From Worldnet Daily, a site which, although it has a number of good articles, does tend to be a waterhole that also attracts the P.H.B. variety of conservative ("Watch out for them Bilderbergers and Rockefellers!")

According to a survey,

...41 percent of teens have either seen the Potter film or have read one or more of the Potter books. As a result of watching the movie or reading the books, 12 percent said they were more interested in witchcraft.

I don't have the actual survey, and it is unclear whether this 12 percent is 12 percent of those surveyed, or 12 percent of the 41 percent, or about 5 percent of the total.

It is unclear as well exactly how they defined "more interested." Was it a separate question by itself, or did they just go by the following activities?

To see how many teen-agers were dabbling in psychic-occult experimentation, researchers listed a variety of activities and asked teens which ones they had participated in. The list included: palm reading, fortune telling, going to a spiritual medium, calling or visiting a psychic, playing with a Ouija board, playing a game that featured witchcraft elements, participating in a séance, trying to cast a spell and trying to mix a potion. One in four teens had experimented with three items on the list; one in 20 had done all the items and met a profile Matlock labeled as "heavily involved."

I don't know about most of you, but when I was in high school, it wasn't a real Halloween Party unless you did about half of this stuff. I wonder if passing peeled grapes around and calling them eyeballs counts. If this accounts for the 12 percent, it's overblown to say the least.

...Matlock says it was interesting to find out how prevalent the supernatural theme was in today's society. The number of kids who watch supernatural-themed movies or TV shows on a normal basis was very high (86 percent), he says.

If you think about it, this covers almost every TV show with any kind of a fantasy theme, including Scooby Doo. Heck, Buffy alone probably acounts for 80 percent all by herself. I don't seem to recall "Topper" or "Bewitched" causing the fall of civilization when I was a kid. Is this really something to worry about? Compared to communist college professors, for example?

I will venture to say that "supernatural themes" have accounted for about 86 percent of all stories since human beings first discovered language. Try and think of any famous myth or ancient story that does NOT have a supernatural or magical theme in it somewhere.

I encourage my kids to read Harry Potter, which has great moral and character themes, besides being a fun read, and typically buy both British and American editions of each book. That way I get both the original British idioms and the cool illustrations in the American editions, and they're alike enough that each kid is satisfied with one of them and doesn't kill the other kid to get the book.

Well, at least this Matlock isn't running out and burning the books. There are worse Psycho Hose Beasts, I guess, but probably the worse ones will seize on this survey as justification for another book barbecue.