My second reading journal focuses heavily on witch hunts and how that factored into Harry Potter being a taboo book for some people. I used Birgit Wiedl’s “Why the Statue of Secrecy? Real Historical Oppression of Witches and Wizards.”
In Birgit Wiedl’s essay, “Why the Statue of Secrecy? Real Historical Oppression of Witches and Wizards,” describes how witches became tormented throughout history. This led me to think about witch hunts and how they’ve never really disappeared. For my essay, I’ll be looking at satanic panic with witch hunts and how that affected some people not being able to view Harry Potter.
While witch hunting seems to be prominent in most cultures, Wiedl states, “With the rise of Christianity, ideas about magic underwent fundamental changes” (94). The changes were to deem pagan rituals as witchcraft. While they were able to keep some rituals, such as bringing a Christmas tree into the home, many were cut out. To me, religious superstition is a reason for witch hunting; this can be seen at the start of Satanic Panic.
My idea for this paper was from Wiedl describing the witch craze as, “the witch craze nevertheless crossed borders of religion, culture, and mentality.” (110) I was reminded very much of what happened with satanic panic. Satanic Panic was a period in the 80s-90s were many people were afraid of satanism. Once people were terrified of satanism, allegations seemed to appear out of the woodworks against all kinds of people. Accusations of satanism were carried out like the Salem Witch Trials; there are several well-documented cases of people being persecuted for satanism, many of them were daycares, there were even murder cases blamed on satanism. Identifying a satanist were so arbitrary, such as: wearing black, listening to rock/heavy metal, and even reading sci-fi/fantasy novels. The general rule of thumb for satanic panic was that if a person was different, they were probably a satanist.
Most people believed these satanist practiced human and animal sacrifices, adultery, and pedophila. They thought the groups would meet up in the woods late at night and call out for the devil. People would even go out looking for these rituals like a modern day witch hunt.
This idea of satanism can be heavily connected with the idea of what witches did. Wiedl describes how people used to believe that witches had to sleep with the devil or demons to gain their power. It’s also stated that,
Muggle authorities thought that witches and wizards might also have sexual intercourse with the devil while he assumed the shape of a beast– usually a goat or a cat — or kiss the beast’s anus as a token of their adoration. (109) (Sidenote: This should be a block quote but the blog won’t let me post it like that)
Satanism and witchcraft are connected by the idea of sexual promiscuity. Not only was it sexual promiscuity but devil worshipping that people had an issue with. Countless people used to believe that to have witch powers, one must’ve made a pact with the devil.
The idea of making a pact with the devil for magic could be connected with why people were so staunchly against Harry Potter. People believed that if their child read it, suddenly their child would be devil worshippers. This idea coincides with the time period that the books came out. Satanic panic had really blown up around this time so a book about witchcraft and wizardry was bound to be called devil worshipping.
This was a really cool way to integrate the reading into a paper! I like that you used the reading to kind of branch off and do your own thing while still keeping it relevant to the Harry Potter books. The only thing I want to point out is that, at various times in your paper, ‘Satanic Panic’ is capitalized differently (like in the last sentence of the second paragraph). I’m not sure if it’s supposed to be capitalized or not, but whatever you decide to do should be uniform throughout the whole paper. Overall, great work!
Hi, Johnna!
My comments will be split up by paragraph to make it easier to see where the suggestions I’m making apply. c:
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Paragraph One
Your first sentence doesn’t need the word “in” at he beginning – the way you word it at the end means it can just start with Wiedl’s name.
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Paragraph Two
This is a comment that Kylie made, but is Satanic Panic supposed to be a capitalized phrase or a lowercase one?
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Paragraph Three
I think that since you say you are quoting Wiedl’s description for the witch craze, you can start your quote at the word “crossed” so long as you lead up to the quote with something like, “describing the witch craze as something that….” This way, you don’t have to use the phrase “the witch craze” twice in quick succession. Additionally, the period for the sentence should go after your in-text citation, not in the parentheses. I think that you should say the 1980s – 1990s, because it’s entirely possible that something of that name could have happened in the 1780s or 1880s, based on the fact that the Salem Witch Trials were something of the 1600s. When discussing identifying a satanist, I think you may have meant to say “was” instead of “were.”
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Paragraph Four
I think you may need an ‘s’ at the end of satanist to make it plural, but I’m actually not one hundred percent sure what the plural form of satanists(?) is. I think you may want to draw parallels of these practices to what people claimed witches would do in the woods. (The Crucible is coming to my mind in particular, but that’s probably just because it’s the only play I’ve read about witch hunts.)
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Paragraph Five
I’m not one hundred percent sure that needs to be a block quote – isn’t the rule of thumb that it’s four lines of prose? When I pasted that into Word, it was only on three lines for me.
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Paragraph Six
I think your journal may benefit from an example of “sexual promiscuity” in satanism – by that I just mean, what exactly were the parameters for too much sexual promiscuity during the satanic panic?
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Paragraph Seven
I didn’t even consider that the books were released around the satanic panic until this paragraph – I think that could be a strong point to mention earlier in your journal.
Hi! You brought up several great points that I hadn’t been aware of or hadn’t thought of. I really enjoyed reading your paper and I think you went into an appropriate depth with the subject as per the assignment. The only thing which I’m sure you’ve already fixed is the capitalization of Satanic Panic. Great journal!