who is a member of the Eastern Orthodox Church. If you take a 
look 
> at
> > his website and read some of the articles, you'll see that he 
does 
> not
> > propagate alchemical liberation as a worldview. Nor does he claim 
> JKR
> > is doing so.
 
Jen:
> Thank you Renee for that concise and very clear explanation of 
JKR's 
> use of the Alchemical tradition. I found Granger's writings very 
> enlightening because he was the first to demonstrate how deeply 
> JKR's writing is steeped in the classis tradition and how that 
world 
> view operated. We have lost so many of the reference points that 
> someone even 50 years ago would have known about because we no 
> longer study so many of the things that formerly comprised 
education 
> in the classical sense. JKR and the Inklings share a world view in 
> which the good doesn't have to be labeled overtly. And as you point 
> out European alchemical tradition was a way of talking about 
> Christian themes that people understood. Alchemical liberation has 
> developed into its own tradition but the two still use many of the 
> same terms but do not share the same world view at all. 

Geoff:
I find it difficult agree with you on your take of John Granger's 
ideas. I have not read  a lot of his writing but having recently gone 
through "The Alchemical Keys to the last Harry Potter novel", I found 
little reference to the Christian faith as I see it; let me add as a 
disclaimer that this is not a prescriptive view but a personl one.

We have had discussions on alchemy on this group on the past and I 
have remarked on occasion that this view reminds me of the teaching 
of the Gnostics way back in the 2nd century AD. They put forward the 
idea that you had to have a secret knowledge (gnosis) in order to 
experience salvation. Instead of faith being open to anyone, it was 
blanketed in esoteric mysticism. I believe, as a commited Christian, 
that to have faith in Christ both simple and difficult; simple 
because it can be summed up in two comments made by Jesus himself; 
difficult because you have to move beyond an intellectual belief to a 
spiritual acceptance as well.

I believe that there is a Christian underpinning of the books if you 
wish to look for it; I realise that not everyone will want to do that 
but many folk have pointed out - on this group, in books and in 
articles - that, in the behaviour of characters such as Dumbledore 
and Harry himself, many parallels can be drawn with real faith.