Harry Potter's Invitation to the World
by Vickie Ewell
Chapter 14 – Harry Enters Gringotts (HP Chapter 5)
It took Hagrid almost ten minutes to get Harry away from the crowd and into a small, walled courtyard (the birth canal). “Told yeh you were famous,” he said, but Harry was indifferent to his fame.
Fame didn’t matter to Harry. He’d rather know about Quirrell. “Is he always that nervous?” Hagrid explained that while Quirrell was brilliant, he ran into some dark things when he took a year off from his studies: vampires and a nasty experience with an old hag. He’s never been the same since.
Now he was full of fear: He feared his students and feared the Defense Against the Dark Arts subject itself. He went looking for personal experience with the dark side, and the result was that the dark side of himself won. Now he feared everything because Voldemort had taken complete control. This is a stronger form of mastery than what controls us mechanically.
This is not about personal rules made and filed away within the subconscious mind by a child. This was about the dark side of the self becoming a conscious entity and placing the self in a subservient position of slavery. Quirrell had sealed himself to Voldemort.
Quirrell thought that because of his book learning, his romp into the Black Forest would yield positive results, but obviously, he wasn’t ready. While we don’t know where Professor Quirrell was on The Path, the fact that Voldemort won their confrontation tells us that Quirrell had tried to skip levels somewhere. He went into the forrest. That’s where the unicorn and stag meet to unite both male and females energies, but for Quirrell, that didn’t happen.
Brilliant doesn’t mean that Quirrell was a white stone. It just means he was intellectually talented. Far too often, those with intellectual excellence are the folks who don’t understand that it takes both the mind and the heart to overcome Voldemort.
Hagrid began counting the bricks of the wall in front of them, moved the tip of his umbrella up three bricks and over two (the shape of a backwards 7), and then knocked three times on that brick.
Although there are seven levels of perfection, these seven levels are also further broken down into three major stages. In addition, the backwards 7 tells us that Harry had already achieved the white stone previously and that his purpose in this life was to achieve the red stone.
At this point, Hagrid either represents the spiritual force that causes a woman to begin laboring to bring forth a child, or he was calling upon that force.
The hard brick wiggled a little, softened, and then a hole began to form in the center that grew wider and wider until it became an archway large enough for Hagrid to pass through. Looking through the hole, Harry could see a cobbled road that twisted, turned, and led out of sight. Moving into the spiritual level is the beginning of our long, tedious journey back home. There is a bumpy, twisted path of seven steps we must pass through to succeed in becoming the Philosopher’s Stone.
“Welcome to Diagon Alley,” Hagrid said, smiling at Harry’s amazement. Compared to the physical world, the Wizarding World offered Harry a new adventure. The challenges in this new world will not be easier, just different. Harry and Hagrid stepped through the opening together, and the hole closed back up tightly behind them.
Harry has just been born into the spiritual world.
Here, the sun was shining and there were cauldrons, people, and businesses of various sizes and metals, but Hagrid informed Harry they needed to go to the bank first before thinking about the cauldron he needed for his potion studies. Harry was like an infant. There was so much to see that was new and different. He wished he had additional eyes so he could look in different directions at the same time.
When the spiritual world is new, we are highly interested, addicted even, to the sights and sounds around us. There is so much to see and learn, more than we can learn in a single step. Like Harry, we have hundreds of questions. We may even feel overwhelmed. We wish we had more eyes, greater spiritual insight, or the ability to see everything at once like Mad Eye Moody. We want to experience and acquire everything as quickly as possible, but Hagrid reminds us that things are not free in the Wizarding World. Everything has a price.
Gringotts was a snowy white building that towered above the others. They are the only bank available, so they have control. The front door was burnished bronze and guarded by a goblin dressed in red and gold, the colors of perfection. The Wizarding World contained many races and cultures, just as there are in the Muggle World. Each race has their own path to perfection and their own ideals about right and wrong. Law and order existed the same as in the Muggle World, but those laws function differently.
Harry and Hagrid walkd up the white steps (I would assume there were seven, but it doesn’t say) and passed by the guard who bowed to them as they walked by. To me, the single guard at the bronze door indicated that the door symbolized the first major stage of The Great Work. This first stage encompasses many levels where our experience causes us to overcome our carnal nature and vanities. It is the black stage.
After passing through that door, Hagrid and Harry meet another door, this time silver. There were two goblins guarding this one. Silver indicates the second stage of The Great Work: the white stone. This stage involves purifying our female energies and forces. We also gain a greater ability to love. There were words on this door that give warning to the greedy of what to expect if they attempt to take something that doesn’t belong to them.
The sin of greed extends beyond money, so the poem has dual meaning. On both the physical and spiritual levels it warned that for those who seek a treasure (the white stone) that was never theirs, a high price will be required of them. We will witness this price in Book 7 when Griphook decides that he knows whom the Sword of Griffindore really belongs to.
The pair of goblins bowed to Harry and Hagrid as they walked through the door. The goblins stand as sentinels, and their bow indicates once again that Harry has already achieved the white stone in a previous life.
Harry and Hagrid found themselves inside the bank where goblin tellers were busy with various banking tasks. As Keeper of the Keys, Hagrid emptied his pockets, trying to find the key to Harry’s safe. Hagrid carried the knowledge required to pass through the third door that held Harry’s treasure.
The third stage of the work is becoming the red stone. At this stage, we repeat all seven levels in an attempt to purify our male energies and forces. In reality, this can take several lifetimes to accomplish. Once purified, we unite our male and female energies in The Alchemical Wedding to produce a balanced, perfected system. Upon completing this stage, we have become perfect love.