JK Rowling Donation, Labour Party, Politics, Gordon Brown and the Fabian Society

shortcuts:
JK Rowling, Support for Find Madeleine campaign
JK Rowling, Politics and Gordon Brown
Fabian Socialism
Beatrice Potter Webb
Harry Potter and Aleister Crowley
Order of the Phoenix and Fabian Society
Source of Bellatrix Lestrange
Source of Grimmauld Place / Location of Grimmauld Place
Influence of Blavatsky and the Occult in Harry Potter
Origins of Harry Potter's Name

On the first day of the Labour Party's 2008 Annual Conference, it was announced that JK Rowling had awarded a £1m donation to Labour. The donation from the multi-millionaire Harry Potter author came as a major boost to the party as MPs and delegates met for the five-day event. The Sargeants takes a look at the history of their relationship.

“Just where does JK Rowling fit into all this ‘Madeleine’ business?”, I asked.

Not that I was expecting much of an answer, you understand as I'd already bagged more red-herring than a North Sea Cod Crusader, and I'd probably ended up no less gutted than the fish. Trails such as these had a habit of going cold very quickly.

But a challenge is a challenge, and I thought it rude to pass it up: how could the two be even remotely connected?

There were the crazy rumours to dodge first of course; the whole Madeleine thing being the result of a sinister social experiment conducted by the Tavistock Institute, who were also alleged to have provided the occult blueprints for the whole Potter franchise. Then there was idea that Rowling was Madeleine's biological mother (which some people have successfully contested on account of the fact she already has one) or the idea that the spectacle produced by the Madeleine crisis represented Rowling's eighth and final novel (well, it's no less fantastical than any of the first seven, I suppose).

So what was left on the table?

Well for one, Rowling is alleged to have contributed generously to the Find Madeleine fund (some estimates put it at $2.5 million, but that seems a tad exaggerated, even by press standards).

Then there was all that talk of Madeleine’s face appearing on the bookmarks shipped out with the release of her last novel, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Admittedly, it was bizarre, it was macabre, but no less so than the thought of the poor child's Cat-Syndrome eye peering at me every time I searched Google.

Was there anything else that linked the pair? Well, the remainder is really rather tenuous: the birthmark on Harry’s forehead. The birthmark in Madeleine’s eye. Then there’s the fact that The Deathly Hallows sees Harry’s friends reel back in horror upon discovering he has died, only to reel further back in horror when they discover he’s really alive – and much the same cycle has been repeated endlessly in the tabloids where Magic Maddie is concerned.

The only other credible link between the two (or so I thought) was that JK Rowling is a very close friend of Gordon Brown and his wife Sarah. In fact Rowling was one of the first to wander out of the maternity ward after the birth of the couple’s son in July 2006. The three had forged a close bond after Rowling collaborated with Brown’s wife on a book of children's stories to aid the charity, One Parent Families – of which Rowling is president. The book – ‘Magic’ - was published by Bloomsbury in 2002.

Then there was this: Rowling, along with Nelson Mandella, Al Gore, and Alan Greenspan, wrote an introduction to a collection of Gordon Brown's speeches, of which the proceeds were donated to the Jennifer Brown Research Laboratory. Rowling also met with the first lady of Romania, Ioana Tariceanu, at Ten Downing Street to promote the cause of poorly treated orphans. And naturally Gordon and Sarah were there. And naturally, because Gordon held a number of conversations with Gerry McCann we assume that this is where Rowling got her idea for the bookmarks.

There's no doubting it, Rowling is quite a philanthropist by the sounds of things, but you can hardly indict someone for actually caring (although in the current climate it's entirely likely you could detain them 42 days withour charge, if push came to shove)

Whilst the relationship between Rowling and the McCanns may be fairly arbitrary, her friendship with Britain's Prime Minister appears less so. What some people have been suggesting is that Ms Rowling shares some of Gordon's passion and commitment to the Socialist Fabian Society. But Rowling and the Fabian Socialists? It was like something straight out of the Sorting Hat. Slowly, however, it began to make more sense. Rowling had, afterall, made no secret of the fact she’s been greatly influenced by Communist writer and journalist, Jessica Mitford – so the logic seemed to follow, even if it did seem a little extraordinary. Then there is the no small issue of Rowling expressing a particular fondness for children's writer, E. Nesbit who was amongst the founding members of the Fabian Society along with Beatrice Potter Webb and Frank Podmore (Nesbit is also alleged to have been a member of the left-wing loony 'satanic' cult, The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn along with 'wickedest man in the world', Aleister Crowley - an archetypal 'Voldemort' character, if you like, but more of this later).

