.: Testimonies

Anonymous Testimony

"I am a true example of how the Harry Potter books can open your life to witchcraft.

I was raised in a Christian home and attended Church all my life. I first became fascinated with witchcraft by reading Harry Potter at school. My teachers encouraged the students to read this book. Little did I know that by reading the first Harry Potter book, my nightmare had just begun.

After reading the first book, many of my classmates decided that we wanted to learn more about witchcraft. While at school, we looked up witchcraft on the Internet. We looked up how to become a witch and how to perform the Craft. To us the Harry Potter books made witchcraft seem mystical, exciting, and innocent.

One of the girls brought tarot cards to school so we could predict our futures. We continued to search for information on how to perform spells, curses, potions, hexes, and vexes - just like Harry and other characters in the books. We also did a séance during P.E.

A séance is when you raise up "spirits" and you speak to them. As a former witch, I can tell you that witchcraft is not fantasy - it's for real.

I became an angry, bitter, depressed, vengeful, manipulative, despondent, rebellious person. I felt that I could not escape the dark clutches of witchcraft. I was drowning in a religion which at first, I thought was peaceful & loving, but the more I learned, the more I realized that it was evil, and Satanic.

I am here to testify that witchcraft is harmful, and Harry Potter books are Witchcraft 101! This is also dangerous because they are represented to children, and teenagers. I remember many children telling me that they were "hooked" into witchcraft by Harry Potter. I AM NOT THE ONLY ONE.

By the 7th grade I was so depressed that I set a date to kill myself. Shortly before I was going to kill myself, I told one of my Christian friends what I had been doing. She told my mom, and my mom got me help.

It has taken several years of counseling to get back to where I was before I started witchcraft and reading Harry Potter books.

I truly believe Harry Potter And The Sorcerer's Stone and all other Harry Potter books should be banned from Gwinnett County Schools.

I want to prevent another child or teenager from going through the trauma that my family and I endured.

- Anonymous, Age. 16

Areas that have been examined related to Harry Potter locally in therapy sessions. Marriage & Family Therapist/Counselor for 16 years in Lawrenceville, GA

1) It increases the fear response in the body increasing anxiety /panic attacks. A grade school child is more prone to fear than older children. This includes nightmares, insomnia, phobias, all related to the feelings of being out of control, fear of the unknown, fear of being controlled by others, fear of being in a zombie like stage/or a robot of someone else's will. Children usually can put themselves into the fantasy being told and don't know what to do to stop things that appear so powerful. It can even become a place of victim mentality for them, if they continue to process on what happened in the movie and apply it to what is weak in their own lives.

2) Increase in occult involvement by stimulation of curiosity to read and get involved in occult practices: Wicca, Satanism, and witchcraft. These movies have been the beginning door for others that have now been exposed to depression, anxiety, and ritual abuse in these groups.

3) It validates the ability to control and manipulate others as being a good thing in which children can be involved. It becomes acceptable behavior while our school may frown on control and manipulation, which gives conflicting, messages and is confusing to the child.

4) Opens them up to the "mind over matter" ideas that can fuel desires for more paranormal activity-seeking and/or delusional thinking.

5) Fight/flight adrenaline response can become addicting to the child and the high that is felt by these fearful encounters or stories. This addiction to fight/flight response increases the stress level which is proven linked to cardiovascular disease, hypertension, digestive tract diseases; like ulcers, colitis, irritable bowel, Crohns disease, decreased immune response, and skin disorders like psoriasis, eczema, and stress acne. Do we want to start that pattern in our children of stress, highs, and addicted behaviors? As well as future health problems?

6) Asthma/breathing problems can flare up in a fear encounter. How strong the fearful response gets is related to how open the child is to the fear and what they believe. Do we really want to feed these things in our children? What we feed will grow eventually. We cannot say that it will grow tomorrow but it usually does grow. I even have adults that have watched fearful/occult movies that still today have to be in therapy to release the effect caused on their systems. The memory is just as clear as the day they saw it and can be just as tormenting.

Case histories: (these are just a few of the many over the last 16 yrs)

An 8-year-old child was brought in for counseling who had been having nightmares, insomnia, and fearful daydreams, afraid of witches/wizards that may come to get him after watching the movies and reading the books of Harry Potter. He refused to go to school thinking that they would meet him there and do some awful thing to him. His fears were unfounded but were related to the writings of Harry Potter. We had to go back into these memories to relieve the fear response that had overwhelmed him. His mom described him as tormented in his mind.

A 7-year-old had a flare-up of eczema after reading the books and watching Harry Potter movies. He could not sleep, began to have phobias and anxiety related to both situations and objects. His mom awoke to find the child scratching uncontrollably until he sat in a bloody mess in the bed night after night. His arms have been permanently scarred from where the nails dung into the skin. She not only had to bring him to therapy but also to the medical doctor to get ointment/antibiotic for his rash.

A thirteen-year-old was brought into counseling who was into WICCA; which had almost destroyed their family of 6. Continual confusion, mental focusing problems, flare-ups with anger and frustration had caused so much strife that it was almost a DFAC's case. The young girl related how she had read the books at school and it caused her curiosity to be peaked to study spells and the control of others against their will. She got a thrill she said in being able to see evil entities and dispatch them at her own bidding. The girl and family are now stable after therapy. She was on the verge of delusional patterns in talking to things her family stated were not there.

Another child of 9 years had unusual behavior related to his closet and his belief that something resided in that place that was evil. He stated that things moved in the closet and he had read how things lurked in darkness in the Harry Potter episodes and concluded that these things were wanting his soul. He would avoid his room and particularly the closet. He would not put anything into it or even hang up his clothes. His Mom made it worse by punishing him and making him stay in the room or sleeping in it alone. When storms came he would have panic attacks and the anxiety would increase until he was totally overwhelmed.

I had a 12-year-old that had become addicted to pot and other street drugs and refused to tell us just what drugs had been used because he did not want to get into trouble. He stated that he used to get high on fearful movies and books like Stephen king, Harry Potter, Hannibal and others. He then moved to weird roller coasters, bungees and then other risky behaviors. His statement to me was that "those lesser highs were no longer working so he had to find something harder (more powerful) to get high on. II Fear gives you a real charge he would say.

Another 12 year old has been trying to control his parents and has multiple power games with his family, and especially girls trying t9 get them to do what he wants them to do. He has been quite a manipulator of teachers and continually gets ideas he says from the occult books like Harry Potter and others in both school and public library. He seems fascinated with the occult realm, spirits, and death.

The Harry Potter series of books and movies even though popular have increased in power and grown in the amount of occult involvement. We have a rash of children and teens killing their parents or killing themselves because they see no way out of these tormenting areas when the fear takes over their minds. I have been a campus dean in education and feel a duty to help the learning process but not to build things in others that may be to their detriment. That detrimental response is against the very foundations of learning and teaching a child.

M. McWhorter, RN, CMFT, BSN, MA

Testimony

I am a Gwinnett County teacher, and I just wanted to let you know that shortly after your case made news a year ago, Scholastic had a book fair at my school in which they sold the book "Wizardology" alongside Harry Potter. The book came to my attention when I found a group of students huddled over the book casting spells in my class. My complaint to the media specialist was met with rolled eyes.

My principal took the complaint a little more seriously and the book hasn't been back in the book fair since.

I thought you might find this interesting since the book Wizardology is "nonfiction" and comes with several interactive tools, including tarot cards. The book teaches spells, how to read palms, and encourages kids to attempt flying on a broom. The book is out of my school, but I can only wonder how many copies scholastic has sold by placing it right next to "Harry Potter" at other school book fairs.