One of the most interesting parts of Deathly Hallows, was Harry’s and Tom’s “chat” before their final duel. Harry says that he knows magic, and has a weapon, that Tom doesn’t. Tom’s emotional retort clearly shows his lack of wisdom:

‘You think you know more magic than I do?’ he said. ‘Than I, than Lord Voldemort, who has performed magic that Dumbledore himself never dreamed of?’[1]

As I have pointed out before[2], I main point of the Harry Potter books is that magical skill is not sufficient. In a analysis of the trio, John Granger points out that they could represent each of the three faculties of soul, according to the Platonic scheme.[3] He points out that

[p]art of Hermione’s brilliance is her determined dependence on her friends; she understands that her jewel intelligence is glorious in its right setting and almost inhuman on its own (remember Hermione at the beginning of Sorcerer’s Stone?).[4]

She understands what Tom does not. She understands that it matetrs not what your skills are, but what you are, what choices you make, to give a nod to Dumbledore. In “The Abolition of Man,” the last chapter/lecture in the book by the same name, C.S. Lewis points out that the interest in magic increased in the Renaissance, rather than decreasing. And he, as many others, saw the connection between technology and magic. He writes:

There was very little magic in the Middle Ages: the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries are the high noon of magic. The serious magical endeavour and the serious scientific endeavour are twins: one was sickly and died, the other strong and throve. But they were twins. They were born of the same impulse. I allow that some (certainly not all) of the early scientists were actuated by a pure love of knowledge. But if we consider the temper of that age as a whole we can discern the impulse of which I speak.

There is something which unites magic and applied science while separating both from the wisdom of earlier ages. For the wise men of old the cardinal problem had been how to conform the soul to reality, and the solution had been knowledge, self-discipline, and virtue. For magic and applied science alike the problem is how to subdue reality to the wishes of men: the solution is a technique.[5]

The magic in Harry Potter is indeed scientific or technological. It is, as Robert Kvalvaag points out, “a craft that witches and wizards must conduct in a logical and reasonable way.” And he adds that it is never about “performing rituals with spirits and demons, but about using some sort of natural resource.”[6]

And this is precisely the point of these books. Let me explain a bit further, by utilizing Aristotle’s theory of knowledge. Dr. Peter Kreeft writes:

Aristotle rated technique (technical knowledge, technë, know-how) as third in the hierarchy of values, after (1) knowledge of the truth for its own sake, and (2) practical knowledge, or knowledge for living, for acting. The modern world has simply turned this hierarchy exactly upside down, as it has turned man upside down.[7]

This was also taught, maybe not will evil intent, by Francis Bacon, whose chant “Knowlwdge is power” is chillingly mirrored in Tom’s “Magic is power.” Tom’s problem is that he turns things upside down. s

Just as the serpent in the Genesis story, Tom is “crafty”[8]; he rates technique (magic) over virtue (knowlede, bravery, love.) As I pointed out in this post, the major difference between Harry and Tom is that,

[i]n Harry (and Dumbledore), we see a wizard who conforms his soul to reality, not relying on magical technique, but on knowledge, self-discipline, and virtue. In [Tom] we see a wizard who tries to subdue reality to his own wishes, denying the spiritual realm and splitting up his soul to “be in control.” He is a exaggerated version of Francis Bacon’s scientist, shouting “knowledge for power” while trying to conquer nature.

And this is, I believe something we all need to be reminded of. It is not skill or ability that matters, but wisdom and love. As the great Solomon wrote: “Blessed is the one who finds wisdom, and the one who gets understanding.” (Proverbs 3:13, ESV)

1. Rowling, J.K., Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Adult Hardcover edition (London: Bloomsbury, 2007), p. 592

2. See here and here.

3. I myself am more of a Thomist. According to Plato, the three faculties are Head, Chest and Belly; Reason, Will/Heart and passions. Thomists divide the third faculty into three; (i) the ability to sense and perceive; (ii) the instincts; and (iii) the urges. The first two we share with animals, the third we (and animals) share with plants and the like. But I do not think that this matters. After all, Rowling is not a slave to this, they are *real* characters, not just parts.

