M. Scott Peck on How Love Defeats Evil

I think that maybe J.K. Rowling has read and likes M. Scott Peck. Has anyone suggested it before? I haven’t read it anywhere, but I’m beginning to see a link, and I plan to start developing it and see where it goes. Here’s my initial contribution.

I recall interacting with John Granger on his theory about how Harry became a horcrux (which you’ll be able to read if you buy Unlocking Harry Potter when it comes out). He actually cites and responds to my objections to his theory in the book, and my primary objection was simply that his theory, in my mind, makes the mystery of Lily’s love sacrifice too “mechanical” or “technical.”

John’s response was to basically agree that we don’t want there to be a simple mechanical explanation for how Lily’s sacrifice saved Harry, but we also don’t want a “love saved me” Hallmark-card explanation either. Agreed. But what are we looking for? Let’s put it plainly, shall we? We’re all just as skeptical as Harry is that “love” is “the power the Dark Lord knows not.” I mean, how? Harry’s going to say, “Voldy, I love you,” and the poor bloak is just going to crumple into a pile of tears and melt away like the Wicked Witch?

“Oh, Harry! No one’s ever said that to me before! I’m melting! I’m melting!”

So we do need something in between a scientific explanation of love and a Hallmark card. M. Scott Peck is famous for his psychology of love’s ability to heal evil, and here is how he closes his famous work, The People of the Lie:

The healing of evil - scientifically or otherwise - can be accomplished only by the love of individuals. A willing sacrifice is required. The individual healer must allow his or her own soul to become the battleground. He or she must sacrificially absorb the evil.

The what prevents the destruction of that soul? If one take’s evil itself into one’s heart, like a spear, how can one’s goodness still survive? Even if the evil is vanquished thereby, will not the good be also? What will have been achieved beyond some meaningless trade-off?

I cannot answer this in language other than mystical. I can say only that there is a mysterious alchemy whereby the victim becomes the victor. As C.S. Lewis wrote: “When a willing victim who had committed no treachery was killed in a traitor’s stead, the Table would crack and Death itself would start working backwards” [LWW].

I do not know how this occurs. But I know that it does. I know that good people can deliberately allow themselves to be pierced by the evil of others - to be broken thereby yet somehow not broken - to even be killed in some sense and yet still survive and not succumb. Whenever this happens there is a slight shift in the balance of power in the world.

“A willing sacrifice” - we’ve seen this in Lily, Dumbledore, and Harry’s willingness to die if he has to.

“his or her own soul to become the battleground” - How much of this series has centered a battlefield over the soul? Harry at the end of OP when Voldemort tried to possess him. Voldemort’s horcruxes. Harry’s still untarnished, complete soul. That “soul” issue and the “love” issue are almost synonymous, based on Dumbledore’s words in HBP, ch. 26.

“mystical language” - Hallmark cards are not sufficient, and scientific precision inadequate.

“mysterious alchemy” - Just how important is alchemy to this series?

Narnia quote - Rowling loves Narnia.

More could be said, but these closing words of Peck’s book seem to me to summarize everything we’re about to encounter in Book 7, when we’ll learn just how Love is “the power the Dark Lord knows not.”