Is the Occult on the Rise?

One of the most oft-repeated arguments concerning the Harry Potter novels is the charge that they are causing increased interest and participation in the occult. “These movements are on the rise,” critics claim, and Harry Potter is at least partially to blame.

The problem, of course, is that there are no hard facts to back this up, and some statistics even demonstrate the exact opposite. Massimo Introvigne is the director of the Center for Studies on New Religions (CENSUR), and he offered the following in an interview in 2001 (emphasis mine):

While it is true that some occult groups are growing, but remain small, they are still very small if compared to Christian denominations. In the European Union, members of occult or esoteric movements are less than 0.1% of the populations. This is also true in the U.S.

The fact that the media offer a large coverage of these groups does not mean that they are, in fact, large. Some beliefs are on the rise, particularly reincarnation, but this is not a pure “occult ” belief — it is found in some contemporary fiction, but rarely.

On the other hand, concluding that the occult is on the rise because of the popularity of TV serials such as “Charmed,” “The X-Files” or “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” is, again, a confusion between fiction and reality.

These shows have a large following in Europe, yet occult movements are actually experiencing a decline here. There is, thus, some empirical evidence that a decade of heavy fictional magic on TV did not translate in increased membership for occult movements — if one ignores, as he or she should rightly do, the propaganda utterances of the leaders of these movements themselves, some of whom try to exploit “Harry Potter” or the TV serials for their own ends, and relies on social scientific literature rather than on anecdotal evidence.

His last statement is very telling. Certainly some occult groups will claim Harry Potter “for their own ends,” but the distortion and deliberate misinterpretation of a book does not make the book bad. If that were true, we’d have to ban the Bible as well. But furthermore, Wiccans themselves have been quite clear that Harry Potter does not represent their belief system. Wiccan priest Peter Mather has said, “I’ve read these books, since I wanted to see what was in them before I gave them to my kids, and I must say that these books no more promote witchcraft than ‘Anne of Green Gables’ promotes moving to Nova Scotia” (source: Wiccans Dispute Potter Claims).