As premodern as Dumbledore appears to us, with his flowing beard and ancient wisdom, we need to see him as the quintessential split subject; but inasmuch as he lives out the victory of love over death, he is the split subject that makes it, that lives not in this world but in the next (where Harry last sees him) and when he was in this world, lived as if in the wound of Christ. There is a picture from Flanders which shows believers bathing in the blood pouring out of Christ’s wound. Then another from Caravaggio which shows Thomas poking his fingers into this wound. We must remember that this wound characterizes not the living body of Christ, but the resurrected body, the spiritual body that lives beyond death. Zizek calls this body un-dead, but this is needlessly shocking. We don’t know much about this body, but we do know that it is neither given or taken in marriage, and that, sexually, it is like an angelic body. But we also know that our spiritual bodies are given us in a wedding feast. So are they sexualized or not? Is the love that grapples with death and wins (like Jacob did) in any way sexual? In some religions, Mormonism as well as Islam come to mind, the afterlife is seen in some ways as like the family life we know here. Heterosexual intercourse is mentioned, encouraged, and it seems that children play a part as well. We cannot say this about our tradition, and yet our language is perhaps the most sexualized, what with marriage feasts, brides and bridegrooms, consummation, etc. So what kind of sex are we talking about? And if the beatific vision is the consummation of all our desires, clearly that includes erotic desire (I don’t think any decent theologian would argue with me here). It is clear that Christians tend to be feminized in regards to Christ, but Christ also takes on something feminine–the slit in his side, that bleeds not monthly but continually. This split of course heals Adam’s wound through which Eve was born, and in gushing both water and wine, found the church and its sacraments (as well as its fantasy in the grail which caught this shower), and I think the picture of the Christians bathing in the blood which flows from this slit are seen to take on the saviour’s new sexual characterics. Which is . . . . what? He is not given or taken in marriage, but he bleeds, he loves, and of course he enjoys, forever, his desire is fulfilled in gazing at God and at uniting with his adopted children.

So is the resurrected body gay, or feminine? We need to be careful here, but we can say that in passing through death this body’s sexual wound has profoundly changed. It is no longer a source of division (etymologically sex means simply division) but a source of unity. The elect are erotically bonded to each other. What all this goes to say is that the sexuality of the Christian is profoundly changed, and I don’t believe this has ever really been considered. What does it mean to be feminized? What does it mean to be erotically bound to each other. What does it mean to be perfect, and yet still to bleed, to be wounded? Homosexuality is an issue now because the gay person is a witness to this. I’m not saying that all Christians would be more honest if they were gay. I’m saying that homosexuality brings the topic to the forefront. Etymologically again, gay of course means happy, but what if we see this person to be happy not because they just bought a killer sweater, but rather because their sex is no longer divided but resurrected? Again, homosexuality brings this question to the place where it can no longer be ignored, which is why, as much as intellectuals hate to dirty their hands in hopelessly dualistic debates on issues “which are not of primary importance (didn’t Rowan Williams say something like this?), it is time to realize that the wise among us (hint, Rowan) need to make this topic their own, and no longer leave it to the hungry ghosts and ravenous dogs of mindless debate.

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Therefore hear the word of the Lord, you scoffers, who rule this people in Jerusalem! Because you have said, “We have made a covenant with death, and with Sheol we have an agreement; when the overwheliming scourge passes through it will not come to us; for we have made lies our refuge, and in falsehood we have taken shelter”; therfore thus says the Lord GOD, “Behold, I am laying in Zion for a foundation a stone, a tested stone, a precious cornerstone, of a sure foundation; ‘He who believes will not be in haste.’ And I will make justice the line, and righteousness the plummet; and hail will sweep away the refuge of lies, and waters will overwhelm the shelter.” Then your covenant with death will be annulled, and your agreement with Sheol will not stand; when the overwhelming scourge passes through you will be beaten down by it. As often as it passes through it will take you; for morning by morning it will pass through, by day and by night; and it will be sheer terror to understand the message. For the bed is too short to stretch oneself on it, and the covering too narrow to wrap oneself in it. For the LORD will rise up as on Mount Pera’zim, he will be wroth as in the valley of Gibeon; to do his deed–strange is his deed! and to work his work–alien is his work! Now therefore do not scoff, lest your bonds be made strong; for I have heard a decree of destruction from the Lord GOD of hosts upon the whole land.

