When was the last time you heard of a children's book wanted by every child? Like it or not over the last year the Harry Potter series has stolen our children's hearts and continues to do so. She has sold over 300 million books in this series and is the first author to break the billion dollar threshold.

Harry's Potter first hit the top of the adult hardcover bestseller list in England in less than a year. Currently the first three books in the series still occupy four top slots on the New York Times best-sellers list. With the new book spending 42 weeks on the New York Times Bestseller list. The top three selling books this week are all written by author J.K.Rowling. Amazon.com reported the new book to be the largest pre-order they ever had they sold 313,000 copies before its release.

There are numerous books written on Witchcraft and the Occult, but none is more ingeniously packaged to attract the kids like this one. Its been said you can't tell a book by its cover, on this one you can. Notice in the picture he is flying on broomstick.

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone was first published in England as Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. The USA versions name was changed from Harry Potter and the "Philosopher's stone" to " Sorcerer's Stone ", which was the publisher's idea. They certainly were unafraid of any controversy knowing that it would help sell. It has been sold to publishers in eight countries, and has netted a $100,000 advance from Scholastic Books for the American edition. Judy Corman, spokeswoman for U.S. publisher Scholastic Division reports more than 5 million hard copies of the books have been sold in the United States and millions more are in paperback. ( 7 + million altogether which adds up to a whole lot of kids reading) It will be published shortly in Brazil, Holland, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Greece, Czechoslovakia, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland and Japan (35 languages in all).

The author, J.K. Rowling is 34 years old, she lives and writes in Scotland. She is a graduate of Exeter University, and a teacher. She married a journalist, and has a young daughter (now 6), she divorced and moved back to Edinburgh in 1993. Among the things she loves, she states is Halloween. At the time she was writing, she was a single parent and penniless, living on unemployment benefits. She is stunned with the success the books have so quickly brought her. Rowling says the idea for the story came in an unusual way. She was taking a long train journey from Manchester to London in England in 1990 when she was stuck on a delayed train and the idea for Harry just fell into her head. It took her 5 years to write it, but throughout that time period she was planning and writing parts of the six sequels. In an interview she states "Harry as a character came fully formed, as did the idea for his sidekicks, the characters of Ron and Hermione, who is the brains of the threesome," she said. "It started with Harry, then all these characters and situations came flooding into my head. At that point it was essentially the idea for a boy who didn't know he was a wizard, and the wizard school he ended up going to. The author has described herself as "I have a very visual imagination. I see it, then I try to describe what is in my mind's eye." I can't  prove this author is involved in the new age in some way, but this certainly sounds like the language. Many musical artists who are occult based have testified of songs just coming into their heads so the source does not seem to be all her.

BBC news Sunday, October 17, 1999 Harry Potter fights back Rowling stated "There are those things in the book because I made a very conscious decision right at the beginning that I was writing about someone evil and I was not going to tell a lie," said J.K. Rowling. "I think they're very moral books. I see children as innately good unless they've been very damaged. That's where I'm coming from." The fact that the parents are portrayed as evil she admits is planned this way in the story. What kind of message does this send? To say she sees "children as innately good unless they've been very damaged " is also revealing in relation to the theme, since Harry's adopted parents are made to be bad and those who practice sorcery as good. What is the most puzzling is that parents read the book and seem to overlook this example and the not so subtle messages it sends.

Harry Potter, an 11-year-old + wizard-in-training, who is competing for the attention of young children next to Poke'mon. The book is so successful that like the Poke'mon movie, it will have its own movie debut in Nov. 2001 after the 4^th sequel is released in July 2,000. Rowling just signed a six-figure contract with Warner Brothers in which she will assist in writing the script. The NY post reports Steven Spielberg, Rob Reiner, Chris Columbus, Jonathan Demme and Brad Silberling are all begging Warner Brothers for the chance to direct the film.

Harry is a skinny kid with glasses with a thunder-bolt scar on his forehead who attends Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

Harry became an orphan at age one, by surviving a murderous assault by the evil wizard Lord Voldemort, who killed his parents who were also wizards. Voldemort lost much of his power when he tried unsuccessfully to kill their one year old son. From this Harry inherited a thunderbolt scar on his forehead marking his unusual psychic strength and triumph over evil.

