Friday, July 25, 2008

Under Influence of Harry Potter, Kids are Being Drawn into the "Language and Mechanics" of the Occult

http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2008/jul/08072412.html

[LifeSiteNews] 25 Jul 2008--A book that gives instructions to teenage girls on witchcraft sells 150,000 copies. Films and television shows about teenagers and young people involved in witchcraft and the occult begin to proliferate. Bookshops begin to carry large sections on "esoterica" next to the religion and philosophy sections. And then Harry Potter bursts on the scene and becomes the best selling children's book of all time.

This progression is described by Linda P. Harvey a Christian and publisher of Mission: America, a quarterly Christian newsletter and Internet web site, who claims that in the last number of years there has been an unprecedented explosion of occult material aimed directly at children and teenagers. However, anyone who objects that Potter and other witchcraft and magic-oriented children's fare draws kids into the world of the occult, she says, are dismissed as giving in to "pure hysteria".

As of June 2008, the seven book Potter series has sold more than 400 million copies and the books have been translated into 67 languages. The phenomenal success of the books has made their British author, J.K. Rowling, the highest-earning novelist in history. Three years after Harry Potter, Harvey writes, a review of television programs, major children's book publishers, and popular youth websites, "should more than confirm our initial warnings."

"Sorcery and witchcraft have become the hottest themes in youth culture and education for the first time in modern Western civilization."

Harvey is the author of an influential article, "Heresy in the Hood: Teen Witchcraft in America" published in 1999. Since the publication of that article, she says, the number of self-professed young witches and occult practitioners has grown markedly.

The kids are taking a cue from the homosexual activist handbook, equating any criticism of their interests as "hate." Similarly, such rhetoric is pushing the adult publishing and bookselling world to proliferate books and materials on the occult. "Without protectors, the profit-driven media is both responding to interest in witchcraft and creating it in a rapid feedback loop," Harvey writes.

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