The contrasting character of two modern favourite women literary geniuses

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It is striking that - although men make up the great bulk of geniuses in most fields, there are plenty of women among the genius novelists and some poets (but no playwrights) - two of my current favourites are JK Rowling who wrote the Harry Potter series, and Susanna Clarke who wrote Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell - which are currently my favourite fictions by living authors.

Looking at them in terms of personality type, there is a great difference (so far as can be judged from public media - all this that follows is my opinion, inference and guesswork).

Susanna Clarke being interviewed at a public event (the, unseen, shoes are flat, comfortable 'pumps')

Susanna Clarke seems a classic bluestocking type, in terms of her rather reserved, even shy, public persona - and her non-celebrity - one might even say reclusive - lifestyle. She is a very pleasant looking lady, but - unusually nowadays - has not dyed her hair and is naturally grey, she dresses traditionally and modestly, she does not project sexuality. She is a slow and careful writer and has only published one novel and a few short stories. She seldom gives an opinion on public subjects - although everything suggests she has broadly mainstream Leftist views (with the exception of being patriotically English).

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JKR in skyscraper shoes and plunge neckline at a movie premiere

Joanna Rowling is in contrast a very public celebrity - never out of the news, making pronouncements on many subjects, and allying with several fashionable Left Wing causes. She presented herself in a sexualized manner, having had plastic surgery and wearing fashionable and immodest clothing.

In both womens' great works, there is an underlying Christian ethos; although I gather that Clarke is not a Christian and Rowling is currently a very liberal Christian (or else, as I believe, apostate and not a real Christian nowadays - even though she clearly was when writing Harry Potter) - however, in my understanding, the Christian frame is essential to the excellence of both authors' best work.

My point here is that real geniuses always have the Endogenous personality type - as I have called it (see reference below) -  but the Endogenous personality includes people expressing very different behaviours - as widely different as Clarke and Rowling.

The Endogenous personality can be regarded as a destiny - and only when it is so regarded, will genius achievement (potentially) follow. The interesting distinction between these two women, is that Rowling seem to me to have betrayed her destiny, while Clarke has tried to remain faithful to it.

Why do I say Rowling has betrayed her genius - simply because she is very-obviously very-concerned with how she presents herself to the public; and that acts to sabotage genuine quality, high-level achievement... genius. (This extends to creating a distorted, and dishonest, and self-serving mythology of her own life as a writer.) Rowling is consciously, almost systematically sabotaging her own destiny as a creative person. Unless she repents this, she will certainly have destroyed her own genius.

Therefore I think it is not possible that Rowling could again write anything as good as the Harry Potter series; while it is possible that Clarke could write another thing as good as Strange and Norrell.

But the situation is not symmetrical. Whereas Rowling cannot produce anything great again, because she has eliminated an essential element of great work; Clarke will not necessarily produce another great work even if she is faithful to her destiny, because achievement may be blocked by the lack of other necessary factors - such as health, or luck.

This is, indeed, what corrupts so many artists, why the culture of celebrity (of 'success') has been lethal to so many geniuses in recent years: on the one side they have a certainty of worldly-success (money, fame, status, power) - offered them on a plate, or indeed thrust-upon them; while on the other hand there is only a possibility of doing more great works.

Here-and-now certainty versus the mere possibility at some point in the future - the public world versus personal destiny - Pleasure versus Fulfillment - Prestige versus Creativity - Man versus God...

http://iqpersonalitygenius.blogspot.co.uk/2015/06/the-endogenous-personality-its.html 

How US evangelical Christians threw away the greatest opportunity for Christian evangelism in several decades - the Christian attacks on the Harry Potter books

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Discerning Christian scholars of the Harry Potter novels by JK Rowling - such as John Granger (Eastern Orthodox), and Jerram Barrs (Calvinist Protestant) - have proved beyond reasonable doubt that these books are profoundly Christian in their attitudes and messages and in many symbolic references; and this is confirmed explicitly albeit discreetly in the text and authorial interviews.

(I have also written about this on this blog - the pieces can be found by word-searching 'Potter' and 'Christian'.)

The Harry Potter series has also been a sales sensation, and have reshaped the whole publishing environment.

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This should, of course, have been the greatest possible news among evangelical-minded Christians of all denominations - the best news in decades! - a tremendous opportunity for those who want to spread the word, and encourage Christians in their faith.

Instead, a sizeable number of influential Christians in the USA launched and sustained an aggressive, ill-informed and slanderous (false, dishonest) attack on the Harry Potter phenomenon; so that Christians labelled these books as anti-Christian in intent and tendency - and did their best to prevent their own and other children from reading them.

http://www.bethinking.org/culture/jk-rowling-and-harry-potter

The Christian anti-Rowling attacks were avidly encouraged by the mass media (which should have been sufficient to warn serious Christians of what was going on).

The result has been a disastrous lost opportunity and self-inflicted wound for Christianity:

1. The most popular books in decades have been labelled, and interpreted, as if they were anti-Christian; and instead distorted into a frame which supports the dominant culture of secular Leftism.

This was a tragically lost opportunity for Christianity in the West - perhaps the biggest lost opportunity for several decades.

2. For Christians, the depth and faith strengthening beauty of these books has been lost.

3. The author seems to have been astonished and wounded by these attacks from Christians; and from subsequent interviews and published novels it seems very probable that she has become apostate, has changed sides - and now consistently takes a pro secular Leftist (and implicitly anti-Christian) stance.

Clearly this was very wrong of her - but my point is that this corruption and change in JKR was (in my view) probably begun by the vile and hysterical attacks on her personally and on the HP books by Christians.

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One consequence may have been that the very popular movies based on the books, which followed a few years later, almost-entirely deleted the Christian elements - and indeed inverted some of the primary moral and spiritual messages of the novels.

Given the innate tendency of movies to usurp the understanding and interpretation of novels,this was a further deep wound inflicted on the potential-for-good of the Harry Potter series.

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In conclusion, the Christians who campaigned against Harry Potter seemingly ended-up inflicting very serious damage on Christianity, and doing the work of Satan.

How did this happen?

There were good and bad intentions at work - as usual.

The good intentions were thoughtless and lacking in discernment - regarding the HP books with prejudice rather than actually reading them with sympathy. This attitude means that inevitably Christians will reject on a priori grounds any Christian phenomenon successful among non-Christians, and any potential major opportunity for evangelism.

The bad intentions were the usual ones - seeking any 'plausible' excuse to indulge in hatred, moral showboating and status striving, the pleasures of controlling and bullying others...

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The Harry Potter phenomenon handed Western Christians a great opportunity. The same applies, of course, to the Narnia books by CS Lewis, and the Middle Earth books by JRR Tolkien.

That opportunity remains - but an aggressive and influential minority of US supposedly-'evangelical' Christians are working against this great opportunity - by gifting this Christian literature to anti-Christians: handing it to them on a plate!

Unsurprisingly, this kind self-destructive lunacy by Christians has been given every possible encouragement and amplification by the secular Leftist mass media.

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The damage has been done - water under the bridge - why write about it?

Well, now that the scenario has played out, now that the scale of damage can be surveyed; those serious Christians who participated in the slandering of Harry Potter should now be able to see the extent of their error, and to repent.

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Christianity and beauty - how can we do it? (when the mass media, including the arts, are hostile and corrupt). Easy!

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I have been listening to Peter Kreeft speaking on some recent YouTube videos - yet again impressed at his excellence as a Christian evangelist and apologist.

One thing he mentions is that one big, but neglected, reason that Christianity lost the culture wars was that the anti-Christians and non-Christians have - for several generations - not been doing beautiful and inspiring work, and most of the best 'art' (in a broad sense of the word) has been anti-Christian and non-Christian.

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In my view, this is mostly due to the apostasy of the intellectuals - which led them, en masse, first into atheism, then adding to this Leftism; so that nearly all intellectuals including artists (and especially the most influential and powerful) have long been anti-Christian, secular Leftists.

But HERE AND NOW there is an opening for Christians (and those creators on the political Right); and this opening has been opened by the fact that anti-Christian Leftists have all-but abandoned beauty: they do not even try to do beautiful work; and are indeed mainly concerning with doing ugly work.

They first used-to claim that their deliberate ugliness was actually beautiful in some deep way (e.g. Picasso, Schoenberg, Joyce); but in the past couple of generations do not even pretend to be interested in beauty - but only in challenge, subversion, radical politics and the like.

Where there was beauty, there is now a vacuum.

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Since the Mass Media are nowadays the root and origin of anti-Christian, secular Leftism there is near-zero possibility of any overtly Christian work becoming widely known via any of the mass media.

And when a Christian work does slip under the radar (such as the Harry Potter series of books) then this can be hidden, denied, ridiculed, re-framed - and, as in the case of JK Rowling, the artist can be subverted and turned-against Christianity and absorbed-into mainstream secular Leftism by relentless pressure of bribery, co-option, intimidation and distortion.

