The Alchemy of JK Rowling

Chapter 52 - Dolores Umbridge

Throughout the millennia many impulses have gone from the Masters of Compassion to humanity.

One of the effects of such an impulse is the formation of groups of people who want to put the call for liberation into practice. People realise that the individual is not strong enough to break the seven chains that tie us to the world of Voldemort, and they form groups to achieve liberation in united striving.

If such a group is successful, its members will leave earth fairly quickly and the group will become part of the Brotherhood of Compassion. Being successful means being able to give up the Self of matter for the SELF of the Spirit.

However not every group is successful in that sense. Put symbolically, Voldemort’s spies are able to enter the ranks of a group and gradually take it over and change its aims. In other words, the self of matter, the ego, Peter Pettigrew, begins to interfere. What was initially a pure group aimed at liberation from the fallen universe gradually degenerates from an earth-leaving group into an earth-seeking group. The reason is that the members have not understood what is required or have not been willing to sacrifice the mortal self for the liberation of the original Divine Human Being dormant in the heart, in Lily.

Of course there is only one Truth. That is, that this universe is not divine but is a degenerated part of the Divine Universe. Tao is not in this universe, for this is ruled by Voldemort. Just as Voldemort personifies the microcosmic self, so does he personify the cosmic self of the earth-cosmos.

The Teachings of Liberation contain the Truth, but in a very symbolic form, and in a veiled way. Hence when a group bends its aims from liberation to servitude to Lucifer, it needs to make just a few slight adjustments to the Teachings of Liberation. One of these is to interpret the Teachings literally. The real aim of the New Testament reports of the birth of Jesus refer to the birth of a new soul when a person goes the Path of Liberation. But when people’s minds are fixed on the idea that this is a historical event that happened once and once only, and that Jesus came literally to take away the sins of the world, so all you have to do is accept Jesus as your saviour and Bob’s your uncle, it would never occur to them in a million years that Jesus’ birth should take place inside them personally.

In addition to taking the Teachings of Liberation literally, a few minor adjustments have to be made to the texts of available scriptures. That was very easy in the early days of Christianity because manuscripts were written by hand, and so were fairly rare. It was easy to eradicate manuscripts which spoke of Liberation in very express ways, and adopt more veiled scriptures as ‘canon’. A few words were changed here and there, an emphasis added occasionally, an overly explicit passage removed, and we have a holy book that’s ready for use as a means of propagation of the new faith. What started off as a means of Liberation ended up as means of imprisonment. And so the group grew from a handful to many millions.

Of course not everybody agreed with the re-interpretation by the new group, which called itself the one and only universal church. But we have ways of making people see our point of view, don’t we? It’s amazing how people are ready to see a different point of view when they’re chained to a stake in a fire. And let’s not put the fire out when they’ve confessed the error of their views. Let it burn out their sins and they’ll go straight to heaven.

Naturally we have to have a special department in our Ministry to guard the faith and eradicate heresy. Let’s call it the Inquisition with the High Inquisitor in charge.

This is what I believe J.K. Rowling is saying with the character of Dolores Umbridge. Hogwarts symbolises a School of Liberation. The Magic World symbolises the spiritual world as a whole, and the Ministry for Magic symbolises the Hierarchies which control the world from the astral plane. What started out as a group with liberating ideals, ended up using the Spanish Inquisition! Notice how Dolores is a Spanish name? (The ‘Spanish’ Inquisition). And that it means: ‘pain’?