Afterwards, I realized that a few hundred years ago I would have risked being burnt at the stake. Yet I only strolled across a wooden porch into Queen Anne Books, for the release of "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince."
A Womping Willow, a big, brown creature with octopus arms dedicated to protecting Hogwarts, guarded the bookstore door. An arm flapped across the entrance; a boy screamed and ran away, looking happy, not scared. There were children in wizard capes, children with wands, children with magic in their eyes. Adults, too, looked slightly charmed.
I warily passed the Womping Willow, which fortunately preferred children to adults. Inside the bookstore, I passed through a black curtain into the secret rooms. There was a table, where dishes with names like "herbology," "divination" and "potions" circled a large crystal globe; and another table with even more odd concoctions.
It was good that Pope Benedict XVI had not flown over from Rome for the event. Before becoming pope, he wrote that the Harry Potter books distort the church in the souls of young readers. Although he could not throw us into the fire, he would have spoiled the fun.
Popes vs. Harry Potters are nothing new. For 2,000 years the church has struggled to clean pagans and wizards out of the Western world. It must be galling to see all that hard work going down the drain.
I am perplexed by the pope's reaction. Which is worse? A book so fun to read that it brings children back into literature; a book that introduces children to the timeless themes met also in fairy tales and myths? Or an attitude so self-righteous it once put to death those who did not see the world its way?
That children flock to Harry Potter remains a phenomenon. Volume 6 grossed more on its opening weekend than the movie "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory." Could it be that an educational system focused on technology, and movies and media invaded by the gross, create children starved for the innocent and imaginative?
One woman told me about her granddaughter, who, at age 9, did not like to read. She devoured her first Harry Potter, went on to classics and now writes poetry and wants to major in English literature.
Anita, a photojournalist for The Daily Prophet (Queen Anne Books' manager, Tegan Tigani, in disguise), said the Harry Potter books show kids "how wonderful it is to be alone with a book. They also help children as a community.... The kids share their experiences with one another. Each child has his or her own version of that world."
At this point a young woman stopped reading the new Harry Potter long enough to divulge that she went through her teens with the series. "I love to read," she said.
I confessed that the first Harry Potter book seemed dull. "That's because you're an adult," she replied, her expression conveying I am missing something special. "The later books get more complicated," she said. So I bought the fourth volume and am well into it. It is enthralling, not dull.
As a child, I became mesmerized by a row of crystal balls on display at Gumps, in San Francisco. The saleslady said the crystal symbolizes beauty, purity and truth. Years later I read "Interior Castle" by St. Theresa, and thought of that crystal ball. She, a Catholic saint, also sought beauty, purity and truth.
At their essence, are not both magic and religion a quest for realities beyond the material? Could the popularity of Harry Potter signal the beginning of a wonderful friendship? Might the old pals of prehistory - magic and religion - reunite, or are there more burnings (figuratively speaking) ahead?
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