The Fabian Society; what is it? Well let’s have a look.

TO PLAY THOSE MILLIONS OF MINDS: WOLVES IN SHEEPS CLOTHING

The Fabian Society is a British Socialist movement whose purpose is to advance Socialist principles with a gradualist and reformist rather than revolutionary agenda. In fact, a parody of their philosophy goes something like this: “What do we want?” “Gradual change!” “When do we want it?” “In due course!” The Guardian Newspaper describes the Fabian Society and Ed Balls, the society's chair, as Brown's closest allies. In fact it is alleged it was the Fabians who persuaded Brown to withdraw prematurely from the General Election proposed last Autumn and focus instead on a devising a credible fightback in the polls in 2008.

Dating back to the 19th Century past and present members have included HG Wells, George Bernard Shaw, Gordon Brown, Tony Blair, Alistair Campbell and hundreds more. It’s a lefty think-tank and in recent years it become a vanguard of the centre-left New Labour movement. They gave us publicly-funded old age pensions, universal suffrage movements, medical services for the poor, child labour laws, workers’ compensation, workplace safety rules, public health and sanitation, minimum wages, unemployment insurance, the welfare state - who knows - perhaps even iPods; in fact, in many ways the Fabians pretty much defined 20th Century Britain as we know it. Slowly, of course:

''The inevitability of gradualness cannot fail to be appreciated ' (The Fabian Society)

The directive was not only to strike a balance but to 'strike hard' when the right opportunity presented itself. And they were right. Only no one hung around long enough to notice.

So there we have it: a bunch of so-called Social Theorists out to change the world. So what's new? It is not as influential as it appears to have been in the past (at least on the surface) but it is possible that it may be undergoing something a rebirth.

The founders of the Fabian Society named it after the Roman General Fabius, known as 'the delayer' because he used delaying tactics and attrition rather than direct battles to wear down the stronger forces of the enemy. And given the rather gruelling delays we all experienced in September last year, when the new Labour Cabinet was considering a 'snap' election, Brown would appear to be a natural heir of General Fabius.

But the fibres of the association may be even more complex than that.

In the following extract, Travis Prinzi, who describes himself as ‘a perturbed, paleo-orthodox preacher’ (whatever that means) draws a direct parallel between the Fabian Society and Rowling’s ‘The Order Of The Phoenix’ (2003):

“Remember - Harry is the hero of the series; Dumbledore is the wise old man. Dumbledore has passed to Harry the wisdom that he needs to continue his efforts of reform in the wizarding world. The Fabian Society’s way of operating is to patiently seek reform by influencing systems and to strike when a golden opportunity arise. Dumbledore has been patiently working for reform over time, and my guess is that he sees in Harry and the events laid out before him one of those golden opportunities. Through Harry, expect to see houses united, magical creatures and wizards working together, and house elves empowered."

-- Sword of Gryffindor: Tarvis Prinzi.

The early Fabians were socialists searching for a modus operandi by which to achieve their ideal of a widespread civic and common-mindedness. Something to unite people both on a national and global level. In the Potter series it is Potter himself, but for more unpopular proposals like the Prüm Treaty and pan-European alert schemes (backed by Fabians and police forces alike), some would argue that it is Madeleine; a catalyst figure, a conduit. Of course this distinguished the Fabians from most other socialists; the Fabians had very definite ideas about how utopia would be achieved; by way of networks and communities and 'golden opportunities'. Not by hacking off someone's head with a blunt surgical instrument and telling us to knuckle down.

DISAPPEARING DOWN THE RABBIT HOLE WITH BEATRICE POTTER AND THE FABIAN QUARTET

At the historical core of The Fabian Society, however, are Beatrice Potter Webb and Sidney Webb – not your average couple by any means. Whilst some couples enjoy mini-breaks in the Lakes, entertaining friends or family at home, scrapbooking, hiking, ordering an Indian Takeaway, Beatrice and Sidney Webb 'hung out' by jointly contributing to the political and economic theory of the Co-operative movement; co-authoring books such as the History of Trade Unionism (1894), and co-founding left-wing political magazines that are still popular to this day (New Statesman, 1913). It wasn't as exciting as ten-pin bowling, naturally - but it helped to pass the time. But if there’s one thing they really enjoyed as a couple, it was in perfecting the role played by ‘propaganda’ in controlling the hearts and minds of the proletariat. Although briefly a member of the society himself, H.G. Wells' The New Machiavelli (1911) lampooned the Webbs as 'the Baileys', whom he described as ‘shortsighted, bourgeois manipulators’ (I dare say the same could be said of Sarah and Gordon). And given the following statement, he was probably not far wrong:

“To play those millions of minds, to watch them slowly respond to an unseen stimulus, to guide their aspirations without their knowledge - all this whether in high capacities or in humble - is a big and endless game of chess of ever extraordinary excitement.”

