Witchcrat in Fiction

This is a documentary from the year 2001 called Harry Potter: Witchcraft Repackaged.  I don’t expect you to watch it, but I feel it worth siting this particular documentary that I was made to watch after Harry Potter showed up on the Scholastic book catalog.  It is an hour long propaganda film about the evils the occult and how its depiction in media is being used to recruit children to become pagan devil-worshipers.

This is the view I was taught to have of witchcraft and magical fiction and it has taken some doing to overcome many of the presuppositions from my indoctrination.  I feel this worth addressing because I can’t see anything like Kiki’s delivery service without contemplating how deeply my understanding conflicts with what I’ve been told to think. 

Despite their gross misconceptions about the subject, fundamentalist / evangelical Christians who oppose these sorts of books and films about witches are not unjustified in doing so, particularly because they are targeted towards children.  When trying to raise children by the literal doctrine of the Bible, it is clear that films that deal with witches and magic present central themes and ideologies that directly challenge presupposed beliefs and they must be either dealt with rationally, ignored, or demonized.  

As only one such example, Kiki’s deliver service openly deals with supernatural powers not derived from God, subjective morality, female authority and empowerment, and many themes and images important to some pagan practices, all shown in a positive light wherein Kiki is rewarded and loved by the community for being a good witch.  I’m sure all of this may sound horribly innocent and trivial to those of less dogmatic ideologies, but, to a Biblical literalist, its innocent depiction is part of what makes it so insidious.   These concepts sold to children represent a very real threat of teaching their children ideas that conflict with their beliefs, jeopardizing the fate of their eternal souls in the eyes of their parents.  Regardless how wrong their religious assertions might be, I am compelled to present the motives of the misguided intentions of well-meaning parents.  Needless to say, I no longer share these views, but I feel them important to discuss when talking about magic in fiction and its impact in one of the world’s most religious developed nations.