In the first Harry Potter book, Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone (or Sorcerer’s stone, as the American version has it) Harry is the only person who can destroy the famed alchemical rock which grants eternal life to its bearer. Rowling clearly means to make us think of the philosophical ramifications of this rock, for she uses the name of a historical alchemist, Nicholas Flamel. Voldemort wants the rock of course, because his only goal is to never die (He’s like Woody Allen, who said: I don’t want to achieve immortality through my work, I want to achieve immortality by not dying). Its very simple and most of our daily actions probably betray an inner Voldemort–we quite frankly want to escape the scourge of the rock of ages, the rock of the corner, the rock which the builders rejected. For as we read in the Gospels this rock crushes those upon whom it falls, and breaks to pieces those who trip over it. This is the death which beckons Harry over seven books. Why is he the only one who can handle, and destroy, this powerful rock? Because he is the only one who is not attracted by its lure. It should be noted here that the alchemical rock, the philosopher’s stone, is not the true corner, but it is the epitome of man’s version of that stone. Luther would call it works. The Catholic Catechism calls it the sin against the Holy Ghost. Bonhoeffer called it cheap grace. It’s my rock, and I hold it up as a talisman against the Everlasting Rock which would crush me. It is the rock of knowledge and science, something I try to get across in my Death & Dying class, in connecting the fall of alchemy with the rise of modern science, whose final goal is to evade death, to replace old organs with new ones, to reprogram the self-destruct mode of our genetic code.

But He makes “righteousness the plummet” not immortality. The showdown with Voldemort in that first book is very instructive. Where does Harry finally find the rock? In the mirror of Erised, the mirror in which your deepest desire and fantasy is revealed. The Harry that he sees in the mirror slips the rock into his pocket, and at that moment the real Harry feels its weight. Harry’s deepest desire is for this man-made rock, but only to destroy it. It is almost as if Harry himself is the true rock, for the goal of this rock is to destroy the other one, or to be destroyed by it, as the prophecy has said, “neither can live while the other survives.” And when Voldemort (or the Voldemort that has infested Quirrel) reaches out to slay Harry, Harry’s body, which has been infested by the love of his mother, the carrier for this true rock, causes Voldemort’s carrier to crumble into dust.

Voldemort has made a “covenant with death” a covenant to flee from it, and thus we have the ambiguity that he is one who flees death, and yet his followers are death eaters. Whereas Harry is destined to destroy death but only by succumbing to it. It is the difference between the two rocks, but until Harry has made the final sacrifice he is not really sure which rock he belongs to, at times he thinks he is Voldemort himself. This is consistent with the work and deed of the true rock which is “alien” and “strange.” Voldemort only desires more of the same and thus by fearing death he spreads it and its sameness relentlessly. There is also in Harry a desire to make things remain, to stop the ravages of death and time, but stronger is the strange urge to make things new, to be faithful to the end of things, to let them die before they live again. This is why the immortality of those around Harry who have died is not sentimental, but shows forth a Paschal truth.

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‘My labor pains have begun’ (Romans VI). So Ignatius advances to the torture and humiliation of his death in the confidence that there in the arena his true life, his humanity, his reality, begin. The truth has appeared in human flesh and suffered human death and thereby created afresh for all humanity the possibility of ‘truth in its flesh and its death, of a real and stable (‘incorruptible,’ in Ignatius’s languge) life constituted by what the world seees as meaningless–silence, failure, death.”

