By Marie
Peeters-Ney, MD and Philip G. Ney, M.D., M.A., FRCP(C), FRANZCP, RPsych
Originally published in Catholic Insight December 2003
Republished
with permission and encouragement of authors
One could speak about a worldwide "Harry Potter phenomenon,"
appearing soon after the Pokemon craze. The object of this discussion is to
reflect on the possible reasons for the remarkable popularity of Harry
Potter.
Can the current craze be only due to good marketing skills? Does this book have
exceptional literary value? Could the book be an indicator of a deeper cultural
trend? We wish to hypothesize that the popularity of the Harry Potter
series is due to the fact that the themes and the main character strike
deep chords in the minds of our younger generation because they are abortion
survivors.
They identify with them, because Harry Potter appears to hold the key
to unlock the deep, unresolved conflicts which the young generation has buried
in its unconscious. We write this short article after reading the first book of
the series, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. We will not
expand on the progressive downward spiral commented on by numerous other
authors.
Some cultural events may transcend generational gaps and cultural differences
because they reflect our common humanity, its aspirations, hopes and struggles.
Some may shape human thought and influence the course of history. Others are a
reflection of the mindset that is in vogue and are thus just an expression of
the times. Others go further: they express a facet of the times and present it
as the norm, thus shaping the thought of an era and influencing the course of
current thinking.
Much has been written about the Potter series and considerable controversy has
arisen about it. However, there has not, to our knowledge, been anything
written which analyzes some of the deeper reasons for the success of the Potter
series. Such an analysis is important in order to gain understanding both of
the reasons for its success and to judge the work itself.
In 1979, Dr. Philip Ney discovered and described people with a unique
constellation of signs and symptoms, whom he called "abortion survivors."
The malaise they suffer from is called the post-abortion survivor syndrome
(PASS). Post-abortion survivors are all those individuals who could have been
aborted, but mere chance or the fact that they were wanted saved them from
termination.
Examples are: people who were born in a family where a sibling was aborted;
people whose parents told them they should have been aborted; or people born in
a country where the majority of children are aborted. This applies to at least
50 percent of the people born since the 1970s. Thus, being an abortion survivor
affects millions of young people and unquestionably, popular literature is
bound to reflect the thinking of those hurt by having an abortion and/or being
an abortion survivor.
With few exceptions, the rest of the young population wonders if they were
allowed to be born because they were wanted. The world is thus filled with
people who have an anxious fascination about issues that the Harry Potter
series broadly hints at.
A brief description of the psychopathology associated with being an abortion
survivor is necessary to understand the attractiveness of the Harry Potter
books.
Children born in families where there has been an abortion live with a mother
who is struggling with her own guilt and grief. They also often have a father
who is alienated. Having parents who are prepared to exercise the power of life
and death over their children, these children grow up with very ambivalent
relationships with their parents - wanting desperately to be close to them, but
knowing that it is too dangerous, and wanting to flee, but caught by their
emotional and material dependency on them. Deep anger, violence or passivity,
intergenerational communication designed to avoid confronting harsh truths and
secretiveness are some of the conflicts that are then expressed.
Given the fact that they cannot ask their parents about the real causes of
their fears, they grow up in an atmosphere of pseudo-secrets. There are
important events and problems they sense their parents or any parental figure
will not talk about. Abortion survivors live in a closed, unreal, dehumanized
world, communicating with code words and through cyberspace. Communication is
mainly between peers, but rivalry, competition and lack of commitment interfere
with their relationships.
The first attachment, that to mother, was an anxious attachment that resulted
in ambivalence and conflict. Abortion survivors grow up with self-doubt and
very ambivalent relationships to others. People are used, not loved.
Abortion survivors have cut themselves off from all their emotions, except fear
and anger. They feel they have no intrinsic right to be. Their right to exist
depends on their being wanted. Having made it into the world, they survive by
gaining power, by trickery and seduction. They must "have" to be:
money, good looks, sports prowess, magic powers, etc. Only by having can they
continue to be wantable and thus to continue to exist. Unable to trust,
they live in a world of fear, with nobody to turn to. They suffer from
nightmares in which their aborted sibling (who is not always identified as
such) is seeking revenge, full of rage for her wrongful death and full of anger
against the sibling who is alive. The surviving siblings feel like a weight on
their shoulders and a permanent curse from the aborted sibling. They are,
therefore, threatened in their very existence, both from the seen and unseen
world.
Abortion survivors flirt with death and seek control. They often seek answers
and power in the occult.
The genius of Ms Rowling is to have consciously or unconsciously tapped into
the secret world of abortion survivors. Her first book described the world of
abortion survivors: a world where all is "unreal," dominated by
primary relationships with peers, absent parents, a dread of being used, abused
or killed by caretakers who have no love or understanding. Ms Rowling describes
people who have everything, but live in fear that their "secret" will
be discovered (the Dursleys). The real world is so awful that Harry Potter
thought, "He did not know where he was going (to witchcraft school), but
it had to be better than what he was leaving behind ..."
In inventing the character Harry Potter, Ms Rowling introduces the reader to a
person whom an abortion survivor can relate to.