-- Sidney Webb, former leader of Fabian Society

What was 'lying and cheating' to the vast majority of people was to the Fabians an 'unseen stimulus'. Was it a similar kind of 'unseen stimulus' that led to Rowling calling her fifth novel, 'The Order Of The Phoenix' ? Was the 'Order of the Phoenix' really another name for, 'The Fellowship of New Life' from which the Fabians arose like the proverbial bird from the ashes? (Fellowship: Order? Phoenix: Rebirth, perhaps? New Life?). The dates certainly tally as it was written shortly after JK and Fabian Society member, Gordon Brown became good friends (2003).

But that's not all.

Beatrice Webb who was a founder member of the Fabian Society is more commonly known as Beatrice Potter (Not Beatrix Potter - but a committed Social Theorist who was instrumental in the establishment of the London School of Economics with her husband, Sidney.

JK ROWLING'S INFLUENCES: EVERY STORY TELLS A STORY THAT HAS ALREADY BEEN TOLD - THE TRUTH AND LIFE OF MYTH

First let's be asolutely clear about one thing: there's simply no real way of knowing exactly where Rowling plucked her ideas from. The best that you can say is that they are seldom plucked out of a hat - sorcerer's or otherwise, instead they behave in an almost viral fashion, spores dispersing on the wind, multiplying and dividing in a less than tidy fashion, taking root in the smallest of crevices and upon the most unlikely of hosts. As Umberto Eco points out in his novel, The Name Of The Rose, 'books always speak of other books, and every story tells a story that has already been told.' Books are not the manifestation of the personal reality of the author but a patchwork of things; texts refer to other texts, and those texts to other texts until tracing the germ of an idea, or the source of an original story becomes more like trying to isolate the source of an epidemic spanning hundreds if not thousands of years. In true Post Modern style, Eco's hero solves the mystery 'by mistake', he thought there was a pattern but it turned out to be accidental. We might look for the end of the rainbow but it's seldom there. We lunge after certainty, make complete fools of ourselves in the pursuit of closure but we are only ever chasing shadows; and shadows which are, moreover, likely to have no observable source of their own. Even the novel's title is without meaning, Eco saying in the Postscript he chose the title 'because the rose is a symbolic figure so rich in meanings that by now it hardly has any meaning left.'

Myths have a life of their own. They're more like a travelling companion than actual luggage. Manhandle them as much as you will but you will still never have complete command over them. You might be able to push them onto the carriage, direct them to their seats but should they start chatting to other passengers you've already as good as lost them. And this is true of ourselves as much as Rowling, which is something to bear in mind when reading the following bullet-points. As the author knows only too well, it's inevitable that much of this mud is likely to be flung well-wide of the mark. In fact, there's no shortage of rumours already been disposed of in the trash bin (or up the mudflap if you wish to extend the image): Harry Potter is based on JKR's cousin? Throw it it in the rubbish bin. Her husband Dr. Neil Murray 'gives up work'? Stick it in recycling. Gilderoy Lockhart is based on JKR's first husband? Pure toxic waste. The Official Rowling website even has an area devoted to waste disposal.

So rather than try and work the whole thing into somekind of complete and discursive 'fellowship' of theories I thought I would address them as they come, as shreds of ideas, adhoc parallels, partial coincidences and things that go bump in the night. It's not only to avoid Rowling's 'Rubbish Bin' but to resist the temptation to invest the Potter series with so much symbolic meaning that it hardly has any meaning left - much like Eco's 'rose'.

