by Johnny
I want to briefly respond to the assertion held by “culture warriors” like Michael D. O’Brien, Tom Snyder, and Ted Baehr that there are Gnostic elements in Harry Potter. The latter two, in “Don’t Be Fooled”, mentions “Gnosticism” in passing as one of the ingredients along with “modern humanism” and “pagan/occult ideas about the benefits of witchcraft” in the simmering cauldron of Harry Potter. O’Brien has more to say on the subject:
Throughout the series there is overwhelming evidence that a Gnostic worldview is being slowly but surely presented. In fact, it is a new form of that ancient archipelago of heresies, a neo-gnosticism that borrows remnants of Judeo-Christian symbols and mixes them with cultic concepts of life and afterlife.
This charge cannot be taken seriously because a cursory look into Gnosticism reveals that Harry Potter is far from perpetuating anything resembling that. If the Da Vinci Code phenomenon was good for anything, it at least brought new discussion of Gnosticism. Gnostics were a diverse group around the second century A.D that was considered heretical by the early church fathers. They were Dualists, believing that this world was created by an evil malevolent god, sometimes known as the God of the Old Testament. Since the world is evil, humans are essentially bad; their flesh evil. If it wasn’t for another rival divine being that is pure and wise, we would be in trouble. We need a “revealer” who can impart secret “knowledge” or gnosis regarding how to escape our bodily prison and return to the spiritual realm from where we all came. For some Gnostics, Jesus served that function.
Does this sound like anything in Harry Potter? Is the flesh portrayed as evil in the series? Travis in his latest podcast gives the examples of the return of Cedric Diggory’s body, the search for Alastor Moody’s body after he fell in battle, the burial of Dobby, and even the treatment over Harry’s body, pointing to a Judeo-Christian emphasis on burial and the sacredness of the body, especially in light of the belief of a future resurrection. If J.K. Rowling is infusing Gnosticism into her series, then why include these acts in her books? If the flesh is evil, leave Cedric’s body; his soul is free. Can’t find Alastor’s body? It doesn’t matter. Bury Dobby? That’s tantamount to burying a pet so why bother? The flesh is evil and their souls are freed from their prison; we should all be so lucky. You see my point? It’s ridiculous.
J.K. Rowling was asked in her Bloomsbury chat, “What, if anything, did the wizarding world learn, and how did society change, as a direct result of the war with Voldemort?” Her answer was:
The Ministry of Magic was de-corrupted, and with Kingsley at the helm the discrimination that was always latent there was eradicated. Harry, Ron, Hermione, Ginny et al would of course play a significant part in the re-building of wizarding society through their future careers.
If Gnostic worldview is being presented here then why rebuild the wizarding society? The world is evil. Rowling is not making any sense if she chose to have the heroes take their children to see them off to school in her epilogue. In fact aside from the magic, the Harry Potter series is essentially a human story, set in the background of a boarding school and a hidden wizarding society (well for the most part, some muggles including the Prime Minister knows of their existence) in Great Britain. It’s a story about friendship, fighting evil, and ultimately the triumph of love over hate (and prejudice). As far as the magic, one cannot make a parallel between the secret knowledge of the Gnostics and what is learned at Hogwarts. The magic in Harry Potter functions as technology whether it is Hermione correcting Ron’s misspelled words with her wand (spell-check anyone?) or placing protective enchantments around the tent of three Hogwarts dropouts hunting for horcruxes.
Based on this, I doubt whether O’Brien, Snyder, and Baehr are using “Gnosticism” correctly in their remarks on Harry Potter. As John Granger said in a recent post, “But Fr. Alfonso is using the word “gnostic” to mean something like “New Age” or “occult.”” The same is true with the above tribunal of Harry Haters. And what did Rowling say about New Age and the occult?
I’m not a New Age type – not really into crystals (Renton, Jennie. “The story behind the Potter legend:
JK Rowling talks about how she created the Harry Potter books and the magic of Harry Potter’s world,” Sydney Morning Herald, October 28, 2001).The two groups of people who are constantly thanking me are Wiccans (white witches) and boarding schools. And really, don’t thank me. I’m not with either of them. New ageism leaves me completely cold, and Jessie would never go to boarding school (Hattenstone, Simon. “Harry, Jessica and me,” The Guardian, July 8, 2000).
In the end Rowling has the final word, as far as her series is concerned. And it’s definitely not Gnostic or New Age, pagan, occultist, humanistic, or whatever fancy words that the Harry Haters can muster, irrespective of the series actual content.