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So:

1. It is very important indeed that Christians become artists and intellectuals and produce beautiful work.

However:

2. This cannot be done via the mass media.

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The implications are that Christians need to work outwith the mass media, which means via personal contact and small scale production - yet uncompromisingly of the highest possible quality.

1. Christians cannot make a living from intrinsically-Christian arts and intellectual activities - because this must be outwith the mass media therefore small scale therefore non-money-making; so they must be amateurs.

2. Since they are amateurs they need not be concerned by the size of the audience, but only by the quality of their work.

3. Since they are not concerned by the size of the audience, they do not need the mass media - they will work by word of mouth and personal recommendation/ distribution.

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In sum, this situation is very favourable to sincere Christian creators of beauty; it means that Christian arts are wide-open - and only await creative talent (and NOT money, publicity, marketing, hype, spin or propaganda).

If there is willing talent, and the mass media are not needed - then there are no significant obstacles to be overcome. The Christian artist can simply get on with it: that is, he can get on with making beauty - as best he may.

And if you make beauty; ultimately, the world will beat a path to your door; because beauty is something we all crave, and cannot we cannot help craving.

And beauty will point us at God.

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'Moderate' leftist dissidents (like JK Rowling) may be specifically-correct and show courage - but they strengthen the evil System whose 'extremes' they deplore

This is a slightly topical post - for once, and I am not setting a precedent (nor am I inviting further topical references in the comments!); because it has been triggered by JK Rowling's rather courageous persistence in making blunt and true public criticisms of the trans extremes of Leftism. 

Similar situations are common, and always have been common - I merely reference 'Rowling and trans' because she has neither backed-down nor apologized - and because she is as famous as anybody in the world at present. 

Note: I have written extensively about JK Rowling on this blog - because I regard her Harry Potter series as a work of genius in its genre. 

It is - of course - proximately A Good Thing for anybody to speak the truth, any truth, in a world of lies; and to do so requires courage. 

For this JKR is to be applauded. But...

The mindset of a moderate Leftist like JKR is interesting. She can see clearly that for the trans agenda to enable and excuse (multiple instances of) rape of women is an evil. She can perceive that rape is morally of far greater seriousness than the imposition of lies about sexuality. She is prepared to say so, despite extreme pressure. 

But...

JK Rowling makes her criticism from a Feminist perspective; and both the trans agenda and feminism are aspects of Leftism: feminism early, and trans coming more recently. 

Nonetheless it is a fact that both feminism and trans share the same political history, have the same ideological roots, and employ the same nature of justification. That is both are utilitarian: both feminism and trans claim to make more people happy, more of the time - both claim to reduce human suffering and diminish injustice. 

Yet both lack metaphysical roots, because feminism and leftism are free-floating ethical systems - they assert their goodness, their justice etc; but with no transcendental basis for doing so. 

Trans is a plain lie and a value-inversion - and a far more extreme form of Leftism - but both feminism and trans originate in exactly the same mind-set, motivations and assumptions. 

JKR has (apparently) not reflected on how it is that such an obviously insane evil as trans has arisen, how it has been internationally been adopted; how trans is supported by all major institutions in government (world and national), finance, corporations, and the mass media. 

Trans is now part of employment and criminal laws; and is coercively enforced worldwide - as Rowling is currently experiencing. 

How does JKR suppose this situation has arisen? A situation where almost everybody among the Establishment - most of whose opinions she endorses, and whose general assumptions she 'passionately' shares and expounds, and who are (or were) her personal friends and associates - has unified so unanimously around such an extraordinarily wicked lie? 

In essence, Rowling (like so many other dissident, 'sensible' Leftists) sees and deplores one or another particular symptom of evil; but shows no serious interest in understanding the underlying cause which has led to this happening. 

Quite the opposite - she endorses almost everything about Leftism - except a few specific points where her own 1990s feminism clashes with nearly-everybody-else's 2021 trans-ism.

Rowling is the one who is out of step ideologically - almost everybody else in Leftism has followed the internal oppositional logic of Leftism through to the trans conclusion. 

And therefore the net effect of her dissent is to support the Leftist System that creates and sustains exactly the evil she deplores. 

Because - where else could the trans agenda possibly come-form - except Leftism? This discernment, this conclusion, is not "rocket surgery": it is about as obvious as anything could be - unless one is self-blinded by exactly that same ideology...    

JK Rowling deplores a real and extreme abuse and moral inversion. Well done! However, she argues from Leftism, without apparent awareness that this evil abuse is a direct and logical product of the assumptions of her own Leftist ideology. 

Just as feminism grew from opposition to traditional sexual roles - first opposing inequality of opportunity, then inequality of training and experience, then inequality of outcomes... But it did not - could not - stop there. 

Feminism soon evolved into denying obvious innate differences in men's and women's nature, disposition, motivations and abilities. And this has been the situation for decades - in all major corporations, institutions, organizations - in government and the media; and apparently Rowling is quite happy with it.  

From this feminism's false and dishonest denial of difference between men and women, it was but a short-step - just another short false and dishonest step! - to asserting that men and women were inter-convertible; and crushing anyone who says otherwise... Exactly as the feminist Establishment has, for the past generation-plus, crushed anyone who asserted true-and-obvious functionally significant sex differences. 

Leftism is 'progressive': it never stands still, it cannot stand still - because it has no structural basis for standing still. 

This is because Leftism is oppositional, critical, subversive - it is not aiming at any particular social end point but at a state of 'permanent revolution'.

Therefore Leftism will always lead to value inversion - that is, to extreme, insane and evil lies - because there is nowhere else for Leftism to go!

Rowling is thus engaged in the futile gesture of trying to stop the cancerous subversions of Leftism at a particular point that rationalizes some specific ethical values which she personally regards as primary.

Implicitly, thereby, JKR operates on the basis that Leftism is the only acceptable and moral ideology. 

Unfortunately, but inevitably, that deeply pro-Establishment, pro-System, pro-Left message is what is communicated by JKR's highly-particular act of courageous dissent.

And this pro-Establishment Leftism is precisely why JK Rowling (and other dissident Leftists of her ilk) remain able to dissent; why their dissent is given so much publicity, and is so widely disseminated by the mass media - and why she has not been excluded by The System; as is anyone who denies the assumptions of Leftism is excluded.

Courage is a virtue; but courage on the side of evil and therefore against God's creation is not something that a Christian can endorse. 

The Harry Potter Litmus Test to discriminate between Christians and Christian-Fellow-Travellers

By Christian-Fellow-Travellers I means those primarily political (e.g. conservative, reactionary or libertarian) political intellectuals who approve-of Christianty (they may even self-identify as Christians) without adopting a Chriustian perspective... I mean people like Roger Scruton or  Jordan Peterson, who are the examples here.

By contrast are people who are primarily Christian, and from-that derive their political views - my examples here are Jerram Barrs (a Calvinist) and John Granger (an old-calendar Russian Orthodox).

The test I propose is to consider the reaction to the Harry Potter books among those who actually like the books - who find something to admire in them.

If you can be bothered  to watch these four videos - I think you can see that the Christian-Fellow-Travellers miss the Christian-point of these books; and this comes as a consequence of their primarily political persepctive.

So what is my point here? It is that there is a world of difference between being a 'Right Wing' Christian-fellow-traveller, and being an actual Christian - and that difference includes the persepctive from which you view and interpret the world... including the Harry Potter books...

I should add that since publishing the Harry Potter books, and in her public persona and pronouncements; their author JK Rowling gives every appearance of having apostatized from her Christian faith, and indeed is in-effect an influential anti-Christian. Nonetheless, the Harry Potter books themselves tell a very different story.
 

Potter versus Rowling

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That the Harry Potter series of novels was inspired - and not a product of JK Rowling's unaided motivation and imagination - has seemed increasingly obvious since I was first able to appreciate the marvellous qualities of the books, and contrast them with the air-headed-ness of the author's public persona.

Indeed, before I engaged with reading the books, I was for many years put off by having seen interviews with Rowling, from which I concluded that someone like her simply could not have written anything worth reading.

But the books are a wonder - hence the necessity of acknowledging that they were indeed inspired (a fact confirmed by seeing what talentless and soul-draining bilge she produces when she sets Harry aside and is thereby bereft of that inspiration: I refer to her recent 'adult novel').

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Thus we get the fascinating clashes between the traditional Christian belief system which underpins the Harry Potter books, and the anti-Christian, anti-marriage, anti-family, anti-Good nihilism of Rowling's real-life bureaucratic Leftism.

So, while I have seen no reference to Rowling's views on the topic on the the bearing of weapons by subjects or citizens, I would be extremely confident that she would be against it (and in favour of sustaining and extending the current UK situation of mandatory Eloi-ism; in which only violent criminals and feral youths are tacitly 'permitted' to carry and use weapons; and the decent and physically weak are rendered helpless, and harshly prosecuted for any attempt - or any possibility of any attempt - at self-defence).