So here we are, Harry Potter and the Occult and the Politics of JK Rowling in no particular (or conscious) order:

• Is Lord Voldemort based on Aleister Crowley (1875-1947): Aleister Crowley, 'the wickedest man in the world', or at least he was until Errol Flynn came along. A member of the infamous 19th century magical order, the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn along with the popular children's author, Edith Nesbit, Crowley is alleged to have discovered at the age of eleven his true identity: that he was the embodiment of the devil on earth. At an age when most boys were discovering they had pubic hair, Crowley discovered he had the mark of the Beast: 666. In fact he liked it so much he asked people to call him it. But whereas Harry discovers he is a wizard at the age of eleven and has an unsightly generic scar on his forehead, Crowley realises he is in 'He Who Must Not be Named'. Like Voldemort and Harry he too is a half-blood, his well-to-do father having married beneath him - a woman of uncertain race known locally as 'the little Chinese girl'. Like Lord Voldemort, Crowley was highly intelligent and charismatic and he was also a keen traveller in his time (not only was he an occultist and mystic he was also a talented writer, mountaineer, philosopher and poet). Unfortunately his relationship with other members of the Golden Dawn was less than harmonious. An enthusiastic and zealous member, Crowley had, in just 6 months, scaled the ranks of the outer order, and was soon to be a practising magician in the eyes of the Golden Dawn. But there was something a little bit darker about Crowley. By the year 1900 the inflated egos of many of the group members had caused arguments, and created schisms within the group. Aleister Crowley (who joined in 1898) had a major part in this. He was not well liked. By 1900 he and his mentor, Samuel Mathers had been expelled from the Golden Dawn. The poet WB Yeats took over as head, trying in vain to restore a stronger moral directive. The order, like Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, had been pulled in two directions: between the white magic bent of members like Nesbit and the deep black arts of Crowley (Rowley wasn't the first to use the title, The Philosopher's Stone; Crowley's friend, Israel Regardie wrote a book of the same name in 1937). Also, by some strange quirk of fate, Hogwarts is described in the book as being just a short distance from Dufftown in Moray, Scotland , only a mile or so from myself. Crowley's Boleskine House lies not too far away on the South-Eastern shores of Loch Ness. Crowley described it as a magical place, a kind of Gnostic or Thelemic Mecca - the holiest shrine of Islam. Many New Age followers believe it to be the focal point of the magical '93 Current' energy. Like Hogwarts Boleskine House is embraced by a loch on one side and a loch on the other: Loch Ness on it's Western face and Loch Mohr on it's Eastern Side. And if you are looking for Potter's Forbidden Forest, then it's possible that Boleskine's 18 acres of mature woodland provides an ideal setting, situated as it is amongst the pines of Farigaig Forest and the Great Glen. Like the Forbidden Forest, Fairgaig has a rare area of beech and yew trees. Hogwarts too has a Loch, called the Black Lake in the fourth book, Goblet of Fire. The waters of Loch Ness are characteristically black too (the River Ness actually extends into the Black Isle). Are Harry, Lord Voldemort and Crowley different facets of the same person? You decide.
  
  ... not all Wizards are good, Harry ... some of them go bad ... (Hagrid, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone)
  
  
• Does Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry represent the Fabian Society? In all likelihood - no. It would be a gross misrepresentation of how authors absorb and express their influences to say that Rowling based her entire series on any one source. But that isn't to say that The Fabian Society doesn't share a number of its characteristics. Like Hogwarts The Fabian Society embraced a broad variety of progressive talents and leading lights. Whilst it is entirely possible that Rowling part-based Harry's name on Fabian founder, Beatrice Potter, it is more persuasive to consider that Rowling's interest in this society was aroused by Edith Nesbit (1858-1924) - clearly Rowling's favourite children's author and a co-founder of the Fabian Society. Like Jessica Mitford, Nesbit was an enthusiastic Socialist and political activist. As a writer Nesbit popularized an innovative style of children's fantasy that combined realistic, contemporary children in real-world settings with magical objects and adventures. In doing so, she was a direct or indirect influence on many subsequent writers. Her novels included The Phoenix and the Carpet (1904) and The Railway Children (1906). Nesbit also wrote with her husband under the alias 'Fabian Bland'. However, it is likely to be the fact Fabian Society members often moonlighted as members of neo-pagan cults, like The Theosophical Society and The Hermetic Order of The Golden Dawn. The Theosophical Society, founded by the charismatic, Madame Helena Blavatsky, arose out of the ashes of the Society for Psychical Research (previously the Ghost Society) in 1882 and expounded a mystical and esoteric tradition not unlike the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. In some ways it was like a halfway-house; lodged between the progressive Socialism of the Fabians on the one hand, and the variously loony proclivities of the Golden Dawn on the other. Fabian stalwart, Annie Besant held court at The Theosophical Society and Edith Nesbit held court at The Golden Dawn - although it seems inevitable that all three societies converged at various points (with Crowley banging at the windows of each). So there you have it, Rowling's favourite children's author and co-founder of Fabian Socialism was an accredited Witch, steeped in all manner of sorcery and kabbalah. When they weren't proposing motions, this lot were making potions.
  