4. Granger, John, Looking for God in Harry Potter Updated second edition (SaltRiver/Tyndale, 2006), p. 98

5. Lewis, C.S., The Abolition of Man (Lewis, 1944,1947/HaperSanFransisco, 2001), p. 76-77

6. Spilde, Ingrid, “Potters plass i virkeligheten” (Forskning.no, June 11th 2004) Translated from Norwegian (July 24th 2007)

7. Kreeft, Peter, Ph.D., C.S. Lewis for the Third Millennium (Ignatius, 1993), p. 22

8. Genesis 3:1, ESV. Som transaltions use the word “cunning.” I personally like “crafty” best, because it shows that the serpent tries to turn things upside down.

In the 23rd chapter of Half-Blood Prince, we learn about it from Slughorn (in Dumbledore’s pensieve):

“A Horcrux is the word used for an object in which a person has concealed part of their soul.” (…) “Well, you split your soul, you see, and hide part of it in an object outside the body. Then, even if one’s body is attacked or destroyed, one cannot die, for part of the soul remains earthbound and undamaged. But of course, existence in such a form… few would want it, Tom, very few. Death would be preferable.” (…) “Well, ou must understand that the soul is supposed to remain intact and whole. Splitting it is an act of violation, it is against nature.” “[You can do it by] an act of evil — the supreme act of evil. By committing murder. Killing rips the soul apart…”[1]

Rowling has manufactured the word “horcrux”[2] herself, but the concept is old. The concept of the “split soul” is a well known cliché (which is a good thing, just read my thoughts on “Stock responses” i this comment). One can find it in many folk tales, and in Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. But the point is not that it is a cliché, but how Rowling uses it. Let’s take a look at the name.

John Granger points out that the word is

an interesting combination of Latin and French derivations. Hor-crux from the Latin would be “frightening or horrible” (horreo) and “cross” (crux); rather than finding the way to immortality in the lifesaving sacrifice of Christ, the Horcrux accomplishes the task through murder.[3]

It could also — as “Merlin” at the Muggle Matters blog points out[4] — point to the horror in combining (cruxing/crossing) to things which does not belong together; the soul and a material thing outside the body. As Merlin points out, “his soul was meant to be with his body.”

I believe that it points to both of these, bit I find John Granger’s interpretation most interesting as a Christian. The use of Horcruxes is a “frightening or horrible cross” a distorted cross, a way to not achieve everlasting life, but everlasting death. You see this clearly in the pronunciation of “Horecrux,” it sounds like “whore crux.” It is a distortion of the Cross, as a whore distorts sexuality. John Granger writes:

Rowling’s brilliant spin in this literary cliché… is to say the soul is “rent” by sin and “split” by the greatest of sins against love for others (their murder, physically or spiritually). Lord Voldemort, the arch villain, pursues immortality apart from God and the Cross by pouring his soul into physical objects apart from his body. In this, Voldemort is simultaneously a materialist and a dualist—an no longer human, as Dumbledore says, because he fails to understand the power of a human being who is whole, an integer of body and soul, and pure, which is to say, “not rent or split.”[5]

Christ, who sacrificed Himself for us, calls us to “deny [ourself], and take up [our] cross and follow [Him]” (Matt 16:24, NKJV). The Horcrux magic is about sacrificing others and exalting yourself — which in the long run lead to death. Christ said that “whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it. For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?” (Matt 16:25-26, NKJV)

This magic is very dark. It requires the use of a a Unforgivable Curse, murder. And it is, as Slughorn pointed out, an action that goes against our very nature. odd Sverre Hove pointed this out in a interview with Vårt Land, a norwegian Christian newpaper. The interview is called (translated from norwegian) “Potter — a school in ethics.” There Hove points out that “[t]o live as a whole human being, is a good Christian ambition. [Rowing] indirectly getts out a warning by showing that the one who splits up his soul, becomes himself a tool for evil.”[6]

As John Granger points out,

Voldemort, fearing death, pursues personal immortality through his horrible Horcruxes. He creates reservoirs in material objects for the splinters of his soul that have separated from the whole in the act of murder. The Dark Lord is merely a cartoon of fallen man; he asserts and seeks his advantage before others (a shadow of murder) and invests himself in temporal things and ideas (modern idolatry and materialism) to flee death and imagine himself immortal. Such a self-focused, unloving existenceironically separates him from the love of others and ultimately from Love himself, who is our life and hope of genuine immortality. Fleeing a human death, Voldemort becomes its nonliving, inhuman incarnation.[7]

Dumbledore warns Harry of this, andv points out to the very thing that will conquer it; love. And this leads to self sacrifice, because “[g]reater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends.” (John 15:13, NKJV)

Notes & references:

1. Rowling, J.K., Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, adult edition (Bloomsbury, 2005), pp. 463-465

2. In the norwegian translation of Half-Blood Prince, “horcrux” is translated “malacrux.” I don’t really know why it was translated, it dosn’t make more sense for kids either way, but I find it interesting. “Mala” can be derived from lat. malitia, from malus, “bad.” Malitia is also the root word for the english word “malice”; “desire to inflict injury, harm, or suffering on another, either because of a hostile impulse or out of deep-seated meanness.”

