Chapter 19: Demon Possession, Temper Tantrums, and Dumbledore's Guilt

Order of the Phoenix

The Indwelling of Voldemort

   We’ve had the confrontation between the DA members and the death eaters, then the Order of the Phoenix joined, then Dumbledore arrived, then Voldemort himself came. There was a confrontation between Harry and Voldemort, and then Dumbledore comes on the scene and takes over. 

For the first time, according to Harry, Dumbledore seemed afraid when Voldemort was possessing Harry. The description of what it felt like to be possessed was like poor Dr. Poe’s elbow surgery: pure agony without escape. 

Death is not the end. Harry says, “death is nothing, and I’ll see Sirius again.” And when he thinks that, the tables turn for Harry and Voldemort, but we don’t learn that until later. It is then that Harry's spirit overpowers the indwelling spirit of Voldemort, and now of the sudden it is Voldemort who is in unbearable pain. 

Sometimes our best image of something is the opposite of what it is and we can’t get a handle on the way it truly is; we can only understand the opposite of what it is. Here Rowling is describing a deadly possession: the idea of being fused to another intelligence. She’s describing the opposite of the new birth, being embraced by the Spirit of God. Instead of pain unimaginable, we have light and joy. One of the things she’s doing in all of this is making a case for Christianity and how one comes to God. The idea of dying and the substitutionary death is an important part, but the regeneration part is left out. The whole motif we find littered throughout the New Testament is left out of most modern-day works. Rowling, however, is doing the opposite; she’s not writing theology, but a story, and she’s showing us what it’s like in a hideous, destructive way. To be fused to the Spirit of God is the opposite of this experience of Harry and Voldemort.

Harry wants Dumbledore to kill him so it’ll be over, and Voldemort soon begins using Harry’s voice. Harry now knows death is not the worst thing in the world. Harry’s blessed hope is that there is something beyond death because he wants to see Sirius again. When he thought of Sirius, his heart filled with emotion, and Voldemort was pushed from Harry’s body in pain. Voldemort is incapable of love, and it was physically painful for him to possess Harry while he felt such love.

The device she’s using of the two beings being joined is the opposite of the Christian life. We have the mind of Christ, so this whole business of Occlumency and Legilimency is like how part of our spiritual goal is to know the Will of God and to have the mind of Christ. We spend our whole life developing those skills, and thankfully, the Lord is constantly making himself known to us.

Meanwhile, Back at the Office...

   After the Battle of the Department of Mysteries, Harry gets back to the headmaster’s office and eventually Dumbledore returns. Dumbledore tries to empathize with Harry, but Harry says he can't possibly know how he’s feeling. At the beginning of this book, Harry was against Ron and Hermione for being in on everything that was going on in the wizarding world while he was stuck at Privet Drive.

There’s a certain safety in being able to rant and rave at those you’re closest to, so now Harry rants at Dumbledore and pitches a royal fit. He’s fifteen, facing sixteen, so he is solidly in the middle of his adolescence. He start’s smashing and throwing Dumbledore’s things and having a wild temper tantrum.

Dumbledore tells him that suffering is part of being human and caring about people. It’s hard to reason with anyone with a fever pitch emotion, but Dumbledore is persisting in hopes of calming Harry down. Harry declares that he doesn’t care anymore, but the idea of caring is an important thing.

These are all mystery stories, but it doesn’t work unless the audience cares. You have to care about the mystery and the truth to it; it’s a necessary ingredient. One of the conventions of a mystery story is that at the end of the mystery, the detective explains it all. This chapter is the big explanation. But at the end of this mystery story, it is not the detective (Harry) explaining the ending of the story, it’s Dumbledore!

Again, Dumbledore is not God. He is, however, a type of prophet. Dumbledore is a wizard, the wise man, Elijah and Samuel, and he has a band of followers in the Order of the Phoenix to follow his cause. It falls to Dumbledore to explain it all to Harry and to put it all together. His is also the role of the interpreter.