What does Jesus do? He takes death into his flesh like a cancer and defeats it by dying, by dying as only God can die. As only one who was chosen before the foundations of the world can do. Ignatius and Barth agree here, that Christ is elected from the beginning to take on death at the hands of his own creatures, to deliver all of humanity from the episode in which death has the final word. God’s love knows no limit, and neither does His pain. We should all read the new book out on Mother Theresa which details the depth of her own dark night, which she is very specific about, and which lasted more or less her entire adult life. She died in it as well.

Harry is also chosen, of course. There is a prophecy concerning him, that he must be the one to defeat the dark lord–Voldemort, he who is a flight from death (if we translate literally from the French). I think we could also translate it “theft of death.” So Harry, by dying, defeats the one who is afraid to die. Harry’s capacity to love is explicitly linked several times with his ability to overcome the fear of death. In fact, Harry seems, from the first book ready and willing to rush in headlong to death. I would even say he has a death wish early on. What he cannot come to grips with is that he must let his friends die as well, and even worse, die for him. This a nice turn, for although Harry is the one who must die for others, his struggle is really ours, the Christian struggle, to accept the fact that someone died for us, simply, to accept love. And this is where life drops out for us, because all we know of life is the neverending judicial mess of justifying our own refusal. It is much easier to be unloved, because we can use this injustice to rail away at the world around us. We can use it get out of bed in the morning and snuggle into beer at night. To be loved leaves one, frankly, with nothing to do. It’s quite boring. (People sometimes ask what the next taboo will be if the 19th c. had sex and the 20th had death. I vote for boredom).

I thought Lana’s definitions of virus were quite interesting, so I quote from her comment: Viral meaning contagious and constantly mutating? Yes, this is the way that language is perpetually unhinged, ruled by chance, which is the law of life that has conquered death. Viral meaning an endless possibility for re-writing using the same letters put in different sequences? Yes, this is the way that the Word is limited, by a historical life and death, and by a particular amount of phonemes human equipment can conjur. Viral meaning that the biological mechanisms of the host–our cells and everything that makes us ourselves–are invaded because they’re essential to the reproduction and proliferation of the word? Yes, this is what Eckhart means by giving birth to Christ, having a virgin heart to birth a pure savior.

While Burroughs perhaps looked with suspicion on this viral word–I think he always valued his art more than his words–for us this Verbum-Virus is an anti-cancer, an alien agent infiltrating a body of death. It achieves new birth when we let ourselves by inspired to create a new body in which this true drama (this lucky lie!) hits the body of language with seismic force, knocking the dictionaries clean off their shelves. This is what Rowling has done–and she was inspired, just read about how she got the plot for all seven books in an instant, on a train. She let herself be infiltered by this alien truth, this truth of God’s which no man can know, and no man can attain, except that he make himself a virgin heart to birth a virgin boy.

I want to go through the Potter books one by one, so stay tuned for a look at alchemy and the rock of life.

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What’s more, you can download some of the songs for free.. a whole album, actually, of which two of the songs, tracks 5 and 14, are based on the Harry Potter series. The album, called Fanfiction by the Shorthand Phonetics, can be downloaded by ctrl+clicking here, and included such magical hits as “All too Platonic” and “Lady Hermione’s Library is On Fire because of the Burning Minds Sparking Each Other to Ignite and It’s Consuming My Flammable Ashen Heart”

enjoy

P.S. this post from kottke.org on Chinese adaptations of Harry Potter is hilarious.

