Why The Wizarding World Is Not Wiccan. (And Writing It That Way Makes You Look Silly.)

[tiferet]

As has been mentioned in quite a few of these posts, JK Rowling doesn’t really say very much about religion in her books. This probably has a lot to do with the fact that if she did, it would piss off a lot of parents, which is not how she got to be richer than the Queen

Comments

[biichan]

Yay for the M.A. in Medieval History?

[tiferet]

More like yay for the obsession with the history of religious ideas :)

[mamadeb]

Another point is that we've seen both students and adults do magic. Charms requires wandwork and a one or two word incantation; Transfiguration seems to only need wandwork; Potions doesn't use wands at all, except to regulate the fire, but instead cooking skills and knowledge of the properties of ingredients. All would require, as well, magical ability and, I assume, strong will.

The only ceremony we've seen was very, very dark - the resurrection of Voldie.

I didn't get a Wiccan feel from it at all - it was just dark and very evil.

Nor do they call upon elements or burn insence or inscribe circles - at least not yet. They don't even build wards - the word "ward" never appears in the books. Given her premise that magic is genetic, there is no reason for it to have a religious connotation at all.

[tiferet]

No, I agree, it wasn't Wiccan at all, it was just scary. (It was really just a lot of evil-sounding stuff.) If magick is genetic it need have no religious component at all, and in HP it doesn't. But genuinely old religious traditions that have a magickal side to them might exist.

[bethbethbeth]

Very interesting. Have you ever posted a version of this to hp_essays? I don't know if you're a member, but if not, you might want to consider joining, if only so that you can add this to that community's "memory banks."

[tiferet]

I actually am and I should. :D

[the_gentleman]

Thank you.

(Although, I'd marginally disagree that wizards know what happens after death- partly because the Veil is still in the Department of *Mysteries*, and partly because the ghosts don't have much to go on when in "school counselor" mode. We know there's the possibility of a mental imprint, in the pictures, photos and ghosts, and that something can be heard beyond the Veil, but there's nothing to indicate that wizards know much of the facts beyond that, or at least, those facts aren't widely known.)

[ninepointfivemm]

Thank you very much for posting it once and for all.

You know, I think I realized why Petunia and Vernon dislike magic so much. They probably assume it's the same thing as "that vile, odd Wiccan nonsense!" and refuse to believe magic could be anything otherwise. They are muggles, after all. ;)