LONDON - Readers waited in sheets of rain and blazing sun Friday, from Sydney to Seattle, to get their hands on "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows," the seventh and final volume in the schoolboy wizard's saga.
In a now-familiar ritual that is part sales frenzy and part Halloween party, bookstores in Britain were flinging open their doors at a minute past midnight to hordes of would-be warlocks, sorcerers and ordinary, non-magical Muggles. Shops throughout the world were putting the book on sale at the same time, and the United States will follow as midnight strikes Saturday in each time zone, from 12:01 a.m. EDT.
J.K. Rowling, who created the magical lad in "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" a decade ago, was giving a midnight reading to 500 competition-winning children in the grand Victorian surroundings of London's Natural History Museum.
For many of the keenest fans, the place to be was Waterstone's bookstore on Piccadilly in central London. Dozens of die-hard fans sheltered under umbrellas and plastic ponchos, undeterred by torrential rain. Some passed the time by jotting predictions for the final novel in notebooks, while others encouraged passing drivers to "Honk for Harry."
"This is the biggest Harry Potter party in Europe, so it's worth the wait," said Laura Halinen, 23, from Kuusankoski, Finland.
Rowling's books about the bespectacled orphan with the lightning-bolt scar have sold 325 million copies in 64 languages, and the launch of each new volume has become a Hollywood-scale extravaganza.
Chellie Carr, 17, a fan since the age of 9, said she had pestered her mother to bring her to London from her hometown of Okemos, Mich.
"For all the other books she said, 'No. It's just a book.' But for this one, she said yes," said Carr, who wore a homemade black cloak lined in green for Slytherin, one of four houses at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
"Deathly Hallows" has a print run of 12 million in the United States alone, and Internet retailer Amazon says it has taken 2.2 million orders for the book — 47 percent higher than the pre-order for the sixth volume, "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince." Britain's Royal Mail says it will deliver 600,000 copies on Saturday — one for every 43 households in the country; the U.S. Postal Service said it would deliver 1.8 million copies.
"It is completely crazy," said Deborah Tilley, a spokeswoman for Britain's Waterstone's bookstore chain. "It has never been quite this busy."
From London to Los Angeles, Potter-mania spans the globe. Tel Aviv's Steimatzky bookstore was due to open at 2:01 a.m. local time Saturday (a minute after midnight London time), defying criticism from Orthodox Jewish lawmakers for opening on the Sabbath, when the law requires most businesses in Israel to close.
In India, stores were opening at dawn for special Harry Potter parties. In Bangkok, British ambassador David Fall was to hand over Thailand's first official copy of "Deathly Hallows" to the first customer in line at the Emporium Shopping Complex. The mall was decked out with a re-creation of King's Cross Station's platform 9 3/4, where Harry and friends catch the Hogwarts Express to school.
Phnom Penh's Monument Books — Cambodia's only outlet for the book — expected its allotment of 224 copies to sell out within hours.
Excitement was building in the United States, which gets the book a few hours later than most of the rest of the world. Enthusiasts, some rereading previous Potter volumes, lined up in sunshine outside book stores in Los Angeles and New York.
Portland, Maine, was going all-out with a 12-hour Mugglefest to celebrate the book's launch. Fans wearing robes and carrying wands were riding the Hogwarts Express into a re-creation of Kings Cross station, and an old red-brick warehouse foundry along the city's waterfront was converted into the magical shopping street Diagon Alley, where Hogwarts students buy wands and other magical paraphernalia in Rowling's books.
Security for the launch is tight, with books shipped in sealed pallets and legal contracts binding stores not to sell the book before the midnight release time.
In Ireland, 2,500 people who bought tickets for a launch party at Eason's bookshop on Dublin's O'Connell Street had to sign contracts to be admitted into the store at 11 p.m.
"It's been hard work," said children's book buyer David O'Callaghan, who is dressing up as a werewolf for the occasion. "We've had to sign an embargo, and every customer has signed an embargo, and we send all the signed forms off to an auditor — he's the equivalent of Voldemort — who says things like, 'The signature on account number X214 does not match.' But it's all worth it when you see 2,500 people in O'Connell Street, dressed up and waiting for their book."
