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Maine bookstore holds divinations celebrating latest Potter release

A spokesman for the Christian Civic League of Maine (CCL) is calling a pre-release event for the latest "Harry Potter" book -- Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows -- a satanically inspired event, an event that was mirrored in bookstores around the globe.



The "Midnight Magic Costume Party" was held last weekend at a Barnes & Noble outlet in Augusta, Maine. CCL spokesman Mike Hein says the event included fortune-telling using a brand of occult tarot cards called "Gypsy Witch." He also says that the event was held in the "Children's Department" with several hundred children in attendance.

According to Hein, store employees also used the book Cards of your Destiny, a book that shows how to use birthdays to tell fortunes, for the pre-teens and teens who waited in line for an opportunity to experience what the store literally labeled as "divination" by having their tarot fortunes read.

The League spokesman asserts that despite the Bible clearly warning against associating with that activity and spiritists and mediums, many Christians, even prominent ones, are trying to find a proper fit for the Harry Potter literature genre in their belief system by calling it Christian allegory.

"I see the people who are actually saying it, going out on a bit of a limb, and perhaps there is some deception involved, unintentionally so, on their part," he says. "They want so much for this negative to have a silver lining, that they're seeing something where there really isn't any positive overall in this series."

Hein, who was present at the event, says even he was taken aback by the store's labeling of that "Children's Department" activity as divination, which he says should be a clue to any Christian readers and observers that they tie in to the Bible's warning in Deuteronomy 18 about avoiding such an occult activity.

If this doesn't open Christians eyes to what Harry Potter is all about then they are indeed blind to the word of God.

Evangelist says Bible speaks to Potter series 'white magic'

It is no coincidence that a Christian ministry has updated its comic book parody of the "Harry Potter" series in time for the latest Potter movie and book releases. Evangelist Tim Todd, who heads up Revival Fires International, says both the church and the secular world need to understand the danger for children and teens in embracing occult literature.



Todd acknowledges that no book series in recent years has achieved the success of the "Harry Potter" series, which he describes as well-written -- but whose spiritual nature and philosophy is in opposition to scripture, he points out. Many young readers, he surmises, are often simply drawn to the drama and fantasy of the Potter series, without realizing the spiritual nature of the books.

"The Harry Potter books present a Godless universe -- one in which the most powerful wizard wins," says the evangelist. "And in these books, the hero is a wizard who shows no evidence of belief in God and does not use the power of prayer to combat evil."

Todd contends the church has not looked closely enough at the phenomenon of the wizard's saga and the danger of it from a biblical standpoint. "The Harry Potter series -- it promotes sacrificing animals; it's emphasizing power regardless of good or evil; offering up blood sacrifices," he explains. "In Deuteronomy chapter 18, it says that sorcery and witchcraft is wrong, it's sin .... This is not something that we want to be promoting to our children as being a good thing," Todd emphasizes.

The ministry leader shares a story related the Potter series. "[T]his past week, in a children's [Bible] camp, there was a little girl who was just absolutely sold out on Harry Potter," he says. According to Todd, the girl repented of her obsession with the characters, but only after reading the "Harry Polarity and the Sinister Sorcery Satire" comic -- which is contained in his ministry's "Truth for Youth" Bibles.

Because of cases like the girl in the Bible camp, he urges parents to realize that Satan is trying to reach even their children in church. "We need to keep our children as far away from the things of the devil as we possibly can," Todd urges.

I agree with pastor Roger...