What does Harry Potter tell us?

Firstly, this is not another post claiming to reveal new secrets about the world of Harry Potter. Despite the fact that this weekend will probably see the latest movie in the Harry Potter series claim the honour of being the greatest money making film of any opening weekend ever, this still does not move the writer to enter into raptures about the benefits of the wizarding world for poor muggle families flocking to empty their pockets for a couple of hours of viewing ecstasy. Yes, Rowling's books have proved lucrative beyond measure; yes, the Prince of Wales has bemoaned the fact that the end of the series could hinder further interest in young persons taking up reading (is there indeed life after Potter?); yes, there was much entertaining about the rise of Valdemort and his war against Harry Potter; yet these factors only move one to ask a bigger question: what does Harry Potter tell us about our modern world?

To speak of Harry Potter and of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry is to speak of the question of magic. The modern world seems more and more attracted by the magical, even as its culture plummets into virtual illiteracy. While Rowling is certainly capable of writing interesting stories, one cannot claim that her prose style is anything to write home about. Her ideas are dependent upon earlier movies or novelists; her religious notions are vague at best; her morality is certainly confused. She is no Evelyn Waugh or J.R.R. Tolkien. There is no beauty to her lines or elegance in her writing craft. The appeal of Harry Potter must lie elsewhere. It certainly is an interesting story of the friendship of three chums from a very English wizarding school, but even that does not explain the phenomenon of Harry Potter. Rather the combination of characters and magic is a stronger appeal. It is magic that attracts the readers of the series, and it is magic that has produced apps containing supposed spells for the fans.

The modern world is drawn to magic, as was said above. Magic is not only escapism or something exotic. It is the promise of power, of bending the world to ones own desires. It dominates both the evil wizards like "he who must not be named" as well as Hermione Granger, Harry Potter, and Ronald Weasley. It is the capacity to rise above the human so as to bend the created order to ones will. In this it is very like the realm of science, where the love of discovery has been often linked to the making of things that help man control the world around him. Curiously enough, the early men of science of the Renaissance were also keen on learning the secrets of Alchemy and so blend the natural with the preternatural, magical world. The two domains have much in common.

Magic allows man to utter words so as to obtain an effect above that of mortals. It is to enter into the preternatural world, a world above the muggle-born, so as to utilize that world to dominate the natural. It is not a world that relies on the power of God or His saints, but rather one in which the witch or wizard is at the center of power. This puts it into conflict with the Christian Order that submits to the Divine Will. The saint may raise the dead to life, but he or she is merely the instrument that God uses in order to accomplish His Will. The saint has no power in himself. All is God; he is nothing. The world of Harry Potter is the opposite. God is nowhere to be found. He is not invoked. Yet the wizard learns the spells in order to increase in his or her dominion over things, to make them subservient to their wills, not God's.

To those who point to fairy stories, or the works of Tolkien, an abyss opens before them. In the older fairy stories, witches are always evil. Those who learn of the forbidden arts are not heroes, but the enemy. In Middle Earth, there is the "magic" of Gandalf or the elves. But this is quite different from the world of Rowling. Gandalf is an angel that takes on himself mortal flesh in order to fulfill a mission given to him by higher angelic beings. He has a native power not learned by masters, but rather has a power over matter even as the angelic world. It comes from his own nature which is above the human. Galadriel, the elven Lady of Lothlorien, is puzzled as to why the elves are said to be magical, for they too are above the human and simply act according to their superior nature. They do not learn how to obtain a power they do not possess. Neither Gandalf or Galadriel teach mortal students how to rise above the human preternaturally. It is only in the world of Sauron's human servants that man is given the power of necromancy, of magic strictly speaking, in order to rise above the human by a power which is evil. The heroes of Tolkien, Frodo and Samwise, achieve victory through the arms of humility and loyalty, not wizardry.

The world of Potter is a world which is ultimately self-centered. It is the world of man rising above his own nature by learning spells of the preternatural order. It is a world that includes the house of Slytherin and Gryffindor both. Evil and good are both necessary. Yet the good world does not seek to conquer self by humility and submission to God, but to keep in check an evil power that is also necessary. It is dualism, and it is fatal to the Christian order. What does Harry Potter tell us? He tells us that a higher world can be made subject to man by magic, that wands and spells are the gateway to man's conquest, not of himself, but of the world he wishes to dominate, whether for what he chooses as good or for evil.