Harry Potter and the Disenchantment of the World

Educators and reviewers have credited J. K. Rowling's mega-hit children's series with introducing a new generation of readers to a magical world of wonder; Rowling is regularly compared to C. S. Lewis or J. R. R. Tolkien. At the same time, some Christians have decried the books as portals to the New Age, Wicca, and diabolical magic. Through an examination of the Christian rhetoric on both sides of the debate and a comparison of the Harry Potter books to historical examples of magic, I hope to show that Rowling's work presents magic-as-technology. The disenchanted magical world of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry reflects secularity in the same way that Tolkien's work reflected his romantic nostalgia for an imagined religious past. Harry Potter's brand of magic thus shows the degree to which wonder has been standardized and commodified in 21st-century consumer society.