  
• Is Bellatrix LeStrange based on the character Beatrice Lestrange Bradley created by Gladys Mitchell? Well they sound enough alike, don't they? And then there's the fact that like Edith Nesbit, the celebrated detective storywriter, Mitchell had just as much interest in the occult. A psychiatric advisor to the Home Office, Beatrice Lestrange Bradley uses no small degree of witchcraft to unravel her cases. She's unconventional and unorthodox and she has a peculiar tolerance for being able to both condone and to commit murder. And such is her obvious dark-side that she described often in reptilian terms: 'a deadly serpent basking in the sun' and an alligator smiling gently while birds removed animal irritants from its armoured frame'. Not your Miss Marple, I'm afraid. In fact, far from it. Like much of Fabian Society she studied the work of Freud and used as similar combination of word-play and conundrums to Ms Rowling; word association, people’s names, jokes and puns, literary allusion, lies and omissions: all provided clues to the identity of the murderer. She too was a progressive and a liberal - but it seems she favoured Conservatism in terms of politics. Whilst Mitchell's social and philosophical activity was no less profound than that of her Socialist counterparts, was this one division enough to have her occupy a more sinister role in Rowling's intentions? Perhaps. Interesting, it was Mitchell's friend and fellow detective writer, Helen de Guerry Simpson (1897-1940) who aroused Mitchell's interest in demonology (writing the classic, 'Cups, Wands and Swords' in 1927, which combined her principal interests, detective fiction and the occult). Like Jessica Mitchell, Simpson also committed no small amount of interest to the Spanish Civil War. In April 1918 Simpson joined the Women's Royal Naval Service as a chief section officer of decoding at the Admiralty - which appears to have provided inspiration for Mitchell's character. Film fact: In the film The Order of the Phoenix, Bellatrix Lestrange, played by Helena Bonham-Carter has the prison number '93' tatooed on the back of her neck. The number 93 relates directly to the religion of Thelema, adapted from the philosophy of François Rabelais by Aleister Crowley in 1904 with the writing of The Book of the Law. Crowley's former home on Loch Ness, Boleskine House, is reputed to lie on the '93 Current' energy line.
  
  
• Did Rowling base her Gryffindor House Colours on the Beatrice Lestrange Bradley? Beatrice gets a second appearance, which appears to strengthen the case. Or does it? Here's a description of Beatrice's salad days: 'She attended a small private school sometime in the early 1870s, whose Old School Tie was “a blasphemous combination of gold, silver and purple”. And here's a photo of the Gryffindor tie:
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Does Grimmauld Place have anything to do with King Grimoald who defeated the Merovingian dynasty? I bet you were wondering when the Merovingian dynasty would crop up. But it came up in the Da Vinci Code, so why not here? Whilst it is widely speculated that Grimmauld Place (the address of The Order Of The Phoenix) roughly translates as 'Grim Old Place' - there's a fascinating (if not wholly convincing) argument that it refers instead to the Carolingian king, Grimoald who overthrew the Merovingian dynasty in the 700s. What's so important about the Merovingian dynasty? Well the Merovingian dynasty is rather like that of Slytherin - it was a 'pureblood' dynasty and - as legend has it - it was also the satanic bloodline of the Anti-Christ and False Prophet (although this is a matter of some conjecture as in the Da Vinci Code the dynasty represents the bloodline of Christ). Whatever the truth of the matter, their rival family politics sought frequent recourse to civil warfare. Extended family member and black-sheep, Grimoald decided the matter by crushing Childeric III and ruling in his place. The hero Grimoald in this respect may represent Sirius Black's resistance movement. Is the Number 12 a play on the Number's 10 and 11 Downing Street? Probably not - it's just another of those 'magic' numbers: there are 12 numbers on a clock face, 12 disciples, 12 days of Christmas, 12 fat-sausages sizzling in a pan. And there I was thinking 3 was a magic number (it's been suggested that the locale is in Bloomsbury, London,a few minutes walk from the home of the Fabian Society or Deans Yard, Frank Podmore's original HQ).
  