Despite the security, spoilers have sprouted on the Internet, including photographed images of what appeared to be all 700-plus pages of the book's U.S. edition. Publishers would not say whether the leaked pages were genuine.
In France, the daily Le Parisien played spoiler, telling readers how the final installment ends, in a small article which it printed upside down. The book's French publishing house, Gallimard Jeunesse, condemned the newspaper's revelation, saying it showed "a total lack of respect for J.K. Rowling" and "disdain for readers."
As many as 1,200 copies were shipped early in the United States by an online retailer, and The New York Times and The (Baltimore) Sun published reviews of the book ahead of the release.
Rowling said she was "staggered" by the embargo-busting reviews and called on fans to preserve the secrecy of the plot.
"In a very short time you will know EVERYTHING," she wrote on her Web site.
The six books have been building to a final confrontation between Harry and his evil nemesis, Lord Voldemort, scourge of the wizarding world. Fans are on tenterhooks because of the prophecy, revealed in Book 5, that one must inevitably kill the other.
Amber de Jager, 19, from Rijswijk in the Netherlands, said she expected "relief, but a lot of tears as well" when she finished reading.
"I think it will have a bittersweet ending," she said.
I hope there aren't any parents on AFF who will be buying Harry Potter books for their children, though I'm sure there will be a few. Whats your opinion of this? Devilish and satanic or innocent fun? Its witchcraft straight from the pits of hell which satan is using to get an "upper hand" on children so he can use them for his kingdom in IMHO!
I'll be buying it for myself, but I won't wait in line for it. I'll walk into the store tomorrow, there will be a big stack and I will pick it up with my other purchases... no waiting in line required...
I don't believe that Christians should have anything to do with Harry Potter
book, movies, etc...., and yes I have a TV, but anything that has to do with
the occult and magical powers we should avoid.
A couple of weeks ago, I was watching a documentary on the occult. one of the points was that there has been an increase in interest in the occult in Brittian as a result of the Harry Potter deal.
they were not making a value judgement on practice of Wicca, or occult. Simply that there was more of it because of HP.
__________________ If I do something stupid blame the Lortab!
For all the overt witchcraft in these books, the really scary thing is how it starts off light and ends dark. It was a gradual progression where it started off as something children could read (supposedly) but became quite dark and sinister near the end... Had it started off like that perhaps it would not be as popular as it is with parents..
But that is how the enemy works and has always worked, even to this day ALL enemies work this way, but subterfuge and gaining trust....slowly taking over. That has been the best weapon any invasive force has ever used...Think of the Trojan horse...and by the time the real "drama" begins the victim is lulled into a false sense of security.
__________________ Let it be understood that Apostolic Friends Forum is an Apostolic Forum.
Apostolic is defined on AFF as:
There is One God. This one God reveals Himself distinctly as Father, Son and Holy Ghost.
The Son is God himself in a human form or "God manifested in the flesh" (1Tim 3:16)
Every sinner must repent of their sins.
That Jesus name baptism is the only biblical mode of water baptism.
That the Holy Ghost is for today and is received by faith with the initial evidence of speaking in tongues.
The saint will go on to strive to live a holy life, pleasing to God.
A couple of weeks ago, I was watching a documentary on the occult. one of the points was that there has been an increase in interest in the occult in Brittian as a result of the Harry Potter deal.
they were not making a value judgement on practice of Wicca, or occult. Simply that there was more of it because of HP.
Does anyone know why the Sorcerers stone was called the Philosophers stone in the UK? Man people are really being lulled into a stupor
She did not invent it for her books
The philosopher's stone, in Latin lapis philosophi substance that supposedly could turn inexpensive , is a legendarymetals such as lead into gold ("chrysopoeia" in the Greek language) and/or create an elixir that would make humans younger, thus delaying death. For a longtime it was the "holy grail" of Western alchemy. In the view of spiritual alchemy, making the philosopher's stone would bring enlightenment upon the maker and conclude the Great Work.[1]
Alchemy itself is mostly an original concept and science practiced in the ancient Near East, Egypt, Greece, and India. However, the concept of ensuring youthful health apparently originated in China, while the concept of transmutating one metal into a more precious one (silver or gold) originated from the theories of the 8th century Arab alchemist, Jabir ibn Hayyan (Latinized as 'Geber'). He analyzed each Aristotelian element in terms of the four basic qualities of hotness, coldness, dryness, and moistness. Fire was both hot and dry, earth cold and dry, water cold and moist, and air hot and moist. He further theorized that every metal was a combination of these four principles, two of them interior and two exterior.
