Jo's OWN Words about Political and Religious Overtones in...

[sk8maven]

No: HPFGUIDX 174510

> Bart: 
> However, JKR a WICCAN? No, no, no, no, NO! First of all, she has
> specifically stated that she is not, and Wiccans rarely keep their
> religion a secret if asked directly; a number of Wiccan/neopagan
> sects actually have as a basic rule not to lie about one's
> religion.
<snip>
> Similarly, if you look at the occult as expressed in the Harry
> Potter novels, you will note that there are certain basic, well,
> I guess you would call them "errors", which no Wiccan (or at least
> no knowledgeable Wiccan) would commit. We went over that here
> during a discussion of the 4 houses vs. the 4 elements, where I
> pointed out that the characteristics given the houses by JKR
> do not match their elemental aspects (if they did, Gryffindor
> would be fire, Ravenclaw air, Hufflepuff water, and Slytherin
> earth; in addition, fire and air are masculine elements, and earth
> and water are feminine elements, so, whether Slytherin was water or
> earth, Salazar should have been a woman). 

As a matter of fact, it hardly matters which system you try to apply -
at least two Houses are at least partially switched, and their
Founders should have been, say, "Rowland Ravenclaw" and "Sabrina
Slytherin". 

> So, although I think that the Christianity in the HP series goes
beyond a simple "Jesus allegory", JKR is no Wiccan. 

Nor is she an astrologer, nor a Taoist, nor a Jungian, nor much of any
kind of occultist. Apparently she just grabbed a handful of symbols
and applied them willy-nilly, without any deeper thought about it.

She's even got two-and-a-half of the Four Evangelists, but once again
carelessly and incompletely applied. "The Lion of St. Mark" matches
well to the Gryffindor lion (why a lion and not a griffin?), while
"the Eagle of St. John" is at least a visual match to Ravenclaw's
eagle (again, why an eagle rather than a raven?). But then it all goes
to pot, because the symbol of St. Luke is an ox, not a badger (at
least it's still Earth-related) - and St. Matthew's symbol is a winged
being of human appearance (an angel?). Snakes don't enter into it at all.

Another counter-example besides Baum, and perhaps a more apt one, is
Katherine Kurtz, who is a practicing Gnosticist and really knows her
religious/occult symbology. When she uses a symbol, she knows what
she's dealing with and she doesn't make silly mistakes. (She's got
other faults, though, like a relatively weak gift for names and a
total inability to keep clanking anachronisms out of her writing.
Ursula LeGuin sent her up good and proper on her flat-footed writing
style, in an essay titled "From Elfland to Poughkeepsie". Fun reading!)

Oh well - no writer is perfect. Not even Tolkien. ("Teleporno" as the
Quenya form of "Celeborn"? ROFLOL! :D :D :D )

All things considered, JKR isn't as "bonk you over the head" with her
Christian overtones as C.S. Lewis, who leaves you in NO doubt
whatsoever what and Who he's writing about. And Lewis was nowhere near
as hamhanded as Stephen King is ("The Stand", e.g.).

Maven