Is Harry Potter a Christian? Well, lets start this conversation off with the basics, and I should note that my jumping off point is the two Bible quotations which appear on two noteworthy tombs in book 7 of J.K. Rowlings masterful series (By the way, this post has spoilers galore, but if you haven’t read book 7 by now you’ve got bigger problems anyway, and I would suggest professional help) So, to the quotations. Where your Treasure is, there will your Heart be also, and, The Last Enemy that shall be Destroyed is Death. Love and Death, then, are the themes which dominate these books, but as I always tell my students when we’re examining the parable of the Good Samaritan, which is Jesus’ most extended answer to the question of what Christian love is, Jesus gives a brand new look at love, going beyond even what the prophets had envisaged, present in his teachings, the full glory of which is seen in his death and resurrection. The message of HP is this: Love, fearing not the specter of the power of death, works a greater magic in this world than any deeds of muggles or wizards. Harry is clearly not as powerful as Voldemort, or even, as the latest movie makes splendidly clear, his legions of death-eaters (Helena!), but as Dumbledore unceasingly drones, Harry has a power of which the glorious V-cake knows not. Clearly, the entrance into victory over this serpentine monster is Harry’s baptism courtesy of his mother, that is, his love of love over any of the fruits of this world (Faux psychoanalysts take note—he loves love more than he loves his mother). His life is forfeit in the way that St. Paul’s was, not a stoical suicide his, but rather the uncontainable energy released by the breaking of these rusted bonds. What effect? He gives up his life for his friends, and he does die. And his soul goes to the place where souls go (Lord forgive Joanna for saying that “it’s all in our heads”), and then he simply returns, as simply as Christ rising from the tomb with a sternly confused look on his face as in Piero della Francesca’s rendering of it, Roman soldiers slumping in earthly defeat.
Next up: We’re hoping for a masterful post by Dr. Ramey of Rowan Univ. fame on John Milbank and the surnaturel, and I’m already asking myself how one can live in a world created by and for love, in which love is stronger than death, though no stranger to it, without the storyteller himself. Even if to simply put the idea “all in our heads”. . . . .

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Considering the importance of the Imaginary register in children’s literature, it is no surprise that the Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling, the best selling children’s books ever, has some fairly typical imaginary/fantasy elements, such as wizards and witches with improbable powers. Rowling, though, has stated that her books are simply “about death”—the one element which fantasies seem to always miraculously avoid. While the genre of fantasy in its purest sense obviates death, and thus the dimension of theReal, Rowling’s book are structured such that the Imaginary realm is always running into its own limit, the paths of fantasy always being surprised by the stroke of death.
The structure of Harry’s fantasy world, and consequently the structure of the books themselves, is centered on the loss of his parents, but especially that of his father, whose specter makes an appearance in book three, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, as part of a unique time travel sequence. Unlike most time travel sequences which are structured such that an alternative time thread must be created which runs parallel to the “real” time, and which functions as a powerful fantasy of how life could be “if only. . .” the sequence in this book maintains only one history—but with a twist. When Harry and his friends go back in time to ensure that Harry’s godfather, Sirius Black, is able to elude capture, we realize that everything they go back in time to do had already been accomplished by their time traveling selves. This would merely be a typical time-traveling conundrum were it not for the intrusion of the Real in the form of an impasse within the Imaginary. At the end of the initial narration Harry is saved from a gruesome death by the apparition of a stag controlled by what he takes to be the ghost of his deceased father. In the second narration the time traveling Harry, in a moment of shock, realizes that it was not his father who had conjured up the saving image but that it is his present, time-traveling self that must take the responsibility to perform the difficult charm.

The time travel sequence reiterates a theme that is present throughout the whole series, namely, that Harry must come to terms with his desire that his father could save him, or the fantasy that he might never have lost him. When Harry steps into the place that he had reserved for his father by performing the conjuration himself, we have a moment analogous to what Lacan referred to as the “traversing of the fantasy.” At this moment the fantasy dies, yet inasmuch as Harry is able to act from the place at which his fantasies had controlled him, we witness a sublimation in the Lacanian sense, that is, a re-structuring of the relationship of the Imaginary order to that of the Real, such that the Imaginary does not function to block the Real, but to maintain it, as well as the subject’s minimal distance from it.

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