Could ‘Harry Potter’ give rise to a new religion?
Could Harry Potter become a spiritual leader?
A Cambridge podcast treats the boy wizard’s story as holy and reflects on life’s big questions using the seven-book series by J.K. Rowling as a guide.
The online show, “Harry Potter and the Sacred Text,” currently holds the number one spot on iTunes’s religion and spirituality charts, ahead of best-selling author and televangelist Joel Osteen. Launched in May, the 25-minute Potter-cast draws 55,000 to 60,000 listeners a week.
Cohosted by Vanessa Zoltan and Casper ter Kuile, graduates of Harvard Divinity School, the podcast is resonating with fans, many of whom fell for the books as children and have always felt a special kinship with the characters.
“A lot of what we’ve heard [from listeners] is that this validates the way many people have always felt about Harry Potter,” said Zoltan, 34, assistant Humanist chaplain at Harvard and the Humanist Hub. “But they’ve never felt comfortable articulating it.”
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