WIZARD PEOPLE, DEAR READER
". . . Let us dare to say that a man is a mortal god and a celestial god is an immortal man." Such is the truth of the "new race" that the Royal Art of the "Sons of Hermes" is building on earth, elevating what has fallen, calming the "thirst," restoring power to the enfeebled, bestowing the fixed and impassive gaze of the "eagle" to the wounded eye blinded by the "lightning flash," conferring Olympian and royal dignity to what used to be a Titan. (Julius Evola, The Hermetic Tradition)
Dumbledore: It was because of your mother. She sacrificed herself for you, and that kind of act leaves a mark.
[Harry reaches up to touch his scar]
Dumbledore: No, no. This kind of mark cannot be seen. It lives in your very skin.
Harry: What is it?
Dumbledore: Love, Harry. Love.
He started having nightmares. Over and over again he dreamed about his parents disappearing in a flash of green light, while a high voice cackled with laughter. (Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone)
Lily marries the Potter. The dead parents, once again, have been killed by the "lightning flash" of the descending Logos on the Tree of Life (Batman syndrome).
Dumbledore: It was because of your mother. She sacrificed herself for you, and that kind of act leaves a mark.
[Harry reaches up to touch his scar]
Dumbledore: No, no. This kind of mark cannot be seen. It lives in your very skin.
Harry: What is it?
Dumbledore: Love, Harry. Love.
He started having nightmares. Over and over again he dreamed about his parents disappearing in a flash of green light, while a high voice cackled with laughter. (Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone)
Lily marries the Potter. The dead parents, once again, have been killed by the "lightning flash" of the descending Logos on the Tree of Life (Batman syndrome).
The alchemist, like his predecessors the smith and the potter or like the magicians and shamans of ancient civilizations, was first and foremost a master of fire. The alchemist represents the demiurge, the divine craftsman who works with an elusive and often chaotic prima materia, attempting to transcend time while rendering matter a spiritual dimension and looking for ways to reach personal perfection and immortality . . . (Transformational Tarot)
As was previously mentioned, the Harry Potter series is an elaborate alchemical mythos in which Harry the Demiurge must work to combine Ron Weasley (Sulphur) and Hermione Granger (Mercury) to create Ginny, the Rubedo-Self (Lapis Philosophorum). The Shadow, or Voldemort, must be annihilated.
"I've never wanted to be a witch, but an alchemist, now that's a different matter. To invent this wizard world, I've learned a ridiculous amount about alchemy. . . ." . . . In Chamber of Secrets, for instance, she refers to the hand of glory drawn from a grisly legend which claims that the chopped-off hand of a hanged man becomes a torch when lit, but only to the one who holds it. "That's macabre, I know, but a wonderful image, and I wish I'd invented it." (J.K. Rowling)
(The "Hand of Glory" has an alchemical undermeaning, as, indeed, do most of the rituals of ceremonial magic, which serve to confuse and befuddle the profane.)
The Great Work consists in the ruling of the serpent fire. In Philosopher's Stone, Harry's initiation begins when he befriends just such a serpent, which pours out its wrath on the profane Muggles. Like the Wounded King, Rubeus Hagrid's (ruby) wand is broken; the Titan is not allowed to do magick any longer. Hagrid turns Harry's foster father into a pig. He "holds a rod in his hands, beautiful, golden, wherewith he spell-binds the eyes of men whomsoever he would, and wakes them again from sleep."
The Muggle World and Hogwarts interpenetrate; one's magickal initiation on the King's Cross begins when one learns to "read between the lines" and find platform 9¾. Then the prison becomes a school. When Hermione first meets Ron, she attempts to turn his rat yellow (that is, transmute crude Sulphur into Gold), but her time has not yet come.
"I remember every wand I've ever sold, Mr. Potter. Every single wand. It so happens that the phoenix whose tail feather is in your wand, gave another feather -- just one other. It is very curious indeed that you should be destined for this wand when its brother why, its brother gave you that scar. [...] The wand chooses the wizard, remember.... I think we must expect great things from you, Mr. Potter.... After all, He- Who-Must-Not-Be-Named did great things -- terrible, yes, but great." Harry shivered.
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| Winston Smith? ("Their magic must be very powerful, or she wouldn't want them so badly.") |
Harry and Voldemort's wands are filled with exactly the same "stuff". Ahem. Harry is a "seeker". (How much do you think J.K. Rowling smirks every time she writes about Harry grasping his wand tightly, its immense power surging through him?)
The Quidditch field is a characteristically Masonic checkerboard, on which the principles of light and darkness battle it out. Gryffindor vs. Slytherin. DOOR vs. ROOD. Agape vs. Eros. The white and black flames. (If I need to spell out the symbolism behind a bunch of boys with sticks between their legs . . .) But while Slytherin's colors are a simple black-and-white duality, Gryffindor's are gold and red, symbolizing higher aspiration.
Unicorn blood is Mercury. Harry[son Ford]'s unicorn--that is, his soul, as it exists in potentia--is dead. Voldemort, the Shadow, is the murderer, as he has stolen its energy for himself.
Harry has to research the Philosopher's Stone in the restricted section of the library. (Seek and the sincere "Seeker" shall find.) The school has strange beasts lurking in its rooms . . . the Philosopher's Stone is on the third floor (third stage, Rubedo). Death to anyone who goes there. This is classic descent into the underworld, of course.
"Devil's Snare, Devil's Snare... what did Professor Sprout say? -- it likes the dark and the damp --"
"So light a fire!" Harry choked.
"Yes -- of course -- but there's no wood!" Hermione cried, wringing her hands.
"HAVE YOU GONE MAD?" Ron bellowed. "ARE YOU A WITCH OR NOT?"
