Originally posted by Susan
1: Prove an actual and practicable occult practice in the books or movie, one that is at the least analogous to and preferably actual paganism.
I think a case *might* be made for the crystal ball used by the "Divinations" teacher... But at the same time, perhaps it is worth observing that the Divinations teacher is clearly known by everyone present to be an amusing but harmless fraud.
I can't speak for pagans, but the Thelemites and Hermetic "magi" use wands. However, the usages are totally different; in "real" magic, the wand is mostly a symbol, and may be used as a focus when drawing diagrams, etcetra. In Harry Potter, you pretty much have to have a wand to do anything, and you point it directly at your target (or swish it around) and say funny things in pseudo-latin. In real thaumaturgy, a broken wand does not cause you to throw up slugs.
4: Prove that the author was actually anti-Christian. This requires 3 in context quotes from interviews in reliable sources.
Of particular note: There's a widely quoted interview on the subject, which is *A PARODY*. It originally appeared in _The Onion_, under the headline "Harry Potter books spark rise in Satanism".
I personally found the article absolutely hilarious because of the juxtaposition of things real kids say with the kinds of things people accused the books of promoting; as an example, one child was quoted as saying:
"Hermione is my favorite, because she's pretty and has a kitty. Jesus died because He was weak and stupid."
If that quote, or a similar one, appears in a source, I suspect it shows that the source was misled by the (IMHO, very funny) parody article.
(The article itself contains a number of statements which would certainly be blasphemous if anyone actually meant them.)
5: Prove that watching/reading/hearing something fictional causes someone to practice it in real life.
I think you could find some evidence for this, but with one crucial limitation: Children know the difference between make-believe and real stories. You will see kids who want to be a firefighter because they read about it and think it's cool. You will not generally see kids who plan to study real magic because they read about wizards. You occasionally see "wow, if magic were real, it'd be fun", but if you tell them about real magic, the normal instinct kicks in and they say "eww, that doesn't sound fun". Real magic is not like the stuff in fairy tales.
IMHO this is a small secondary issue. It is NOT real witchcraft, but at the most bad reading material. There are much bigger sins out there.
You are quite correct. Personally, I'd rather have kids read a bit of bad stuff, and thus get drawn into reading other books (like the Bible) for recreation, than have them dislike books.