3. Granger, John, Looking for God in Harry Potter, updated second edition (Tyndale/Saltriver, 2006), pp. 187

4. Merlin, “X-Men 3, Harry Potter and the Imago Dei” (Muggle Matters, May 27th 2006.) (June 19th 2007)

5. Granger, John, Looking for God in Harry Potter, pp. 188.70

6. Rogstad, Britt, “Potter — en skole i etikk” (Vårt Land, November 18th 2005) (June 19th 2007) Translated from norwegian

7. Granger, John, Looking for God in Harry Potter, pp. 70

Michael O’ Brien, one of the most quoted Christian critics of the Harry Potter books, often criticizes the books of being to “gnostic.” In an interview with Catholic News Service Zenit, he said:

“Rowling’s Potter-world is fundamentally Gnostic. Magic is presented as an inherent faculty of human nature that only needs awakening and formation through the pursuit of esoteric knowledge and power.”

“When I say that the Potter series is Gnostic, I am referring to the essence of Gnosticism. It is true that a majority of the early sects were dualist, that is, they despised material creation and exalted the spiritual—definitely an anti-incarnational cosmology. But some sects were pantheistic, believing that what they called the “divine emanations” could be found within nature.

There was even a so-called Christian Gnosticism that tried to incorporate elements of Christian faith into their pagan worldview. They saw Christianity as a myth that contained some truths, and that Gnosticism was the full truth. Common to all of them, pantheist and dualist alike, was the belief that obtaining secret gnosis or knowledge was salvation. I would refer your readers to the studies of modern Gnosticism by Eric Voegelin, Thomas Molnar, and Wolfgang Smith.”

The core of Gnosticism is, as O’Brien points out, a focus on secret knowledge, gnosis, and on dualism. But is this an accurate critique of Harry Potter? No, it is not. Let me explain here why the books not only is not Gnostic, but that they in fact criticizes gnosticism.

Update: It is not true that the Harry Potter books presents magic as “an inherent faculty of human nature that only needs awakening.” The magic in Harry Potter is an inherent magical faculty, but not of humans, but of wizards. Yes, wizards are humans, but humans are not wizards. Just as men are humans, but humans are not men. In the case of Gnosticism, everyone can be awakened, but most are not. In Potter, not everyone can perform magic, only wizards. Just as the mutants in X-Men.

Secret knowledge. O’Brien claims that the Harry Potter books are elitist and that they focus on giving “secret knowledge.” This is in fact not only untrue, but evidence that he (1) has not read the books, or (2) he is dishonest. My claim is that the real gnostics of the series is Voldemort and his Death Eaters.

Dumbledore, as Godric Gryffindor (and most especially, Helga Hufflepuff) wants to educate everyone, that is, everyone with magical powers. One must understand that Hogwarts is a school of Witchcraft and Wizardry, just as Charles Xavier’s school is for mutants. The real gnostics, the real elitists, are the Death Eaters who wants to murder all the “mudbloods” and muggles (just as Magneto).

This criticism of the Harry Potter books are just plainly dumb, and could just as easily be applied to any kind of private school and, especially home schooling, which, it seems, O’Brien does not have any problem with.

Dualism. Now, let us consider dualism. Now that we (perhaps) have established that the bad guys are the real elitists, who are the dualist of the books? The answer, yet again, is Voldemort and his Death Eaters. Throughout the books we are met with a view that both body and soul are equal in worth, except in the minds of the bad guys.

But there is one major difference between the old gnostics and the new, and this shows us where the problem lies today — they are both dualist, but while the old exalted the soul, the new exalts the body. Those new gnostics are in fact materialists. This is the problem we facr today. The problem is not that we are to “spiritual,” but that we exalt the body without the soul. The problem, as it was “back then,” is dualism.