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Yet the Harry Potter novels, from the Prisoner of Azkabahn onwards, and especially the Order of the Phoenix, are brilliant depictions of precisely the form of tyranny which exists in the modern West.

An inverted reality  in which the existence and badness of baddies is excluded from public discourse, and the goodies become 'the problem'.

A world in which aggressors are relabelled as victims, and victims are blamed for provoking aggression against themselves.

In which the mass media, government policy, administration and regulation, and enforcement are all unrelentingly focused upon the past, present, and potential future, actual or extrapolated or invented, transgressions of decent people.

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You may recall that Hogwarts classes in 'Defence against the Dark Arts' are made wholly theoretical (all practical defensive training being abolished), and focused on elementary, harmless and useless responses; meanwhile the fact that Voldemort has returned and is preparing for war is ignored and denied.

Because nobody want Voldemort to have returned, Voldemort has not returned. Because effective defence against Voldemort carries risks, there must be no effective defence (and those who insist on preparing are taking needless risk). Because to prepare for disaster is scary, there must be no preparation for disaster (and those who do prepare are terrorizing the ignorant, for their own selfish or deluded purposes).

Because any form of organization outwith the state might resist the state, then all forms of actual or potential organization outwith the state are forbidden - and therefore organized resistance to Voldemort is severely impaired; and therefore resistance is scattered and individual, and may be officially portrayed as eccentric or revolutionary.

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Instances of aggression by the Death Eaters and their minions such as the Dementors are unmentioned, denied, or claimed to be propaganda from the disaffected, stupid or crazy - and contradiction of this line is punished by shaming and ridicule in the media (which almost everybody believes, even against the evidence of their own direct experience and common sense) and by increasingly sadistic sanctions against those who continue to speak out.

And whatever happens is made into a justification for more Ministerial control.  

In other words, life in England under the rule of JKR's close personal friend Gordon Brown, and its continuation under the current 'Conservative' 'coalition' government.

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I found this interesting post and comment on the topic which Americans call 'the right to bear arms':

http://everything2.com/title/Harry+Potter+and+the+Right+to+Bear+Arms

In which the thought processes of (more or less) common-sense tradition versus Leftism are set-out clearly, and the Potter versus Rowling oppositions comes through with force.

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It is fortunate that so many millions of Harry Potter novels have already been sold and dispersed beyond all possibility of recall - since I am sure that if it were possible for them to be rewritten as politically correct tracts by the post-inspired and now evil-allied Rowling, then she would do this.

But as it is, I think Potter has broken free of his mediator, and he is no doubt at work on behalf of God and the Good (and against JK Rowling) - in a subliminal fashion - in the minds of many millions...

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Harry Potter, Co-inherence, and Substituted Love

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I am actively reading both Charles Williams (the Inkling) and JK Rowling's Harry Potter chronicles - including John Granger's superb 'How Harry cast his Spell'...

when I suddenly realised that Rowling's book, across the whole series, is about the best possible illustration of C.W's distinctive ideas of co-inherence, substitution (including substituted love) and exchange.

http://notionclubpapers.blogspot.com/2012/01/understanding-charles-williams-co.html

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It was the following passage, from the end of the first book of the series Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone - Dumbledore is speaking to Harry:

Your mother died to save you. If there is one thing that Voldemort cannot understand, it is love.

He didn't realize that love as powerful as you mother's for you leaves its own mark.

Not a scar, no visible sign...

to have been loved so deeply, even though the person who loved us is gone, will give us some protection forever: It is in your very skin.

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This is pure Charles Williams! Not that I think it derives directly from Charles Williams - rather it indicates that JK Rowling has independently worked-out the same implications as did C.W. - implications which are orthodoxly, traditionally Christian yet somehow neglected or de-emphasised.

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He saved others: himself he cannot save - this was said of Christ, indicating the reality of co-inherence - and the same could be said of Harry Potter.

Throughout the book he is saved from death, again and again, by the love of others - especially by sacrificial love, up to and including acceptance of death for love - such love as a kind of real but immaterial and permanent protection... It is operative even when (as in most instances) 'the person who loved us is gone'.

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And in the end, in The Deathly Hallows, Harry demonstrates that as we are saved by the love of others; so it is our task to save - not ourselves but others.

Harry sacrifices himself (allows Vodlemort to kill him) from love of others; and the effect of this act of sacrificial love is seen immediately because after Harrys death and rebirth the pupils, Professors, parents and friends of Hogwarts are rendered immune to the curses and magic of Voldemort and the Death Eaters - there are no more casualties from the Good side in the battle.

So, because of the effects of Harry's invisible love, the evil cannot (for a while, anyway) harm good.

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Yet all this happens without the Hogwarts defenders or the death eaters being aware of it - only Harry (and Dumbledore) know what has happened.

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So this is love that is real (not a psychological trick, not effective because people believe it is effective - but effective even without awareness) love as a real 'substance', but immaterial...

Rowling's is a description of love that is totally in contradiction to the mainstream one in our society - where love is seen as a type of pleasure; something wholly subjective, one-way and temporary.

For moderns, A loves B, and the love is something happening in A's brain. When the brain state changes, or the brain dies, then love dies and leaves nothing behind - unless it has influenced another brain state, which is equally evanescent.

Indeed the modern cliche idea is that love is a short term brainstorm, maybe pleasurable or maybe miserable - but inevitably disappearing like snow in sunshine to leave no trace. Unrequited or one-way love is seen as pathetic, undignified, a waste of time.

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Rowling's is a concept of love that saves - as it saves Snape, an almost-wholly nasty man, but who is wholly and gloriously redeemed by his love for a long-dead woman - married to someone else and who eventually disliked him - and the courage this love enables.

And of course, via Lily his mother (who is long since dead, but not 'gone') Snape's love saves Harry, many times - even despite that at a superficial level Snape loathes Harry (and the feeling is mutual).

Snape is a classic 'loser', in love but not loved; making sacrifices - his whole double-agent life is a sacrifice and he is sacrificially killed by Vodemort; except that this is not mere infatuation but real love, as proved by his sacrifice - hence its effects are real and permanent.

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And CW's definition of the worst thing - the exclusion of love - is almost a literal rendition of Dumbledore's and Harry's explanation for Voldemort - a man who deliberately lived without love, and therefore became a kind of demon.

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So the Harry Potter books can be seen as an illustration of Charles Williams web of exchange, substitution - people doing the work of salvation for each other - and only indirectly for themselves; this enabled because of co-inherence - that we are members one of another (contain a bit of each other) and unified by Christ (contained by and containing).

Love always working in both directions, and across the divide between life and death.

Love as real, effectual, permanent - the only answer to death.

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It is very difficult for modern people to understand 'love' (agape) and how it is central to Christianity.

But the Harry Potter series does not just explain Christian love, it shows agape in operation such that readers can experience it for themselves.

For moderns, Rowling's use of love in her plot is extraordinarily strange (so much of it being love between the living and the dead) and it is remarkable that this very obvious and repeatedly emphasized fact is apparently unnoticed - at least consciously.

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Somehow, the fact has eluded secular culture that Rowling's mega-bestselling seven volume book is, at a deep level, a precise and completely unambiguous depiction of agape in action, in multiple acts of exchange and substitution, crossing between this life and the next.

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The soul and prophecies in Harry Potter

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I have been, very belatedly, hooked by the Harry Potter series; which initially I was indifferent-to, or mildly hostile about.

It required that I read the end of the series (to 'get' what the books were doing) and then went back and read the earlier books (albeit in some peculiar order, which I cannot now recall).

Now I am very taken with them, and regard them as genuinely inspired (whereas, previously, I saw them as merely ingeniously contrived - the product of a magpie bricolateur, rather than of a wise and farseeing owl - as I now think).

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The most stunning, and heartening, thing about the series is their moral seriousness underpinned by a transcendental perspective: which is pretty much exactly what the modern world requires.

The Harry Potter books provide a rich Christian perspective - but not too rich nor too obvious (indeed, not-at-all obvious - there is their strength); they provide about as much as our deeply corrupt and barren modern world can reasonably digest.

Much more, and the books would have been merely a cult. As it is, there is a great deal in HP, and it has gone out to tens (or, more likely, hundreds) of millions of people - and the books have not merely been read-through, but devoured, multi-read, and assimilated. 

Remarkable.

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The first and most vital thing is that the Harry Potter series is predicated on the reality of the immortal soul.

The reality of the soul is not argued; it is accepted: as indeed it must be.

It is there; indispensable and woven through the whole story: Death is real, necessary and irreversible; yet the soul is eternal.

And the soul is regarded as being a person's primary concern; susceptible of change as a result of choices.

(And free will is foundational, assumed, intrinsic to the series as well, as it must be.)

