http://phoenixfriend.deviantart.com/#/d365xol

The original can be found with a Google image search for ‘Disney Princess criticism’.

Incidentally, I am currently researching for a book on the Disney females and how they have developed.

Genre(s): Fairy tale; satire

Rating: U (suitable for all)

Word count: 850

Summary: Gullible princess, wicked witch, modern twist.

Author’s notes: We studied fairy tales in English at Sixth Form and had to write our own modern version, so I wrote this. I had to update it before uploading it here as many of the items and concepts featured were already outdated.

Don’t Talk to Strangers

Once there was a young princess who lived in a grand palace in the middle of a bustling city. Ever since she was born she had been diligently watched over by the King and Queen and all their advisors and servants. She had everything she could ever want. Her room was filled with dolls and bears and faberge merry-go-rounds, over three hundred beanie babies, a home cinema system, every gaming console ever invented from Nintendo 64 (a Christening present) through to Nintendo Wii with Motion Plus, and giant lego replicas of Justin Bieber and Zac Effron. Her wardrobe was almost entirely Donna Karan and Prada. And she’d always been very popular. She had over six hundred thousand friends on Facebook and twenty six thousand followers on Twitter. She grew up believing that the world in which she lived was good and happy and safe, and she was happy in it.

Upon the occasion of her fourteenth birthday, the princess asked her parents if she could go into the city to see the peasant boy, who was her friend. The King and Queen decided that she was now old enough to go by herself. The princess had always been taken everywhere in the limo with a dozen bodyguards, so of course she was delighted and proud to be thought responsible enough to watch out for herself and given her parents’ trust. But before she left, her parents warned her not to talk to strangers or leave the main road. The princess, being a good girl, happily agreed and set off to see her friend.

Along the way the princess stumbled upon an old beggar woman. She was kneeling on the pavement and clutching her heart. Nobody else even seemed to have noticed her. Being a good and kind girl, the princess ran to her.

“Oh my gosh! Are you all right?”

“I feel my age creeping up on me, dear, that is all.”

“I can call for a doctor on my iphone 4,” suggested the princess, taking it from her pocket. “The highest screen resolution ever on a phone.”

“No, no, I just need to get home and rest, that’s all.”

Being a good and kind and selfless girl, the princess offered to help her home. The beggar woman pointed towards a side-street and the two of them left the main road. The princess hadn’t forgotten her parents’ warnings but she thought the beggar woman’s health more important than some silly rule. Besides, she didn’t seem dangerous, she wasn’t wearing a hoodie.

They reached the block of council flats where the beggar woman lived and the princess helped her climb the stairs to the front door. Once the door was open, the beggar woman turned to the princess and said, “Thank you so very much, my dear. Please come in and have something to drink. It is the least I can do.”

After helping the beggar woman up four flights of stairs the princess felt quite thirsty so, being a good, kind, selfless and gullible girl, she agreed. But no sooner had she stepped into the room did the door slam shut behind her and she heard the key turning in the lock.

The beggar woman vanished in a puff of purple smoke and where she had been now stood a witch in long black robes and pointed hat. She cackled evilly.

“Fool! Didn’t your royal mummy and daddy ever tell you not to talk to strangers?”

The princess was trembling from head to foot, but managed to squeak out, “Why are you doing this?”

“Because I’m an anti-royalist, of course,” said the witch. “And now I think you shall be useful with my potions, little princess!”

And with that she took a wand from her pocket and started towards the princess, but she had not taken two steps before the door burst open again and in stepped the peasant boy, holding a Super Soaker Flash Flood.

“Princess, get out of the way!”

The witch was too stunned to move in time. Before she knew what was happening she had been hit in the face by the double blast. With a piercing shriek the witch began to melt away.

“You wretched boy! Look what you’ve done! Do you realise the money I spent in plastic surgery?! My make-up took hours to apply! Curse you! Curse you! Oh nooooooo….”

And all that was left of her was her robes and hat in a pile on the floor.

“Huh, that was easy,” said the peasant boy.

