Harry Potter and the Small Step

As a child the first book I read cover-to-cover was a Western. The first thing that I saved up to buy with my pocket money was a cap gun. My parents were not afraid of me turning to a life of violent crime because of the big step between play-acting and handling real guns. Later when I did start handling guns, the first lesson I was given was in weapons safety. Later, in the army, weapons safety was drilled into me.

Today, the first book a child may read cover-to-cover could be about the occult. Children’s interest in such books as the Harry Potter series provide us with a great opportunity to teach our children not only to handle unseen forces but to overcome them with the power of Jesus.

Unlike the imaginative world of Westerns, there is a very small step for us from play-acting about unseen forces to actively summoning and using them. Our own children could well have been the objects of such destructive behaviour. When I was a child my parents taught me how to look after myself when faced with physical and emotional bullying. Today we could well add the psychic dimension to such parental guidance.

The most important thing for our children to know is that God loves them.  Jesus protects them from all forms of evil. If they love God and do what he wants then psychic attacks and evil curses are going to bounce off them and often they won’t even know about it.

The next important thing is that those who use spells and such things need help. So if your children think that others are doing something creepy then tell them to ask God to bless those people. This will confuse whatever unseen forces they are trying to use.  It will also show them that the goodness of God is better than whatever they are using.

Then it is helpful for our children to know that there are good beings in the unseen realm too. These are our Angels and Saints. Two encouraging prayers are the Prayer to St Michael and the Prayer to the Guardian Angels. The Rosary is another powerful prayer.

With so many occult films and television programmes around these days, we can say that unseen influences have become accepted into the fabric of the contemporary culture. Our Children need to learn how to overcome the destructive influences they portray. They need to know in a practical way that Jesus is the Lord of everything, seen and unseen. So here is a great prayer and a great proclamation for creepy situations:

 “Every knee shall bend, every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.” (Philippians 2:10-11)