The soul can be maimed and diminished, irreversibly, by choices during life - as we discover from Harry's sight of Voldemort's maimed and diminished soul in the King's Cross chapter of Deathly Hallows.

Such damage cannot be undone after death.

That is what I mean by moral seriousness.

How many other works of late twentieth century mainstream literature can compare with this? I can't think of any at all.

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The second aspect is prophecy.

We moderns have a big, big problem with the reality of prophecy - which I take it is a self-made and artificial problem, because earlier generations did not share it.

That there were real prophecies was a given: the problems related to discerning the real prophets and prophecies from the fake; and understanding the real prophecies, and recognizing when they were being, or had been, fulfilled.

But the reality of the phenomenon of prophecy was not in question.

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In relation to Harry Potter the explicit explanation of prophecy (both from Dumbledore, and by JKR) is psychological - prophecies are real because (and only because) people believe them, and make them come true.

http://www.the-leaky-cauldron.org/2007/11/19/new-interview-with-j-k-rowling-for-release-of-dutch-edition-of-deathly-hallows

But as pointed out in this insightful blog posting...

http://prosblogion.ektopos.com/archives/2008/08/prophecy-potter.html

...this is not quite right, since Dumbledore clearly recognizes when Professor Trelawney is making a real prophecy (only twice, when she goes into an altered state of consciousness and is apparently unaware of what she is saying and does not recall it), and when she is just consciously making-up stuff.

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My feeling is that these are moments when JKR is pointing off-stage, beyond the world of HP, since true prophecy is supernaturally inspired (and is beyond the capability of 'magic'); ultimately true prophecy would imply God.

(Prophecy implies God even when a specific prophecy might well be 'demonic' - indeed it might well be that most true prophecies were indeed demonic - because the existence of demons is predicated on the existence of God)

Rowling must have known, or been inspired to act on the basis, that she could not bring God explicitly into Harry Potter, or else her book would have been restricted to a Christian genre and a Christian sub-culture.

The Harry Potter novels are therefore compatible with a Christian perspective, subtly point to that perspective, but in an entirely optional and 'deniable' fashion.

You don't need to acknowledge the presence of Christian underpinnings; but they are there if you notice them, want them, or need them.

*

As CS Lewis recognized after publishing That Hideous Strength and Perelandra, it is one advantage for the Christian apologist in our secular public discourse that almost any amount of theology can be 'smuggled' into fantasy novels without being detected, but still having an effect - so long as it is not explicitly labelled as such.

*

Given the sheer scale of their sales, and the obvious devotion of their readership (and no book can have much real influence on people unless it inspires multiple re-readings - which the series clearly does) - I would have to regard the Harry Potter books as one of the most hopeful and potentially fruitful recent phenomena of the Western world.

*

Why is Robert Conquest's Second Law so horribly true?

*

Robert Conquest's Second Law is something like:

Any organization not explicitly right-wing sooner or later becomes left wing.

It applies to people as well, as I argued in yesterday's post on the apostasy of JK Rowling.

But why is it true?

*

Clearly the law only applies to The Modern West - where Leftism is the long term trend - it is not a law applicable to all societies and throughout all of history.

But it does seem to apply, without any significant exceptions I can think of, to The Modern West.

*

In the modern situation, the Left sets the baseline assumptions: for example in terms of atheism (i.e. the denial of Christianity), equality (i.e. the essential sameness of people), democracy (i.e. the denial of traditional authority), feminism (i.e. the essential sameness of sexes), an egalitarian concept of the nature of anti-racism (i.e. the essential sameness of races), and the sexual revolution (whatever appeared bad is now recognized as Good; and vice versa).

Since these are assumptions, they frame institutions, and shape their organization over time, unless and except the institutions explicitly defines itself against them.

The institution (or individual) that does not wish to become swept Leftwards (or person) must therefore either isolate itself from modernity; or set up a screen to filter the mass of incoming stimuli for any such assumptions - and then react against them.

*

So, to take the example of JK Rowling. The Harry Potter series successfully walked a tightrope between its superficial postmodern Leftism and an underling Christian traditionalism - but the underlying reactionary structure was indirect and implicit, while the surface was obvious and in-your-face.

Thus in the fullness of 'sooner or later' Rowling had to do one of two things: make explicit and clear the underlying Christian and reactionary structure (in effect admitting she had successfully tricked tens of millions of people into reading covert religious propaganda); or else she would be swept Leftwards by the prevailing assumptions of society.

If she had chosen the first path, there would without any shadow of doubt have been an immediate, immoderate, coordinated and sustained campaign to discredit and demonize the Harry Potter books; in which the whole weight of international mass media (ie the centre and origin of world Leftism) would have been involved.

*

But, as we know, she did not do this; consequently she has been swept into providing (with her new novel) an over-the-top endorsement of the vilest and most demoralizing Leftism; the inversion of Truth, Beauty and Virtue.

*

I find it tempting to put Rowling's very obvious corruption down to her friendship with the egregious ex-Prime Minister Gordon Brown - who is surely the most pervasively dishonest British of Premiers since Lloyd George; but of course Rowling chose the friendship; and in truth Conquest's Law operates without any need for specific factors or agents.

It is a sign of the intrinsic short-termism and impatience of Leftism that JKR did not pause to sugar coat her message of nihilism, but lets the reader have it full-on and in their guts - or else the book would probably have been vastly more harmful.

As it is, the new novel is such a naive, open faced, unmasked instance of horribleness that even Leftists are embarrassed and disgusted by it.

*

At least for a while.

Probably, 'sooner or later', as the desensitization and inversions of unrepentant modernity continue to accumulate, The Casual Vacancy will come to be touted as a work of genius and the Harry Potter books (which are a work of genius) will be downgraded to 'kids' stuff'...
*

Why is the secular Right blogosphere seething with hatred?

*

(Indeed, the same applies to much of the 'hard line' - legalistic, hyper-correct, over-systematic - Christian reactionary blogosphere.)

*

Taken as a whole, the Right are a mass of despisers.

*

Yes, of course the Left is intrinsically evil, and reality and truth are on the Right.

But this is what we find.

The public arena of the Right is dominated by those who are very obviously in the grip of hatred, who are consumed with loathing and despising, and who revel in the fact. They glory in their own invective.

*

Why? I think the answer lies in the human heart.

The human heart, in its natural state (in our childhood, and among most people inhabiting simpler and better societies) is open and warm - yet in a world full of evil, in a world where we are bombarded with evil and where Good is mocked, subverted and attacked unceasingly - there is a strong tendency to harden and close the heart as self-protection.

Indeed, the temptation to harden and close may prove irresistible, except when there is a strong Christian faith (most other religions do not value an open and warm heart).

A Christian must strive to live by love, but a hard-closed heart makes this impossible.

Not difficult: impossible.

*

If your heart is hard and closed, and you are content with this situation or perhaps even pride yourself on your toughness and power to resist influence - then you are not a Christian; and it does not matter what you do, what rules you follow, nor what you profess.

From a Christian perspective, if society is ruled by those with closed and hardened hearts who do not acknowledge nor try to remedy this; then it is a hellish state, and it does not matter much what the rules are nor who does the ruling.

*

We are not allowed to protect ourselves from the evil of the world by closing ourselves off from it and making ourselves indifferent to it - and if we succeed in this aim of autonomy, this carries its own punishment of absolute alienation and utter aloneness.

The only permissible defense against evil, and the only one which works over the long haul, is to maintain the heart as open and warm, childlike; but to block the access of evil by love - this love comes by grace (undeserved) from God if we allow it.

People must be realistic, they need to be tough - but this is not a legitimate end in itself, and if tough-realism is adopted as an end in itself it is merely a shortcut to evil.

*

It's quite simple to state: we must be realistic and tough and we must have warm and open hearts.

That is, incidentally, exactly what we are taught by the heroes of the best of literature: especially by Tolkien, more recently by JK Rowling.

This is not just a theory, not merely abstract advice - it has been worked-out for us imaginatively and in detail in Frodo, Sam, Gandalf, Aragorn, Harry Potter.  

*

Being Woke a religion? Bah! Controlled opposition...

Some commentators on 'the right' seem to think it is a clever insight and useful analysis to describe Wokeness/ Political Correctness/ New Leftism as A Religion. They announce this as if it were a strikingly original thesis, a radical and dissenting position - and a basis for effective opposition*. 

Yet, when one Googles "Woke" and "a religion" there are over six million hits - spread across mainstream media as well as dissenting sources (and that is just using the relatively-recent "woke" as a search term)**.  

So the idea of Leftism (or communism, socialism, feminism, environmentalism, healthism, antiracism or whatever) as A Religion is very far from original, new or marginal.

Nor is the idea oppositional to The Establishment - indeed the level of official media coverage of this concept makes clear that the 'idea' of regarding Leftism as A religion is one that serves the interests of Leftism, and promotes the Globalist, totalitarian Left agenda. 

