Harry Potter for grownup believers (of all kinds)

  
 
[From Terry Mattingly's weekly column "On Religion" ]
 
 
 
 
 
ORLANDO — Lee Hillman’s nightstand contains a copy of Sir James GeorgeFrazer’s classic “The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion.”
 
 
 
It’s a condensed version, not the two-volume 1890 epic or the12-volume monument from the following decades. The single volume contains more than enough magical minutia for ordinary readers. Six dense pages will usually put Hillman to sleep.
 
 
 
Nevertheless, the practicing pagan keeps reading. It has helped give perspective on her other passion — reading and writing about a certain young wizard in England.
 
 
 
 “There is no relationship set up in the Harry Potter books between magic and religion,” said Hillman during Nimbus 2003, the first global convention dissecting the 2,715 pages published so far in the series. “This had to be a deliberate decision by J.K. Rowling. … She is using literary conceits drawn from throughout Western culture.”
 
 
 
 She scanned the crowd at a panel discussion last weekend entitled “Harry Potter: Witchcraft? Pagan Perspectives.” Then she said the same thing again, as a Wiccan believer and another miscellaneous pagan nodded in agreement.
 
 
 
“There is nothing in these books that relates magic to any particular religion,” said Hillman. “There is no connection. None. None. Zero. … They are not really about witchcraft.”
 
 
 
 Don’t misunderstand. Hillman still loves the Potter books. That’s why she was wearing a spectacular witch’s hat and robe, a flash of purple that even stood out among the 600 other colorful fans at Disney’s Swan Hotel. Among online Potter devotees, the 31-year-old secretary from Rochester, N.Y., is known as “Gwendolyn Grace, Minister of Magic” and she was the driving force behind the gathering.
 
 
 
Nimbus 2003 sprouted out of the Internet, where the “Harry Potter For Grownups” email list has 10,000 members and a “Fiction Alley” list dedicated to stories written by fans for other fans has 30,000 members.
 
 
 
With this kind of reach, organizers attracted participants — about 90 percent female — from across the United States, as well as from England and Australia.