

Not everyone is convinced that Harry Potter is fictional. Image Credit: CC BY-SA 4.0 Suzelfe

A private Catholic school in Nashville has claimed that the Harry Potter books contain 'actual spells and curses.'

St Edward Catholic school in Tennessee, which teaches children up to the 8th grade, has taken steps to remove every copy of J.K. Rowling's popular book series from its library because its pastor, Rev Dan Reehil, believes that they contain actual spells capable of summoning evil spirits."These books present magic as both good and evil, which is not true, but in fact a clever deception," he wrote. "The curses and spells used in the books are actual curses and spells; which when read by a human being risk conjuring evil spirits into the presence of the person reading the text."The Harry Potter series, which has often drawn criticism from religious groups due to its portrayal of wizards, witches and the occult, is well known for its often dark spells including the infamous "avada kedavra" killing curse and "crucio", which is used to torture an unfortunate subject.All of these however are purely fictitious and utterly meaningless in the real world.This hasn't stopped St Edward Catholic school from removing them from its shelves, though."[Rev Dan Reehil is] well within his authority to act in that manner - each pastor has canonical authority to make such decisions for his parish school," said Rebecca Hammel, superintendent of schools for the Catholic diocese of Nashville.