“But how did you know we were here?” asked the princess, who was extremely grateful but not about to swoon and fawn like some damsel in distress.

“I’ve got a few friends around here and they told me they’d seen you with the witch. Everybody knows what she is, they just haven’t been able to prove it.”

As they turned to leave the princess said, “How did you get in, anyway?”

“Spare key under the doormat, never a good idea.”

And they all lived happily ever after (except the witch).

http://www.squidoo.com/why-kopa-from-the-lion-king-books-is-not-canon

Genre(s): Children’s fiction

Rating: U (suitable for all)

Summary: Alyssa James finds herself being rudely woken before dawn.

Author’s notes: I first wrote this as a teenager and it’s been re-written more times than I care to guess at. Still not really happy with it but I’m leaving it as it is. For now at least. At one point I did think about turning it into a novel, but I don’t know if I ever will.

“Ali.”

 I kept slipping in and out of sleep, not really sure which side I was on at any one time, or from which side the voice was coming. On one side of consciousness I was dimly aware of warmth and softness and darkness around me, and on the other I was sitting under a tree in the park, the sun touching my skin and a book open in my lap. Well, whichever world it was coming from, it could just shove off.

“Ali… Al…” 

I knew the voice but I couldn’t think who it was. Someone shook my arm. I groaned. Nope, nah ah, not moving.

“Aaaliii,” he whispered like a ghost in a movie. “Aaaliii… Ali!”

That was not a whisper. I opened my eyes. “What?!” I snapped.

For a moment I couldn’t see anything. The room was black and the bed felt unfamiliar. I could just make out Jake sitting next to me. What on earth was he doing waking me up before dawn?

“Blimey, you were so far out of it anyone’d think you’d been hit over the head with an anvil,” he whispered, and I could almost hear the huge grin on his face. “Come on, let’s go.”

I had just enough time to make out that he was already fully dressed before he got up and moved away. I looked around me. For a few seconds I couldn’t think where I was. It seemed darker than usual, even for this hour. As my eyes adjusted to the minuscule light, I began to make out a sloping ceiling and wooden beams – Jake’s room. All at once everything came flooding back to me and I was filled with a sudden burst of excitement that put paid to any lingering sleepiness. The end of school, the flight, the drive through the forest, the cabin in the clearing… I was in the attic room of Jake’s uncle’s house. Jake had said last night that we’d be heading out early, but he hadn’t said why, just that there was something he wanted me to see. 

I leapt out of the squeaky camp bed, pulled my T-Shirt and jeans off rickety the little chair and pulled them on. It was good to be back in casual clothes after wearing nothing but school uniform since Easter. Jake and I had met at boarding school in England, a place where neither of us had fit at or wanted to go to. I’d grown up in London, but after my father left my mother and I had moved out to the suburbs to be nearer to nanny and granddad. Mother had always believed in boarding schools but father hadn’t, and now that she was the sole authority on the matter, I was quickly packed off to ‘St Mark’s Boarding School for mixed pupils aged eleven to sixteen’.

The boys and girls slept in different dorms but all the classes were held together. I had met Jake in my very first week, a week where I was an easy target for bullies, having both a posh accent and no gaggle of friends to provide safety in numbers. Jake had also been ribbed for speaking differently. He had come over from America because of his dad’s work and his accent was pure Brooklyn. After bonding over a spirited rant about inverted snobbery and overblown patriotism, the two of us had discovered loads of other things we had in common and quickly became fast friends.

Just before the Easter holiday, Jake had told me that every summer he came here to the forest to stay at his uncle’s cabin and had asked me if I wanted to go with him. It had taken the whole of Easter to persuade Mum but in the end she relented (perhaps now feeling a little sorry that she had encouraged independence in me). We had then spent the whole of the last term planning and discussing the summer down to the most minute of details.

Now here I was at last. Away from the school, away from teachers and homework, able to wear what I wanted for a change. No longer Alyssa James, but plain Ali, and ready to go on the first adventure of my formerly prim and proper life. 