I do not believe O’Brien has really read the books. Because his conclusions is so far from the books as one could come. This claim iis in fact in direct contradiction to what Rowling has put in the mouth of Dumbledore and Hermione (who, Rowling says, resembles herself). These two quotes are from Chamber of Secrets (Dumbledore) and Philosopher’s Stone (Hermione):

“It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.”

“Books! And cleverness! There are more important things–friendship and bravery.”

Gen. 2:16-17 (ESV):

And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”

Gen. 3:1-6 (ESV):

Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?” And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.’” But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate.

In Gnostic circles, where one often turns things upside down (the Serpent is God, Cain is good, Judas did Christ’s bidding, etc.), this is often interpretated as a Promethean myth. In Wikipedia, we can read that,

Zeus in his wrath denied men the secret of fire. Prometheus felt sorry for his creations, and watched as they shivered in the cold and winter’s nights. He decided to give his most loved creation a great gift that was a “good servant and bad master”. He took fire from the hearth of the gods by stealth and brought it to men in a hollow wand of fennel, or ferule that served him instead of a staff. He brought down the fire coal and gave it to man. He then showed them how to cook and stay warm. To punish Prometheus for this hubris (and all of mankind in the process), Zeus devised “such evil for them that they shall desire death rather than life, and Prometheus shall see their misery and be powerless to succor them. That shall be his keenest pang among the torments I will heap upon him.” Zeus could not just take fire back, because a god or goddess could not take away what the other had given.

Zeus was enraged because the giving of fire began an era of enlightenment for Man, and had Prometheus carried to Mount Caucasus, where an eagle (Often mistaken as a vulture) by the name of Ethon (offspring of the monsters Typhon and Echidna) would pick at his liver; it would grow back each day and the eagle would eat it again.(1)

If we take this approach to the Genesis story,(2) God seems to deny Man the knowledge of good and evil. But this, I believe, is not correct. Ethical knowledge, or “practical wisdom,” is not enough in itself, and this I believe is the core of the Genesis story. As I have explained before, Aristotle rated practical knowledge/wisdom after “scientific knowledge,” epistemology — knowledge of the truth for its own sake. And this is reflected in the Bible. We read in Hebrews 5:14 that “solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil.” How do we train our “powers of discernment”? Through knowledge of Truth, of Christ. In Luke 10:38–42, Christ said: “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her.” (vv. 41-42)

The one necessary thing is to be close to the Lord. In the Genesis story, we see that Man tries to bypass this, having ethical knowledge (and of course deciding this for himself) without Truth, without God. Fr. Gregory Hallam (an Orthodox priest) writes:

We learn from this starting point that Adam was like a child, fully capable of growing up in obedience to his Heavenly Father and achieving immortality. We know that he ate the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in disobedience to God’s Word and suffered death as a result. We are not dealing here with the Promethean myth of Greek paganism in which Prometheus stole fire from the gods and paid the price for his audacity. The fruit itself was not placed in Eden with a permanent exclusion zone around it leaving humanity in state of infantile innocence. God’s intention was that Adam should grow up through obedience until he received the necessary spiritual maturity to handle such things. Like a child he had to be taught. But like many children and adults he would not be taught. He wanted to be autonomous; to be God-like without God and he thereby brought death down upon his head.

Man was born as a child, and needed to be brought up, educated. This should happen not only theoretically, but also practically. “For the things we have to learn before we can do them,” Aristotle writes, “we learn by doing them, e.g., men become builders by building and lyreplayers by playing the lyre; so to we become just by doing just acts, temperate by doing temperate acts, brave by doing brave acts.” (Nicomachean Ethics, 2:1) And we also see this in the Harry Potter books.

We meet a bunch of people with an innate ability — and ability not shared with most people.(3) These abilities are to be shaped through wisdom and knowledge. The main difference between the good and evil wizards in these books is not their ability to use the magical techniques, but what comes first — episteme or techne, wisdom through knowledge or power through technique.

These books is not about magic itself, but about making choices based on insight and wisdom. The fruit of the three of knowledge of good and evil is “solid food… for the mature,” and we need wisdom to be able to discern them from each other.

