Wednesday, October 24

The Harry Potter And Rosicrucian Coincidences

Harry Potter
Hans Andrea of the Harry Potter For Seekers website has compared the similarities between the Harry Potter stories and The Chemical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreutz published way back in 1616. It is thought to be a Rosicrucian work.

Are the similarities coincidences? Let's see:

~ Harry Potter goes to an ancient castle for seven years; in the Chemical Wedding Christian Rosenkreutz (CR) goes to a castle for seven days.

~ Harry Potter and CR are given a letter of invitation during a violent storm.

~ To reach the castle, Harry travels across a lake with mermaids in it. To reach the Tower of Olympus CR travels across a sea with mermaids.

~ Harry is faced with being sorted into one of four houses; CR faces four paths to choose from at the beginning of his journey to the castle.

~ Both books mention Paracelsus.

Phoenix Harry Potter
~ A number of mystery animals are mentioned in both books e.g. the phoenix, the unicorn and the griffin.

~ In both the Tower of Olympus and Harry's castle lives a very ancient man who is in control of the whole proceedings.

~ In both books the meals are served up by invisible servants in a hall lightened by floating candles.

~ In both books there is a funeral where a phoenix appears.

... and so on.

Is all this purely by coincidence? Well funny things happen. But JK Rowling knows her magic. As she said in an interview with The Herald in 1998:

JK Rowling cleavage
"I've never wanted to be a witch, but an alchemist, now that's a different matter. To invent this wizard world, I've learnt a ridiculous amount about alchemy. Perhaps much of it I'll never use in the books, but I have to know in detail what magic can and cannot do in order to set the parameters and establish the stories' internal logic."

It's interesting that the Catholic Church have warned us of The Dangers Of Harry Potter To Mankind but if we look at one more 'coincidence' perhaps Harry's not so bad as they think.

In Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix we are told that, "There is a room ... that ... contains a force that is at once more wonderful and more terrible than death, than human intelligence, than the forces of nature ... It is the power held within that room that you possess in such quantities and which Voldermort has not at all."

This force is called love - and is called Venus in the Chemical Wedding.

Isn't love the main teaching of Jesus?

See also:
A Message From The Harry Potter Owls
JK Rowling And Harry Potter Birthday Coincidence

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10 comments:

  1. Fascinating. I didn't realize this about the parallels. I'll forward this to my daughter, who loves all things harry potter!

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    1. Not much of a Harry Potter person myself, haven't even seen any of the movies.

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  2. Always thought that JK must have studied magic, so HP based on an old Rosicrucian story, interesting.

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    1. I suppose most authors have to research their themes. There are probably lots of stories to be told based on the past myths and legends.

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  3. What I will say is that few things on this planet are infinite, especially media. There are only so many scenarios, so many musical notes, so many combinations.

    Furthermore, I see it as an impossible task to not be influenced. You'd be surprised at how much peripheral information is taken in. For instance, what if Rowling's aunt or grandmother read to her out of Chemical Wedding as a very young child? Would she remember that, or regurgitate pieces from memory and assume them fresh content for her own books?

    As for making Potter Christian friendly, spinning it is not going to change anything.

    JMO

    Scott McMan
    GhostTheory.com

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    1. Thanks Scott, always interested in your views. As for spinning - is there an actual reality? Surely life is as we see it.

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  4. My kids are Potter fans,but the few Potter films I saw didn't make any real impression on me at all,and I never saw the last few films.To me the Potter films are like the "Twilight" films,I saw one or two and that was enough for me.
    I'm not surprised about Rowling and the
    "The Chemical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreutz" thing,but as for the Jesus myth,that was also pinched from many an old story going way back,so just how much did the authors of the Bible plagiarize as well?

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  5. It also reminds me of the post I did on my blog about Tim Burton using the fool's journey through the Tarot in
    "The Nightmare Before Christmas" -

    http://brizdazz.blogspot.com.au/2012/10/a-nightmare-before-christmassteppin-off.html

    But I liked that film and have actually ordered a copy of the DVD,I liked it that much.

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  6. I was looking at a story at "The Orange Orb" blog and Regan had written a post about a Halloween Tarot deck that is available,as well -

    http://orangeorb.blogspot.com.au/2012/10/halloween-tarot.html

    http://www.aeclectic.net/tarot/cards/halloween/

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    1. Thanks Darren. I didn't get into the Harry Potter hype myself, haven't even seen any of the movies - suppose I ought to out of interest.

      As for stories from the past they do seem to recur over and over - like the flood and Noah for example.

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