  
• Is the Potter character, Cassandra Vablatsky a tribute to Madame Blavatsky - founder of the Theosophical Society? I think it's reasonably safe to assume that the author of required Hogwarts textbook, 'Unfogging The Future', Cassandra Vablatsky is a tribute Madame Blavatsky, whom Aleister Crowley cited amongst his profoundest inspirations. As we've seen already, Madame Blavatsky was one of the main instigators of the 19th century English occult revival. It's claimed she wore an 'Eastern Star Emblem' most of her life as a sign of respect to the Scottish Rite of Freemasonry. The purpose of establishing the Theosophical Society was to prepare humanity for the reception of the World Teacher when he appeared again on earth. Fabian member Annie Besant was to repeat this some years later. Blavatsky argued that humanity had descended from a series of "Root Races", naming the fifth root race (out of seven) the Aryan race (she thought that the Aryans originally came from Atlantis). In Potter speak she would be a Slytherin through and through. Her anti-Semitism is alleged to have given rise to Nazi Occultism some years later. Crowley considered it noteworthy that he was born in the same year Blavatsky founded the Theosophical Society (1875). The Hogwarts textbook, 'Unfogging The Future' is likely to be inspired by an number of 'divination' works by Blavatsky, but more specifically, Isis Unveiled - in which she describes the impulse to 'remove veil which hides our vision from the future' (the picture below depicts a personal seal used by Blavatsky during her work on Esoteric Secrets. Fans of Harry Potter might note that the symbol used bears an uncanny resemblance to the Golden Snitch).
  
  
  
  
• Did JK Rowling base any specific Potter characters on any Fabian members? Well, it certainly seems that way. And the few there are appear to comprise the founding members of both the orginal The Order of The Phoenix and the original Fabian Society: Fabian Prewett (perhaps named after E Nesbit's alias, Fabian Bland) and Sturgis Podmore, one of the deceased wizards who was in the order (likely to be based on founding member of the Fabian Society, Frank Podmore). The character, Emmeline Vance may also be an affectionate tribute to Emmeline Pankhurst, a women’s rights activist was one of the earliest members of the Fabians - but this would really be stretching it. The original name for The Fabian Society was The Fellowship of New Life - a possible play on the word Phoenix (a symbol of rebirth). I believe Harry's wand is also made from the tail feather of a phoenix.
  
  
• Is Grimmauld Place in Soho? Harry in Soho? Hogwarts Sex City? At first glance it seems an absurd suggestion to make, but on closer scrutiny, it makes a lot of sense. Ms Rowling's contact address is popularly given as J.K Rowling c/o Bloomsbury 38 Publishing Place Soho Square London W1W 5DF England. Tucked away in North Western London is Bloomsbury's Headquarters - Harry Potter's publishing house. Rowling describes Grimmauld Place as being little over a twenty-minute walk from Kings Cross Station. The Harry Potter Lexicon suggests that this means Grimmauld Place is approximately 1 mile from Kings Cross Station - and Soho Square fits the picture perfectly, being little more than one 1 mile from Kings Cross Station. So the Headquarters of Order of the Phoenix lies in Soho, yeah? Well it's not as crazy as you think. It's well known that the Fabian Society and the early Bloomsbury Group were as thick as thieves. In fact Bloomsbury Publishing was started by Fabian Society members, John Maynard Keynes, Leonard Woolf and Lytton Strachey. They also had no shortage of members taking part in all manner of Neo-Pagan and bohemian beatnikery. In fact the Bloomsbury group used to meet up at Lulworth Cove in Dorset, exploring their conflicting notions of sexuality with pretty, pagan figureheads like Rupert Brooke (Lulworth Cove, incidentally, is where Harry Potter and his friends sat and had a picnic in the film, Chamber Of Secrets). In some ways one could look upon the Bloomsbury Group as the 'aesthetic' arm of Fabian Socialism: the society's literary wing. Fabian socialism and the hedonism of Bloomsbury philosophy went hand in hand. It was also enormously sexually charged; the group's preening snobbery offset by homosexual self-indulgence. Angelica Garnett termed Bloomsbury's "precarious paradise" of damaging ambiguities. The Bloomsbury Group had a co-operative residence at 49 Doughty Street, Bloomsbury - much like the depiction of the Order of the Phoenix in Harry Potter; a ramshackle order of misfits, resistance fighters and inordinately gay and bi-sexual innovators. Talking to Edinburgh 'Student' Newspaper in March 2008, Rowling admitted to having 'always seen Dumbledore as gay'. And with a utopian flourish that freethinkers like Brooke and Wells would have been proud of, she explains: 'The issue is love. It’s not about sex.' Interestingly A & C Black are an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing, and they too occupied a place in Soho during this period. Also, Virgina Woolf - one of the founding members of Bloomsbury - went on to found Hogarth Press. Is it possible this was the inspiration for the name Hogwarts? Hogarth Express, anyone?