Harry is adopted and for the next ten years in his aunts and uncles home (the Dursleys) in London. But it is a miserable muggle life ("muggles" are mundane, non-magical humans) as he is constantly tormented by his cruel guardians and a spoiled bully of a cousin, his bedroom is a closet under the stairs. In the mundane human world Harry is a nobody, But everything changes on his eleventh birthday. He discovers that he is a wizard of great renown. Harry's discovery of his mysterious powers reminds him that he's altogether different from others.

One day a mysterious letter is delivered by the friendly giant Hagrid "We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry." Uncle Vernon protests but to no avail as Harry is rescued (or not depending on how you look at it) from the clutches of his nasty aunt and uncle. They are depicted as mean, selfish, unloving everything one would not want their parents to be.

Hogwarts is a desirable boarding school for aspiring wizards (witches and warlocks). Harry attends classes on Potions, Spells, Transformation, Divination etc.. Learning the basic deeds of the old Sorcerers Craft Harry begins to sharpen his innate magical talents. Harry and others learn to know the future as the author accurately describes the functions of divination.  

After he enrolls in the wizard school he still required to spend most of his summer vacations with the Dursleys. Who are portrayed as going from denial of his world of wizardry to fear and hatred of both magic and him. This becomes a challenge to Harry's new world.

Those who don't believe in the world of witches, who despise it as evil are cast as blind, and biased. This includes Harry’s cruel aunt and uncle and anyone else, that is if you see witchcraft as a danger.  This message is sent to the reading child who makes the story personal. Which they do when they are young and impressionable.

Harry's destiny is to rid the evil hidden within the depths of Hogwarts. With his new friends, Hermione, Hedwig (owl), Ron, the giant Hagrid, and the guidance from the Head Wizard Dumbledore, Harry summons his courage and common sense to discover the enemy that is stalking Hogwarts. He finds it is Voldemort the evil wizard who killed his parents. Once discovered Harry and his friends combine their magical talents and they send the evil sorcerer away. They eat jellybeans that come in every flavor, including strawberry, grass, snot, and even sardine. While this is may be seen as imaginative and humorous, it just adds to the negative content of occult themes, with its characters practicing nonsense along with Witchcraft.

Some of the committed Hogwarts fans paint the purple thunderbolt on their foreheads. This mark bonds them to Harry, a student wizard with amazing mystical powers. (as seen in real life with the picture in the USA weekend paper Nov.12,1999)

 On the review on www.amazon.com it states "As with its predecessor, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets is a highly readable and imaginative adventure story with real, fallible, characters, plenty of humor and, of course, loads of magic and spells.(ages 9+) In this sequel to "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone", Harry keeps hearing strange voices, sinister and dark messages appear on the wall, and then his friend Ron's sister disappears.

This glorifies the world of the occult and has a strange attraction especially for children who are naïve to its Spell. Most of the mass murderers heard voices that drove them to their crimes.

"I don't think you should censor kids, reading material. It's important just to let them go do what they need to do." Many have branded the Harry Potter books anti-Christian and pro witchcraft and want the schools and libraries to ban them. But she said, "I am not trying to influence anyone into black magic That's the very last thing I'd want to do.

"I'm not so naive that I didn't know or didn't suspect that, at some point, someone was going to say, 'You're writing about the occult! My wizarding world is a world of the imagination. I think its a moral world."… "I don't believe in the kind of magic that appears in my books." she confessed. "But I do believe something very magical can happen when you read a good book."

 Is it a world of imagination as she claims or is it both imagination with reality. James Bjornstad points out in his article in the Quarterly Journal "She also bias knowledge of some of the famous occultists of the past. An example of this is her reference in her first book to Nicolas Hamel as the partner of Albus Dumbledore, the greatest headmaster of Hogwarts ever (Hary Potter and the Sorceror's Stone op.cit. pp.102-103,219). Dumbledore is fictional, but Flamel is not. .. not every other thing in Harry Potter is from the imagination of Rowling. She has had to research or most certainly has been exposed to occultic writings and practices.