Jake was waiting for me by the door. As I moved towards him, pulling my coat on, he put a finger to his lips

I pulled my hair into a pony-tail as I moved toward the door, where Jake was waiting for me. As I reached him he put a finger to his lips and then began to push the door slowly open.

The hallway was just as dark as the bedroom. We descended the wooden stairs from the attic and then crept silently along the hall. I could hear gentle snoring from Jake’s uncle’s room. Right outside his bedroom Jake took a larger step than usual. I had a brief second to wonder why and then the floorboard underneath my foot creaked. I froze. So did Jake. There was a grunt from inside and then the rhythmic snoring continued. I emptied my lungs. Jake made an exaggerated tutting noise and we both sniggered silently before continuing towards the stairs.

On the landing Jake stopped again. He looked at me and, once again, put his fingers to his lips and mouthed something which I didn’t catch, pointing at the floor. Then he began to tiptoe down the stairs. I followed, watching his feet this time, careful to skip the same three steps he did. When we reached the bottom, we sped up a bit, into the kitchen, past the softly humming refrigerator and across to the back door. As Jake began to turn the key in the lock though there was a snuffling sound behind us. I spun around and almost jumped out of my skin.

A pair of luminous eyes were watching us from a corner. A moment later I relaxed again. It was only Uncle Henry’s dog, Max, lying in his basket. Max had been the best hunting dog around. Brave and loyal, Uncle Henry had told us a thrilling tale the night before of how Max had once held off a bear long enough for him to escape. I wasn’t sure whether to believe this or not,  but looking at his soft old face, it was not hard to imagine his former energy.

Max’s tail began to thump.

“Max, quiet,” Jake whispered softly and Max stopped at once.

Jake unlocked the door and the two of us slipped outside, closing it quietly behind us. The air outside was cool and moist. A thick mist hung around the cabin and the grass was damp with dew. It crunched softly under our feet as we walked around the side of the cabin and crossed the yard towards the black trees. I looked up. A few stars were twinkling in the dark blue sky and towards the horizon the distant mountains were outlined as if by a fine pink pen.

At the edge of the trees, Jake took my hand and led me along a little natural path. It was completely black on either side of us but just enough of the sky was visible through the canopy of branches to allow us to see a few feet of the path ahead. The air was still and quiet except for the twittering song of a few early birds somewhere around us. After a while, Jake took a torch out of the backpack over his shoulder, turned it on and led us off the path. Through the trees and bushes, up slopes and across ditches we trekked. It took a while for me to realise that the ground was sloping steadily upwards. Several times we had to climb up short walls of rock.

We walked for what must have been nearly twenty minutes and I began to wonder, every time Jake suddenly changed direction, if we were lost. But he didn’t stop once, even to look around, and I had to assume that he knew exactly where we were going and I marvelled at how well he knew his way even in torchlight.

We seemed to go round in a semi-circle for a while and then quite suddenly the trees fell away and we were standing at the bottom of a grassy hill. Jake let go of my hand, turned the torch off and began to climb it. I followed. I still couldn’t work out what it was that he wanted to show me but my heart was thumping in anticipation.

He stopped at the top and when I reached him I realised that it wasn’t a hill after all. It was a cliff. The wind was whipping my hair and I wondered how high up we were by now. The mist and the darkness was still so thick everything below us was obscured. All that could be seen was the mountains ahead, silhouetted against a slightly lighter sky.

“What are we doing?” I asked at last.

He didn’t answer, but I saw a slightly smug smile on his face as he sat down and stared out towards the mountains.

“Jake, come on, what are we…?”

“Shh. Just sit. Watch.”

I looked at him curiously. He looked back up at me.

“Sit.”

I sighed and did as I was told, staring out into the same direction as him. I wasn’t quite sure what I was supposed to be looking at. We sat there for at least another ten minutes and the whole time he didn’t take his eyes off the horizon. I was beginning to get impatient.

“Jake, what are we looking at?”

“Just keep watching. You’ll see in a minute.”

