http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20051116/ennew_afp/afplifestylepotterreligion_051116080151
Forget Voldemort : "evil" Harry Potter in new joust with US critics
Harry Potter has bewitched the world's children, sending 300 million noses deep into tales of his magic and myth.
But American critics of J.K. Rowling's blockbuster series warn his sorcery has a dark side, and his thrilling ride through Hogwarts School for Witchcraft and Wizardry could lure fans to flirt with the occult.
As US cinemas await a new wave of Potter mania with Friday's US release of "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire," critics and fans of the bespectacled boy wizard are squaring off for another joust.
Potterphiles, some Christians among them, see Harry, star of six books which have sold 300 million copies and three films, as a warrior in a good versus evil battle against his nemesis Lord Voldemort.
But Christian preacher Steve Wohlberg warns in a new book about "the dark spiritual forces" festering beneath Rowling's narrative, drawing Potter into a struggle between duelling visions of secular and religious America.
"It's really evil, versus greater evil, it is not really good versus evil," said Wohlberg.
"The Harry Potter story is communicating a story to young people, the idea that you can be a good witch or wizard, you can still cast spells."
To critics, Potter cannot be a moral figure while dabbling in magic in a fantasy full of wizards, witches, ghosts and dragons.