.: Articles / A Real Life Hogwarts? Hogwash
A
Real Life Hogwarts? Hogwash
Victoria
Coren Sunday August 14, 2005 The Observer (UK)
An
Austrian school for witchcraft and wizardry has reported a surge
in recruitment since the publication of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood
Prince. When the Hexenschule first opened in 2003, the world's press
scoffed, but two years later, it is booming.
Everybody
wants to go to Hogwarts! All Europe is rushing to sign up for this
school where, presumably, you can fail to hand in homework on the
grounds that it turned into a dog. If you let off a stink bomb,
I expect the teacher just says: 'Ah, sulphur ... ' and wipes away
a sentimental tear. (I'm not saying the school is evil, but it is
Austrian.)
The
very existence of the Hexenschule, nestled in the mountains of Klagenfurt,
is reassuring proof that Tony Blair is not the only person committed
to university places for all. British educational theory has been,
for some time, that one must chase after teenagers and throw qualifications
at them, creating 'academic disciplines' out of tourism, media and
sport. If they refuse to engage, then we simply enlarge the syllabus
further until it engulfs whatever they happen to be interested in.
There is no hiding from qualifications, kids! If you bunk off math
and skulk behind the bike sheds listening to your iPod, we will
hunt you down and give you a degree in 'iPod Studies' or 'Bike Shed
Culture'. Ha!
But
it isn't just Britain, we now discover. Pupils at the Hexenschule
learn astrology, potion-making and the history of magic. If all
goes well, headmaster and grand wizard Dakaneth (real name Andreas
Starchel) presents them with a 'Veneficus Certificate', which will
be of tremendous use when applying for a job at McDonald's, mainly
because when they get bored they can turn a customer into a toad.
(I was going to say something about turning a toad into a hamburger,
but I know how long these McLibel cases take).
Unfortunately,
there is a major flaw in the concept of a witchcraft academy, one
that JK Rowling neatly masks with pumpkin juice and quidditch. The
problem is that magic, 'real' magic of the occultist kind, the kind
that must surely be taught by anybody claiming to offer 'a history
of magic', is at direct odds with the principle of schooling.
'"Do
What Thou Wilt" shall be the only law,' said occultist Aleister
Crowley, but as I remember it, my headmistress said precisely the
opposite. 'Do What Thou Wilt' was the only bloody rule they didn't
have.
School
is all about taming children and teaching them to deny their immediate
wants for broader social reasons. But 'magic' is all about freedom
of thought and the bringing to bear of personal desires. Crowley
also said: 'Magick is the science and art of causing change to occur
in conformity with will.' Even satanists these days are using the
devil mainly as a metaphor to represent the shaking off of restrictive
social and moral conformity and the embracing of opposites, i.e.
selfishness.
I
know a tiny bit about this subject, having discovered on the internet
that a Dutch satanist has named himself after a character in a book
I once co-wrote. The book's villain was called Doctor Reginald Osiris,
a name which, we explained, denoted 'the most evil man in existence'.
Our book is a comic one. The satanist took it seriously. Let's just
say that I am somewhat confused by the compliment. It is hard to
describe the mixed feelings which arise when one's book is described
as 'wonderful' by a man who worships at the Cathedral of the Black
Goat.
So
anyway, I discovered from the fellow's website (and further investigation),
that all this Crowleyesque magical stuff is heavily focused on the
idea that Judaeo-Christian teaching is enslaving us, and doing what
we are told is inherently wrong. If you were the headmaster of a
witchcraft school, how exactly would you deal with a student who
was late with an essay on this subject?
Some
things are just meant to be extra-curricular.
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