It fits the fictional subjects the fictional characters are taught, sure.

But that doesn't make Harry Potter occult literature!

If it did, so are Superman comics. And the X-Files. And James Bond.

Fictional stories about occult figures are at least two steps removed from occult literature. One, they are written about other people studying such material, two they are explicitly fictional. (Three, perhaps, so are the people doing the studying.)

There is actual, primary source occult material out there; confusing this with Harry Potter is precisely what the looney fringes want.

When I say that my family friend thought Harry Potter had occult elements, I do not mean that she thought the content of the stories was about the occult. Of course they are.

I mean that she believed the stories themselves to be as dangerous as primary source occult material: that fiction about the occult is at some level interchangeable with the occult; that it's a primer on the occult.

Which is why the Lewis comparison wasn't well-received. Because it punctures the notion that making up stories about witches invites Satan in.

I tend to agree, although this is moving the goalposts from the original statement.

It's really not. I just wasn't as clear as I could have been.

We couldn’t have known you meant to exclude fiction from “occult elements.”

Also, I bet the conversation actually did go well. :)