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by Michael Robinson on December 2nd, 2003
I wouldn't believe so..
If any youngsters were motivated to try Wicca after reading or seeing Harry Potter, they would likely be put off by a few things.
a) The spells you cast do not cause fountains of sparkling energy to shoot out of a twig, basically the showiness of HP magic isnt there
b) The system of beliefs in Wicca depends on a large amout of dedication to learning the real beliefs and history. And has absolutely no relation to any Harry Potteresque beliefs or codes.
by AntigoneRising on December 11th, 2005
I think we need to differentiate between those who convert to Wicca AFTER reading the "Harry Potter" series, and the argument that people convert to Wicca BECAUSE they have read the "Harry Potter" series. Simply stating that one event occurred after another event is insufficient to prove a cause and effect relationship between the two events.
We probably have quite a few people (young and old) who have converted to Wicca after reading the Harry Potter series. Because the dates that I read the Harry Potter books (except book 6) chronologically predate my conversion to Wicca, one could easily say that I converted to Wicca AFTER reading them. This would be factually true. (It would also be factually true to state that I converted to Wicca after having eaten ketchup.)
However, did I convert to Wicca BECAUSE of anything contained in Harry Potter? No. Wicca is a religion, and the Harry Potter series does not address religion at all. I converted to Wicca because of my theological views.
Do people experiment and adopt the use of magic because they read the books? Most likely there are quite a few who have. However, casting spells and using magic simply makes one a magician or witch; it does not make one a Wiccan. THEOLOGY makes one a Wiccan.
by Lizbet on January 5th, 2004
No. The "magic" in Harry Potter is in no way related to modern Neo-Paganism/Wicca.
1. In Harry Potter, you have to be born a witch or wizard. Most Pagans believe anyone can draw on their own personal power and/or that of the elements to perform magic(k). Same with needing a wand. It's a handy tool to focus the mind/will in Paganism, but not absolutely necessary.
2. In Harry Potter, there is no evidence that there is any nature-based worship (or, really, any belief in a divinity at all). Wicca in partiular, and Neo-Paganism in general, believes in the divinity of nature.
by pun_nisher on June 6th, 2004
If Harry Potter would convert young people to Wicca, no I don't believe it would. After all, in Harry Potter's world you must be born with the power. Wicca you must study and learn, you don't recieve a letter on your 11th birthday. And to make things even harder, with all the lies and half truths out there about Wicca, the modern student of Wicca has to sort out the truth from the lies or they might end up harming themselves with the Rule of Thrice.
Wiccian "magic" as it is called is the healing arts. A few people under the name of Wicca have tried to make Love attraction spells. love control spells, money spells and revenge spells, plus, countless other greedy, selfish or harmful spells. Spells cast in greed or hatred, for personal gain, are doomed not to work, and if they do seem to, then the Rule of Thrice will bring the greed and harm back onto the caster three-fold. Those few who seem to think Wicca will give them magical powers will soon be disillusioned and give up the idea of becoming a Wiccian wizard.
Wiccians seem to be broken down into 2 groups. The true Wiccian and the fashionable Wiccian. The true Wiccian believes in the healing arts, weither it is helping their fellow humans and never bringing them harm or healing Mother Earth (Gaea). Fashionable Wiccians are out for personal gain. They play around with Wicca, casting spells, never realizing the truth, spells cast for greedy, selfish or harmful purposes are just Satanism, a Christian way of linking Wicca with the devil.
As no true Wicca uses these harmful spells, then, by connecting them with Wicca then Christians can attack Wiccians even more. While Christians would love to link the magic of Harry Potter to Wicca to drive another wedge into their attempts to distroy it, only a very foolish person after looking into Wicca would follow the practice of Wicca thinking they'd gain Potter-like magical powers.
by Gary666 on December 22nd, 2006
Did young people convert to becoming a Pirate after reading Treasure Island?
by Gary666 on December 22nd, 2006
Harry Potter is a Wizard - Not Wiccan, Witch or Pagan. All are diffrent.
by LanaMare on September 26th, 2004
No, there isn't. Harry Potter is fiction. Wicca is real and Wicca doesn't include sparkles coming out of wands and levitation, but it does include divination. Harry Potter is just a fictional idea of a world where witchcraft is really like that and that is all it is: fictious. As for me, I myself am a Wiccan and was not convinced, only inside a dream.
by eternal0void on May 15th, 2007
Christian websites keep saying that interest in Wicca, spells, and witchcraft increased 200% in 2004 as a result of the release of the Harry Potter series. Of course, none of them ever point to the actual statistics, which is vitally important to determining whether or not any of this is even worth the time to think about it: if the interest to start with was 1,000 people a year, a 200% increase would be to 3,000, hardly worth mentioning.