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{ 13 comments… read them below or add one }
I think these folks might simply be grasping at whatever straws they can find so long as it makes Harry Potter look questionable and/or evil. Clearly such arguments are far outside the actual content of the books and the accusations are being conjured out of thin air. Slander doesn’t hold the weight it used to. (At least within The Church.)
What I meant by that last line was that I’m constantly hearing or reading Christian leaders who blatantly bash someone without knowing all the facts, or caring to research it deeply enough and just going on what they hear other people say.
It makes me wonder what would happen if someone re-wrote the HP books but with no references to magic at all. Still set in a British boarding school. But in the normal, real world. For starters, it wouldn’t be very interesting I think.
I was a bit nonplussed by the “gnostic” label, too. But this is the first sentence for “Gnosticism” in the Wikipedia entry:
Gnosticism (from Greek gnosis, knowledge) refers to a diverse, syncretistic religious movement consisting of various belief systems generally united in the teaching that humans are divine souls trapped in a material world created by an imperfect spirit…
That last bit about “divine souls trapped in a material world” seems to be an underlying thought in the Gnostic!Harry accusation. The problem I think rests in whether you want to read Rowling’s depiction of Love as a virtue that allows us to harmonize with God, or as an ever present bit of divinity already resting within humanity’s nature. In other words, are we guilty of Original Sin? Or did some unnamed demiurge screw us up?
Like Johnny and Travis have argued, I think the books are more in line with the former reading. If they are not, then why have Harry full well accept an AK blast to the face for the betterment of mankind?
I went to the ever faithful Wikipedia, and found this in the Catholic Encyclopedia:
“… it is markedly peculiar to Gnosticism that it places the salvation of the soul merely in the possession of a quasi-intuitive knowledge of the mysteries of the universe and of magic formulae indicative of that knowledge. Gnostics were “people who knew”, and their knowledge at once constituted them a superior class of beings, whose present and future status was essentially different from that of those who, for whatever reason, did not know.
A more complete and historical definition of Gnosticism would be:
A collective name for a large number of greatly-varying and pantheistic-idealistic sects, which flourished from some time before the Christian Era down to the fifth century, and which, while borrowing the phraseology and some of the tenets of the chief religions of the day, and especially of Christianity, held matter to be a deterioration of spirit, and the whole universe a depravation of the Deity, and taught the ultimate end of all being to be the overcoming of the grossness of matter and the return to the Parent-Spirit, which return they held to be inaugurated and facilitated by the appearance of some God-sent Saviour.’
I think that the Harry Haters who claim that there are gnostic elements in the books are looking at the “possession of a quasi-intuitive knowledge of the mysteries of the universe and of magic formulae indicative of that knowledge” piece, and ignoring the matter-spirit duality which gnosticism is based on.
Or in other words, they misrepresent the facts by focusing on a fairly minor element while ignoring the core element of the concept, and then justify their attack ono the basis of that fairly minor element.
Which is more or less what I meant by the term ’setting up a straw-man argument’. Which is how they debate. Which is contemptible.
Hey Johnny,
Nice job with this post and others – - – it was great to meet you at the New York C.S. Lewis Society meeting yesterday. If there are any others who visit this website who are able to attend, you can find a schedule of meetings at http://www.nycslsociety.com
These “culture warriors” claim that the HP books are elitist and focus on “secret knowledge.” But that is just stupid. The fact is that the real elitists of the books are Voldemort and his Death Eaters. They want to keep some (the “mudbloods”) from receiving the “secret knowledge.” In contrast people like Albus Dumbledore, Godric Gryffindor and (most especially) Helga Hufflepuff want to teach everyone with the proper talent. If the wizarding world is something like a “mirror” of our world, we could say that Dumledore and the like wants to teach everyone, while Voldemort and the like just wants to train “those select few who possess the predisposition.”
Regarding dualism, I must add that the real dualists of the books are yet again Voldemort and his Death Eaters. But there is one major difference between those and the ancient Gnostics; while the ancient ones held that the soul was the only valuable thing, the new ones hold that the body (and thus survival) is the only valuable thing. And these days the problem is not so much spiritualism, but materialism and naturalism.
I don’t see how with one breath they can argue that the books are completely materialist and have nothing about God or religion in them, and then with the next breath say that they propound a profoundly anti-materialist worldview like Gnosticism.
The only thing that makes sense is that Rowling espouses the traditional Judeo-Christian viewpoint, which rejects the extremes of both materialism and anti-materialism, believing that a good Creator has infused the world with the divine. (I don’t mean to exclude other religions here – just can’t speak for them since I don’t know enough.)