Harry is the "boy that lived," although physically marked by the sign
of death and wanted dead by a satanic figure. On his forehead, he is scarred,
he is special, he is a survivor. He witnesses the death of an innocent creature
by one who has nothing to lose and everything to gain by committing such a
heinous crime. The centaur tells him "because the blood of the innocent
will keep you alive, even if you are inches from death, but at a terrible price
… You have slain something pure and defenceless to save yourself, you will have
but half a life, a cursed life from the moment the blood touches your
lips."
Harry Potter is emotionally, physically and verbally abused by caregivers, but
he feels little pain and sheds no tears. The only emotions he seems to feel are
fear and hatred. He is not allowed to ask questions. He does not know his own
story, although he knows there is a secret about him. He has been dehumanized.
He lives in a world of fear, plagued by the recurrent nightmare of a hooded, faceless
figure who drinks the blood of the innocent victim. As Ronan, the centaur
explains, "Always the innocent are the first victims …"
The fear of death that is present in all abortion survivors is usually dealt
with by flirting with death, so that the person imagines he has some control
over life and death. Harry Potter exemplifies this when he is told, "Don't
stop and don't be scared you'll crash into it, that is important. Best do it at
a bit of a run if you are nervous …" When Harry Potter did it, he closed
his eyes, ready for a crash.
Using coded language, Rowling has been able to put into written form the
unrevealed and unspoken fears of the abortion survivor. She expressed in
writing psychological conflicts that generally only appear in nightmares. Many
of the struggles experienced by children, and which she fantasizes about in her
Harry Potter series, have been expressed in the terrifying dreams of
abortion survivors. For example:
- somebody tried or wanted to kill you (Harry's teacher, Mr. Quirrell, trying
to kill him)
- the feeling that one is surrounded by invisible people, some of whom are
hostile and wish your death (Harry looks into the mirror and sees a whole crowd
of people standing right behind him)
- shedding blood, murdering your sibling (in fantasy), so that you can live
half a life (Mr. Quirrell drinking the blood of an innocent, pure victim to
stay alive, although at a terrible cost)
- the feeling of being burdened by a parasite, a hostile sibling who hangs on
to you and prevents you from living (Mr. Quirrell, a man with two faces,
carrying a half-dead Voldmort who explains that he has a form only when he can
share another's body and who dreams to create a body for himself)
- and, of course, the terrifying reality that somebody is angry at the survivor
for being alive (Voldmort's anger at Harry Potter)
Ms Rowling also appeals to the abortion survivor, because she briefly touches
on some of the deepest yearnings of all humans for life and meaning. (Harry
finally finds somebody who watches over him). However, having opened up this
yearning, she sends the reader away empty-handed. She remarkably and accurately
describes and expands on the dark side of a humanity without God. The themes
she develops are anti-thetical to the glory of Christian revelation. She
illustrates the morbid fascination abortion survivors have for control and
power, even if these are dark and frightening.
Harry Potter looks for the stone that confers eternal life. This is clearly
opposed to Christian revelation. He experiences a mother's love that is so
strong, it is capable of burning and destroying the enemy, a caricature which
is quite obvious.
Ms Rowling appeals to the more pathological dreams of the abortion survivors.
She describes transfiguration as one of the most complex and dangerous kinds of
magic. She describes a world of magic and of power. "There is no good and
evil, only power and those too weak to seek it." In the Harry Potter
world, there is the mirror of Erised, which shows us what we want or want to
see. A world where one can be special, if one is marked as having survived.
The inventor of Harry Potter describes with great accuracy the world of the
abortion survivors. However, in a truly satanic fashion, she leads these broken
people in a downward spiral into a world that is not life-giving, but one of
death and despair. She shows them the way to an illusion of power, which is
without life and which is the realm of Satan.
Harry Potter can become a cult, making people feel they are understood and will
understand the truth and then deliberately lead them away from the source of
Life and Truth. The psychopathology associated with being an abortion survivor
is real. It needs to be understood by those involved in the new evangelization.
We now need people who are saintly enough to descend into the pit of hell where
they are and who can bring them to the light. Preaching Jesus Christ is a work
of love, healing and life. It is a work of mercy.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Philip G. Ney trained as a child psychiatrist and child psychologist at
McGill University, University of London and the University of Illinois. He
taught in five universities in four countries and has been hospital and
university department chairman.
As an academic and clinician of more than thirty five years, he has done
research into child abuse for more than thirty years and has authored or
co-authored 66 scientific papers and 7 books.
In his early research Professor Ney became increasingly aware of the
reciprocal connection between child abuse and abortion. More recently he has
studied children who are the survivors of abortion. He is conducting
therapeutic groups for men and women abused as children in private practice in
Victoria, British Columbia.
As a semi-retired professor, Philip Ney is currently researching the
effects of various kinds of pregnancy losses on women's physical and mental
health. With wife Dr. Marie Peeters-Ney, Philip conducts training sessions
world-wide.
Dr Marie Peeters-Ney is an American. Having obtained her medical training
in Belgium and her paediatric specialty training in the USA and Canada, she
worked at the University of Paris with the world-famous geneticist, Jerome
Lejeune, and won an important scientific prize for her research into the
biochemical causes of mental retardation.