How? Well, most obviously because Leftism is, Very Obviously, anti-religion generally and anti-Christian specifically - root and branch and explicitly. So much so that one has to have a very special kind of blindness Not to see such an obvious fact. 

But that that particular blindness to the obvious is common, normal and is atheism. The people who regard it as clever and useful to call woke-ness A Religion are people who regard religions as ultimately false. 

These Woke=Religion people do Not believe that we dwell in a divine creation, do Not believe in a personal God, do Not believe in a spiritual realm that contains, and is greater than, the material, do not believe in a life beyond biological death. 

All of these are core-to and characteristic-of Religion, and without them belief system is Not a religion but merely 'ideology'. To call something that rejects them all A Religion; is merely to deploy a common Leftist subversion that what matters most in an 'institution' is Not its deep and distinctive 'function' or attribute; but something it shares with all others. 

Thus a school or university is Not about education, nor science about truth, nor law about justice - but all are 'really' about Leftism. Likewise when it is asserted that Religion is Not about God, the spirit, life after death, divine creation etc - then the concept of Religion has been hollowed-out and killed.  

To call Leftism A Religion is intrinsically anti-religion, including anti-Christian; because it regards religion sociologically and politically - and an institution purely; in terms of is effects not its causes. 

To call Leftism a religion is therefore a positivist, reductionist, materialist stance; it comes-from a position that is itself one of de facto Leftism. 

This discourse is, indeed, merely an in-house squabble among Leftists, it is merely office politics in which pragmatist-hedonistic Leftists. 

The Woke=Religionists desire nothing more than a comfortable, prosperous and peaceful life; they are pushing-back against 'idealistic' Leftists who are happy to pull-down civilization in order to 'signal their virtue' and feel good about themselves. 

But pragmatist-hedonic Leftists are, after all, Leftists; and have taken the side of Satan against God - chaos against creation; hence rejected even the possibility of coherence in thinking or social organization. 

These are tough times in which we are called to make a binary choice of taking side with Good or with evil; and in which everybody has already made a binary choice (although that choice is not irrevocable). 

The Woke=Religion crew have already made the wrong choice: so they are part of the problem, not a possible answer.    

*Note. Of course, trivially, Wokeness is like a Religion - in some ways. Just as Men are like monkeys, lizards, trees, amoebae in some ways. Any thing is somewhat like any other thing. The point at issue relates to core essential attributes. Religion can be analyzed as a generic social institution - analogous to a corporation, a political party, a profession - or whatever. But the question is whether this captures the distinctive quality. To say Woke is A Religion is to reject exactly that which is distinctive to Religion - to deny (as inessential) that which is distinctive to a religion. It is to argue from assumptions that regard religions as institutions merely.  

**Further Note: The concept of "controlled opposition" (CO) referenced in the title refers to the way that the Establishment promote dissent that focuses on partial specifics of the Leftist agenda - while accepting the core root and basis of that agenda. To be mainstream is to be controlled. 

To be part of the "controlled" opposition does not require that the pseudo-dissenter is aware of playing this role; as I know from experience (i.e. my own self-consciously 'dissenting' writings, lectures, administrative work etc. - up to c2008  about when I became a Christian - were in fact controlled opposition). CO merely requires that the dissenter accepts the basic assumptions of Leftism regarding the nature of reality and what is important (i.e. materialism of discourse and explanation, hedonic-utilitarianism as the aim of life/ policy/ society etc.). 

A recent prominent example of controlled opposition was the meteoric media rise of Jordan Peterson - a Leftist with a few points of disagreement with the mainstream agenda. Another would be the recent attacks on JK Rowling in relation to trans. 

(Interestingly, Rowling was converted from being a Christian to Wokeism by the clever Establishment trick of providing massive mainstream media publicity to the ignorant criticisms of obscure US 'fundamentalist' Christians. She reacted, as intended, by repudiating the pervasive and explicit Christianity of the Harry Potter books.) 

The controlled opposition of Woke=A Religion is core Leftist - the Establishment aim being that popular dissent be channeled into a short loop which sooner or later returns to support the mainstream Left agenda, while quibbling over details. Even the most extreme 'secular Right' attitude is merely a longer loop CO strategy, sustaining that which is maybe 'only' 66% Leftist - but the intended end-result is the same. 

Further extra note: There are some real Christians who have used the "Leftism is a religion trope". These are not necessarily Leftists, but they are mistaken. This is a tactical example of the Boromoir Strategy of Hey lads, let's use the One Ring to fight Sauron! - i.e. they are rhetorically appealing to the anti-Christian/ anti-Religious sentiments of their audience in order to discredit Leftism. Or maybe they are trying to make the more subtle argument of "Leftism is Bad religion". This contrasts real with fake religions: that Leftism is the kind of inadequate fake religion that is sucked-into the psychological-spiritual vacuum created by rejecting real religion. However; subtlety and nuance in rhetoric play into the Enemy's hands. Whatever is intended by this argument, the consequence is almost sure to damage the cause of Christianity - because the argument implicitly accepts Leftist premises: surely the worst possible strategy? So, even when motivations are genuinely good, Woke=Religion-speak is still a mistake.      

The 'turning' of heroic literature

*

One of the primary functions of literature, of art generally, has been to priovide examples of heroism: of courage and endurance in a good cause.

One example is the Old Testament, which can function as a series of cameos of heroic virtue in the face of persecution, corruption and a multitude of disadvantages. The way I remember the OT from my childhood is, indeed, in exactly this way - David and Goliath, Sampson, Daniel... heroic figures. (There are better examples, of course, but these are the ones I remember.)

*

The same applies to the Book of Mormon, and indeed this line of thought was stimulated by an e-mail from commenter 'MC' who is an active Mormon. He described how the BoM functions to provide a set of heroic examples upon which modern Mormons can model themselves.

When I again looked through the BoM, I could see that this was indeed something of a Key to understanding the special role or function of the BoM in the LDS church: more explicitly than the OT, and in greater number and with more variations on the theme, the Book of Mormon provides one account after another of individual courage and endurance in faith; in face of recurrent apostasy, decadence and violence - and thus a spectrum of hero models, from whom the modern Mormon may gain inspiration and resolution. 

*

In the increasingly secular environment of the twentieth century, this role has devolved from scripture to fiction, and especially to the 'fantasy' genre of which Tolkien is the greatest exemplar.

I myself have used characters and situations from Lord of the Rings in order to model and clarify situations in life, and from whom to gain inspiration.

The Harry Potter series is a more recent example - and much of the appeal of HP comes from its many and vivid depictions of self-sacrificing heroism.

*

Scripture and fantasy are traditional genres, and the atheistic, radical, progressive opposition can only parasitize upon heroic literature - as when the heroes of Carol Kendall's (excellent) Minnipins/ Gammage Cup story are depicted rather in the fashion of sixties counter-culturalists with their unconventional dress, poeticizing and abstract painting;  nonetheless, their heroism is in service of traditional 'goods' and made possible by the eccentric reactionary Walter the Earl.

*

But despite its fundamental rootedness in the traditional, and despite its quasi-scriptural basis; heroic fantasy literature can be turned against traditional values, as happened when Tolkien was adopted by the sixties counter-culture, and interpreted to be in favour of drop-out drug culture, the sexual revolution, and extreme Leftist utopianism generally.

*

The same has now happened with Harry Potter, but in a much nastier fashion given the modern environment of media-spun political correctness, with an organization called the Harry Potter Alliance - which bureaucratically harnesses Potter-mania to all the latest hot-button causes of modern Leftism, with Potterphiles deployed as funders of radical pressure groups - and thereby 'turns' heroic idealism from defence of tradition into subversion of The Good.

*

As with the Left's appropriation of Tolkien, the HPA works by ignoring the deep Christian structure of the novels, and focusing on superficial aspects which can be channeled into 'supporting' a pre-existing agenda.

But the HP novels are much more ambivalent about tradition/ Leftism/ the sexual revolution than is Lord of the Rings.

With her post-Potter works and public persona, JK Rowling herself seems to have turned against the deep Christian and traditionalist structure of the Harry Potter books, and embraced all the distinctive concerns of modern Leftism.

*

The turning of Harry Potter shows the way that Leftism works. It was made easier by the fact that the deep Christianity of the Harry Potter books is - while real and powerful, as depicted by John 'The Hogwarts Professor' Granger's analyses - covert and coded; while the more Leftist concerns are much more obvious: for instance the Nazi-like 'racism' of Voldemort and the 'pure blood' death eaters.

Thus makes it easier to invert the meaning of HP; but in fact, such is the power of the mass media to impose its own categories (by selection, emphasis, diversion, invention, shock) - that even real life personal experience can now be reframed to mean its opposite: this is a matter of daily, headline routine.

