The Alchemy of JK Rowling

Chapter 21 - Harry 16

The Order of the Phoenix

The plane of life above the mental plane is the plane of the mental I. The human consciousness is a trinity: the mental I, the emotional I and the consciousness-I.

In Part 5 Voldemort attempts to gain control over Harry’s mental I. Dumbledore knows this and tells Snape to give Harry Occlumency lessons. (occlud- Latin: to close, ment- Latin: mind). As we know, this doesn’t work. However when Voldemort makes the effort to possess Harry’s mental I, Harry is able to expel Voldemort through the love he feels for his God-Father, Sirius.

Why does Dumbledore choose Snape of all people? Snape represents our shadow side, our ‘black’ side (he always wears black). This is the alchemist’s past experience of the ‘dark arts’, which we call occultism. Every candidate on the Path of Liberation has first attempted to reach the goal by means of occult experiments. It is inherent in the human being to learn by making mistakes, and this is what Snape personifies. He therefore tries to teach Harry to shut his mind to Voldemort by using his mental faculties. Harry has to shut out all emotions and concentrate his entire mind on closing itself off. But Harry fails. What can this teach us about liberation? It teaches us that the new soul cannot reach liberation by using the mental faculties. Using the power of the mind to achieve liberation is occult and this takes us back to the causes of the Fall.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix teaches us that occult methods do not work on the Path of Liberation. We must not be guided by the voice of our dark past, the voice of experimentation. The only guide on the Path is the New Soul itself. The Soul is linked to the God-Father, and its love for what this represents will always triumph against the old fallen microcosmic self, personified by Voldemort.

This how J.K. Rowling says it:

There is a room in the Department of Mysteries […] that is kept locked at all times. It contains a force that is at once more wonderful and more terrible than death, than human intelligence, than the forces of nature. It is also, perhaps, the most mysterious of the many subjects for study that reside there. It is the power held within that room that you possess in such quantities and which Voldemort has not at all. That power took you to save Sirius tonight. That power also saved you from possession by Voldemort, because he could not bear to reside in a body so full of the force he detests. In the end, it mattered not that you could not close your mind. It was your heart that saved you.

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