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Updated: March 4/2012

A journey into an evil world

The Harry Potter Books Are Witchcraft

As of January 2008, 180 million copies of the Harry Potter books have been printed. You will find them in over 45 languages, in 135 countries. The worldwide gross dollars for the Harry Potter films is $3.8 billion. Over 1.5 million audio versions have been sold. Scholastic, the U.S. publisher of the books, has netted $350 million in profits from their sale. The author, J.K. Rowling, is now the richest woman in Britain(June 23, 2007) and the first billionaire in history who obtained it by writing books.

The seven books are:
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (1997)
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (1999)
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (1999)
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2000)
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2003)
Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince (2005)
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallow (2007)

Five million copies of the Phoenix book were sold the first day, with initial printings over 8.5 million copies. Movie receipts for opening day were $44.8 million; 12 million copies of Deathly Hallow were initially printed. As of January 14, 2008, the five Harry Potter films have become the biggest franchise in history after taking $4.47 billion at the world box office.  The expected cost to build a Harry Potter theme park in Orlando is $265 million, set to open in 2009.

A total of seven books were planned because Rowling says seven is a magic number. (In this chapter, all reference paging to these books are to the original books, not the lower-cost paperbacks.)
It is as if a magical spell has been cast over the world, and everyone must buy and love those books and everything associated with them. All types of children’s toys, figures, trading cards, roll-playing games (similar to Dungeons & Dragons), costume clothes, computer games, book bags, posters, clocks, shirts, eye glasses, towels, blankets, playing cards, pens, lunch boxes, and candies are being marketed. Warner Bros. is producing a full-length motion picture to match each of the seven Potter books.

“The Harry Potter phenomenon is unprecedented in children’s literature.”—Diane Roback, children’s book editor, Publisher’s Weekly, quoted in USA Today, December 2, 1999.

“It’s mind-boggling. It would be easy to attribute Harry Potter’s success to some form of magical intervention.”—Jean Feiwel, Scholastic representative, quoted in Los Angels Times, October 22, 1999.

Complete sets of study books and classroom study guides have been prepared, “to improve the curriculum” in public schools; so schoolteachers can lead their students through “the origins and mysteries of Harry’s world,” including its occult rituals. (See “Harry Potter Can Help Parents and Teachers Educate Kids, Children’s Book Expert Says,” PR Newswire, August 17, 2000.)

Beacham Publications has released the teacher’s sourcebook, Exploring Harry Potter, with all kinds of teacher’s aids which include “witches, druids, goddess worshipers, and other pagans in America today.”
A recent Gallup poll found that almost one-third of all parents with kids under eighteen have children who have read a Harry Potter book (Break­­­point, July 14, 2000).

Are children being confused into thinking that these magical powers and people are real? Yes, they are. Rowling, herself, said this: “I get letters from children addressed to Professor Dumbledore, and it’s not a joke, begging to be let into Hogworts, and some of them are really sad. Because they want it to be true so badly they’ve convinced themselves it’s true.”—Rowling, Newsweek, July 1, 2000.

J.K. Rowling claims that the idea for the Harry Potter books suddenly came to her one day in 1990 while riding on a train. So she just started writing, and everything came to mind as she wrote. At least, that is what she says.

“The character of Harry just strolled into my head  . . I really did feel he was someone who walked up and introduced himself to my mind’s eye.”—Rowling, quoted in Reuters, July 17, 2000.

Believing her, readers think that, while she never had any prior knowledge of witchcraft, everything in the books just popped into her imagination. But, as we will discover, the reality is far different.

Whether or not Rowling is a practicing witch, she has, for years, studied deeply into the blackest of witchcraft training manuals. And she is pouring it all into her seven books. The Harry Potter books teach every lurid aspect of witchcraft!

Joanne Kathleen Rowling grew up in Scotland. What she doesn’t tell you is that, since childhood, she has tried to learn everything she can about witchcraft.