Modern people believe what they are told by the mass media; not what they know by experience: we are tabulae rasae, 'hollow men', the 'men without chests' - each night forgetting everything; each morning waiting to be re-filled by the latest media content.

So the potential benefits of heroic literature are quite simply turned-against their traditional and Christian basis.

Perhaps the LDS church has been fortunate that the Book of Mormon is off-the-radar, being considered as beneath the notice of the mainstream mass media culture; which has not therefore condescended to 'reframe' its stories of heroic virtue into meaning the opposite of their real meaning; a process which has, of course, long since happened with the Bible.

*

Harry Potter illustrates that the sides of Good and evil are primary; and that personality and behaviour are secondary

The original Harry Potter series of seven books, completed by the superb "Deathly Hallows" volume, is probably the major Christian fantasy fiction since the Lord of the Rings; because (as well as its many incidental delights) it has a deep moral structure, and this deep plot concerns depicts matters of primary and transcendental importance for Christians.  

As such, the Harry Potter (HP) books can illustrate and clarify some of the most important questions of value that confront us in the world today. 

One such is that the single most important choice a person makes is which side to take: the side of Good or that of evil - and there are only two sides. 

In the HP books, Voldemort is a picture of Satan, and his side includes both a cadre of Death Eaters (analogous to demons), and a great mass of people who just go-along-with the agenda of evil for various motives - serving its overall goals, and passively absorbing and adopting its core beliefs and motivations. 

In life, as in Harry Potter, there is no value-neutral position, and sooner-or-later it seems that everybody (even the non-human magical 'creatures such as House Elves, Centaurs, Goblins and Giants) is compelled to pick his side, and choose one way or the other.

And also as in life; in the fictional world of HP - some nice people chose the side of evil; while (more or less) many of those on the side of Good are (more or less) nasty people   

This aspect of Harry Potter has particular value in these times, since our situation seems to be that most of the nice (decent, sensible, hard-working, intelligent, kind..) people are on the side of evil; while many of those on the side of Good are more-or-less nasty.

Perhaps the major nasty person on the side of Good is Severus Snape; who is represented throughout as a thoroughly nasty man - yet one who by his great courage and genuine love (for Lily Potter, Harry's mother) has heroically chosen the side of Good. 

Another less obvious example is Dumbledore; who emerges as a greatly flawed character, with a strong tendency towards deception and manipulation and who struggles with a temptation for power and an almost paralyzing sense of guilt for his past affiliation to evil and its consequences; yet who is more solidly on the side of Good, and working-for Good, than almost anyone. 

An even less obvious example are the Weasley Twins - Fred and George. These share a tendency to callous cruelty, indeed sadism, which is a serious character flaw. In general they are hedonistic and manipulative without regard for the consequences for others, although because they are charming and 'cool' they are generally well-liked. But Fred and George are always staunchly and courageously on the side of Good - because they are sustained by an indomitable fraternal and familial love, which is their bottom line. 

And while the Death Eaters are almost always very nasty people, there are several on the side of evil who would be regarded as 'good guys' in terms of everyday social behaviour. 

For instance, Cornelius Fudge, the Minister of Magic (in the earlier books) is a kindly and avuncular character, and his faults would seem to be mostly minor: cowardice and untruthfulness, unacknowledged incompetence, and wilful blindness to the reality of evil emergent. Yet these faults are unrepented such that that he ends-up working for the triumph of Voldemort and against those who oppose him; this despite believing himself to be motivated towards Good. Fudge is a type seen frequently these days - heading-up major social institutions of all kinds (including leaders of the self-described Christian churches).

The later Minister of Magic - Rufus Scrimgeour - also ends-up on the wrong side despite his admirable courage and staunch opposition to the Death Eaters; because he subscribes to various Big Lies, and becomes corrupted by the doctrine that the end justifies the means.  He wants Harry to participate in various official lies, tries to blackmail and bribe him; and attempts to make Harry subordinate his 'chosen one' mission to the current 'needs' of propaganda and the magical bureaucracy. He also dishonestly imprisons (with torment) the naïve and innocent Stan Shunpike, on the pretense that SS is a Death Eater, because Scrimgeour believes this will help the cause.  

Ludo Bagman - the Head of the Department of Magical Games and Sports - is another 'type' seen among the nominal leaders used by the Global Establishment nowadays (e.g. Boris Johnson). A charming, popular man - for whose incompetence and stupidity people are usually prepared to make excuses because they find him likeable. "Ludo" emerges as a self-interested gambling addict and defrauder; one who bought his position by providing secret insider information about the Ministry to a Death Eater; and who abuses his position for his own pleasure and profit. Bagman (the name implies a criminal go-between) overall, in many ways, aids the ascent of Voldemort.  

JK Rowling is clear that the determinant of a person's status of Good or evil is which side they take; and also that the two main virtues that most matter in this choice are love and courage. 

Love is, of course, the core Christian virtue which 'drives' all that is Good - while courage is necessary for that virtue to remain dominant, and to resist the insidious, pervasive and powerful forces of corruption when evil becomes dominant - when "The Ministry has fallen".   

Lack of courage - cowardice, represents a lack of faith in the cause of Good, and concern with the expediencies of this world rather than fundamental values; so that fear unrepented and unopposed is the root cause of a great deal of corruption. 

Self-sacrifice is required of all the Good characters at some point in the series; and this is not possible without the right motivation of love, and the key virtue of courage in that cause. 

Harry himself is naturally the greatest moral exemplar. A very flawed hero; throughout the books he comes to a clarity and conviction of what matters most - what must not be given-up; and eventually he makes the ultimate sacrifice by which the world is saved from evil. 

Harry Potter is a Saint - literally

*

Is Harry Potter a Saint?

The answer is a clear and resounding yes!

By the end of The Deathly Hallows, Harry is indeed a Saint - indeed the seven book series is an account of the making of a Saint who can save the world from the personification of evil.

*

Of course Harry does not start out as a Saint when we first meet him as a 10 year old boy - but following his numerous trials and tests, symbolic deaths and rebirths, and actual death and restoration to life, by the last pages of the last book Harry really has become a Saint:

*

In saying that HP is a Saint I am aware I appear to be contradicting both JK Rowling and John Granger (aka The Hogwarts Professor), both of who have categorically stated that Harry is 'no saint'.

Who am I to go against the author and the premier Potter Scholar?

My understanding is that JKR and JG would not disagree with my explanation of why Harry becomes a Saint, but in saying HP is 'no saint' they were trying not to be misunderstood by the average reader - because the average reader profoundly misunderstands what is a Saint.

*

JKR and JG are also probably trying to be clear that for most of the series Harry is not a Saint, indeed nothing like a Saint.

But that applies to many real Saints too - for much of their lives they were not Saints.

*

The corrupt and secular (legalistic) mainstream modern definition of a Saint is (roughly) a person without flaws, who never does anything wrong.

But by this kind of 'zero-tolerance' definition - not only is Harry no saint, but nor was any real-life saint a real Saint. All real Saints were fallen humans (except perhaps the Blessed Virgin Mary, according to recent Roman Catholic doctrine), lived in this world, and had flaws when their lives as a whole are surveyed.

(Except that some Saints probably did achieve a 'flawless' perfection after long struggle and shortly before death.)

*

In what follows, I hope I am simply sticking somewhat closer to the idea of a Saint being someone who, while still living on earth, has their deepest being turned-toward God, their soul in communion with God (feet on earth, head in heaven).

*

Real life Saints are a result of a long process of 'theosis', sanctification, of purification - this is what is happening to Harry in the first six and three quarter books.

Harry is tried, again and again, and comes through these trials a better and braver man: indeed, by the end he is the best and the bravest (as Dumbledore tells him in King's Cross).

Then Harry accepts death in a spirit of loving self-sacrifice, is killed and chooses to return to life.

Thus he becomes a martyr-Saint - which (sadly) is the most abundant type of Christian Saint: but unlike most martyr-Saints, Harry is restored to life to intervene in the world, to save the world.

*

(Harry is not 'resurrected', which would suggest a new and perfected body - but Harry's soul, having vacated the body and been endowed with greater wisdom and sanctity, then returns to and reanimates his briefly-dead body.)

*

Harry's loving self-sacrifice renders immune to the enemy not just himself but all his loved friends, all the good forces defending Hogwarts - after Harry returns to life, from that point onwards nobody among the defenders of the castle is killed, nobody is injured nor even hit by a curse.

This means that Harry is a miracle-working Saint - a wonderworker.

*

Harry returns from death by martyrdom as a wonderworking Saint, a saviour and messenger.

Only a great Saint could save the world from Voldemort - who has become, by his choices, not so much a human but more a kind of demonic servant of (implicitly) Satan.

(Satan is, of course - but implicitly, the source of Voldemort's extraordinary powers, the source of all 'Dark magic'; although Voldemort himself does not realise it, since Voldemort's pride is such that he will not acknowledge any other will, but claims everything to himself.)