Of interest, though, is the increasing trend for Christians to see Christian messages in Harry Potter.
http://www.christianpost.com/article/20050716/7625_Finding_God_in_Harry_Potter.htm
"According to Reg Grant, a professor of pastoral ministries at Dallas Theological Seminary, more and more Christians are discovering in these novels many lessons to “celebrate and shake hands on,” reported the Dallas Morning News.
For Grant, much credit goes to the films.
"I think the movies illustrated how much Christian theology has in common with the message of Harry Potter,” said Grant. “Without the movies, we would still have a huge uproar.""
by Charisma Granger on January 26th, 2005
Well if any "young people" were to try to attempt to practice wicca magic after reading the HP novels I never heard of it. I'm a fan of the book and movies and I know that they have nothing to do with wicca magic. Now thinking of Willow from Buffy the vampire slayer that is the study of wicca beliefs and magic. Harry Potter is a fictional book made up of wand waving that cause magical "sparks" to come out to start the spell. As in the simple spell used in the 3rd book/movie Prision of Azkaban, "lumos maxima" which means maximize light.I do believe.
In wicca it is harder to do spells it deals with languages and other terms not known to the common "young people". It takes years to practice wicca not a simple month or so after reading a Harry Potter book. If you compare Harry Potter to Wicca Magic you would see that they are totally different. To be a wizard/witch of Harry Potter you have to be born a witch or wizard or somehow your non magical father and non magical mother carry a "gene" that makes you become a muggleborn wizard. In fact this gene does not exist nor has it been recorded.
To go to "Hogwarts" you have to recieve a letter at the age of 11 or 12. So that cancels out the age group from 11 and above. Now for the younger kids if they haven't somehow made their aunt become full of water or release a dangerous snake out of some zoo then they have no ounce of magical talents in them. ;-)
Wicca magic is the study of love, strength, darkness, and all that, that dweals with life. It takes yearS to study and a person who knows more then just reading a few books or movies would know how to do one of its 'spells'. Watching a few teens saying stuff like "wingardium leviosa" or "lumos" won't qualify you as a magical person.
by dark wiccan on April 29th, 2008
i don't believe so. Harry Potter and wicca are two totally different things by far. for one spells don't work instantly EVER. two we don't run around with wands doing magick. third where is all of the pentegrams in Harry Potter. us wiccans use them to protect ourselves i have yet to see or hear about any person in Harry Potter using a pentegram for protection. the young people that are saying that they are converting to wicca because of Harry Potter is very confused. wicca is totally different.
by Pumby umby umpkin Est. 1989 on September 7th, 2007
Harry Potter doesnt mention energy or Spirit does it? Nor does it mention Wicca as a religion. I think magazines have a lot to answer for, since when I was 12 there was a trend caused by an article in a magazine and spells printed in them.
by Wiseman27 on January 6th, 2007
All I can say for you Answers 101, is I feel sympathy for you because you are enslaved to your fear as I once was. I am not currently Wiccan but am taking a serious look at it because I used to be a strict fundamentalist Christian, but due to my alcoholism, my christian beliefs kept me from going to AA because of it's "demonic doctrine". When I realized I was a slave to fear because of the claims from the Bible about non christians going to hell which can't be proven or disproven, I said no more to Yahwei(I apologize if the spelling is incorrect). Did I look at Wicca due to HP or anything else, nope. The God and Goddess are not the vengeful gods that the Christian god is. No more forfeiting my ability to live in REALITY instead of FANTASY due to religious dogma. If I was still Christian I would be doomed to killing myself drinking because fear is one of the worst issues that hinder sobriety for alcy's(I don't care if you don't believe that, I know that from first hand experience). So again, I really feel for you because you are totally enslaved to FEAR....
