Worth it???

[Tonks]

No: HPFGUIDX 153564

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "imasuperhero7" 
<imasuperhero7 at ...> wrote:

> Janie wrote:
> Really now, I am very curious. Some of you seem to have based your 
> lives around Harry Potter. I am sure I am not meaning to be rude 
or trying to bash anyone, just curious, what is it about these books 
that have enthralled you?
> Granted, they're well written, and fun, but are they really that 
worth while??? I mean, contemplating the personalities of each 
character and their motives and all that, worth it?
> 

Tonks:
I think that Kelly said it well and said it for all of us.  The 
Harry Potter books have a magic all of their own. Somewhat like the 
enchanted book that was mentioned in the series where when a person 
picked it up they could never stop reading it.  I think that there 
are many reasons for this.

First the books take the reader to another world outside of our 
own.  A world in which those things we might want to happen actually 
do. Who wouldn't want a House Elf?  Or to cook with a wave of a 
wand?  

Second, this other world is also a world that exists inside of each 
of us through what Carl Jung called the collective unconscious.  
That is a part of every human being where the wisdom of the ages is 
stored.  All of the ancient stories of humankind are within each of 
us at some very primitive level. Some people are more in touch with 
this part of themselves, but the vast majority of people are not.  
Even so, the collective unconscious works in them just the same, as 
it pulls one toward the story that conveys deep truth of the nature 
and history of humankind.

The Potter series is also a spiritual classic. It touches each 
person at a very deep spiritual level, again without most of them 
being consciously aware of it.  It is a very deep magic indeed. 
Rowling uses the classic myths, folk tales, etc., of a variety of 
cultures, to touch that part deep within us.  We respond like a 
person lost in the desert (of our modern world), to the site of 
water. We long for that which with we have lost touch.  We long 
(perhaps as LV does) to find that part of our soul that has been cut 
off, and hidden away.  We long to be made whole again.  And in some 
way reading the HP series reunites us with that lost part of 
ourselves.  For a brief moment in time, we are what we know we were 
meant to be.  A part of us remember the time when magic was real. 

When we explore the thought, feelings and actions of the characters 
we are also exploring the human psychic.  We try to understand the 
other, and in so doing, to understand ourselves a little more.  We 
look at the evil in the WW and because it seems a bit distant from 
our own we can touch it, look at it up close, even try it on, all in 
a safe way.  

Many of the discussions here are the same sort of questions that 
people ask in real life, but here in Harry's world they are safer to 
explore. This is even truer of spiritual questions.  Reading the 
list over time you will see the same questions are asked about the 
person and behavior of DD that are asked in RL about God.  Why would 
he allow this or that to happen, and so on.  Those of us living in 
the modern world of political correctness, and technology have lost 
the ability to explore truth in our own life, but we can pick up our 
brooms and fly after the golden snitch as a seeker in and through 
the eyes of Harry.  

Tonks_op