  
  
  

• Was Madeleine McCann a fan of Harry Potter? With all due respect, perhaps not the most tactful question for a child that has vanished, but entirely reasonable given the sheer amount of publicity the case has had. JK Rowling is alleged to have arranged, with the help of her publishers, Bloomsbury, for a poster to be made available for book retailers worldwide. It was suggested that the poster be displayed prominently during the release of her final Potter novel, the Deathly Hallows. Madeleine's mother, Kate McCann, said: "We are overjoyed by this generous offer and would like to thank JK Rowling, her publishers and book retailers for all they are doing to help.” She went on to describe how Madeleine had the first three Harry Potter books and first three DVDs: “Like most other children the world over, she loves the stories.” On a more curious note, Rowling went to Exeter University. Exeter is no stranger to controversy in relation to the case: firstly it is home to the McCann’s ‘Tapas’ friends, Richard O’Brien and Jane Tanner, and secondly it is also the place Robert Murat is alleged to have visited shortly before Madeleine’s disappearance in May 2007. Robert’s sister attends the University there. Oh, and Rowling also lived in Portugal too. Is Madeleine the 'snitch' and the great British Public the 'seeker, occassionally set off balance by no-end of 'bludgers' from the mainstream press and Mitchell's not insubstantial PR offensive? Not for me to decide. Sometimes it really does come down to coincidence.

  
  
  

• Was Rowling's hero Robert Kennedy a Fabian Member? Again, close but not exactly. One of Kennedy's famous quotes was this: 'Some men look at the world as it is and ask, 'Why?' I dream things that never were and ask, 'Why not?'. It was an oblique reference to Fabian torchbearer, George Bernard Shaw's famous statement: 'You imagine what you desire, you will what you imagine and at last you create .... I dream of things that never were and ask why not?' It should come as no surprise to learn that Robert Kennedy studied at the Fabian-socialist London School of Economics (founded by Fabian Members, George Bernard Shaw, Syndey Webb and Beatrice Potter). In an interview with El Pais (politically and ideologically aligned with Spain's Social Democrats) JK Rowling confessed "in real life, my hero is Robert F. Kennedy."
  It's possible to argue that the two share what could be described as a neo-Romantic Socialism.
  
  
• Does the Nimbus 2000 refer to the Nimrod Bomber? Anybody's guess - although many folks might not know that Nimrod is actually another name for the devil. He was a Mesopotamian king. There was a Nimrod 2000 but it was renamed the Nimrod Maritime, MRA4. There seems to be a tradition of naming aircraft with roots in the occult. However, given that there's also a Braun 2000 and a Disco 2000, it might be wisest not to read too much into it.
  
  
• Is it true the Fabian Society want JK Rowling to be the next Queen? Well, not exactly, but one satirical magazine reported that The Fabian Society had asked over 2,500 people whether they wanted to keep the monarchy in its current form, modify the role of the royals in British society, or dispense with it altogether. A majority of respondents, 55 percent, stated that they would prefer to keep the monarchy but name J.K. Rowling the new monarch. Sounds like a fix if you ask me.
  
• Does JK Rowling's husband, Dr Neil Murray know Gerry McCann? No. Dr Neil Murray graduated from Glasgow Medical School in 1994. Gerry McCann graduated from the same Medical School in 1992. Given that Medical Degrees take between four and six years to complete, it is likely they were on campus at the same time, mixing in similar circles. However, there is no evidence to suggest the two have ever met. And just to prove that coincidences really do happen: Gerry McCann was born on the very day that JK Rowling's hero, Bobby Kennedy was shot dead in Los Angeles: 05 June 1968. Interesting, but ultimately meaningless.
  

SOME UTTERLY PROFOUND AND UNLIKELY COINCIDENCES: WHAT'S IN A NAME?

So what are Harry Potter's infleunces? What about Harry Potter's name? Whilst Rowling alleges the name Harry Potter is based on a family she knew of in Yate (and I have no real reason to disbelieve her) there are a series of bizarre coincidences all the same.

Beatrice Potter's Grandfather was Richard Potter MP 1778 - 1842 (his brother, Sir Thomas Potter (1773 - 1845), MP and first Mayor of Manchester (1838).

