Harry Potter fends off a pack of Dementors with his Patronus charm, a magical version of the LOA.

What can Harry Potter teach us about the law of attraction? What would he even need it for, if he has a magic wand? Actually, one of his most powerful charms is nothing more than the LOA in a more visible form.

Of all the evil forces Harry faces, few are as sinister as the Dementors. Immortal soul-sucking wraiths, they turn the air cold and dark, feed on positive emotions, and make people feel like they’ll never be happy again. If they succeed in carrying out “the Dementor’s Kiss,” the victim is left as an empty shell with no chance of recovery, a fate believed to be worse than death.

Fortunately, there’s a very effective defense against Dementors, called a Patronus charm. Harry simply points his wand and says the magic words “Expecto Patronum!” Unlike most of Harry’s incantations, this one is correct classical Latin, meaning “I await a protector.”

And then the protector–the Patronus–arrives, an ethereal being flowing out of his wand as bluish white light. It absorbs the Dementors’ negative energy and repels them like a dog herding sheep.

Oh, how nice it would be to just wave a wand and sit back, letting the universe send a magical protector to chase away evil while you went about your business.

But here’s the catch – even in the magical world of Harry Potter, there is no universe-appointed protector. The Patronus is just you. It comes from your own emotions and, when fully formed, appears as an animal that reflects your personality or is somehow significant to you (according to various online quizzes, mine would be a phoenix, an eagle, a hawk, or a stag).

It’s an incarnation of your deepest positive feelings, that part of you that feels no despair and is thus immune to negative energies. Remus Lupin tells Harry, “In order for it to work, you need to think of a memory. Not just any memory, a very happy memory, a very powerful memory…Allow it to fill you up…lose yourself in it.”

So the Patronus is only as good as the one conjuring it. Although it’s completely within their control, it’s still very difficult to master, especially when under the stress of facing a Dementor. Lose your focus, and the Patronus becomes a weak veil of mist that won’t protect you from a fly. Even Harry failed in his first few attempts to cast one.

Whether there’s any metaphysical basis for the law of attraction, there’s no denying that a positive attitude can work wonders in plainly obvious ways. When people are putting you down, telling you you’re no good, saying you’ll fail, it takes a tough mind to tune them out. Most people don’t.

But if you let yourself be overcome by negative thoughts, there’s no escape. You fall victim to the Dementor’s Kiss, and become an empty shell of what was once a courageous soul. And the odds of an empty shell accomplishing anything meaningful are precisely zero.

OK, I know what you’re thinking. In a fantasy world, it’s not so hard to think happy thoughts for a few seconds until an enchanted animal spews forth from your wand and saves the day. In reality, it’s a lot harder to stay positive year after year when facing obstacles that don’t run away so easily. A dead-end job, poor health, and a struggling relationship don’t instantly fix themselves when you say “Expecto Patronum.” Why can’t we live in a world where things are that simple?

True, in our world, there’s a very convoluted connection between thoughts and outcomes. Overnight success still takes years, even when you stay focused and do everything right. But if results appeared instantly, would that be any better? Not really.

There will always be challenges, and the easier they are to overcome, the quicker they’re replaced with harder ones. A world that gave more power to you would also give more power to your obstacles.

If you could unlock a door by saying “Alohomora,” people could also say “Colloportus” to make the important doors Alohomora-proof. If you could disapparate (teleport) at will, people could also use anti-disapparition jinxes to keep you where you belong. If you could knock out any enemy by saying “Stupefy,” their friends could wake them up with the counter spell “Rennervate.” There are no special breaks, even for wizards, and certainly not for you and me.

Don’t wish for the world to be less challenging. Will yourself to have the strength to deal with it. Courage doesn’t require anyone’s permission but your own.

Are you awaiting a protector? If so, when will you create one?

For much more on the law of attraction, read Greatness Without Genies: The Law of Attraction for Realists.

Image from Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (2001)

In Catherine Lawson’s post Are Criminals Better Entrepreneurs?, she talks about how some famous entrepreneurs have committed crimes in the past. It turns out that criminals have many entrepreneurial traits, including management skills, passion, and willingness to take risks.

This immediately reminded me of Harry Potter. In the first movie, all the first year students line up to find out what house they’ll be assigned to: Gryffindor, Slytherin, Ravenclaw, or Hufflepuff. The houses we know the most about are Gryffindor, which values courage and chivalry, and Slytherin, which values ambition, cunning, and resourcefulness. More to the point, Gryffindors are good and Slytherins are evil.

At the sorting ceremony, the children wait their turn for the sorting hat to be placed on their head. The sorting hat can read personalities, and in most cases can quickly determine the house that the student is best suited for. However, it has some trouble trying to read Harry Potter:

“Hmm, difficult. VERY difficult. Plenty of courage, I see. Not a bad mind, either. There’s talent, oh yes. And a thirst to prove yourself. But where to put you?”

“Not Slytherin. Not Slytherin.”

“Not Slytherin, eh? Are you sure? You could be great, you know. It’s all here in your head. And Slytherin can help you on your way to greatness, there’s no doubt about that. No?”

“Anything but Slytherin, anything but Slytherin.”

“Well if you’re sure, better be…GRYFFINDOR!”

Harry breathes a sigh of relief that he turned out to be good after all. But the next year, Harry wonders if he might be the heir of Salazar Slytherin, and unknowingly responsible for terrorizing the school. He goes to see the sorting hat again:

“Bee in your bonnet, Potter?”

“Well, you see, I was wondering…”

“If I put you in the right house? Yes…you were particularly difficult to place, but I stand by what I said last year: you would have done well in Slytherin.”

Poor Harry! Does he really have the traits of a good Slytherin? Is he really evil at heart? Well, yes and no. Professor Dumbledore is the one who eventually explains it to him:

“It’s true, Harry. You do possess many of the qualities Voldemort himself prizes. Resourcefulness. Determination. A certain disregard for the rules. Yet the sorting hat placed you in Gryffindor.”

“Only because I asked it to.”

“Exactly. Which makes you very different from Voldemort. It’s not our abilities that show what we truly are, Harry. It’s our choices.“

By the same token, abilities such as management skills, passion, and willingness to take risks are just abilities. They don’t make us who we are. We still have the choice to be either an entrepreneur or a criminal, and that choice makes us who we are.

Do you choose House Gryffindor or Slytherin?