According to Ian Potter (a childhood friend, whose last name she used in her book titles), Rowling used to dress up as a witch all the time. Ian’s younger sister, Vikki, also remembers those days when they were growing up together.

“Our favorite thing was to dress up as witches. We used to dress up and play witch all the time. My brother would dress up as a wizard. Joanne was always reading witchcraft stories to us . . We would make secret potions for her. She would always send us off to get twigs for the potions.”—Ian Potter and Vikki Potter, quoted in Danielle Demetriou, “Harry Potter and the Source of Inspiration,” Electronic Telegraph, July 1, 2000.

Trying to hide her years of witchcraft involvement, Rowling falsely claims that she knows little about witchcraft and really has no interest in it.

“I truly am bemused that anyone who has read the books could think that I am a proponent of the occult in any serious way. I don’t believe in witchcraft, in the sense that they’re talking about, at all . . I don’t believe in magic in the way I describe it in my books.”—“Success Stuns Harry Potter Author,” Associated Press, July 6, 2000.

But, during a 1999 interview, Rowling admitted that, in the process of writing the books, she had studied mythology, witchcraft, and the exact words used in witches’ spells.

“I do a certain amount of research, and folklore is quite important in books. So where I’m mentioning a creature or a spell that people used to believe genuinely would work—of course, it didn’t . . then, I will find out exactly what the words were, and I will find out exactly what the characteristics of that creature or ghost were supposed to be . . [Much of sorcery material in the books] are things that people genuinely used to believe in Britain.”—J.K.R. interview on National Public Radio, October 20, 1999.

The truth is that she earlier graduated from a course in mythological studies at Exeter University in England, and during her entire adult life has been a thorough researcher into the subject.

“[She has] an extremely well-developed and sophisticated knowledge of the occult world, its legends, history and nuances.”—Richard Abanes, Harry Potter and the Bible, p. 24.

In an interview on a radio program, she admitted that fully one-third of her material is based on actual occultism (Rowling interview on The Diane Rehm Show, WAMU, October 20, 1999). That is also probably an understatement.

Rowling plays down the fact that witches still use the spells she is now teaching! When we dabble with satanism, demons begin affecting our minds.

During one call-in interview, a wizard excitedly asked Rowling if she was a member of “The Craft” (Wicca, the organization witches belong to). When she answered no, he was shocked and replied, “Well, you’ve done your homework quite well!” He went on to say that he loved the Potter books because they were full of the same occult formulas he regularly used. (“Wicca” is the name given to the official religion of Witchcraft, founded in the twentieth century by Gerald Gardner, who died in 1964. Its members refer to it as “The Craft.”)

The secular media has gone wild over Harry Potter. It is as if a single, ominous spirit is controlling their thinking on this matter. Ominously enough, a majority of the Christian media is also very much in favor of this outstanding opportunity for little children to learn how to delve into the deep things of witchcraft. Even the leading Protestant journal, Christianity Today, has praised the books.

In an article for the Roman Catholic journal, First Things, Alan Jacobs of Wheaton College described the novels as “a great deal of fun,” their magic as “charming.” He added, “There is in books like this the possibility for serious moral reflection” (First Things, January 2000).

Chuck Colson, the man who says he has been “born again,” said on his Breakpoint broadcast that fantasy tales are harmless and Rowling’s book characters demonstrate “courage, loyalty, and a willingness to sacrifice for one another; not bad lessons in a self-centered world” (Chuck Colson, Breakpoint, November 2, 1999).

America’s leading Christian magazine added this comment:
“Rowling’s series is a Book of Virtues with a preadolescent funny bone. Amid the laugh-out-loud scenes are wonderful examples of compassion, loyalty, courage, friendship, and even self-sacrifice. No wonder young readers want to be like these believable characters. That is a Christmas present we can be grateful for.”—Christianity Today, “Why We Like Harry Potter,” January 10, 2000.