I sighed again and averted my eyes back to at the horizon, the only thing stopping me from becoming thoroughly bored being the tranquillity of the air and the swirls of mist floating around us. But then I realised that while we had been watching, the pinkish tinge outlining the mountains had spread and become deeper in colour. And then it all seemed to fast forward. I stared as the sky grew lighter and lighter before my eyes. Then, quite suddenly, the sun peeked out from behind the giant masses. I shielded my eyes as beams of orange light stretched out over the space below us.

I let out an audible gasp. For a while it was as though we were up in the clouds. And then, before my very eyes, the mist began to evaporate and dark shapes began to be visible below. And then the brilliant beams washed over them, gradually illuminating the whole glorious scene.

My breath was taken away as I scanned miles and miles of woodland, ending in a far away perimeter of mountains. Below me I could see the river winding its way through the trees to a vast waterfall and then continuing, snake-like, to the foot of the mountains and disappearing between them, the water sparkling in the sunlight. I looked behind me and realised we were on an outcrop part way up one of the western mountains, which towered above us imposingly. 

I realised my mouth was open and closed it. When I turned to Jake he was watching me, smiling.

“Patience my dear friend, patience,” he said in a voice that was a perfect impression of his Uncle.

I watched him closely. His short blond hair was blowing in the wind, his blue eyes sparkling with fun. Most people at fourteen had lost the wonderment of childhood. They filled their lives with TV and parties and obsessed over their looks and whether or not so and so liked them. But Jake still had the boundless dreams of a ten year old, dreams of high adventure and heroism. The others at school thought he was a baby. I thought he was brilliant. With him, you not only thought that adventure might actually be possible, but you almost expected it, and by keeping at his side you might just get a share in it.

Picture by jioseventeen, who flatteringly decided to do an illustration for this story after I posted it on deviantArt.com.

Written: As a letter to the editor of Writers Forum magazine, published in the November 08 issue.

I agree with what Matt Bates said in issue 85 Aug/Sept about certain journalists’ snobbish attitudes to non-literary books. It’s not only journalists, though. I did a degree in Creative Writing for which I had to take some literature modules. You would think that even if they’re not going to combine it with the literary material, there would at least be a popular fiction module somewhere on the course, that a modern university would consider some of the more popular books worth studying and analysing too.

I also think that the way in which literature is defined is also snobbish. Literature is supposed to be about depth, importance and art, but these critics dismiss books that fit this criteria if, a) it sells too well (because anything liked so much by the masses must be shallow and worthless); b) if it’s of a genre (it’s amusing how much fuss is kicked up every time The Lord of the Rings wins a Favourite Books poll, especially when it won the Folio Society’s poll, whose readers are literary connoisseurs); or c) if it was written for children (what is The Wind in the Willows then, or Treasure Island?).

I think there are actually three categories of books – casual popular fiction, which is valuable mostly or completely in terms of entertainment; higher popular fiction, which is valuable as entertainment but also has depth and meaning and perhaps some artistic value; and literature, which is part of our culture, highly artistic and meaningful, and/or has an express purpose to make people think.

Written: As a letter to the editor of Writing Magazine, published as the Star Letter in the August 2009 issue.

Notes: (1) This letter was written before Borders Bookstores closed down. If I were to re-write it now I would replace Borders with Foyles. (2) The letter received two responses in letters page of the following issue, both positive, and more people joined the Facebook group. (3) I have since written a longer editorial on this subject which has been published on Squidoo.

Was anyone else scared by Michael Legat’s Publishing Snippets article (WM, June) that said that ebooks will rocket in popularity and councils will close down their public libraries? I know I’m not the only one who prefers paper books to ebooks because I’ve started a Facebook page on the subject.

