How Do You Defend Against the Dark Arts?
Harry Potter, The Lord of the Rings and a warning about evil
How do you best keep the forces of Darkness at bay? Do you suppress it, not make eye contact with it, and keep it locked away….or do you study it, know it, and try to make sense of it?
Fair minds can disagree.
In Harry Potter, they had the Defense Against the Dark Arts class at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Headmaster Dumbledore seemed to think students needed to know what those dark spells looked like, in order to properly counter them in battle. Professor Snape would aggressively seek out the Defense Against the Dark Arts job because he was a student of the dark himself but believed it was the good side's best chance to prepare Hogwarts students for the real world.
This theory holds up. Harry and his friends are constantly faced with dark creatures, spells, and attackers, and their knowledge from class about them saves their lives again and again.
But…it’s hard not to notice how corrupt and problematic the professors of this class tend to be. Defense Against the Dark Arts teachers are playing a dangerous game. They live around and study dark powers, and you can tell it gets to them.
In The Lord of the Rings, the White Wizard Saruman was not always a villain. He once stood as a friend to Gandalf and Middle Earth. Then he came into possession of a Palantir stone, one of seven spherical stones used for communication and intelligence gathering. Using a palantír requires a person with great strength of will and wisdom, such as a wizard.
The Dark Lord Sauron has one as well. Saruman begins to commune with him using the stone, once he senses that Sauron’s spirit has awakened in Middle Earth.
"It is perilous to study too deeply the arts of the enemy, for good or ill."
- Elrond, The Lord of the Rings
Saruman is slowly corrupted. He has visions of power and influence transmitted to him by Sauron and while Saruman sincerely wishes to learn more about Sauron's arts in order to oppose him…the White Wizard gradually began to see himself as one to supplant to Sauron. Knowledge of power made Saruman want it. Sometimes this is how life goes. Knowledge of a vice is where your road to craving it begins.
Sheltering can work, just as much as it can backfire.
Lord of the Rings creator, J.R.R. Tolkien, was not enamored with the idea of studying evil in order to defeat it. That’s why his famed story took this position with Saruman and the Palantir.
It’s also why he was not pleased when his friend, C.S. Lewis (The Chronicles of Narnia) dedicated a book to him about the conversations being had between demons on how to tempt human beings.
That book is The Screwtape Letters. And we’re going to read it together.
Tomorrow, the Geeky Stoics Book Club will begin our study of Screwtape. It is written by C.S. Lewis in a satirical, epistolary style and is highly relevant to so much of what we cover in this newsletter.
Stoic virtues run strong throughout The Screwtape Letters, and you’ll find that the demons of Lewis’ book hate those virtues. I was most interested in Lewis’ suggestion that focusing on the future is a road to sin and darkness. The demons don’t want their “patients” focused on the present, ever. More on that here.
The book covers love and marriage, sex and dating, career and politics, and ultimately paints a picture for the reader of how to spot the “devil on your shoulder” when you feel certain emotions or thoughts.
I have great news also….chapters are only about 2-3 pages on average. This is a very quick read in small chunks every week.
We’d love if you could join us! The last call to sign up is below. If you don’t have time to get the book and read it before tomorrow, join anyways! We’ll talk about the book and you can get caught up for Week 2.
Schedule: Sundays at 4 PM EST, starting tomorrow.
Week 1: May 19, 2024 - Reading: Letters 1-8 -Topics: Introduction to style and themes, strategies of temptation.
Week 2: May 26, 2024 -Reading: Letters 9-16 -Topics: Human psychology, spiritual growth, role of relationships.
Week 3: June 2, 2024 -Reading: Letters 17-24 -Topics: Prayer, community, use of virtues against the patient.
Week 4: June 10, 2024 -Reading: Letters 25-31 -Topics: Final spiritual journey, impact of external crises, overall takeaways.
