Hello, everyone.

Firstly, please do me a huge favour and e-mail me your responses to this as well as posting them

I normally don’t forward e-mails of a histrionic nature, but in this case I felt it prudent. A parent at our school here sent in a “reprint” of an article claiming that the popular “Harry Potter” books were satanic. These children’s books describe a schoolboy who is also a wizard and his adventures. It “quoted” the book’s author, J.K. Rowling as endorsing the satanic occultist thrust read into them.

Why is this a worry? Because it’s just the kind of bright, shiny lie that gets a lot of people all worked up. Before you know it, it’s through the Church, through our Schools, preached from the pulpit and accepted as dogma. It almost happened here- the parent in question passed it on from their minister, who had tabled it at a meeting and circulated it widely (including to this school). Every staff member at the school here (70+) got a copy.

Here is the link to the original article circulated to us: http://www.theonion.com/onion3625/harry_potter.html

A moment’s observation also shows that the publication in question, called “The Onion”, also headlines with “Dolphins have evolved opposable thumbs”, that Bill Gates has released a “liquid form of Windows 98 into New York City’s water supply” and that “Species of Blue-Green Algae to list itself on Stock Market”

In contrast, here is a direct quote from CNN (a somewhat more reputable source) saying

“And what of the controversy raised by some parents who worry the tale of a young wizard promotes witchcraft and the occult? Rowling’s answer is direct and unforgiving. “I absolutely did not start writing these books to encourage any child into witchcraft,” she says with an uncomfortable chuckle. “I’m laughing slightly because to me, the idea is absurd.”

“I have met thousands of children now, and not even one time has a child come up to me and said, ‘Ms. Rowling, I’m so glad I’ve read these books because now I want to be a witch.’ They see it for what it is,” she emphasized. “It is a fantasy world and they understand that completely.

“I don’t believe in magic, either,” she said. “

http://www.cnn.com/books/news/9910/21/rowling.intvu/

The moral of this story is that an ounce of prevention is worth a tonne of cure. 10 minutes of research put the lie to a transparent hoax that has nonetheless probably reached a very wide circulation before getting to us here at JWCS.

I’m not defending the Harry Potter books, and I freely admit I haven’t read them. But I can smell hysteria a mile off, and nothing makes me crankier than people who just won’t think.

This information is humbly supplied for your consideration.

— Nathan Zamprogno, I.T Manager- John Wycliffe Christian School. [September 2000]