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Something Wiccan This Way Comes -- Interview Part II

Wicca, Witchcraft

LONNIE: Steve Wholberg, welcome back to our program here today.

STEVE: Thank you, it’s always nice to be with you here at the Voice of Prophecy.

LONNIE: Everybody’s kids are reading Harry Potter books; I mean you can’t find them on the shelves anywhere. Talk to us about this Potter mania, ands we’ll talk today, about understanding if these seemingly harmless books actually lead to darker practices.

STEVE: Yeah, it’s amazing that writer J.K. Rowling use to be on welfare, and now she’s one of the richest women in the world, she’s even richer than the Queen of England. These books from the Harry Potter series, have been best sellers all over the world, shelves constantly have to be restocked. Of course, the story is about a boy, Harry Potter, who goes to a sorcery school, and who learns how to practice these occult techniques to protect himself from evil and to use his magic for supposedly good ends.
LONNIE: This is the storyline of Harry Potter?

STEVE: That’s right! And you know, I have a new book coming out, called the Hour of the Witch, and we’ve talked about before the little book, Hidden Dangers in Harry Potter. I’ve done a lot of research on this series, and a lot of people think, like parents, that it’s just harmless fiction. They also say, hey, my child is actually reading a book instead of being glued to a television set.

LONNIE: Some people have written us letters…

STEVE: Right! A woman wrote us a letter from Europe and was telling us that we were crazy and ridiculous, and she blasted us, saying that we hadn’t even written the books. And I said, on the contrary, I’ve read all of them, and I began to point out some things, and I think it began to open her eyes a little bit, as to the dangers that a book like this could pose for children…

LONNIE: And this is you’re thesis, Steve, you direct End Time Insights, and World News and the Bible, and you really have a concern, because you’re’ saying that real witchcraft is embedded in these books.

STEVE: That’s right! Harry Potter makes out witchcraft to be fun and cool for kids. If you go on the internet and type in Harry Potter, you‘ll get millions of website’s, but if you type in the word witch or Wicca, you won’t find quite as many, but still a considerable amount of them… Mty problem is with people that might just be dabbling into this stuff, thinking that it’s just innocent fun, yet they feel the pull to learn how they themselves could become a wizard, just like Harry Potter, and then they go back on the internet and they see tons of books about real witchcraft and on how, like across the US at high schools you have kids joining covens. And I just think that the more that you get into the fiction, the more it leads to the non-fiction and the real thing, and I’m concerned that kids are opening themselves up to the real forces of Satan and they don’t know it.

LONNIE: As I look at this as a pastor, and there are many Sunday pastors out there too, kids seem to like these books because they do have some good moral values in them, and they study them and discuss them and so forth, aren’t there some good things that can come out of theses books.

STEVE: Oh yes there are! There are some good lessons in this series, but if you go back to the Garden of Eden there was also a tree called, The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, and God said don’t touch that tree. That tree is dangerous, and if you eat of it, you’ll die! I see the Harry Potter books as a blend. There’s fantasy fiction and good things, and then there’s also the bad. It’s interesting; I’ve got one of the Harry Potter books in front of me right now. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, and it’s the fifth book in the series, and it’s a big book, over 900 pages. On page 487, there’s a scene here where talks about a hospital ward and it’s called, Die Llewellyn Ward, when I read that, and this is Harry Potter. So Mrs. Rowling is incorporating real names from the world of Witchcraft into her books. And Lonnie, there’s so many others just like this.

LONNIE: I get goose bumps just talking about this. So Steve, let me get this straight. You think that this series of Harry Potter is part of a trend to get people involved in Witchcraft?

STEVE: That’s right. I have a friend of mine, who went to the theater with a camera, The Prisoner of Azkaban, the third in the series. So he was there with his camera, and he was interviewing people who were standing there in line, and as they came out, he asked them what they thought of the movie, and he interviewed one mother who had two kids. And my friend asked them, what did you think about the movie, and the kids said, hey it’s cool. Then my friend asked them, now that you have seen the movie, do you think that you would like to check out the real thing. And they were about to say yes, but the mother stopped them before they could.
There was an article printed in a magazine called, This is London, and talked about Potter fans turning to Witchcraft, and it was a report on an organization in London called the Pagan Federation, which is a real life organized promoter of real Witchcraft in the British Isles, and this story, quoted the people that worked for this organization as saying, that when the Harry Potter books and movies came out, that they received a flood inquiries, especially from younger kids. People asking about Witchcraft. So this just proves my thesis that many kids who are exposed to Harry Potter, are eventually going to be interested in the real thing.

LONNIE: So, this is an unusual plot, that the kids have to have something when they become a teenager, and Wicca picks them up.

STEVE: That’s right. And there are online courses on how to become a witch on the internet. And there are hundreds of books in our stores for teaching children on how to become a witch.

LONNIE: So are kids really being introduced to Witchcraft.

STEVE: Yes! Kids are hiding thing under there beds, and secretly buying books, and they’re learning how to perform spells and magical potions.

LONNIE: In Salem, Massachusetts, we had the Salem Witch Trials, and later on we found out, that it wasn’t quite as bad as it was made out to be. Are we revisiting an unnecessary hunt here for people, or is this a real concern?

STEVE: Well, it is a real concern, and it’s interesting that you should mention the Salem Witch Trials, because even in the witch trails, there’s a place called the Salem School of Witchcraft. The Harry Potter books are a blend of Fantasy and reality, with references to real history. Anybody, whose head is not in the sand, can see that this has become a major trend in our society.

LONNIE: Tell us why, as we wrap things up today. Why do we need to look in a different direction?

STEVE: Sure! The book of Revelation talks about Babylon deceiving the whole world, and in Revelation 18: 23, it talks about sorcery, and all nations were deceived. So, prophecy points to Babylon, and points to non-fiction sorcery. We want to, and our duty, is to point people to the great alternative to all of this, which is Jesus Christ out Lord, who alone can offer power and spiritual peace and forgiveness of sins through blood shed on the cross.

LONNIE: Steve Wholberg, the Harry Potter Wicca connection.