I also agree with Kjetil that Voldemort and his followers are closer to Gnosticism (or more likely, the rather distorted version we have of it from its opponents) in seeking to restrict knowledge to an elite, while Harry and the other “good guys” want to be more inclusive. On the other hand, there is no spiritual “salvation” at stake here, only access to a witch or wizard’s full potential, and of course freedom from oppression.
I would like to add that, as far as I have seen, none of the Gnostic!Harry accusers have used the gender-confusing, androgynizing aspect of Gnosticism which is the hallmark of its present-day manifestation. And even if they did, they would have no basis for it. If the wizarding world differs in its culture from the Muggle one, it is more traditional in its gender roles. The Weasley family, held up throughout the series as one of the highest examples of loving, interesting intimate relationships, has “a lot” of children, and spouses who are loyal to one another without equivocation, and parents who are definitely Mother and Father, feminine and masculine, and who extend these familial ties to Harry (“He’s as good as! [a son]). None of the female characters have the title ‘Ms.,’ and none of them retain their maiden name as their surname, that we know of. It also seems to be an underlying assumption that mothers with babies or young children should have someone to take care of them or at least to share bed and board with them, and here I am thinking of Remus Lupin contemplating leaving ‘Dora/Tonks and later their baby with her in the care of her parents. All throughout, while wizards and witches have equality with one another, it is not the bait-and-switch, watering-down, gender-interchanging version which afflicts our society, a la the “culture of death.”
I take it then, Marmee, that The Left Hand of Darkness is not in your list of top 10 science fiction stories?
Reyhan, I haven’t read it yet but I will now. I once read the first Earthsea volume but couldn’t get very far into the second. Maybe I’ll try again.
I do wonder how many readers offended by especially the ‘Dora/Tonks character in DH, as just one example of JKR’s “sexism” have ever themselves had a baby? One normal, healthy baby is one thing, but twins or other multiples, trouble with breastfeeding, life-threatening viral infections, babies who only sleep fitfully, a heart condition requiring surgery three months after the birth — to say nothing of the normal needs for emotional attachment and security of every, every, every child under age five — so JKR calls into question the solutions our society has come up with to replace the traditional family, and she’s excoriated by some fans? You can tell I have a song to play if someone puts the quarter in .
I should warn you ahead of time, Marmee, that the Left Hand of Darkness is exactly about that thing which you deplore: androgyny. The book is seen as very feminist in its leanings. When I first read it, I had no thoughts about androgyny or even feminism, and I certainly did not read in that context. What impressed me, and still makes me value it, were the themes of friendship and loyalty and sacrifice overcoming differences of culture and even sexual orientation.
About Tonks and the accusations of sexism. I haven’t made that accusation. I do not see Tonks as a sexual stereotype. Obviously, if one chooses to have a baby, one must take care of it, and getting killed in a war disallows taking care of your baby. Nor do I think Lupin should have taken on child-rearing responsibilities and let Tonks go out to fight the good fight. Most courts would not give sole custody to a father who needs to be segregated several nights a month if he forgets to take his anti-werewolf potion.
Actually, I have mixed feelings about that plot development. On the one hand, I think Lupin was sacrificed to the author’s need to make a point – that good people die and death is pretty much arbitrary and senseless – and also for her need to create a neo-Harry, yet another orphan growing up fatherless because of the war. On the other hand, I was quite pleased that both Tonks and Lupin had to leave the center stage when they had a baby, at Harry’s insistence,no less, rather than Tonks having to sit at home bringing up Teddy while Lupin got to have all the fun figting Death Eaters.
And if by all this it sounds like I’m arguing it’s more fun to get killed than to raise a child, well, no.
I forgot to mention in my post that one characteristic of ancient Gnostic writings was the twisting of the bad guys into good guys; villains into heroes. Take the recent Gospel of Judas for example, which says that Judas Iscariot’s betrayal of Jesus was really an act of obedience because Jesus commanded him to “sacrifice the man that clothes me”. What does that mean? That Judas will help release Jesus from his fleshly prison and that act will merit him exceeding all the other disciples. Other Gnostic writings have Cain being a hero despite killing his brother because Cain’s act disobeyed or defied the Creator-God (demiurge). If Harry Potter was reflecting a Gnostic worldview then we should see the same relabeling of bad characters into heroes. Voldemort, a good guy? Perish the thought.
I want to note that I’m not referring to characters thought to be bad, who turn out to be good (Sirius Black or even a complex character like Severus Snape). Harry Potter as literature incorporates several genres including the detective story and now that the series has finished, all the chips have fallen into place. Now J.K. Rowling has not written purely black and white characters; there are some gray characters as well, but there is a clear good vs. evil theme played out in the books. There is no relabeling of villains into heroes for disobeying the demiurge because there is no demiurge or any hint of Gnosticism in the series.