But not everyone is fooled.

“There is a general nastiness underneath the mantle of cuteness. The kids lie, they steal, they take revenge. This is a disturbing moral world, and it conflicts with what I am trying to teach my children.”—Ken McCormick, quoted in Baptist Press, July 13, 2000.

That is putting it mildly! As we will see below, the Harry Potter books are actually a chamber of horrors.

By 1999, more efforts were made to ban the Potter books from U.S. public schools than any other book or set of books. By the next year, over 400 lawsuits had been filed to stop the use of those books in our public schools.

Rowling laughs at the complaints, declaring: “I am not trying to influence anyone into black magic. That’s the very last thing I’d want to do . . My wizarding world is a world of the imagination. I think it’s a moral world.”—Rowling, quoted in USA Weekend Online, November 14, 1999.

Rowling says that it really does not matter what books children look at. Let them read anything they want is her position. “When I was quite young, my parents never said books were off limits . . As a child, I read a lot of adult books. I don’t think you should censor kids’ reading material. It’s important just to let them go do what they need to do.”—NPR interview, October 20, 1999.

It is of interest that 43 percent of the Potter books are sold to readers older than fourteen and 29 percent are sold to people over thirty-five.

What do the Harry Potter books teach?

People who are not involved in witchcraft are considered to be inferior, less intelligent, and slow to catch on to truth. They are “muggles”; but, as Rowling said in an interview, they are “not completely stupid” (Associated Press, July 6, 2000).

Throughout the Potter Series, there is a definite contrast made between friendly, exciting and intelligent wizards who are fun and cool, who have access to supernatural power—like Dumbledore, Harry, and his friends—and stuffy, boring, unintelligent “members of the non-magical community” who live in the “dark muggle world.”

As one Christian wrote: “The ordinary person is typified as being bad because they have no [magic] powers, and heroes are the people who are using the occult. This is an inversion of morality.”—Robert Frisken of Christian Community Schools in Australia, quoted in Sydney Morning Herald, March 27, 2001.

People who do right are portrayed as a nuisance. Only one person seems to have any moral qualities, Hermione, a girl student. But each time she pleads with Harry to obey the rules, he always ridicules and speaks mean to her. As part of the narrative, Rowling adds that Hermione is a “bossy know-it-all” and “bad-tempered.”

Parents are something to be avoided, not obeyed, and escaped from. The family caring for Harry in the summers occupies themselves with keeping him locked up in a room (Chamber of Secrets, pp. 21-22).

In Harry’s world, this is what parents are like: “Laughing like a maniac, he dragged Harry back upstairs . . The following morning, he paid a man to fit bars on Harry’s window . . They let Harry out to use the bathroom morning and evening. Otherwise he was locked in his room around the clock.”—Chamber of Secrets, pp. 21-22.

Fortunately, two boys help Harry run away from home, where he is rewarded with a nice home to stay in. Judith Krug, of the Chicago-based American Library Association, praises the message: “The story line is excellent . . There’s no one always telling him [Harry] what to do, and what young person hasn’t said, ‘Oh, if they’d only leave me alone.’ Or ‘I wish that I didn’t have parents!’ They don’t mean this in a mean way. It’s just that parents get in the way.”—Judith Krug, quoted in Harry Potter Books: Craze & Controversy.

Bad conduct is rewarded. Harry and his friends are repeatedly praised and rewarded by teachers or other students when they do bad things. Harry is constantly breaking rules and doing bad things, without receiving any punishment. Instead his actions are said to be clever, exciting, and the way to have more adventure. As Starhawk, founder of Covenant of the Goddess, explains it: “In witchcraft, we do not fight self-interest, we follow it” (Starhawk, the Spiral Dance, p. 76).

In the Potter books, rules are made to be broken and lying is an effective way to achieve a desired end. Students and adults lie constantly to one another, then laugh about it afterward. Harry’s best friend, Hagrid, continually gets drunk as a way to make his life happier (five times in Book 3 alone). He never suffers for doing so.

