'Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince', kid's stuff is a thing of the past

I Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince Poster

Most importantly, the end of Half-Blood Prince marks the end of Harry’s childhood. Arguably the most important line of the whole book, and even the series, is the following:

"I am not worried, Harry," said Dumbledore, his voice a little stronger despite the freezing water. "I am with you."

This was the point in time when we realized that Harry had truly become his own person, an adult wizard, capable of accomplishing the mission that has been set before him. When Dumbledore died, Harry’s final protector had left him. Now, the adult that he has proven himself to be must emerge to take a stand. Read more

The Harry Potter Generation

In the Spring 2009 a University professor wrote to me and said: “Gave my two quizzes today...and I've never felt such tension and stress from students as today. I asked them afterwords...and they confirmed that they are really feeling the bad economy and fear for their future. It's sad....but man, I felt it big time today.”

And at the same time, a 19 year old facebook friend was thinking about “The dreams you thought you'd never lose that got tossed aside”

As the world economy moves deeper and deeper into recession individuals of all ages, but especially those about to begin their independent lives, fear for their future and are melancholy about the lives they imagined for themselves that have been tossed aside, even before they had a chance to begin making them real.

These young adults are part of what I have come to call the Harry Potter generation. This generation was born between mid 1983 and late 1995. An astrologer would recognize this as the Pluto in Scorpio generation.

Yes, each individual born into this generation is different, but they do have at least two things in common, they were born when Pluto was moving through the sign of Scorpio and they all grew up under the spell of Harry Potter and his life and death struggles with the powerful dark and evil Lord Voldemont.

Pluto in Scorpio

Pluto is particularily strong in Scorpio, the sign it rules, and as I've said often in this column, Pluto is about power, death, destruction, transformation and ultimately about two potentials: seeing the dark and ugly in all areas of life and realizing and seizing the opportunity this creates for positive change.

To understand Pluto and Scorpio, is to understand magic, not the sort of magic that is trickery or rabbit-out-of-the-hat stage magic, but rather the use of rituals, chants, ceremonies, and affirmations designed to give the individual control of the powerful forces that manipulate the World.

The Pluto in Scorpio generation was born to withstand hardships, uncertainty and with the natural ability to affect magical change. All they needed was to be reminded.

Harry Potter, the Bob Dylan of his generation

“Like early Bob Dylan, the seer who announced to his generation that “the times they are a changin”, the prophet of this generation, the one who spoke to new realities and offered a moral code in facing the hardships of such lighting change was Harry Potter.” Read more

The Harry Potter generation, the oldest now 26 and the youngest 14, have from birth, awakened each each morning to a changed, but not better or safer, world. The changes during this generation's lifetime have been swift and cover the gambit. Traumatic events that once seemed unthinkable and technology that was almost science fiction in the 80's has, like magic, become reality.

Academics and journalists have attributed many different themes to the Harry Potter books. They have used themes such as oppression, survival, power/the abuse of power, overcoming great odds to make one's way in the world, love, prejudice, and free-choice. Rowlings herself has also stated that the books comprise "a prolonged argument for tolerance, a prolonged plea for an end to bigotry" and that they also pass on a message to "question authority and... not assume that the establishment or the press tells you all of the truth".

However, among all there various themes the Harry Potter books address, perhaps the greatest issue this generation will have to face in a world of unprecedented and often cataclysmic change is the moral use of their powers.

Indeed, Harry is tortured by the question of why the Sorting Hat, which searches the souls of incoming students to determine which house or faction they belong in, takes so long to group him with the brave and true of Gryffindor, rather than putting him in Slytherin among the careerists, the manipulators, the power-hungry and the just plain nasty, where he could achieve greatness. Even Hogwarts, the school of witch craft and wizardry attended by Harry and his cohorts, could not be sure their student would use the powers at their disposal wisely, responsibly, and for the common good. The educational quandary for Albus Dumbledore, Hogwarts much loved headmaster, “is how to train students not just in the technology of magic but also in the discernment necessary to avoid the continual reproduction of the few great Dark Lords, like Voldemont, and their multitudinous followers.” Read more

While the young people of today question why the dreams of greatness they thought they'd never lose have been tossed aside, Harry himself questioned why the Sorting Hat took so long to put him with the brave and true rather than where he could achieve greatness.

The Magical Power of Imagination

The author of Harry Potter, J.K. Rowling, spoke of the crucial importance of imagination during a speech at Harvard University's 2008 spring commencement, saying, "We do not need magic to transform our world, we carry all the power we need inside ourselves already; we have the power to imagine better." (entire article)

While we may not need rabbit- out-of-the-hat magic to transform our world we do need control of the powerful forces that manipulate the World. This generation of budding alchemists is naturally endowed with the powerful focus and imagination necessary to magically transform the world.

In the last volume, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Harry's intellectually acute friend Hermione tells him that the time has come for them to seize the day, defending against the dark arts directly:

"'It's about preparing ourselves ... for what's out there,'" she says. "'We've gone past the stage where we can just learn things out of books. We need a teacher, a proper one, who can show us.'

Harry is the herald who offers a moral code in times of great upheaval that vibrates to this generation the way the early Dylan still echoes in the lives of boomers. He is the prophet and precursor of a new generation.

Joel Garreau, The Washington Post