As the story develops, Harry and his friends research Flamel in the library. They discover that he was the only known maker of the Sorcerer's Stone. The Elixir of Life, which gives immortality, is associated with the Stone. Flamel, now 665 years old, appears to have gained immortality, but only as long as the Stone exists. When Dumbledore destroys the Stone, Hamel and his wife Perenelle die. (Ibid.,pp.219-220,297)

Flamel actually was a 14th century alchemist. It is said that he was able to turn mercury into gold and that he did discover the Elixir of Life. (See further Jaques Sadoul, alchemists and Gold. New York: G.P. Putnams' sons 1970 pg243, cited by Montenegero in Harry Potter, sorcery And fantasy," op.cit). So it does not appear to be all imaginary as she claims, she does have a rudimentary knowledge of the occult and certain people involved in Occultism which can only come from research or personal knowledge.

Yes something magical is happening, a whole segment of society has now become open to what was formerly forbidden. It is breaking down the walls of protection to something we should not become familiar with. The author admits she is not naïve and It may not be black magic to her, but black or white, it is all the same power source whether one acknowledges it or not. The idea of censoring is a mute issue since parents censor many things the kids read or see. What she is asking for is  the parents to step aside and stop parenting. Especially to stand by and watch a book get promoted in the schools that is teaching religion, witchcraft.

The controversy seems to have become a religious one, and rightly so. It is about values and the way we understand things.

Excerpts from an Associated Press Writer Oct. 13, 1999; Columbia, S.C.

Parents have persuaded the state's Board of Education to review whether the books should be allowed in the classroom. "The books have a serious tone of death, hate, lack of respect and sheer evil,"

In Marietta, Ga., elementary school principal recently asked a fifth-grade teacher to stop reading the books in class until the school decided whether they were appropriate. On Tuesday, he cleared one of the books for classroom use.

"It's questionable whether every parent wants their child to read or be exposed to books having to do with magic and wizardry," the principle said.

A handful of parents at a Lakeville, Minn., elementary school also objected, but the principal said it was up to teachers whether to continue reading Potter's tales to their students."

Yes the kids are now wanting to read books and the parents should be glad, right? Not if it's exposing them to something that they are trying to keep them away from. Are there concerns? You bet there are!

For example in Harry Potter and the Secret Chamber, Harry picks up a envelope with a parchment inside that says: kwikspell A Correspondence Course in Beginners' Magic. Madam Z. Nettles of Topsham writes: "I had no memory for incantations and my potions were a family joke! Now, after a Kwikspell course, I am the center of attention at parties and friends beg for the recipe of my Scintillation Solution!" Warlock D. J. Prod of Didsbury says: "My wife used to sneer at my feeble charms, but one month into your fabulous Kwikspell course and I succeeded in turning her into a yak! Thank you, Kwikspell!"

Well it's not toil and trouble and eye of newt, but neither is it the Hardy boys. If this is not promoting witchcraft as acceptable than what is?

Sounds depressing to me too, the author has admitted she loves Holloween, so much that she wants it to be read all year round.

"He is with me wherever I go," said Quirrell quietly, referring to Voldmort. "I met him when I traveled around the world. A foolish young man I was then, full of ridiculous ideas about good and evil. Lord Voldemort showed me how wrong I was. There is no good and evil , there is only power, and those too weak to seek it.... Since then, I have served him faithfully.".           ( Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, J. K. Rowling, (New York: Scholastic Inc., 1997) p.291)

Many have compared the books with classics like Peter Pan, C.S. Lewis' "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" and J.R.R. Tolkien's "The Hobbit."

We live in a different world today. These books that have explicit descriptions of witchcraft and death. Should they be considered in the same category as the reading of time proven classics as, Charlotte's Web, Little House series, Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson, A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling, Black Beauty by Anne Sewell, Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn by Mark Twain.

So what's wrong with this fantasy? It influences our children to be open to pagan spirituality, this is not just imagination. What we are watching is an all out assault on biblical values and a Christian world view. I'm not going to put the blame on the author for intentionally influencing the children into paganism, since she does deny this as her motive and we have no proof otherwise. But unknowingly she is doing just that. It is a tragic mistake on any parents part to make magic trendy. Actually  the word magic is a misnomer, its witchcraft. To open our children to the unknown and forbidden world of sorcery is nothing less than "glorifying and mainstreaming witchcraft" to children. It may be a fun story, great reading, but the occult is very real, and most parents are completely unaware of this. Books such as the Harry Potters are effortlessly fit the new age agenda and occult world view.