I have no problem with them co-existing but the idea of paper books becoming obsolete is detestable. As a reader part of the appeal to me is in the appearance of the book, the feel of it in my hands, the smell of the ink and paper, being able to display them on a shelf and escape from the technology I otherwise embrace. And as a writer I would feel devastated if I never got to hold my printed book in my hands. I love the smart feeling you get when sitting with a book in public. Sitting with an ebook reader would provide a different feeling – one of ‘look at the cool gadgets I can afford’. And the thought of no more hushed libraries and no more browsing through Waterstones or Borders doesn’t bear thinking about. It’s sentimental, but why on earth should we sacrifice the little sensual pleasures that give life colour, flavour and character for the sake of practicality, convenience or modernity? How dreary!

At least my local council doesn’t seem to be anticipating the change – they’re remodelling all the borough’s libraries.

Written: For the “Sectus” fan conference in London, England in 2007.

Synopsis: Every fan and many a Muggle is familiar with the controversy the Harry Potter series has caused – the attempts to ban the books and the accusations that they sugar-coat evil and seduce children into witchcraft and the occult. This presentation addresses these concerns by examining the origins and history of witchcraft, what witchcraft actually is, where the myths and legends come from, how accurately witchcraft is portrayed in the Harry Potter novels and whether real life witchcraft is likely to appeal to children as much as the fantasy.

Every Harry Potter fan knows the controversy that surrounds the series. Debates over its suitability for children, it’s darkness, its moral values and its portrayal of witchcraft have caused the books to be banned in many places. The American Library Association lists J.K. Rowling as the fourth most challenged author between 1990 and 2004.  But it is the portrayal of witchcraft that has caused the greatest concern to some religious critics.There are many accusations that have been made on the subject. For example, some believe that the books teach witchcraft to children, with many calling them instructional. Jeremiah Films, who made a video aimed at Christians called, “Harry Potter: Witchcraft Repackaged”, claimed that the books are “accurate in their representation of witchcraft.” Other people have said that, whether the books are accurate or fantastical, they could still encourage children to take up witchcraft or the occult themselves. Again, “Harry Potter: Witchcraft Repackaged” presented this view by saying, “By disassociating magic and supernatural evil, it becomes possible to portray occult practices as good and healthy, contrary to the declaration that such practices are detestable to the Lord. This, in turn, opens the door for less-discerning individuals – including but not limited to children – to become confused about supernatural matters.” And then there are other people who believe that the very presence of witchcraft in literature is wrong, and that reading books that contain witchcraft is sinful.

The aim of this paper is not to argue with the last point, which doesn’t leave much room for discussion anyway. Nor, really, is it’s aim to argue whether witchcraft and the occult is harmless or evil. The aim of this paper is to address the issue of whether the books’ representation of the occult and witchcraft really is ‘accurate’ as Jeremiah Films believes, and whether the magic of the books is likely to draw children over to those things.

In order to answer these questions, we must first establish what witchcraft actually is. Many in the modern age believe that it doesn’t exist at all. This is probably because they are thinking of fairy tale witchcraft where people wave a wand, click their heals together or wiggle their nose in order to conjure something out of thin air or change one object into another. This kind of magic doesn’t exist, nor do the people who call themselves witches claim to be able to do these things. That image of magic came from a mixture of superstition, fear and facts that have been twisted. For example, the image of witches riding broomsticks came from a Pagan fertility ritual where a lady would sit on the handle – brush at the front, not the back – and jump up and down in the fields. It was said that the higher she could jump the higher the crops would grow. But no Pagan actually thought they could fly on it.

So what is a witch really? There are actually at least eighteen different definitions of the word – sorcerers, hags, seductive women, nasty women, a woman who is not submissive to her husband and many inter-cultural meanings. The reason why these definitions are largely to do with women is that most of them are the result of medieval superstition, a time when women were thought to be more susceptible to evil than men, and also feared for the seemingly ‘supernatural’ things they could do – such as create life in their bodies and bleed without injury.

But the types of witches that I am going to concentrate on those who practice the religions of Witchcraft and Wicca, and also Satanism. Many people, not just conservative Christians, believe that these are the same thing, but they are actually separate religions. I am also going to talk about the occult in general, and comparing all of these things to the magic of Harry Potter.