Dumbledore's Guilty Conscience 

   Harry blows off steam and says he doesn’t care, to which Dumbledore disagrees. Harry has lost his parents and his godfather, and when Dumbledore tried to emphasize, Harry doesn’t agree.  Normally, when we say this, we don’t really know how they’re feeling; we just haven’t had that experience. We can sympathize with the person, but we can’t really empathize with them. But Dumbledore tells Harry that he understands because he truly does understand. Dumbledore is not like the Rock of Gibraltar, unmoving and unchanging. He is human. He messes up just like everyone else. In this case, because we later find out what happened to Dumbledore, we know that Dumbledore really can empathize. He’s been through it all. Dumbledore lost his parents and his sister, and it’s something that dogs him all the time.

Dumbledore is upset with himself because he didn’t tell Harry upfront about everything that was going on, and he kept too many secrets from him. Dumbledore has a brother, Aberforth, who really understood life and what mattered in a way that Dumbledore did not. If Dumbledore had been open with Harry, Harry would never have been tricked into going to the Ministry (and as Dumbledore believes) Sirius would still be alive; Dumbledore gives himself all the blame. 

One thing that’s going on there, now that we know the whole story, is that he’s still blaming himself for his sister’s death, he’s still carrying it with him, and that makes it easier for him to blame himself for everything else. He’s carrying a huge burden of guilt. We’re also getting a full dose of the frailty of Dumbledore that’s explained to us in the last book. We don’t find out what’s really animating him until the last book, and rereading the series sheds a whole new light on his character. Rowling is writing this, knowing how the thing is ending. "She is a genius, clearly."

Dumbledore has this plan, you see. He guessed that Harry’s scar would be a connection between Harry and Voldemort. On the flipside, Dumbledore is dealing with guilt, dealing with all his secrets, and knowing what connections he drew, he still can’t tell Harry what his scar, what this connection, really means, nor what will eventually have to be done about it (destroy the horcrux of himself).

In the first few years, Dumbledore goes through what Voldemort was doing, his history, on and on until he admitted he put off telling Harry why Voldemort had tried to kill him when he was just a baby. Dumbledore is now telling us how he goes about deciding when, why, and how to keep secrets. He avoids telling Harry the truth to avoid hurting him anymore. Here we finally have the rationalization of Dumbledore’s pattern of secret keeping.

Dumbledore fell into the trap he had foreseen: he cared more for Harry’s happiness than of his knowing of the truth; he acted exactly as Voldemort would expect the fools who love to act. Dumbledore has kept a close eye on Harry throughout his time at Hogwarts, more so than Harry can imagine (Mrs. Figg at Privet Drive; always knows what’s going on at Hogwarts and because Dumbledore doesn’t need an invisibility cloak to make himself invisible). 

The last person Dumbledore took care of and was responsible for was his younger sister. Needless to say, he "muffed that one", so Harry is his second chance. Of course, we don’t know that during his conversation with Harry; in fact, we don’t find this out about Dumbledore until he’s already dead. 

 As Harry got older, Dumbledore kept finding reasons not to tell Harry. But as Harry’s finally calms down and gets drawn into Dumbledore’s story, he tells Harry that Voldemort tried to kill him because of a prophecy made when he was just a baby. Voldemort only knew a bit of it of the prophecy, and because he acted before he heard it in its entirety, the rebounding of the Avada Kedavra curse led to his demise. 

Now that Voldemort has been returned to his body, he is determined to hear the rest of the prophecy so he’ll know exactly how to kill Harry. Dumbledore doesn’t reveal to Harry the nature of the horcruxes or the fact that Snape was the one who told Voldemort the snippet of the Prophecy he’d overheard. Was Dumbledore right to hold this back? Are there some instances you don’t tell everything you know? We’ve seen Aberforth say that Dumbledore is wrong to keep secrets, but he’s not an objective observer; he blames Albus for their sister’s death. It’s absolutely necessary to keep the secrets for the last two books (one reason is because of the money to be made).