From this premise, it was reasoned that the transmutation of one metal into another could be effected by the rearrangement of its basic qualities. This change would presumably be mediated by a substance, which came to be called al-iksir in Arabic (from which the Western term "elixir" is derived). It is often considered to exist as a dry red powder made from a legendary stone — the "philosopher's stone".[citation needed]
In the 11th century, there was a debate among Muslim chemists on whether the transmutation of substances was possible. A leading opponent was Avicenna, who discredited the theory of transmutation of substances:
"Those of the chemical craft know well that no change can be effected in the different species of substances, though they can produce the appearance of such change."[2]
16th-century Swiss alchemist Philippus Paracelsus believed in the existence of alkahest which he believed to be an undiscovered element from which all other elements (earth, fire, water, air) were simply derivative forms. He believed that this element alkahest was, in fact, the philosopher's stone.
Jabir's theory and the concept of knowledge that metals like gold and silver could be hidden in alloys and ores, from which they could be recovered by the appropriate chemical treatment. Jabir himself is believed to be the inventor of aqua regia, a mixture of muriatic (hydrochloric) and nitric acids, one of the few substances that can dissolve gold (and which is still often used for gold recovery and purification).
Gold was particularly valued as a metal that would not rust, tarnish, corrode or otherwise grow corrupt. Since the philosopher's stone would turn a corruptible base metal to incorruptible gold, naturally it would similarly transform human beings from mortal (corruptible) to immortal (incorruptible).
Essentially one of the many theories was that gold was a superior form of metal, and that the philosopher's stone was even purer and superior to gold, so much so that if combined with lesser metals would turn them into superior gold.
A mystical text published in the 17th century called the Mutus Liber proported to be a sort of symbolic instruction manual towards concocting a philosopher's stone. Called the 'wordless book', this was a collection of 15 illustrations.
The Latin American spiritual teacher Samael Aun Weor stated that the Philosopher's Stone is synonymous with the symbol of the stone found in many other spiritual and religious traditions, such as the stone Jacob rests his head upon, the cubic stone of Freemasonry, and the rock upon which Christ lays the foundation of the temple.[3]
“ Behold, I lay in Sion a chief corner stone, elect, precious: and he that believeth on it shall not be confounded. Unto you therefore which believe it is precious: but unto them which be disobedient, the stone which the builders disallowed, the same is made the head of the corner, and a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offence. - 1 Peter 2: 6-8
” He states that this "stone of stumbling" and "rock of offense" is the creative-sexual energy, which in Kabbalah is Yesod ("foundation") that must be transmuted through sexual alchemy. It is said to be rejected by the "builders," meaning those who seek spiritual edification, because they reject the transmutation of sexual energy, and instead use it to achieve sensual pleasure.[4]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosopher's_stone
__________________ Let it be understood that Apostolic Friends Forum is an Apostolic Forum.
Apostolic is defined on AFF as:
There is One God. This one God reveals Himself distinctly as Father, Son and Holy Ghost.
The Son is God himself in a human form or "God manifested in the flesh" (1Tim 3:16)
Every sinner must repent of their sins.
That Jesus name baptism is the only biblical mode of water baptism.
That the Holy Ghost is for today and is received by faith with the initial evidence of speaking in tongues.
The saint will go on to strive to live a holy life, pleasing to God.
England has quite a bit of literature and folklore tied up in their colorful history. It doesn't surprise me that she was able to write these books.
I have only viewed a couple out of the series to see what all the hullabaloo was about. I can see by the characters, costuming, script props, lighting, directing, and just everything - why people are enthralled with them.
I don't care for this type of movie and would never read the books, but I can see why.
It isn't surprising, either, that people are excited to get this last book. It's been played up and played up. I think they did that over the 'Cabbage Patch" dolls. lol
Nonetheless, I do believe that HP does put the idea into a child's mind to be interested in the occult. I think it started with Disney, through the years, in the first place.
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