*

'Saviour' because Harry's self-sacrifice enables him to save the world from Satan's emissary Voldemort; returning from death Harry immediately realises that is now immune to the Cruciatus curse (cough cough - symbolism alert).

Harry is given power (uniquely, nobody else could do it) to kill the un-dead Voldemort - but pauses in order to offer him a chance for remorse/ repentance.

Voldemort cannot even comprehend the offer.

And it is through his invincible pride in persisting in trying to kill the invulnerable Harry that Voldemort kills himself with his own rebounding death curse.

A beautiful, deep parable.

*

(Harry knows, because he has seen Voldemort's soul and because Dumbledore has told him, that Voldemort almost certainly cannot be helped. Humans can always repent, but Voldemort - with his multiply-fragmented soul - is hardly human, almost a demon. (And for various theological reasons, fallen angels/ demons cannot repent). Why then does Harry try to bring Voldemort to feel 'remorse'? I think it is 'just in case'. Since Voldemort is an unique kind of maimed being, Harry is not sure of what he is capable. Harry knows (from Dumbledore in King's Cross) that Voldemort cannot be saved by another person's will. Repentance cannot be done by others. So Harry offers Voldemort a final choice to repent and 'save' his remaining fragment of soul (although it is unclear what that might mean) - because Harry cannot be sure that such a choice is impossible to Voldemort.)

*

Harry is a 'messenger' because he has learned about ultimate reality - beyond death - from Dumbledore in the King's Cross chapter; Dumbledore himself has become a prophetic messenger from the other side.

When restored to life, Harry brings this divine revelation back to earth for the benefit of the world.

This is typical of great Saints - they are divine messengers and intermediaries; explaining, clarifying, amplifying revelation.

Indeed, only Saints can really understand Christian teaching. So far as we know, by the end of the series, only Harry, in the whole world, can really understand the nature of the world.

Harry thus takes over the role of 'Spiritual Father to the wizard world' from Dumbledore, but as a greater - because better, albeit less magically powerful - man than Dumbledore.

*

So, I would say that, at a deep and mostly implicit level, the Harry Potter series is precisely about 'the making of a Saint'.

And is not that a remarkable and wonderful thing?

That the best-selling and most widely-read book series of recent decades (in some respects, of all time), this in a modern world apparently without any living Saints, should ultimately be about the making of a Saint?

*

Note: the above analysis is built-upon the work of John Granger

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Granger

And his vastly-documented insight that the Harry Potter series is, without any doubt, an essentially Christian work: both by intent and in achievement.

*

Ingwaz is the essence of Romantic Christianity

The word Ingwaz seems a useful term, that I invented a few years ago, but haven't much used for emphasising that Romanticism is not a static-state of things; but a be-ing, a develop-ing, a perpetual becom-ing.

Ingwaz could be translated as 'process', or that word used instead - but I find that word to be too abstract and to have too many misleading connotations derived from physics. (Also there have been and are 'process theologies of Christianity that are Not what I mean.)

To be a Romantic is to engage in Ingway with respect to reality; that is, one rejects the objective and systematic account of external reality as primary; and begins the business of 're-imagining' it in personal experience.

But Ingwaz is not a means to an end but the end in itself; it does not aim at any final point because it is the participation in divine creation; and creation has no end. So, when applied to Christianity, Ingwaz is the grappling with given aspects - such as scripture, doctrine, creeds, institutions, morals; in order to appropriate them to the distinctive, here-and-now, living individual experience of the Christian.

To be Good, Ingwaz must - of course- be well-motivated; in brief it must be motivated by the desire for truth, beauty and virtue. It must Not, therefore, be motivated by (for example) the desire to adapt Christianity to one's own sexual or political desires, or to the desire for power or pleasure.

But this means that it is an error to look for any fixed and final statement from Ingwaz. It is to be judged on whether the practitioner is succeeding in vitalizing Christianity - firstly in himself, secondly in the reader or onlooker. 

This can be illustrated with poetry. For example William Blake in his Marriage of Heaven and Hell is engaged in Ingwaz. e.g.

In seed-time learn, in harvest teach, in winter enjoy.
Drive your cart and your plough over the bones of the dead.
The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom.
Prudence is a rich ugly old maid courted by Incapacity.
He who desires, but acts not, breeds pestilence.

The cut worm forgives the plough.
Dip him in the river who loves water.
A fool sees not the same tree that a wise man sees.
He whose face gives no light shall never become a star.

Eternity is in love with the productions of time.
The busy bee has no time for sorrow.
The hours of folly are measured by the clock, but of wisdom no clock can measure.
All wholesome food is caught without a net or a trap.
Bring out number, weight, and measure in a year of dearth.

No bird soars too high if he soars with his own wings.
A dead body revenges not injuries.
The most sublime act is to set another before you.
If the fool would persist in his folly he would become wise.
Folly is the cloak of knavery.
Shame is Pride’s cloak.

Blake is engaged in an argument with himself, is hammering out partial statements from inner insights. He is making Christianity live for himself as he composes, for us as we read (assuming we are able to appreciate his work).

So long as we are satisfied with Blake's intent; to then extract dogmatic statements from Blake, and to evaluate him in terms of Christian orthodoxy is both crazy and ultimately self-destructive of real Christianity.

By my understanding, such attitudes from Christians have been a partial but significant cause of the demise of Christianity in the West; since they drive-out net-well-motivated creative Christians, often and tempt them into apostasy. 


If we take Ingwaz as a correct description of Romanticism, we can find Romantic Christianity in some unlikely places; such as the early poetry of the Scottish poet Hugh MacDiarmid - who is better known as a highly political and materialist writer, a Communist and Scottish Nationalist who advocated permanent revolution; and who said many hostile things against Christianity generally, and specifically the Scottish Free Kirk brand of his upbringing.

But in his first three volumes of Scots language lyrics of 1925-7 - Sangshaw, Penny Wheep and the epic A Drunk Man looks at the Thistle; which contain by-far his best work - MacD engages in Ingwaz applied to Christianity in most of the most powerful poems and sections.

In a little-known longer-poem from Sangshaw; MacDiarmid engages in an extraordinary, beautiful and inspiring 'cosmic' exploration of God, death and creation. I lack the patience to type in the whole poem, but here are a few stanzas (I've translated a few key words in [square brackets]:

I was as blithe to be alive [happy]
As ony man could be, 
And felt as gin the haill braid warl' [whole broad world]
Were made yince-yirn for me. [especially]

I wot I kept my senses keen, 
I wot I used them weel. 
As God felt when he made the warl'
I aye socht to feel. ...

O I wist it was a bonny warl'
That lies forenenst a' men, [over against all]
But it's naething but a shaddaw-show
To the warl' that I saw then. ...

Wae's me that thocht I kent the warl' [knew]
Wae's me that made a God, 
My senses five and their millions mair
Were like bones beneauth a sod. 

For the world is like a flourishing tree, 
And God is like the sun; 
But they or I to either lie, 
Like deid folk in the grun'. [dead, ground]

There are all kinds of ways that this poem could be criticised from an orthodox Christian position, not least for collapsing the distinction between God's creation and that of a man; the world especially made for the poet; the general pantheistic feel etc. It might be assumed that the 'shadow show' reference was a positive statement of Platonism. The idea that Heaven and Hell are (merely) perspectives on mortal life is also put forward...

Well, this is the crux of what confronts us, here and now and for the past two centuries plus.

Are we to take our deepest convictions from outside, from that dead materialist external world which is what modern Man experiences outside of his own subjectivity? Or are we to make a new synthesis of inner and outer, each for himself, from our own thinking and based on intuition (that is, God within each of us - present because we are his literal children)?

If we are to live by experience in the real world that is God's creation; I believe that we need to engage in Ingwaz, as applied to all aspects of Christianity that we personally find essential; in sequence, perpetually.


Sadly, MacDiarmid was corrupted away from this, by his radicalism and the usual modern combination of sexual and political revolution. The reason was probably that his motives had always been too mixed, and various temptations were too much to resist and were not repented.

McD discarded Christianity as conflicting with sex (and alcoholic intoxication and continual cultural conflict, advocated as sources of vitality) and Communism (advocated on the basis of Lenin and Stalin being more realistic saviours than Christ); and embraced earthly and mortal utopianism as a goal... while simultaneously (paradoxically) asserting that ultimately things would never become any better... while continuing to assert a kind of anti-rational mysticism, but one that was metaphysically without foundation. 

Well, such is life. But there are several artists, writers, philosophers and other culturally creative persons who went through a phase of Romantic Christianity en route to becoming (usually) mainstream materialist Leftists of one or another flavour. JK Rowling is perhaps the best current example.

Yet, their work is available for us to benefit from, if we wish.

Gossip: perhaps at present the most neglected and most popular of sins?

