Literary Alchemy

I have been neglecting my Harry Potter studies of late with only occasional posts here, for which I hope you will forgive me. Except for talks with my friends the Potter Pundits — James Thomas and Travis Prinzi — for Leaky Cauldron’s Potter Cast, the usual correspondence with readers, and weekly trips to the Hog’s Head Tavern for a Taddy Porter, I’ve been neck deep in Twilight work (talks and interviews to get the word out about my new book, Spotlight) and reading books recommended to me by friends here, most notably, Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games. So, as you know if you’ve been stopping by of late, there hasn’t been much going on at Hogwarts Professor.

I don’t usually post just to post so gaps in action here are okay but I do have one regret about my distraction from Potter matters. Last December I was sent an intriguing idea that may join two of the more interesting qualities of the Hogwarts Saga, namely, the alchemical scaffolding and the chiastic structure of the story circle (a-b-c-d-c-b-a). The idea also solves something of a mystery about the books: the astrological symbolism that I haven’t heard anyone make much sense of. Erin Sweeney, though, may have pulled it off. After too long a time in my “to post” file, here is her theory after a short introduction about why she shared it with me: Read the rest of this entry »

If you thought the ‘Christian Controversy’ was over because the Boston Globe reported that Harry is now a staple in college curricula across the country, you were wrong. The new face of the controversy is not if Harry Potter is Christian but if he is properly Christian. Frankly, this is a much more interesting conversation.

David Nilsen, a Historical Theology major at Westminster Seminary, posted a wonderfully complimentary essay on the A-Team Christian Apologetics blog (”Speak the Truth, but Do it in Love, Fool!”) about Harry Potter. In ‘The Sacramental World of Harry Potter’ he asserts that while Ms. Rowling’s Hogwarts Adventures are Christian, because they are written in a sacramental literary tradition (English fantasy), they depart from the victory Reformation theology won over medieval Catholicism in having “desacralized” the natural world. Read the rest of this entry »

[This is the second part of a two-part post on Muggles, Seekers, and their real world 17th Century counterparts. For the first part on Muggletonians, go here.]

Real quick: Name three events of English history that took place in the 17th Century. That’s the 1600’s, right?

My best friend in High School took a year off from college to travel through Europe. As a ‘Harvard man,’ he soon found that German friends at parties after a few beers liked to joke about how ignorant even the most intelligent Americans are by asking him questions about when certain things happened in their country’s history, questions that any French, English, or German child would know. Bob said he realized one night, when everyone thought it was funny that he couldn’t name the date of the end of the Franco-Prussian War and the Unification of Germany, that they weren’t so smart either. He asked them auf Deutsch what had happened in the United States between 1860 and 1865. No one had a clue.

So don’t feel bad if you didn’t very quickly say, when prompted by the words “English history 17th Century,” ‘English Civil War,’ ‘Restoration,’ and ‘Glorious Revolution‘ as most Brits would. How many American high schools offer European History and how many colleges require a Homer-to-Hitler Western Civilization sequence any more?

I bring this up, though, not to congratulate you on being as history-challenged as most of us, but to point out that not knowing even the time-line political benchmarks of 17th Century England makes us ill prepared for understanding why Ms. Rowling places the key event in Wizarding World history in 1692. It isn’t arbitrary and the date really does help understand why non-magical folk in the Hogwarts Saga are disdainfully called “Muggles” and why Quidditch heroes are “Seekers.” And, yes, it’s largely about alchemy. Read the rest of this entry »

We talk a lot about ‘literary alchemy’ here, the hermetic stream in the tradition of English ‘Greats’ from Chaucer and Shakespeare that Ms. Rowling draws on with special takes I think, from C. S. Lewis’s Space Trilogy and Elizabeth Goudge’s Little White Horse. Alchemy is no small part of the Hogwarts story magic and the artistry with which Ms. Rowling uses traditional symbols as her scaffolding may be her single most important and certainly her least appreciated accomplishment as a writer.

Given my interest in the literary side of the alchemy story and the occult arts from which it draws its imagery and perhaps even its effect on readers, why won’t I be traveling this October to Los Angeles for the International Alchemy Conference? Good question. Read the rest of this entry »

A very good friend sent me a note two days ago from a Christian who had misgivings about what I have written online and in my books about alchemy and its relationship with Christianity. The note said:

“Does it bother you that Granger sees alchemy as totally congruent with Christianity? It strikes me as the reverse. To seek immortal life on earth by restoring the soul to its pre-Adamic state of innocency is to seek salvation apart from Christ and to endeavor to overcome the effects of original sin by means of nature rather than grace. And to create a stone that produces unlimited quantities of gold is to succumb to the vice of greed and would wreck the world’s economy. Right? That’s why I’m troubled that Dumbledore is famous for his work on alchemy with Flamel.”

This is an important relationship to get right so I put down my work updating Unlocking Harry Potter (the alchemy chapters!) to put together a response. Here it is: Read the rest of this entry »

Thank you, JAB, for the great work you’ve done here as HogPro Web Master! I have finished the revisions and four new chapters for what was Looking for God in Harry Potter and what will be How Harry Cast His Spell: The Meaning Behind the Mania — and I have you to thank for keeping the conversation going here so I could meet my deadlines. I have to think no one missed me given the quality of your posts and commentary! I certainly enjoyed checking in here during my bancha tea breaks.

I have to return my interlibrary loan copy of M. F. M. van den Berk’s The Magic Flute: An Alchemical Allegory this afternoon so my first post here will be a short review. Let me start with the downside. Read the rest of this entry »