by ella_D_sinnah on November 30th, 2004
I may say that HP novels influence children/youth to become interested in wicca or witchcraft, as I myself have been one of them. When children/youth read the book, they are being exposed to such world that they dream of and would dream to exist. In my case, i am very much into magic and spells and stuff that go with it, and when i read these books, it led to a deeper interest that made me research more about these. but i'm pretty sure they won't want to be converted because it is a much different aspect. Fantasies are very different from reality. They can never clash, although they are always parallel.
by FaceNthaBackground on July 26th, 2009
I was dragged to one of those Harry Potter book release parties at a book store and nobody was around the Occult section.
by Ayla01 on April 29th, 2008
Yeah. But my generation had that movie The Craft and we pretty well much got over it.
Except for the couple of retards running around still playing light as a feather/stiff as a board. but ignore them, everyone does.
i have a sideways tree shaped birthmark just under and behind my left eye and i feel like it has a connection to the craft. does it?
by Treemarkedwiccan on June 21st, 2011
| 1 person likes this
does any body know a spell i could use to solve this problem?
by Haley_S3227 on June 26th, 2011
| 2 people like this
I am turning seventeen in a couple of months. I was wondering if there is any special wiccan tradition?
by Katrina_M3834 on May 10th, 2011
| 3 people like this
im like a wiccan and my male god is thoth, the gyptian god of writing. How do i whorship him?
by drummergurl12 on May 15th, 2011
| 3 people like this
What are Wiccan weddings like? traditional and modern
by Haley_S3227 on May 10th, 2011
| 1 person likes this
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Comments
Very true!
by 8 Jan 2004-10 Dec 2009 on June 3rd, 2004
On the money
by Andy Is Wicked Married to Penal Colony on July 29th, 2004
If Harry Potter celebrates Christmas, does that mean he's Christian?
by matermotley on November 2nd, 2005
Subjective yet INCORRECT answer. Statistics prove otherwise, girl.
by Answers101 on March 12th, 2006
@101 put up or shut up, show your proof little man!
by Serai-K on March 24th, 2006
101 - if you are so against Wicca, why come to this topic at all? Is it just to spew religious bigotry and hatred, or do you have a vested interest in propogating misinformation?
by AntigoneRising on September 6th, 2006
I am no exepert on wicca or any religion for that matter. But I do love to read and I don't recall any of the Harry Potter books refering to wicca, or any god or religions at all.
by Anonymous on December 17th, 2006
Correct me if I am wrong but aren't Wiccans and Witches totally different things?
by Namaste formerly future_health_educator on May 15th, 2007
Yes and no. Wiccans practice magic, but not all Witches subscribe to Wiccan theology. Wicca is a religion (theology) that incorporates magic. So, the groups can overlap. It isn't that Wiccan and W/witch are the same (synonyms), though.
by AntigoneRising on May 15th, 2007
The difficulty here is that Wicca is a somewhat broad religion, such that it is somewhat difficult to be a non-Wiccan Witch. You actually have to be outside nature religions entirely, such as "Witches" who are actually Satanists (in the old Torquemada tradition), to be a non-Wiccan Witch.
by eternal0void on August 27th, 2007
Not true eternal0void. Witches practice witchcraft. Wiccans practice witchcraft with theology. All a non-Wiccan witch would have to do to be a witch is not attach theological meanings to their workings.
by hedge-rider on July 27th, 2009
It's ludicrous to associate non-Wiccan witchcraft with Satanism. Satanists are Satanists, not witches. They're two entirely different "species".
by Anonymous on September 15th, 2009
Michael, when you said that being a Wiccan depends on "dedication to learning the real beliefs and history", you raised an important issue. Could you tell us the real history of Wicca (ie, it's origin)?
by Anonymous on September 15th, 2009
Since when do facts and reality play *any* part in the thought process of the Reactionary Right?
by 8 Jan 2004-10 Dec 2009 on September 15th, 2009
The instant a Witch practices Witchcraft using a neo-Pagan Deity, a Wiccan ritual has occurred. Blame the non-dogmatic nature of Wiccanism for that one.
.
Basically I'm saying that if you have no dogma you can't claim that a similar behavior isn't part of the dogma you don't have.
by eternal0void on October 5th, 2009