The Nature of Prophecy

   Sybill Trelawney was the one who gave the prophecy, and she experienced a true Seer moment like the one Harry witnessed in the third book. The prophecy orb is destroyed in the fight at the Ministry, but Dumbledore pulls the memory from the Pensieve so that Harry can see and hear it all happen.Dumbledore was, perhaps, right in keeping the conviction of this knowledge form Harry; the absence of the knowledge might’ve been the only thing that allowed him to function. This is what Dumbledore was hinting at; if Harry had known why he was getting these visions, it would’ve made a difference with his Occlumency lessons.We need to think about words like "destiny", "karma", and what really imply because that’s the way Harry’s going to bring it up.We have the European understanding of how everything works out: the fates weave the rope of destiny and determine everything that will happen. But the Hindu understanding of why we do things is "karma." You do this because this is who you are, and you can’t do other than your true nature. While the Egyptians believed everyone had their Ka that was laid out before them.We have this concept in different cultures, and Rowling is dealing with the nature of prophecy and how it works. The Chosen One actually could’ve been Neville instead of Harry. The reason Harry’s name was put on the prophecy is because of Voldemort’s actions. He interpreted the prophecy in a certain way and tried to fulfill the prophecy without knowing the contents in full. Modern science fiction stories have used the term prophecies in them. It’s in the Chronicles Narnia, but you expect it from Lewis. What’s the source of these prophecies? Where do they come from? Divination and Prophecy are entirely different things. Trelawney was never able to make an accurate prediction during Divination class, yet she’s the one that makes the two, genuine prophecies in the Harry Potter series.We will talk more about the prophecy, Harry’s destiny, how it affects his actions when we get to the two last books.
What About Umbridge?Umbridge was taken by the centaurs and traumatized by the experience; she almost got Harry killed in the beginning by sending dementors to Little Whinging, and she’s willing to torture him with the Cruciatus Curse. When she offended the centaurs, they carried her off, and she got off awfully easy with them. Dumbledore simply trudged into the forest and retrieves her after he’s been restored as Headmaster. Umbridge, however, wastes her second chance; her character doesn’t changed once Dumbledore rescues her, and she’s just as vile as she ever was.

Chapter 18: Where Does God Belong in Harry Potter?

AT LAST! 


I am so sorry for the delay in updating this blog, but I must beg your forgiveness. I was just recently released from one of the most terrifying forms of the Imperius Curse. I must confess the particulars are a bit fuzzy in my memory now, but I have been told that while I was at school this curse forced me to long and secluded hours in the dark with nothing but books to keep me company. After pouring over these books, I was subjected to a series of tests given to my by select professors. Soon after completing these tests, I was released from the Imperius Curse and was sent home to recover. 
Now that I have fully recovered from these final tests, I have set about (using a borrowed time turner) going back in time and writing to you everything we covered in class while I was under the of this curse. A big thanks once again to Alice of Rabbiton for providing me with her parchments from these classes.


-Victor Bennet


The Gospel

• Begins with the Creator God

• Fulfillment of Scripture/Prophecy

• The Incarnation; Jesus is fully human and fully God.

• He died for our sins

• He rose from the dead

• He is exalted to the right hand of God; He has been given a name above every other name

• He gave the Holy Spirit to those who had faith

• His will come again

One of the big themes in the Harry Potter books is challenging the relativism of our own culture: there’s no right or wrong, no good or evil. Harry Potter is not a relativistic work. Rowling works ultimate right and wrong into her work as part of the natural universe.
Cultural relativism is combated with the fact that there is a creator God. He created values, and these values are built into the very creation itself. Value is given because there is a God and is invested in us. The foundation and value of a family is also found in the fact that there is a creator God.


Love
The books have a huge theme of love.
All the points of the Gospel deal with Love because God IS Love. Without God, there is no Love. Love, by definition, is a relational thing and can only exist when there is an alternative, and God's love saves us from that alternative. 

