In the last month, three readers have left comments on two HogwartsProfessor threads in which notes they accuse Rowling of being a Satanist.

‘YouveBeenDUped’ wrote about Rowling’s Solve et Coagula tattoo that “The words on her wrist are the same words on the baphomet of the Church of Satan….YUP”.

Clayton MacDonald said much the same thing after I wrote about the meaning of Solve et Coagula. He said, “You realize she’s paying homage to the baphomet. It’s the same tattoo the baphomet has written on it’s arms. The baphomet is the devil that satanists worship. Fact check me and tell me I’m wrong.”

Michael Todd and Erin Barr echoed this after the same post albeit with an ad hominem zinger: “She’s a satanist, don’t believe me? Check out what’s tattooed on the baphtomet (sic), the satanist goat god. But you will still follow her, because you don’t believe.”

What are they going on about? What is a baphomet? What does it have to do with Rowling’s tattoo and with Satanism? [Read more…]

TheRowlingLibrary.com, a website and an online fanzine, has just published their December 2019 issue, and it’s a good one. The feature article of #36 is about J. K. Rowling and Steve Kloves and the much neglected change in their relationship with respect to the Fantastic Beasts series (in brief, Kloves is now not only an Executive Producer in his role as Rowling Re-writer but actually credited as a co-writer). That’s worth the time it takes to download issue in itself, but there’s more.

In addition, there is a review of all the Headline Generating Events of 2019 in Harry Potter fandom and an in-depth survey of the Christmas celebrations in each Harry Potter book. If you’re like me, both of those pieces will have several “I forgot all about that!” forehead slapping moments. There is also a wonderfully out-there piece by S. Sipal on the new Rowling twitter header with its Tarot card theme; Sipal, perhaps the world’s leading expert on the Fantastic Beasts film franchise esoterica and inside baseball, links the Tarot cards to possibilities in the next Beasts film.

This is all great material and fun reading! TheRowlingLibrary creates a fun and beautiful product and deserve your attention and support.

Is it perfect? No, but what is?

I suspect you’ll be as disappointed as I was that this issue went to press before the Tweet Heard Round the World, Rowling’s #IStandWithMaya Ezra Pound moment on 19 December, the 2019 event most fans will remember as the biggest news of the year. And why no mention in the Christmas survey of Beatrice Groves’ delightful LeakyCauldron posts on the Christmas Roses and Why a Basilisk fears the Rooster’s Cry?

And I just blushed at the Sipal piece on the Tarot Cards because she doesn’t know, as Evan Willis pointed out at HogwartsProfessor in August, five months before Rowling posted the three cards on her Twitter page, that these cards are featured on the cover of Blue Oyster Cult album, Agents of Fortune. They’re not about the Fantastic Beasts movie at all, alas, but the Cormoran Strike mysteries in which at least one Serious Striker believes the song ‘Don’t Fear the Reaper’ acts as something like The Prophecy does in Harry Potter. [For more on Rowling and the Tarot, read the three posts I wrote on The Hanged Man card here at HogwartsProfessor.]

Those are nit-picking criticisms, though, that only demonstrate how closely I read every issue of TheRowlingLibrary when it comes out! I recommend you download the current issue and read it yourself.