Harry Potter: Summoning the dead

ABSTRACT Supernatural phenomena are common in the mythology, art, and literature of the Greco-Roman world. Contemporary scholarship reflects this abundance. This article refers first to scholarly research on ghosts and other supernatural phenomena in the ancient world. However, necromancy, the invocation of the spirits of the dead, is neglected in contemporary research. A popular novelist, J. K. Rowling, has included instances of necromancy in the seven volumes of her Harry Potter oeuvre. Moreover, being herself a former student of the classics, Rowling derives most instances of necromancy from identifiable classical models. These classical derivations are listed, including the dog Cerberus, the bones of a dead father invoked for magical purposes, the Priori Incantatem spell that summons the spirits of the dead, the power of magical wands and resurrection stones, and the location of an intermediate world between the living and the dead. Rowling’s world in the Potter saga is magical but, unlike the Greco-Roman world, secular.