The Hebrew world “hesed” is all throughout the gospels, and it is roughly translated “steadfast love.”

God does what He does because of His "hesed" love of people. The atonement was an expression of His love, and this idea drives the materialists mad. They try to develop some kind of rationality because love has a supernatural quality to it.


Death
After the creation of the world, God created humans. But humans fell short of the glory of God when they sinned. This is when Death is introduced. Death is also a major issue when Christ dies for us and rises again.
The books have a theme of death as well.
After the Creator God, we have the doctrine of Creation and that is where we as humans come into the story. The glory is that we’re made in the image of God, yet the tragedy is that we’ve fallen short of His image. We break the rules because we’ve fallen short of God. Death and Sin comes in, and Rowling explores the different manifestations of Sin through the books. Jesus died for our sins, death being the ultimate wages for our sins. It’s a double substitution: He died for me, and I am crucified with Him; He takes my death, and I take His life.
If we go forward to the last book, we see that Rowling isn’t a Universalist. Dumbledore tells Harry at King’s Cross Station that he can’t help Voldemort, but Harry nonetheless is the evangelist to Voldemort when they’re dueling and Harry tells him "it’s not too late".


Supernaturalism
Rowling’s books are filled with the supernatural.
The Resurrection is an excellent example of the supernatural. People just don’t come back to life every day. It’s just not normal! It's not Natural, thus it is Supernatural! 
God speaking to prophets and the prophecies coming true, the Holy Spirit dwelling within us, this is all spooky. Many people ask the questions, "Is the Creator God involved in the universe, and if so, in what sense is He involved? Is this just cause and effect, or is there an order of nature, created by God in the beginning, the way the Bible tells us?" I myself, Victor Bennet have often asked these questions. Is there an answer? 
Dr. Poe gives us a excellent explanation. "We cannot have God creating the fundamental forces of the universe without the idea that God can be involved in it." That is to say, if we believe that God created the entire universe, how could we believe that He is not equally involved in sustaining it? People have this idea that God lives way, way up high, and He has to come down to earth to be involved. God’s Holy Spirit has never left, hence the term: an omnipresent God. God has never left. He was here in the beginning, and He is still here today.


What Is the Mystery in The Department of Mysteries?
In the fifth book we really get up close and personal with the Department of Mysteries. We come to find out that it contains the prophecies. This brings us to the idea of prophecy in the Bible. Prophecies make the Bible different from any other book in the world. It’s easy for a holy book to claim itself true. The one thing unique to the Bible is that it contains prophecy, which is absent in all others "holy writings". The Bible is an intriguing collection of prophecies so that you’ll know the character of God as one who makes promises, keeps those promises, and thus is trustworthy.
These successions of prophecies strive to show the character of God as one who keep His promises. God is different than all the other manmade gods. Prophecies only work if there is an all-knowing being who can see the future and then can reveal it to humans. The deities of other cultures don’t speak to us, don’t know us, don’t love us, and, in Eastern religions, aren’t really even conscious of themselves existing. 
When Rowling introduces the idea of prophecy in the books, she opens up an obvious question: "Where do these prophecies come from, how do they happen?" Prophecy is very different from divination. Divination tries to wrench knowledge from the universe, while prophecies are abrupt and are granted to seers, but the people are not the start of it. Prophecies come when you aren't expecting them and when you may not want them.This is how the Spirit of the Lord came upon the Biblical prophets. Amos didn’t like being a prophet, Isaiah didn’t want to be prophet, but God was able to use them nonetheless. When Trelawny actually does prophesy, she is not the source of it and cannot control it.
Talking about prophecy brings up the problem of how it works. Rowling doesn’t deal with the source of power that fuels magic. She’s already slammed Divination, and she makes sure it’s discredited. Then, she subtly raises the question of where these prophecies come from and the only sensible answer would be that there has to be something more to the universe than simply the natural world that we see and understand. 
So why don't Rowling explain where prophecies come from or at least hint a bit more at what she believes? It boils down to the fact that these books are not theology or Scripture; they’re fairytales that have been influenced by Christian faith. You get a unique set of answers with her stories, and we get a whole different answer with other stories. They all point towards the ultimate answers which are contained within the Bible. 


