Magic and Wizards
Sat., September 7, 01:11 PM
Magic and Wizards
Note: I sent this message to the local newspaper, and they actually printed it. However, I’m not sure they understood. The headline read “Henry Potter.” Well, I’m not about to take on the witless headline writers. I’ve recently been rereading the whole Harry Potter series, in preparation for seeing the movies – and I’m enchanted all over again.
I get so tired of people who think that the Harry Potter books are evil, that they teach Satanism, or that they are witchcraft. Most of these people don’t even know what magic really is.
Magic is just science that you don’t understand. Nowadays there are very few people who haven’t been touched by science, at least to the extent that they know that it exists. I remember showing my six-year-old an electronic stencil-maker and saying “this is magic.” He watched it for a while and told me, “no, mom, this is how it works” – and he was right! He could figure it out because he was brought up in that mind-set.
Before the arrival of what we call civilization, anything unexplained was called “magic.” (And it has taken hundreds of years to absolve those unfortunates who were put to death because they were found guilty of “witchcraft.”) In a tribe where fire must be painstakingly ground out with hard and soft wood, a simple match is magic. A light that isn’t fire is magic too. Take a photograph of someone who has never seen such a thing, and they are certain that your camera is bewitched.
Harry Potter and his friends live in a what-if world. What if you could fly on a broom instead of riding a bicycle? What if your biology class taught you about animals and plants you had never seen before? What if your chemistry teacher taught you how to create special effects with chemicals? (Is gunpowder magic?)
Harry and his fellow students learn a great deal of value, even to us “Muggles.” They learn about honesty, friendship, loyalty and responsibility. A hundred years ago, there were plenty of boarding school stories – much like these – available to youngsters; I suppose there are few people still alive who read them as children.
As far as I’m concerned, these books are great, if for no other reason than that they got people reading. When I worked in school libraries, I found that most kids don’t read fiction unless it is assigned, and they shy away from anything more than a hundred pages. Suddenly here are these thick volumes that both kids and adults hate to put down.
A much more offensive series is the Left Behind series by LaHaye and Jenkins. Those books also begin with a fantasy premise and could have been super science fiction. Instead, the message turns out to be: if you follow the “one true church,” you will be saved. Everyone else is the anti-Christ.
Fortunately, no one forces you to read either series, and the books won’t be burned, at least not in our country.
May God, Allah, Krishna, Jehovah bless America!