In “The River of Fire,” the keynote address delivered at the Orthodox Youth Conference sponsored in Washington, July 22-25, 1980, Alexandre Kalomiros explained that,

“The tree of knowledge itself,” says Theophilus of Antic, “was good, and its fruit was good. For it was not the tree, as some think, that had death in it, but the disobedience which had death in it; for there was nothing else in the fruit but knowledge alone, and knowledge is good when one uses it properly.” The Fathers teach us that the prohibition to taste the tree of knowledge was not absolute but temporary. Adam was a spiritual infant. Not all foods are good for infants. Some foods may even kill them although adults would find them wholesome. The tree of knowledge was planted by God for man. It was good and nourishing. But it was solid food, while Adam was able to digest only milk. (chapter IV)

Moral discernment, using your wisdom and insight in both ethical and practical situations, is a key point in Harry Potter. And it is a key point for us. I believe that Jared (a blogger) says it best:

Teaching our kids discernment is vastly more important than trying to ‘protect’ them from the world. That’s impossible, and unbiblical. If we don’t teach critical thinking, and allow students to recognize the difference between the wheat and the chaff, we’re failing our students.

God has graced us with intellect and an insatiable curiosity. Remove discernment from that equation, and you get…well, Richard Dawkins. Or Pat Robertson.

Notes:

1. There are some similaritries, because just as fire, morality, in relation to Truth, not to us, is a “good servant” and a “bad master.”

2. I do not believe that it reports actual history as we see it today. It is a myth, but a “true myth.”

3. Some claim that this is Gnostic, but gnosticism is about achieving some knowledge reserved by an elite. There is some elitist thinking in Harry Potter, especially in the evil wizards, but these books tries to combat this. As Dumbledore points out: “It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.” (Chamber of Secrets, HP2) I see this more as a similarity to X-Men.

Cited Works:

• Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics. Translated by W.D. Ross. Kitchener: Batoche Books, 1999. February 8th 2007. http://socserv.mcmaster.ca/econ/ugcm/3ll3/aristotle/Ethics.pdf

In this post, I will look at the similarity to X-Men. Just for fun!

The magic of harry Potter, as I have already explained, is not “occult.” Harry lives in a fictional world where magic is a natural power for those with the inborn ability. It is scientific. The wizards and witches in Harry Potter is not this in the “conventional sense,” but they are more like the mutants from X-Men. The similarity is in fact striking. Both feature a bunch of kids with extraordinary, but yet natural, abilities being educated in order to control their powers. And both are taught by some “wise old man.” In Harry Potter this happens at “Hogwarts school of witchcraft and wizardry,” in X-Men it happens as “Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters.”

Now consider this fun movie:

Is the Magic of Harry Potter in any way «bad» or «dangerous»? A lot of people seem to believe that, but I don’t. To show why, let me ask two questions; (i) what kind of magic do we find in Harry Potter, and (ii) what (literary) purpose does it have?

Invocational and incantational magic. There is to kinds of magic, invocational magic, «sorcery,» and incantational magic, «fairy tale magic.» The first kind of magic is dangerous, it is about invoking spirits and demons (hence invocational). Scripture warns that summoning other spirits — which is a brake of the first commandment — is «dangerously stupid.» The other kind of magic is all about wands and incantations, and this word literally means to «sing along,» ie. it is about using a power that is in ourselves by «nature.» Let me call the first magic «sorcery,» the other «wizardry.»(1)

Magic and technology. The Magic of Harry Potter is a science, it is a craft that the witches and wizards must use with logic and reason. But we must understand that the magic is not the most important thing, it is below reason and morality.

Aristotle distinguished between three reasons for seeking knowledge; Truth, moral action and craft/power/technology. Readin this, we see that it is not how good we are at magic and school that counts (just see Harry and Ron!), but our moral backbone which is dependent on our insight intro truth.

And this is what it is all about. Just as X-Men, harry Potter is about using our skills in tune with reality, and not do as Dumbledore (and Magneto) — turning this upside down, subduing truth. As C.S. Lewis so brilliantly put it:

There was very little magic in the Middle Ages: the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries are the high noon of magic. The serious magical endeavour and the serious scientific endeavour are twins: one was sickly and died, the other strong and throve. But they were twins. They were born of the same impulse… There is something which unites magic and applied science while separating both from the wisdom of earlier ages. For the wise men of old the cardinal problem had been how to conform the soul to reality, and the solution had been knowledge, self-discipline, and virtue. For magic and applied science alike the problem is how to subdue reality to the wishes of men: the solution is a technique. (Lewis 1947, p. 77)

Notes:

1. This is because the word wizard, which can mean «magician,» also means a wise man/woman.

Cited Works:

• Lewis, C.S. (1947). The Abolition of Man(Riddell Memorial Lectures). New York: HarperCollins (2001). ISBN: 0-06-065294-2