Michael Thorn writes: "Modern Witchcraft (or Wicca) is the most common expression of the religious movement known as Neo-paganism.... Wiccan's focus their liturgy and worship around a Goddess and a God. Rituals and services are timed to the phases of the moon and to the Wheel of the Year  (i.e., the solstices, equinoxes, and the days falling midway between these such as May Day and Halloween). Most witches treat their practice as a priesthood, somewhat akin to the mystery cults of classical Greece and Rome, involving years of training and passage through life transforming initiatory rituals."

The Wiccan creed is 'If it harm none, do what ye will'. In other words, In other words do what you feel is right, but let no one be harmed by your actions. However this is open for interpretation since what they think is not harmful may very well be.

Here's a quote from a witch "In Witchcraft, we do not fight self-interest; we follow it." (Starhawk, Founder of the Covenant of the Goddess)

The author of Harry Potter seems to have a basic knowledge of the craft and other occult concepts, there are too many resemblance's so it hard for me to accept it to be just a story that came to her on a train.

Most Wiccan traditions value a Book of Shadows. These books are rarely seen to non-initiates. Most Books of Shadows include instructions for the circle casting and banishing; religious rituals; laws; organizational laws for the coven; ceremonies; magickal rites; prayers, and other essential parts. Books like these guide and maintain Wiccan religion.

Many of the web sites for Harry Potter have games and puzzles to test ones knowledge of the story. They are all around the theme of the craft with spells and charms put in creative word games although some may be innocuous,  the terms that appear desensitizes a child to be unafraid of  participating in real spells in witchcraft. All this reaffirms the teachings of the occult given in the books.  Just as the magazine of Harry Potter featured Sabrina the teenage witch,  it is all made to look fun and interesting. The more the child is attracted to this it brings the child further down the road.

God spoke to Israel not to practice their spirituality as the pagan nations, and neither should we. Deuteronomy 18:10-13 "When you come into the land which the Lord your God is giving you, you shall not learn to follow the abominations of those nations. "There shall not be found among you anyone w ho makes his son or his daughter pass through the fire, one who uses ,divination, one who practices witchcraft, or one who interprets omens, or a sorcerer, ( one who casts a spell, )or a medium, or a spiritist, or one who calls up the dead (Necromancer). For whoever does these things an abomination to the Lord." These (and more) are all the things practiced by Harry Potter in the books, contacting the dead, séances. No Christian (or non Christian) should ignore the possible influences of this book that positively promotes the occult when God has forbidden this.  No one can deny that after reading these books they are not more open to accepting occult ideas. They make it look fun,  I can only wonder why Christian parents would ignore the actual content and promote the book because of its quality of writing.

II King 21:6: " he made his son pass through the fire, practiced soothsaying, used witchcraft, and consulted spiritist's and mediums." The Lord called this evil in his sight.

While there have been books written on witchcraft and sorcery, if they involve a hero who uses these powers one needs to question the influence it can have on a young child  who is very impressionable.  

If people want to read these books on their own, they have the freedom to do so. Contrary to rumors, most Christians are not promoting burning the books or the people who practice occultism.  It is not a matter of intolerance but of being aware. If someone is mature and knows better reading a book like this may not affect them in the least. Its obvious that a book like this may not affect and adult as it would a impressionable child. But children are different, and parents should be watching over their children. Parents should heed the forewarning of opening their child to the occult. Many people testify that this is the very way they got involved in the occult. It may not have repercussions immediately but eventually it does. How do I know this? Been there, done that! It all starts by playing a game or reading a book. I guess I'm just a muggle, but I'd rather not see this being promoted in any secular schools and especially Christian. Let the reader beware.

For those who still take the position that children are immune to influences that they read please go to this website to hear what children are saying.

 for the 2nd in the series on Harry Potter

http://www.crossroad.to/News/Harry.html