Substatutionary Deaths
Rowling’s books feature many characters’ deaths for other people. Which is the right one: did Jesus die as a substitution for us, did his death defeat death/Satan, did his death clense and heal us, did his death set us free, etc. The problem with our culture is that we’re trying to narrow it down to the one, essential “it”. In fact, Christ did it all. The modern way of thinking, by getting it down to the one thing, eliminates the one thing itself.
 In the book, Harry doesn’t die for sins. He’s representing the reasonableness of a substitutionary death. In Scripture, there is typology. Harry is a “type” of Christ. He is not an allegory or even a reflection of Jesus, he is a character that has been influenced by, and shares similar characteristics with Christ. Harry is not Jesus, Dumbledore is not God, and this is just a glimmer of the real story. The big, real story, the full story, is Jesus.

Chapter 14: Dementors, Depression, and Divination

After Spring Break was over, Dr. Poe returned to class without a word about what he had been up to or where he had gone. But he did show us his collection of "dragon eggs" and informed us that he had to battle a banshee in order to get the Horntail egg. He did point out that since breeding dragons is still illegal in these areas, he will be making no attempts to do any breeding, but the collection was nonetheless impressive. 

- V. B.

Prisoner of Azkaban

Dementors

We meet a lot of new creatures in this book. The worst creature is a dementor, a creature that sucks all the joy out of you. John Bunyan writes about a similar thing in Pilgrim’s Progress, only his creature is the Giant Despair who traps Christian in the Castle of Doubt.

Depression is a horrible thing. We all go through it, some more and some less, but we all deal with depression and doubt at some point in our lives.

To get rid of a dementor you just use the Patronus Charm. This ties Harry with his father (same patronus animal) but he also has to think of the most joyous memory in his life. “Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy - think about such things.” (Philipians 4:8) “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” (John 16:33) We will all be visited by dementors in life, so we must remember that “…the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world.” (1 John 4:4b)

New Defense Against the Dark Arts Teacher

Professor Lupin is a werewolf. He wasn’t born that way, but rather he was infected and has to deal with now. It is the way that Lupin deals with his condition that makes him different.

He is the first Dark Arts teacher that actually knows what he is talking about. He introduces the class to a boggart, a creature that takes the form of your worst fear. Lupin teaches them to overcome their greatest fears. Lupin tells Harry that because he is afraid of dementors, Harry really just fears Fear itself. “For God has not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.” (2 Timothy 1:7)

To get rid of dementors (depression) you think of something happy, and to get rid of fear, you laugh at it. Lupin also shows us that chocolate is a wonderful way to get rid of depression and when Dr. Poe pointed this out all the girls in class agreed heartily.

Divination

We are introduced to divination in this book. This falls into the category of magic that the Bible, McGonagall, and Dumbledore condemn. There is also an astronomy tower at Hogwarts, and this is important because it is not an astrology tower. Astrology has its roots in medieval synthesis of theology, Platonic philosophy, and science, but over the centuries it lost its science and was taken over by the occult.

Hippogriffs and Time Travel

Not known to appear before the Harry Potter series. Spawned from a griffin and a horse. Griffins originate as far back as Babylonian times.

To save Sirius Black and Buckbeak, Hermione and Harry must time travel. Time travel is a big part of the science fiction genre. Rowling sets up the time turner from the very beginning of the book.

What is time? How can time change? Eternity is outside of time and space. When God created space, time was made. But God is outside of time. He is the time ender, and time beginner.

Did Dumbledore know that Sirius is innocent? We know that Dumbledore talks to Sirius and that he can read minds, and Jesus could read minds too.