"Oh, right!" said Hermione, and she whipped out her wand, waved it, muttered something, and sent a jet of the same bluebell flames she had used on Snape at the plant. In a matter of seconds, the two boys felt it loosening its grip as it cringed away from the light and warmth. Wriggling and flailing, it unraveled itself from their bodies, and they were able to pull free.
Voldemort must use Harry to find the Stone. The first book is a Nigredo; Harry integrates Voldemort into himself and the Stone disappears. Nicolas Flamel, a glyph of the Alchemist himself, must now "die". Everyone is wearing a black hat at the end. This is where insanity and death occur.
"See what I have become?" the face said. "Mere shadow and vapor ... I have form only when I can share another's body... but there have always been those willing to let me into their hearts and minds.... Unicorn blood has strengthened me, these past weeks... you saw faithful Quirrell drinking it for me in the forest... and once I have the Elixir of Life, I will be able to create a body of my own...."
And thus Harry must repeatedly venture into the dark forest of the unconscious. SPIDERS EVERYWHERE. Archon, arachnid. (Punishment? He shouldn't have messed with the Major Tom Riddle.)
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| "To get things done, you'd better not mess with Major Tom." (Fair warning.) |
In Chamber of Secrets, Tom Riddle is the Old Adam that must be overcome. The answer to the Riddle of the Sphinx is "Man." And Harry, of course, = Tom = Voldemort, as Rowling makes clear through numerous parallels.
There are strange likenesses between us, after all. Even you must have noticed. Both half-bloods, orphans, raised by Muggles. Probably the only two Parselmouths to come to Hogwarts since the great Slytherin himself. We even look something alike . . .
“Every thinking man is an Oedipus called to solve the enigma of the Sphinx or, this failing, to die,” says Éliphas Lévi (History of Magic, p. 121). A History of Magic is one of the books Harry reads (Harry Reid?).
Our task is to liberate these animal energies that have been, for most of our lives, caught in an instinctual cycle of repetition. The ludicrous little dictator holds them in thrall . . . its energy is primal; its power is regal. . . . The tarot sphinx presents us with a heroic task, the challenge of human beingness, daring us to find meaning in a system seemingly propelled by mere animal energy . . . the enigmatic sphinx . . . is actually suggesting the humanisation of animality and the total integration of our humanity, without eradicating any of our earthiness. (Hederman, Tarot: Talisman or Taboo? Reading the World as Symbol, pp. 154-155)
Rowling describes the face beheld in the Chamber of Secrets as simian in appearance--this is the Sphinx of Giza, a creature with the face of a monkey and the hindquarters of a lion.
Harry had to crane his neck to look up into the giant face above: It was ancient and monkeyish, with a long, thin beard that fell almost to the bottom of the wizard's sweeping stone robes . . .
Ginny is the Little Red Haired Girl, of course. Ginny, as the Self, gets weaker when Voldemort, the anti-Self, gets stronger. Ron, her brother, is Sulphur. This is an important alchemical hint. Sulphur fixum est sol.
Ginny poured out her soul to me, and her soul happened to be exactly what I wanted. . . . I grew stronger and stronger on a diet of her deepest fears, her darkest secrets. I grew powerful, far more powerful than little Miss Weasley. Powerful enough to start feeding Miss Weasley a few of my secrets, to start pouring a little of my soul back into her [. . .] She put too much into the diary, into me.
To those who have been paying attention, the alchemical import of the Basilisk in Chamber of Secrets needs no further explanation. HARRY LOVES SNAKES. He can speak their language. He defeats the Basilisk with the sword of Air (= alchemical sublimation) by taking its tooth. That is, he now harnesses the fire of the libido and turns it to the purpose of becoming a Magister Templi. The tears of the Phoenix are the Elixir of Life.
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| Kill Bill |
Harry has to Finish the Book (that is, Full-fill the Law, Adam's Original Sin). By plunging the tooth of the Basilisk into Tom Riddle's diary, he is indicating the Tantric doctrine that karma is purged away through fire.
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| A man of many books. (Rupert Murdoch?) |
Rowling has to show the connection between "Rubeus" Hagrid and "Iron" Weasley by making both of their wands broken. Then she shows the connection between the Malfoys and Voldemort by having Lucius Malfoy give the Tom Riddle diary to Ginny. In effect, then, Rowling is saying that Lucius is responsible for veiling Isis (Ginny) by heaping Tom's sins on Her. Thus the reptilian ego (the Malfoys) creates the Shadow, Voldemort.
Directly paralleling this, Harry gives Gilde-Roy Lockhart's (the Ego King's) books (karmic records, again) to Ginny at the start of Chamber. Lockhart, like the ignorant Gnostic Demiurge, has no magic of his own and must take credit for others' work. Gilderoy loses his memories at the end of the second book, coinciding with the destruction of Tom Riddle's diary. We will recall the words of another Roy: "All these moments will be lost . . ."
Tom Riddle's diary is clearly meant to look like a Bible. The Veil of Isis is comprised of "All prejudice, all superstition, dead tradition and ancestral loathing. All combine to darken her face before the eyes of men" (Aleister Crowley). This is symbolized by the tribal deity of the Old Testament, who veils the Shekinah (per the initiated Kabbalists); i.e. "God" as ego is a conglomeration of social pre-conditioning.
Once again, there is a Living Dead Girl in the bathroom. Avenge her death?
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| "The fountain is a waterdoor, and parallels other water-door stargates such as those Rachel Weisz is often sound soaking in, usually in a romantic entanglement . . ." (The Stygian Port) |
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| "Finish it." |
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| Finished? |
. . .