“I think they’re very moral books.”—Rowling, BBC interview, October 17, 1999.

“Each book takes a theme . . with the idea of making choices in your life, and builds on them to give the child a sense of what it is to be a good human being.”—Linda Goettina, psychoanalyst, interview, Nightline, ABC, July 7, 2000.

Swear words are used in these supposedly “sweet little books for children.” In Chamber of Secrets, boys swear (253, 259). In Prisoner of Azkaban, specific words are included in swearing: “damn” (23); “bitch,” referring to Harry’s mother (25); and “B__” for “bastard” (310). God’s name is used as a swear word (113). Book 4 (Goblet of Fire) has more: “Damn” (43, 62, 127, 232, 344, 561, 470) and “Hell” (626), and more. Every book in the series increases in the number of swear words.

Acts of hatred and revenge repeatedly occur. Power and force are the goals to be sought, not truth and honesty. The child grows accustomed to finding excitement in meanness, selfishness, and scenes of horror. The books are vicious and cruel.

Harry discovers a list of “curses and counter­curses” to use to “bewitch your friends and befuddle your enemies with the latest revenges” (Sorcerer’s Stone, p. 80).

Scenes are presented to the susceptible mind of the child which are more horrible than the most terrible nightmare. The attention is so riveted by these shocking things, that the mind is more susceptible to ideas and practices which are extremely evil. Here is just one example: “Out of the shadows, a hooded figure came crawling across the ground like some stalking beast . . The cloaked figure reached the unicorn, lowered its head over the wound in the animal’s side, and began to drink its blood.”—Sorcerer’s Stone, p. 256.

Believe me: I could give you quotation after quotation that is far more horrible than this!

Spirits take control of people. Voldemort has no body, so he takes control of the body of Professor Quirrell. This is what your child reads: “Where there should have been a back to Quirrell’s head, there was a face, the most terrible face Harry had ever seen. It was chalk white with glaring eyes and slits for nostrils, like a snake . . ‘See what I have become?’ the face said. ‘Mere shadow and vapor . . Once I have the elixir of Life, I will be able to create a body of my own.’ ”—Sorcerer’s Stone, pp. 293-294.

Murders occur repeatedly. The face then tells Harry that he killed Harry’s father and mother. Then the face commands Quirrell to kill Harry. “KILL HIM! KILL HIM” (ibid.; full caps hers)! A “death spell” is then cast on Harry.

Actual murders of people and animals occur over and over again. In Goblet of Fire alone, muggles are “tortured” (589), and their killings are “done for fun” (143). Three wizards are killed (531, 589), and a man and his wife are tortured to the point of insanity (595, 603). Cedric is murdered in front of Harry (638). A child, after killing his father, turns the body into a bone and buries it (690). Each book gets worse than the one before it.

“Parents expecting a respite from the violence in popular culture will be surprised by the amount of violence that Rowling introduces into her tales. I cannot think of any classic children’s story that has as much of it!”—Lee Siegel, Reviewer, The New Republic, November 4, 1999.

Life after death and reincarnation is taught. Death is something to be desired, as the entrance to a new, more fascinating afterlife.

“After all, to the well-organized mind, death is but the next great adventure.”—Sorcerer’s Stone, p. 297.

Communication with the dead is a very real part of these books. Harry finds the mirror of Erised (“desire” spelled backward; witches like to play with mysterious backward spelling), which shows him movie-like images of his dead parents smiling and waving back at him.

At the end of Goblet of Fire, Harry Potter fights a dual with Lord Voldemort, a frightful being with a “snake-like face” and “red eyes glinting through the darkness.” Accompanied by a swarm of gruesome “Death Eaters,” Voldemort advances for the kill. But then Harry magically causes his dead parents to ap­pear, who provide help.

