Devil in the detail: Vatican exorcises Harry Potter
Linda Morris Religious Affairs Writer
September 1, 2006
THE Vatican has never been a fan of Harry Potter, but its chief exorcist has gone one step further and condemned J. K. Rowling's fictional boy wizard as downright evil.
"Behind Harry Potter hides the signature of the king of the darkness, the devil," says Father Gabriele Amorth, the Pope's "caster-out of demons".
The books contained numerous positive references to the satanic art, falsely drawing a distinction between black and white magic, he told the Daily Mail in London. In the same interview, Father Amorth said he was convinced that Joseph Stalin and Adolf Hitler were possessed by the devil.
Last year the Pope, who was then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, described Harry Potter as a potentially corrupting influence.
The Vatican's criticism comes as two Australian academics suggested a new generation of spiritual seekers was using popular fiction and medieval myth to reinsert magic and enchantment into their lives.
Dr Lynne Hume and Kathleen McPhillip, editors of a collection of academic essays on popular spiritualities, said sacred religious texts were being superseded by medieval myths, comics and fantasy literature.
J. R. R.Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings and Terry Pratchett's Discworld series had all inspired interest in spiritual spin-offs.
Pagans had borrowed from the Discworld series peopled by dwarfs, witches and fairies, while young men had shaped their living fantasies on comic book heroes and Star Wars narratives. Role-playing games of the 1990s such as Dungeons and Dragons spurred interest in acting out fictional characters and events.
The vampire subculture - bigger in the US than in Australia and splintering from the Goth movement of the 1970s - borrows more from Anne Rice's broody, immortal and powerful figure of Lestat in the Vampire Chronicles than Bram Stoker's figure of old. That subculture, Dr Hume said, consisted of vampire role players, but also people who believed they were vampires.
Adam Possamai, a lecturer and researcher at the University of Western Sydney, said the two-in-one figure of Clark Kent and Superman was attractive because it mirrored conflicting impulses to conform or stand apart.
Dr Hume said in the vampire subculture reality blurred with fiction. "Instead of making more attempts to fit in to society at large, many vampire fans exaggerate their difference."
