Turns out that Voldemort isn’t the only enemy that Harry is embroiled in a great Wizarding War with – now a school in Tennessee has become the latest to brand the Harry Potter books as satanic.
The school’s pastor, Reverend Reehil, claimed that “the curses and spells used in the books are actual curses and spells,” because fantasy novels about teenage wizards who play broomstick football definitely seem like the Devil’s M.O.
He’s far from the first to decry the series for its alleged dark magick – ever since their popularisation, the Harry Potter books have been banned (or worse) by concerned school boards and religious groups. Sometimes, that’s due to the violent scenes, but mostly it’s the witchy content that raises alarm among the hand-wringers.
The series topped the American Library Association’s list of most challenged books in the Noughties, and though the hostility has cooled a bit in the years since, schools are still doing the dumb thing. And it’s not just the US being all worked up about it – earlier this year, a bunch of Polish priests burned copies because they thought the Christian bible told them to.
Australia hasn’t escaped the overblown moralising either. One school asked kids to forego any Harry Potter-themed cosplays for their book week celebrations, and more recently, a WA school put a temporary suspension on the series. Although that was more about the Hogwarts teachers being “portrayed in a negative light” apparently.
Sounds likes it’s time for a good old debunking. Rev Reehil reckons that chucking out a casual ‘accio’ might inadvertently summon Satan, but even if you suspend your disbelief of the demonic for a sec, these ‘evil’ Harry Potter spells are clearly not legit.
For a start, J.K. Rowling made them up from Latin roots, which is about as scary as they get. ‘Patronus’? Obviously from ‘pater’, AKA ‘father’. Just cause the Pope speaks Latin doesn’t mean it’s an inherently spiritual language – the Bible itself was a patchwork of Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic. You might as well just say that yelling any word is a potential curse, which is great news for peak hour drivers. Even Catholic.com is calling bullshit here.
Just try not to imagine how much worse it would be if Catholic leaders were following Rowling on Twitter.