Of course, all witchcraft is involved with supposed communication with dead spirits. Yet the Bible clearly warns that all who do so will ultimately be destroyed.

The reader becomes accustomed to gruesome creatures and disembodied spirits. A room-sized, three-headed “hellhound” lives under a trapdoor beneath the students’ dormitory. “Nearly headless Nick” lives at the school, whose head falls almost all the way off whenever someone pulls on his ear (Sorcerer’s Stone, p. 124). “Moaning Myrtle,” a previously murdered student who, on various pages, repeatedly cries out in the night while the students make fun of the noise. Headless horsemen play hockey with the head of one of the ghosts who lives there (Chamber of Secrets, pp. 136-137). Everything horrible and detestable to normal people is made to appear inviting, fun, and worth copying.

Practically every symbol and object used by actual witches is found in these books. This includes spells, spell books, curse and bewitchment formulas, magic words, exorcism, wands, robes, cauldrons, flying brooms, and all the rest.

All the weird and vicious animals, and mythical creatures of ancient centuries (such as elves, goats, banshees, owls, and dragons), are added to present a picture of extreme witchery.

Here is one example, which Rowling takes directly from witchcraft books: The “hand of glory” in occult teaching is the “right hand of a murderer severed after death.” In Chamber of Secrets (Book 2), Harry finds a hand of glory, “a withered hand on a cushion,” for sale in a wizard shopping store. Draco wants his father to buy it for him. The shopkeeper explains how it can help its owner steal things: “Best friend of thieves and plunderers! Your son has fine taste, Sir!” (Chamber of Secrets, pp. 51-52).

Famous spiritualists and gods of earlier centuries are mentioned as names of characters in the books. This helps the child become acquainted with leading pagans and gods, so he will later feel at home with professional witchcraft writings. Here are a few of the prominent ones mentioned as students, teachers, etc. in these books: Adalbert (who, in A.D. 745, was condemned to prison for sorcery). Helena Blavatsky (the most famous spiritualist woman writer of the twentieth century).

Important pagan deities include Minerva (a Roman goddess), Argus (giant in Greek myth), Cerce (a witch in Homer’s Illiad), Merlin (King Arthur’s wizard), Morrighan (an ancient Celtic goddess of death), Cliodna (pagan goddess of Ireland and a banshee), Draco (Greek serpent god), and Sibyll (Greek divination goddess).

Many more could be mentioned.

There was no need for Rowling to go to such lengths to so heavily saturate the books with spiritistic lore. The only reason I can think of as to why she would do this is because she has made a contract with the devil to bring more into his ranks. Rowling has done her part and Satan is doing his part,—and an avalanche of book sales have made her the richest author in the world.

Magical ability is portrayed as a special empowerment which we should seek after. This leads the reader to begin craving this witching ability. The books clearly reveal that the only place where anyone can obtain such power is by personally delving into witchcraft.

As mentioned earlier, hundreds of children have written letters to the publishing house, asking the location of Hogworts School, so they can run away from home and attend it. They want to become witches and wizards!

“It is important to remember that we all have magic inside us.”—Rowling, in a prepared video released by Scholastic.

That echoes the words of the spiritualists: “The powers of witchcraft, magic, shamanism, or whatever one likes to call it, are latent in everyone.”—Doreen Valiente, The Rebirth of Witchcraft, p. 92.

Even the “funny stories” are extremely horrible. The secular and Christian presses speak glowingly about how delightful and funny the Harry Potter books are. Here are two examples, from among so many, with this grotesque humor: The boys laugh with delight upon learning that it is witchcraft teaching that mandrake roots are shriveled up live babies. Killing them is a running joke throughout Book 2. The children at the school wear earmuffs when pulling them out of the ground, because the screams are so loud “before cutting them up and stewing them” (Chamber of Secrets, p. 264).