The true definition of witchcraft is the using of magick, especially magick utilizing personal power with the energies within stones, herbs, colours and other natural objects. Wicca is a religion of which witchcraft is often a part, but not always. Many Wiccans pick and choose which parts of the religion to follow, and often combine them with bits of other Pagan and Neo-pagan religions, according to what feels right for them. So not all Wiccans use magick, or if they do they may not put much emphasis on it. But many Wiccans who do use it prefer to call themselves witches, and the word is fairly common within the religion.

Wicca is part of the Neo-pagan group of religion, which is basically those that are earth-based and shamanistic, including Buddhism, Druidism, Hinduism and Native American spirituality. Wicca itself is earth-based. It is both one of the oldest and one of the newest religions in history, since traditional Wicca was founded by a British Civil Servant named Gerald Gardner in the 1940s, but it was based on some of the pre-Christian Celtic religions of Scotland, Ireland and Wales. Wiccans worship a single power called ‘The All’, which is made up of all things in existence, and which has been personified into the Goddess and God, representing male and female aspects of ‘The All’. The Wiccan Rede, their main philosophy, is “An it harm none, do as ye will.” In other words, do whatever you like so long as it doesn’t hurt anyone. Wiccans do not believe in Satan, as Satan is a Christian icon and Wicca has nothing to do with Christianity.

Many of the classic images of witches, and so some aspects of the magic in Harry Potter, are part of Wicca – for example, wearing black robes, casting spells and making potions. However, the magick of Witchcraft and Wicca is not pointing a wand at something and making it levitate. The spells that they cast are rituals to direct psychic energy in order to accomplish or influence something. It is a lot like prayer or a good luck ritual. And potions are a lot like herbal remedies. They do not cast curses, jinxes or hexes, because it would go against the Wiccan Rede. Also, while the wizards in Harry Potter have their own society and culture, they do not have their own religion, and the magic they practice is more of a talent and a way of life than something that they use as part of worship. They do not perform rituals or, as far as we’ve heard, hold public ceremonies of their own. In fact, Harry has been baptised, and there very clear Christian influences in the final book in particular. Nor is the magic of Harry Potter based around nature. Therefore, apart from basic concepts and terminology, there isn’t really any similarities between the magic of Harry Potter and the magic of real life Witchcraft and Wicca. Even if a child were to think they were the same, Wiccans do not dedicate, teach or initiate potential converts until they are eighteen, and the child would probably find any book he bought on the subject very boring, especially in comparison to the fantasy.

Satanism is very different from Wicca. There are two main faiths of Satanism with many smaller groups. The first faith is the Church of Satan, which is the largest organisation of religious Satanists. They do not view Satan as a living entity, but as a symbol of pleasure, strength and virility, which they believe pre-dates Christianity. They conduct rituals both by themselves and/or together in grottos. The second faith is the Temple of Set, who worship Satan in the form of the Egyptian God called Set. They generally meet in together temples.

The main philosophy of both forms of Satanism is, again, very different from Wicca – “Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law.” Satanists give themselves great freedom of action. Some Satanists do use black magic in rituals in order to get revenge on someone who has hurt them. While some Satanists do call themselves witches, it is a much less common term than in Wicca.

There is also another form of Satanism called Gothic Satanism. These are the women who sell their soul to the Devil and devote their lives to harming others. They kidnap babies, fly through the air, engage in cannibalism and sexual orgies, and cause male impotence and infertility. They were generally known as witches. These are the Satanists who were sought out and burned at the stake during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. There is no solid evidence to them ever actually existing. In fact, most of the characteristics of Gothic Satanism can be traced back to a book written circa 1486 called, in English, The Witches’ Hammer, written by two Dominican priests. No record of Gothic Satanism has been found which pre-dates this. And apart from one other book, the only evidence of its existence since then are the confessions of people who were tortured into admitting that they were witches. The widespread belief in Gothic Satanists was caused largely by superstition, fear of women and fear of sex.

