Harry Potter & Real Witches

Okay, thousands of years ago in internet time I wrote a positive review about Harry Potter and got some flack. A bit later, I got hammered by a brave Pentecostal who spammed me without revealing him/herself when I disputed a "Harry Potter is sending our kids to the devil" group email. Even wrote a short dispute about the whole issue.

Later, 90&9 ran an anti-Harry Potter article disagreeing with my article, which is what we do when we get submissions on both sides of an issue. Of course, we had many letters about both articles.

Fast Forward To Now
That said, while desensitization is always an issue, I couldn't believe young adult novels that used Hogwarts as a magic high school archetype were sending kids into the clutches of devil-worshipers. In the interest of fairness, MTV.News ran this article "Young Witches Explain What They're Really About" a few weeks back, in which MTV even salutes conservative Christians for...sending some kids into the clutches of devil worshipers.

Says the article:

"A surprising number of young witches MTV News spoke with also said that they became curious about their faith through misguiding pop-culture fare like the camp Neve Campbell vehicle "The Craft" and the "Harry Potter" series. (Guess a few conservative Christian groups were right about that one).

But many young people enter the Craft in reaction to a very conservative religious upbringing — Southern Baptist, perhaps, or Catholic. "Some people don't feel God in the church, so they seek out different expressions of God that are more personal or mystic," said Raven, who has mentored younger Pagans and is active in the online community."

The Moral of this Story?
So this is just proof that anything can seduce the ungrounded. It appears I was too confident in my faith in humanity and should've taken that into consideration. My apologies if I was especially glib in the past.

Of course, reacting against a conservative religious upbringing is worth thinking about too. Never saw that as a recruiting tool for pagans either.