“A small, muddy, and extremely ugly baby popped out of the earth. The leaves were growing right out of his head. He had pale, green, mottled skin, and was clearly bawling at the top of his lungs . . They squirmed, kicked, flailed their sharp little fists, and gnashed their teeth; Harry spent ten whole minutes trying to squash a particularly fat one into a pot.”—Chamber of Secrets, pp. 92-94.

Here is another example of Rowling’s “funny stories.” Can you imagine children reading this? Moaning Myrtle is the spirit of a dead girl, earlier murdered at the school, who wants to commit suicide and can’t:
“ ‘My life was nothing but misery at this place and now people come along ruining my death . . I came in here [to the girl’s bathroom] and tried to kill myself. Then, of course, I remembered that I’m—I’m—’ ‘Already dead,’ said Ron helpfully. Myrtle gave a tragic sob, rose up in the air, turned over, and dived into the toilet . . Hermione shrugged wearily and said, ‘Honestly, that was almost cheerful for Myrtle.’ ”—Chamber of Secrets, p. 156.

“Lighten up, the magic is so tongue-in-cheek,” says Pastor Rachel Berry Kraps of a Methodist church in California. “It’s just wonderful fun!” Her husband, Pastor John Kraps agrees: “We love Harry Potter, and our whole family is outraged by the opposition by the Christian right” (quoted in San Jose Mercury News, November 13, 1999).

Fortune-telling, crystal-ball gazing, and hypnotic activity are emphasized as marvelous new ways to achieve higher knowledge and state of being.

“ ‘Crystal gazing is a particularly refined art,’ she [Sibyll, the divination teacher] tells them. ‘We shall start by practicing relaxing the conscious mind and external eyes . . so as to clear the Inner Eye and the superconscious.’ ”—Prisoner of Azkaban, p. 297.

That is exactly what “scryers” (crystal-ball gazers) do to enter a trance! Many children reading this will start practicing it. The Encyclopedia of Occultism and Parapsychology says crystal gazing is a form of self-induced hypnosis, to free one’s telepathic powers (Vol. 1, p. 285).

In the Potter books, Sibyll (the name comes from an ancient prophetic goddess) also teaches Harry and his friends magical potions from herbs, astral projection (out-of-body visitation), palmistry, arith­mancy, numerology, charms (incantations used to endow amulets or talismen with magical powers), and runes (magic markings).

In Goblet of Fire, Harry becomes a full-blown clairvoyant (able to predict the future). This, of course, encourages the reader to want to do it also.

Each additional book in the series intensifies the amount of mischief and horror (Prisoner of Azkaban and Goblet of Fire were the worst, till the later ones came along). On one hand, the reader becomes so blunted to bloodshed, that it keeps requiring more to maintain his interest. On the other, Rowling is leading them toward a predetermined, sinister objective: to give the children the fullest, possible education in witchcraft.

“I can tell you that the books are getting darker. Harry’s going to have quite a bit to deal with as he gets older.”—Rowling, Online interview, September 25, 1999.

“Each new book seems a bit darker and more morbidly tragic than the one preceding.”—Steve Bonta, The New American, August 28, 2000.

“Death and bereavement and what death means, I would say, are one of the central themes in all seven books.”—Rowling, in ibid.

Harry Potter started school when he was eleven; he will be seventeen when he starts the last year. Rowling warns us that, in addition to all his other acts of rebellion against law and order, soon he will start doing things with girls.

“Harry’s going to have quite a bit to deal with as he gets older . . ‘Harry and his friends will be discovering their hormones as they grow older.’ ”—Rowling, Online interview, September 25, 1999.

She hints at what is coming in Book 4. Harry sees a number of sensual, erotic ghost/women, “the most beautiful women Harry had ever seen” (Goblet of Fire, 103).