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Throughout the Bible there are multiple references to the sinfulness of gossip, the passing on of malicious details, speculations, and falsehoods. The problem of gossip is taken very seriously in the Bible, and there are sanctions against those who gossip.

Yet gossip is the bread-and-butter of interpersonal discourse for many people, most of the time - including Christians. And it is the very basis and substance of much mass media communication, which has expanded so much in recent decades.

And the synergistic combination of interpersonal discourse with internet mass media has made the phenomenon of social networking into by far the largest and most powerful international malicious gossip fest that there has ever been in the history of the world.

So, there is a serious, damaging sin - which is rampantly growing, combined with little awareness of the gross wickedness involved.

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An example from a while ago was the Christian-driven gossip, ignorance and lying directed against the Harry Potter books and JK Rowling. This matter is thoroughly dealt with by Jerram Barrs in the following lecture.

http://www.bethinking.org/culture/jk-rowling-and-harry-potter

As so often, people are most in danger of unrestrained sin when they feel they are being self-righteous.

Obviously malicious gossip is - sooner or later - sickening for decent people, they feel disgust for themselves and others. Moralistic gossip is the worst kind of gossip, people hatred, spite and malice are disguised.

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The matter of gossip is not to be confused with 'judgement' - and especially not with the confused and mistaken idea among Christians that humans are (supposedly) not allowed to judge the sinfulness of others.

This is nonsense - the judgement from which Christians are supposed to refrain is that concerned with their ultimate salvation. But it would be insane and indeed wicked for humans to refrain from judging one another about their activities and motivations - of course we must judge!

So, as always, extremes are both wrong. Gossip is certainly a sin; but we must judge, and may have a duty to warn others in light of our judgements.

Part of doing right is a matter of motivation (real inner motivation, not what you might say to others to justify yourself); and part of it is a matter of knowledge based on trusted sources and persona experience; versus passing-on hearsay from sources known to be dishonest, spiteful, destructive and themselves wicked.

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Recommending Michael Gambon as Simenon's Maigret, 1992-3, Granada TV (And a comment on how a bad man could create a good fictional character.)

I've recently watched the two series of adaptations from Georges Simenon's Maigret stories; released in 1992-3 by the British ITV company Granada; and starring Michael Gambon as the eponymous detective.

I found these extremely enjoyable. They are excellently constructed TV plays, with good teams of actors; and Maigret as depicted by Gambon was a very decent, likeable, and impressive detective - which is (for me) a vital aspect in the enjoyment of any such series. 

The setting of 1950s Paris was strikingly convincing (although it wasn't actually Paris!); and (being made more than thirty years ago - unlike these woke-preachy times!) the characters also fit their appropriate time-and-place in terms of motives and behaviour; so that I got the feeling of being transported to another world. 

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Somewhat aside; I found it interesting that Simenon was able convincingly to create such a basically good man as Maigret - given that he was not himself such a person: at least not overall.

(...This negative evaluation of Simenon is from what I have gathered, and indeed it seems to be a general belief - I leave it to readers to explore this issue for themselves. By contrast; the goodness of Miss Marple is easily understood as exemplifying Agatha Christie's fine personality*.)

How is it that a mostly-bad man (as I think Simenon was) can write an essentially-good man like Maigret? 

One answer is presumably that Simenon was, like everyone, a mixture of good and bad motivations; and he wrote Maigret from that which was good in himself - from the better part of himself. 

Another aspect is that Maigret mysteries are light literature, in a minor genre - and do not attempt to tackle the greatest or deepest matters such as the conflict of spiritual good and evil, or the nature and implications of death.

It would - I think - be impossible for Simenon to write great literature. To attain greatness an author must draw upon his deepest nature, and for his vision of reality to be essentially good, would entail that he himself was personally committed to goodness.

In other words: the work cannot be greater than the man.  

(The greatness of The Lord of the Rings is necessarily a product of Tolkien's greatness as a man; etc.) 

But a man who was fundamentally petty, greedy, dishonest, unprincipled, selfish or the like - and one who was affiliated to such values - cannot produce genuinely great work - try as he might. 

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Note: Of course, an author or other creative artist may be good when producing a masterpiece of greatness; yet may change, may become corrupted, later - and I suggest he would then become incapable of greatness. 

Something of this kind has, I think, been the case for JK Rowling - whose Harry Potter series I regard as great (although at a lower level than Lord of the Rings). 

The Potter books (especially "Deathly Hallows") were written when she was committed to Christian metaphysics and values. 

But Rowling later rejected her former ultimately spiritual perspective; instead embracing and advocating this-worldly secular leftist values. Her post-Potter work is consequently (it seems to me) at a very much lower level. 

*This difference between Simenon and Christie - deriving from their authors - could be encapsulated by saying that Maigret is a good policeman; while Miss Marple is a good person. 

Does Dumbledore really raise Harry 'like a pig for slaughter'? (Reflections after reading the HP saga aloud.)

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Over the past several months I have read aloud the whole Harry Potter series.

It was a wholly enjoyable experience, and confirmed my opinion of the excellence of these books.

(Which is, itself, a revised opinion: I found the early books uninteresting at the time they were published - and it was only after I had been given 'the key' by reading the later parts of the last book that I was able to go back and appreciate the earlier ones. I pretty much first-read the books in reverse order.)

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My general impression about quality is that Philosophers Stone and Chamber make up a duo of 'perfect' children's books in which the deeper meanings are only hinted at briefly - but they are certainly present. Azkaban is the teen-novel transition - and also perfect of its kind. I now perceive a sagging in the middle with Goblet and Phoenix, in each volume of which there is some (but not much) 'surplus fat'. And Prince and Hallows become fully adult novels, and make up a single unit, with the quality of writing taking a qualitative step up.

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Rowling's main limitation as a writer, aside from the need for better sub-editing - which would tidy-up the writing but not really improve the book; is that the quality of prose writing - while perfectly effective - is not as good as the best of the Fantasy genre (e.g. Tolkien, Lewis, Ray Bradbury).

A second problem is that the author's inventiveness with respect to magical possibilities makes it impossible for her to be consistent. The clearest example is the Time Turner, which is much too powerful a device.

Another example is apparation. Or the ability of wizards to become invisible (either with cloaks or disillusionment charms - no wizard would ever know if they were alone/ unobserved).

Or the Polyjuice potion and Imperius Curse (you could never be sure who you were talking-to, or whether they were responsible for their actions). But in general, she cannot keep the magic fully under control.

Also, the big 'set-pieces' do not work very well for me. For example, the episodes when the trio break into the Ministry of Magic and Gringotts are the only parts of Hallows which are not wholly-successful and absorbing. And the descriptions of battles and duels are contrived, especially by comparison with those of ex-soldiers such as Tolkien, Lewis, or Lloyd Alexander. The tasks in Goblet are unconvincing too.

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But this is the price to pay for such richness of ideas - and I can happily suspend my critical faculties most of the time.

As more-then-compensation there is a deep underlying spiritual (indeed Christian) dimension concerning death, a profound meditation upon love, and some gripping character studies in Harry, Snape, Dumbledore, Herminone, Ron, Luna and Neville (plus a terrific supporting cast).

There is a really enjoyable humour throughout - not just jokes, but comedy in its ancient sense of the play of humours, character.

And the detail is wonderful - the detailed descriptions of daily life at school, having meals, doing homework etc.

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Yet the biggest virtue of all is the emotional punch of the Deathly Hallows.

I found it harder to read out the Deathly Hallows without breaking down and blubbing, than any other book I have ever read aloud.

That, I think, is a tribute to the author!

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Any one of these great emotional climaxes comes in the following passage:

Snape, talking to Dumbeldore about Harry: You have kept him alive so that he can die at the right moment? ... I have spied for you, and lied for you, put myself in mortal danger for you. Everything was supposed to be to keep Lily Potter's son safe. Now you tell me that you have been raising him like a pig for slaughter?

In context, including what follows, this is so moving that we tend to assume it is true, but it is not.

On reflection, we recall that Dumbledore only understood about Horcruxes, and that Harry's scar was a Horcrux, in the last few months of his life - so he could not have raised Harry with this in mind.

On the other hand, what does become clear is that Dumbedore's love for Harry is less than his determination to rid the world of Voldemort - and this is shocking enough, albeit morally less repellent or perhaps even admirable (and Dumbeldore was not asking of Harry more than he was himself prepared to give).  

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As a final aside - I was struck by how often, and how readily, Harry lied all throughout the series of books, and without any strong sense that lying was wrong.

I suspect that this may be a male female difference - since I don't recall heroic and good characters in similarly Christian books by men who have Harry's, ummm, instrumental attitude to verbal veracity.

Or perhaps this is more like the attitude of the pagan saga-men for whom successful deception was a virtue, when deployed in a good cause (ie. for the home team).

At any rate, only after his sanctification by death and rebirth, and in the final pages of the series, does Harry become wholly truthful - final recognition that truth is indeed among the highest values.

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