So how much does the magic of Harry Potter resemble any of the forms of Satanism? Apart from the fact that Voldemort and the other villains use Dark magic, and the fact that the wizards ride through the air on broomsticks, again, there is no resemblance at all. As said before, the magic of Harry Potter is not a religion. They do not worship Satan, perform rituals or believe that you can do whatever you want regardless of anyone. In fact, the books present a very different moral message. They do not engage in cannibalism, kidnap babies or do any of the other terrible things that witches were believed to do. As far as we know, not even Voldemort does those things.

The other word that is often used in criticisms of Harry Potter is ‘occult’. The word is derived from the Latin Occultus, meaning ‘hidden’, and thus the perceived definition of the word is anything that is restricted to an initiated few and not the general public, anything that uses talents beyond the five senses, and anything to do with the supernatural.

There are faults with this definition. For example, the occult no longer is restricted to an initiated few since you can walk into just about any major bookstore and buy books on spells, divination and other occult subjects, and horoscopes are printed in the daily newspapers. And even some Christian rituals are beyond the five senses, such as during mass when the Roman Catholic priest is supposed to literally turn wafer and water into the body and blood of Jesus Christ. However, since this is likely the definition of the word ‘occult’ that the critics of Harry Potter have in mind, it is the one that I am going to talk about.

Many of Harry Potter’s supporters have described the magic in the books as mechanical rather than supernatural. Critics have disagreed. But when you look think about it, if wizards were tapping into a supernatural force in the world, then surely anybody who was interested could learn to use magic? Instead, magic can only be done by a certain few, which suggests that the magic comes from within themselves in the form of an ability. They were born with it, given the ability by nature while in the womb. And there is no Star Wars type mention in the books of the characters tapping into a force and feeling it flowing through them. Perhaps magic talent is the same as singing talent, or acting talent, or the ability to do the splits. It’s simply something that some people can do and others can’t. So in this way, the magic of Harry Potter is different to the occult.

However, it does comply with other parts of the definition. For example, the magic in the books is only taught to a few people and not available to the general public, even if, as previously explained, this is because not everyone has the ability to do it. And the students at Hogwarts do study divination, which is definitely an occult practice in real life, though again, in the books, the ability to do it could be natural as opposed to supernatural because you have to be born with the ability. So perhaps in some ways the magic of J.K. Rowling’s wizards is occult. However, are children likely to be drawn to using divination when it is a subject that Harry and his friends find very boring, which is presented as being inaccurate and ‘out-there’ most of the time, and which is taught by a teacher who most children will find extremely weird? Probably not. But even if your child does show an interest, that doesn’t mean you have to let them practice it.

The other charge that was levelled at the Harry Potter series is that it is anti-Christian. This could have been intended to mean one of three things – either that it is against Christianity and portrays it in a negative light, or that it is to do with a religion other than Christianity, or that it is not to do with Christianity at all.

The question of whether or not the books portray a non-Christian religion has already been addressed in this paper. As to whether it is against Christianity, as stated previously, there is a lot of Christian symbolism in the books. The books feature the existence of a soul. Dementors suck a person’s soul out through their mouth, ghosts are the souls of people that have remained behind after death and Voldemort has split his soul into seven parts. Harry’s parents have quotes from the Bible on their grave. And J.K. Rowling has said that she herself is a Christian. So the books cannot be said to be opposed to Christianity, nor can it be said that Christianity has nothing to do with the series at all.

So, in conclusion, the magic of the Harry Potter books bares only a passing resemblance to real life witchcraft, in the manner of concepts, names and words. Jeremiah Films’ assessment of the books as being, “accurate in their representation of witchcraft”, is completely wrong. As to whether children and teenagers are likely to be drawn in to real witchcraft because of these books, it is very unlikely that they would find real witchcraft nearly as exciting or interesting as the fantasy. If they expect them to be the same they will be sorely disappointed.

Finally, if a parent who believes that the occult and witchcraft is evil is worried that their child is showing an interest in practicing it, or doesn’t understand the difference between the reality and the fantasy, there is no need to keep them from reading the books. A simple discussion is all that is needed to set them straight.