Witchcraft is shown to be very good and something to be desired. The Potter books are jam-packed with mysterious information about witches, warlocks, sorcerers, crystal balls, spells, curses, potions, charms, numerology, divination, astrology, palmistry, out-of-body travel, and communication with spirits. All these are part of ancient and modern occultism. This is witchcraft! The real thing! Later in this book we will discover that witchcraft involves contact with the devil and his fallen angels. Those who enter this evil realm are captured by demons. And they are only able to escape by the power of God.

One man who spoke with Rowling during a radio call-in said he was a male witch and the Harry Potter books had helped his daughter like what he was doing (WMUR interview, October 12, 1999). The occult practices found in the Potter books are regularly performed by members of satanic arts.

“Harry Potter gives children an appetite for the occult.”—Robert Night of the Family Research Council, quoted in Tulsa World, June 20, 2000.

These books instruct the reader in the actual practices of witchcraft. These books do more than merely talk about witches, they explain in detail their training program and how they carry on their magic.
Information from the actual instructional books for witches in training are here, providing entry-level instruction.

The Ordo Anno Mundi (OAM) Series are books for professional witches. They contain instruction only slightly in more detail than the Rowling books. The OAM Series contains complete witchcraft instructions—yet is little different than the Potter books!

Here is a comparison between the professional witchcraft training series and the Harry Potter books:
OAM has seven degrees of “Magical Training,” and includes classes strikingly similar to those offered at Hogworts, Harry Potter’s school.
OAM General Education primer: “Ancient Runes.” Here is an example from the Harry Potter books: “Those are my books for . . Divination, the Study of Ancient Runes” (Prisoner of Azkaban, p. 57, original edition).
OAM First Degree: “Divination.” An example in Harry Potter: “We will be covering the basic methods of Divination this year” (Prisoner of Azkaban, p. 103).
OAM First Degree: “Spellcasting.” An example in Potter: “All students should have a copy of The Standard Book of Spells, Grade 1(Sorcerer’s Stone, p. 66).
OAM Fourth Degree: “Animal Transformation (witches also call it “transfiguration”).” An example from the Potter books: “Transfiguration is some of the most complex and dangerous magic you will learn at Hogworts” (Sorcerer’s Stone, p. 134). “My transformations in those days were—were terrible. It is very painful to turn into a werewolf . . [My friends] could each turn into a different animal” (Prisoner of Azka­ban, pp. 353-354).
OAM Fifth Degree: “Magical Lore.”  An example from Potter: “Their very last exam was History of Magic” (Sorcerer’s Stone, p. 263).

Such books should be read neither by children nor by adults. They are evil and a menace to the eternal welfare of the soul.

Witchcraft organizations are being besieged with phone calls and letters from young people who want to learn how to be witches and wizards. The pagan federation, which promotes Wicca (another name for modern witchcraft) in England, has had to appoint a special youth officer to reply to “the flood of inquiries following the success of the Harry Potter books” (Andy Norfolk, quoted in “Potter Fans Turning to Witchcraft,” This is London [magazine], August 4, 2000).

“In response to increased inquiries coming from youngsters we established a youth officer . . It is quite probably linked to things like Harry Potter, Sabrina the Teenage Witch and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Every time an article on witchcraft or paganism appears, we have a huge surge in calls, mostly from young girls.”—Ibid.

Here are two of the responses sent in by children who had read some of the books: “Thought the story really made you feel like you could be a witch or a wizard” (Lily, 11 years old). “I like what they learned there [at Hogworts] and I want to be a witch” (Gloria Bishop, 10 years old).

Richard Abanes, author of Harry Potter and the Bible, warns: “Ultimately, only a short distance needs to be covered in order to cross over from Harry’s world into the realm of real occultism.”—Ibid., p. 173.

Linda Beam with Focus on the Family sounds the warning:“Any time the dark side of the supernatural world is presented as harmless, there is the danger that children will become curious and find out—too late—that witchcraft is neither harmless nor imaginary.”—Linda Beam, Teachers in Focus, December 1999.