Beatrice's father Richard Potter (1817 - 1892) was a Gloucester timber merchant who was born in Manchester and was President of the Grand Trunk Railway of Canada and Chairman of the Great Western Railway.

This is where it gets spooky: JK Rowling was born in Gloucester and alleges the story of Harry Potter came to her on a train travelling from Manchester to London.

And if that's not enough, then how about this?

The 'Hogwart's Express' locomotive portrayed in this film, is a classic 'Hall' steam engine (number 5972) and originally belonged to the Great Western Railway, going under the name of 'Olton Hall'.

Do you think our JK shares somekind of special affinity with the Fabian Society's Beatrice and Richard Potter? (although born in Manchester, Richard Potter lived and died in Stroud, Gloucestershire in 1892) whilst JK Rowling was born in Yate, Gloucestershire. Both Richard Potter and JK Rowling also spent time in Wales. Richard had a mansion in Twyn-Yr-Argoed, Monmouthshire whilst JK's family moved to Chepstow in Monmouthshire - only 18 minutes drive apart.

Beatrice's sister Rosalind married, George Cumberland Dobbs. Isn't there a creature called 'Dobby' in Harry Potter? (Harry's personal servant?)

But really just to complicate things even further. There's not one Richard Potter, but two. Rowling's Harry Potter could also be based on another Richard Potter.

Another Richard Potter was America’s first successful stage magician, hypnotist and ventriloquist. Also known as Black Potter.

He was the son of the itinerant English Baronet, Sir Charles Henry Frankland and an Indian servant girl called Dinah (which makes him something of a muggle, I suppose, a 'half-blood prince', if you like).

Harry Houdini was the first to introduce Richard Potter to a wider audience in his 'Conjurers' Monthly Magazine' in 1906 and appears to have influenced Houdini considerably.

HEAD JUGGLING: THE MINISTRY OF NOT REALLY KNOWING AND NOT REALLY GIVING A TOSS

Do I believe any of this stuff? Well some, perhaps, not all. Not all mud sticks afterall. Not even mudblood. But there's little doubting Rowling's familiarity with all these things, conscious or not; influence and inspiration is, afterall, much like a leaky cauldron - you never really know how much has gone in and you are never entirely sure how much has come out. But even so, there is little doubting that Rowling and her characters extol the same quietly disruptive liberalism of the late Victorian progressives. Immoderate, freethinking and sexually transgressive, Gryffindor and its housemates provide the perfect foil to extremism in all its shapes and forms - political, religious and otherwise. As Rowling told Adeel Amini of Edinburgh ‘Student’ newspaper, she has zero tolerance for fundamentalism of any kind, insisting she 'absolutely part(s) company with people on that side of the fence'.

Her next novel? A 'political fairytale'.

So no change of tempo then.

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In brief:
JK Rowling is a close friend with Gordon Brown and Sarah Brown. Gordon is a member of the Fabian Society The society is a progressive, Socialist think-tank sympathetic to EU enlargement and non-repressive control of the state (see Althusser and all that shit).

She names one of her children after Gordon.

She admits to be being hugely influenced by socialist/communist writer Jessica Mitford.

Some allege Rowling's The Order of the Phoenix is based loosely on The Fabian Society and that it influences the philosophy of the whole series.

It's possible JK Rowling bases the title character on a number of identities: Richard Potter (half-cast American magician ), Harry Houdini, Richard Potter (Great Western Railway) and Beatrice Potter - Fabian Social reformer.

She appears to have lived around the same ancestral homes of Richard and Beatrice Potter (Gloucester and Monmouthshire)

Rowling’s first novel, Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone is published as Blair comes to office in June 2007 and her last novel, The Deathly Hallows is published as Blair leaves office in July 2007. Is it just even remotely possible that these people were friends before 2002?

Was this another of those Golden Opportunities the Fabians told us about?

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“To play those millions of minds, to watch them slowly respond to an unseen stimulus, to guide their aspirations without their knowledge - all this whether in high capacities or in humble - is a big and endless game of chess of ever extraordinary excitement.”

(Sidney Webb and Beatrice Potter, founder members of the Fabian Society).

tags: JK Rowling, Influences, Occult, Harry Potter, Name, JK Rowling Politics, Harry Potter Politics

Influences and Politics of Harry Potter:

Harry Potter Politics

JK Rowling Politics

Harry Potter Influences

JK Rowling Influences

Harry Potter Name

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