Is it normal harry potter got me into the occult?
The very reason that many religious people don't want their kids reading it is precisely what happened to me, and my absolute favorite part of it is the fact that it was an argument I had about it that got me interested! Allow me to explain:
In 2012, I was 13 years old. I was an avid bookworm and a Christian, and one day at church I got talking to these two married people my mom knows about lord of the rings, since the hobbit was coming out that year, and my mom mentioned I liked Harry Potter even though she tried to keep it away from me. Sadly I wasn't that well informed on the subject, so the conversation that followed was pretty awkward, but hilarious now in retrospect. I remember the guy's wife saying that JKR wrote HP to make people stop thinking about witchcraft negatively (I wish I asked her where she heard that because I honestly never heard it before or since). And I even mentioned that LOTR had wizards too and the guy, who earlier listed off types of magic listed in the Bible, admitted some was in LOTR too. And one of them said they saw one of the movies on tv and thought it was overly dark, and said that a kid could look this stuff up online. Later on the way home my mom said "there are satanist in the world, they sacrifice babies!" Or something along those lines. Knowing what I know now, these are the reasons I find this so absurdly amusing:
1. Yes, Harry Potter is dark, but dear God The Bible is 100000000X worse! Eternal torment, stonings, apocalypse, incest, and so on
2. Yes, a kid could look up magic stuff online. I was one such kid, and I didn't even consider it until you brought it up! And through my research I discovered I agreed with occultism FAR more than I ever did with Christianity! You backfired HORRIBLY!
3. Satanism is a broad subject, there's lots of different religions and belief systems that carry that title. Most of which forbid harm to children, especially LeVayan Satanism. And having read HP and The Bible multiple times myself, there's FAR more passages in the Bible that would promote child sacrifice! What about Abraham and Isaac? Stoning rebellious children to death? Happy shall he be who takes your little ones and dashes them against the stones!?
4. And finally, as much as I'm bashing Christianity, there are some good parts of it, and in fact a lot of my favorite occult teachers use the Bible frequently. There's a lot of different theories, some saying the Bible doesn't really mean god when they say he hates magic, or that it was a mistranslation that originally meant pharmikia, or that editors edited it to keep occult power for themselves.
But nevertheless, I'm fine with whatever you believe or disbelieve. I just wanted to share this story because it's so hilariously ironic. Regardless of if you're a witch/occultist or not, I want you to know that the myths of sacrifice are just that, myths, or at the very least a miscommunication. I feel a strong connection with magic, through witchcraft music and candles and even things like black cats and owls. It seems mostly girls are into witchcraft and mostly guys are into the occult. I'm a guy, and I'm more occult based, although I have an appreciation for witchcraft. I'm just curious to see everyone else's response to this situation. As one of my favorite occult teachers would say,
Take Care!