A few days ago, I wrote a response to Dr. Ted Baehr’s opposition to Harry Potter while embracing Narnia, charging that he terribly misread the use of magic in the Narnia series as well as Harry Potter. I thought I’d beef up my defense a little by documenting the “uses” of magic in Prince Caspian. Keep in mind that Dr. Baehr actually claimed that C.S. Lewis made it clear that to “use” magic was wrong. Now let’s check out Prince Caspian (I’m quoting from the 1994 HarperCollins edition). If I miss any magical references, please add them in the comments.

Chapter One: The Pevensies are wisked away from a train station into Narnia, and Edmund makes it quite clear that they are being pulled by “magic” (p. 3). In other words, Aslan used magic to bring the four children back to Narnia. Bad kitty.

Chapter Two: As Peter argues the case that they have been called back to Narnia once again, he points to the apple orchard outside the ruins and says,

The greatest of all the woodland people, Pomona herself, came to put good spells on it.

Apparently the Pevensies not only utilized magic for good, but they called upon Roman goddesses to do so (p. 19).

Chapter Four: Caspian’s tutor, the half-dwarf Cornelius, is described as a “minor magician” who teaches Caspian magical theory (though not its practice). Cornelius uses a sleep charm on the castle guards in order for Capsian to steal some food before his flight from the castle (pp. 58-59).

Chapter Seven: When Cornelius finds Caspian and the Old Narnians in hiding, he explains that he was able to find them “by a little use of simple magic (p. 92)” (one gets the impression that Cornelius is a better magician than he lets on).

And in the final few chapters, to add to the evil of all this magic, we get a full view of Bacchus and Silenus, those pagan gods of wine and intoxication, making parties happen everywhere they travel with Aslan throughout Narnia, and even turning water into wine (I wrote about the mention of Bacchus and Silenus in LWW previously).

How anyone can seriously argue that magic is not “used” by good people for good purposes is beyond me. To be sure, there are references to dark magic used by evil people as well (see chapter 12, “Sorcery and Sudden Vengeance”), but Lewis does not shy away from putting magic in the hands of “the good guys,” nor from drawing from various mythologies that, in our world, would be gods in opposition to Christ, but as literary figures, walk alongside and work for good.

It’s high time we dropped the biased reading of Narnia as well as the biased reading of Harry Potter. Take them both or leave them both. Take Narnia, with its good and bad magic and references to pagan deities, and take Harry Potter with its school of witchcraft and wizardry. Or miss the literary point of the magic and leave them both. But please don’t argue that one’s good and the other’s evil. That just won’t stand up under serious scrutiny.