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masque12While the Harry Potter books have gotten a lot of bad press in the past about their supposed "occult" influence on children, there is another series of children's books that have escaped the Religious Right's attention, which has far more overt, "Satanic" undertones. This series is Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy. The Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife, and The Amber Spyglass are three books that I highly recommend to everyone and anyone.
(Some of what you will read below is from another person's post on the books I got from a list I'm on, I've edited it a bit to put it in my own words.)
First off, these are children's books in the Heinleinian sense, in that the main characters happen to be children. While the intended audience is children, there is no dumbing down of the literature as is so common in other children's books. The early Harry Potter books suffered from a bit of this dumbing down, and gradually got more mature. These HDM books are enjoyable at any age from the get-go.
Let me share a bit of the mythos and plot with you. First off, the series takes place in a variety of parallel worlds, some of them like our own, others a bit more magical. The first book takes place entirely within a magical version of our own world, and the other books jump between them. The Christian God is the bad guy of the series, who founded Christianity as a means of controlling the world. The church, and I want to stress that the church in the books *is* the Christian church, not some stand-in meant to represent the Christian church, is a rather autocratic organization that basically rules the world, stifles certain areas of academic research, and commits horrible atrocities in the name of stamping out heretical, but scientifically valid ideas. The father of Lyra, the main character, has made it his mission to (no bullshit) KILL GOD, freeing humanity from His tyranny. Sentience was gifted to humanity by angels who rebelled against God, i.e. Satan and his cronies, for those of you keeping score at home.
The unconventional morality of the protagonists is truly beautiful. When the heroine meets the hero, she does a divination on him and finds out the he's a murderer, which makes her decide that she can trust him as he obviously has the guts to kill someone. Later, she shows concern for him because he can't "lie, cheat and betray" as easily as she can.
Philip Pullman, the author of the series has stated, "Blake once wrote of Milton that he was a 'true poet, and of the Devil's party, without knowing it'. I am of the Devil's party, and I know it."
The thing I love most about these books, (I'm currently about a third through the second book) is that the characters are very self-determined, they make their own destiny, they don't accept anything without question. They are extremely refreshing, in that they teach kids that it's OK to think things out for themselves, to follow their own intuition, and to ultimately create themselves. These values are the kind of thing that need to be taught to kids or our world will fall to shit.
I've written previously about the Harry Potter books, and how I feel that they are Satanic and why that is a good thing, but the His Dark Materials books blow Harry Potter out of the water, if for no other reason than that the Satanism is a bit more overt, whereas HP's Satanism is a bit unconscious. I hope that many people will read these books and enjoy them, and then encourage their kids to read them, as well.
(Some of what you will read below is from another person's post on the books I got from a list I'm on, I've edited it a bit to put it in my own words.)
First off, these are children's books in the Heinleinian sense, in that the main characters happen to be children. While the intended audience is children, there is no dumbing down of the literature as is so common in other children's books. The early Harry Potter books suffered from a bit of this dumbing down, and gradually got more mature. These HDM books are enjoyable at any age from the get-go.
Let me share a bit of the mythos and plot with you. First off, the series takes place in a variety of parallel worlds, some of them like our own, others a bit more magical. The first book takes place entirely within a magical version of our own world, and the other books jump between them. The Christian God is the bad guy of the series, who founded Christianity as a means of controlling the world. The church, and I want to stress that the church in the books *is* the Christian church, not some stand-in meant to represent the Christian church, is a rather autocratic organization that basically rules the world, stifles certain areas of academic research, and commits horrible atrocities in the name of stamping out heretical, but scientifically valid ideas. The father of Lyra, the main character, has made it his mission to (no bullshit) KILL GOD, freeing humanity from His tyranny. Sentience was gifted to humanity by angels who rebelled against God, i.e. Satan and his cronies, for those of you keeping score at home.
The unconventional morality of the protagonists is truly beautiful. When the heroine meets the hero, she does a divination on him and finds out the he's a murderer, which makes her decide that she can trust him as he obviously has the guts to kill someone. Later, she shows concern for him because he can't "lie, cheat and betray" as easily as she can.
Philip Pullman, the author of the series has stated, "Blake once wrote of Milton that he was a 'true poet, and of the Devil's party, without knowing it'. I am of the Devil's party, and I know it."
The thing I love most about these books, (I'm currently about a third through the second book) is that the characters are very self-determined, they make their own destiny, they don't accept anything without question. They are extremely refreshing, in that they teach kids that it's OK to think things out for themselves, to follow their own intuition, and to ultimately create themselves. These values are the kind of thing that need to be taught to kids or our world will fall to shit.
I've written previously about the Harry Potter books, and how I feel that they are Satanic and why that is a good thing, but the His Dark Materials books blow Harry Potter out of the water, if for no other reason than that the Satanism is a bit more overt, whereas HP's Satanism is a bit unconscious. I hope that many people will read these books and enjoy them, and then encourage their kids to read them, as well.