Chapter 6: A Biblical History of Wizards

Today we talked about the great "wizards" of the past that founded our houses and some of the spells, magic, and wonderful things that they have done. 

Moses

Returned to Egypt to free the Israelites, God turns his staff into a snake and Pharaohs magicians do the same thing, but God's snake eats them.

Curses and plagues. "Transfiguration" of water and blood. The curse of death was over everyone, but there was a way out if they put blood on there door.

Snakes show up everywhere in Harry Potter.

In C. S. Lewis' The Silver Chair, the sorceress is a green and silver snake (just like Slytherin.) 

Elijah

He was a prophet. Has a showdown with the prophets of Baal. Raises people from the dead.

Dumbledore and McGonagall both dislike divination. Divination is VERY different from prophesy. The difference lies within the source of the power. Divination is trying to pry truth away from the universe. Rowling is very negative about divination over all.

St. Patrick

Drove the snakes out of Ireland. Showed the power of God to the druid priests. Had visions.

St. Anthony

The founder of monasticism.  Ironically, leaves his sister at a convent so that he can go and start monasticism. Numerous encounters with the demonic. His biography was a favorite of St. Augustine.

Paul

Well-educated, survived stoning and snakebites, divine encounter with God, and many other things. 

Peter

Seen as the leader of the disciples. Walked on water (briefly). Healed the lame and sick. Simon the Sorcerer wanted to buy power from Peter, and then Peter condemned him, but this actually brings about Simon’s redemption. Peter also had visions. Goes to Cornelius’ house and has to explain how Gentiles now have the Holy Spirit. (Almost like Muggles suddenly becoming magical)

Elisha

Parted the Jordan River. Purified water by adding salt. Cursed those that made fun of his baldness. The widow’s oil and flour never runs out. Floating axe head.

Rowling bases much of her magic from the Biblical prophets.

A prophet (“Nabi” Hebrew means “gusher” you can’t ever shut them up) is not teller of the future. God said that telling the future was the sign that God would use to show that they are true prophet.

Prophecy have 3 forms. Shot term (within a few years), medium term (a few generation’s later), and long term (usually dealing with the coming of Jesus and the end times) prophecies.

For a long time there has been a movement to try to prove a logical reason for all the miracles in the Bible, but they always fail or are hung up on one thing or another. One explanation is that God only intervenes if it is a matter of conversion, but if that were the case, Elisha's axe head miracle makes no sense. 

Divination

Important around the world. People wanted to know what is going to happen. Through the years there have been many methods of divinations. The Bible doesn’t say that divination and necromancy can’t be done, it says NOT to do it.

Rowling has a lot to say about the dead and always says that trying to call up the dead is a bad idea. (This is different from the Hogwarts ghosts, but we will cover that later)

Canaanites

Believed the gods wanted human blood. They would drink the blood of their first-born child to gain the power from the god, cook the child and then eat it. 

God tells Abraham to have nothing to do with the cult, but then asks him to sacrifice his one and only son, but then God intervenes and provides a lamb. God is always limiting sacrifice more and more until there is just one sacrifice to atone for all sins.

Israelites are constantly drawn back to this Canaanite cultic worship and God has to continually punish them for it. 

Basic elements of the historical Gospel (pre-1910, since then the “gospel” is seen as something different)

1. Creator God (if you don’t accept that, nothing else makes sense)

2. God spoke through the prophets (this is what makes the Bible    

    different from all other holy books, the fact that it has prophecy 

    and they come true)

3. Jesus is fully human and fully God incarnate.

4. Jesus died for our sins.

5. Jesus rose from the dead.

6. Jesus is exulted to the right hand of God.

7. Gift of the Holy Spirit

8. Second coming

The prophets didn’t do the miracles under their own power, but with the power of God. That is what makes miracles different from black magic.

We start talking about the Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone next week! 

- V. B.

Dr. Poe quote of the day: “A house divided against itself cannot stand. And see! You are all sitting!”