"Look: I don't believe in witchcraft. Many of the terms for spells and charms and so on, I invented. Witchcraft is just a metaphor for this other world of possibilities, beyond convention, that the mind can reach." (link)
"She does not believe in magic, but she sees it 'as a beautiful metaphor for other things in life.'" (link)
It had been my suspicion that her physical magic was a metaphor for mental magic. To put it in bluntly scientific terms, if the book I'm currently reading* is not complete rubbish, humans undergo a second growth phase of the prefrontal cortex that is supposed to kick into gear around age 21, allowing us to become aware of our own consciousness and start to exert a bit of control over our other brain functions. Only in practice, this kicking into gear is exceedingly rare.
I've been poking around on Wikipedia and have got the sense that this rare ability is what mystics (Sufis, Quakers, Kabbalists, yogis, etc), major religious figures (Christ, Muhammed, the Buddha), certain heretical types (alchemists, Hermeticists, serious Tarot readers), stoic philosophers (Marcus Aurelius), psychologists (Carl Jung) and a host of other influential figures have been trying to understand and perpetuate down the ages. Obviously a hefty claim, so just consider it my idle speculation for now.
More quotes from Jo:
"That beautiful image in C.S. Lewis where there are the pools — the world between worlds — and you can jump into the different pools to access the different worlds. And that, for me, was always a metaphor for a library." (link)
"DR: When did you first come up with the idea of Harry Potter - and how?
JKR: It was 1990. I was traveling by train from Manchester to London in England. The train was delayed, as often happens in Britain. And, er... This, this idea just came out of nowhere.
DR: What do you mean "the idea"?
JKR: Erm... The basic idea... Harry, I saw Harry very very very clearly. Very vividly. And I knew he didn't know he was a wizard. So I see this skinny little boy with black hair, and green eyes, and glasses. And erm... Patched-up glasses, you know, that got scotch tape around them, holding them together. And I knew that he didn't know what he was. And so then I kind of worked backwards from that position to find out how that could be, that he wouldn't know what he was. And er... at the same time I'm thinking that he's gonna go to wizard's school. And that was when it really caught fire for me, I got really excited of the idea of what wizard's school would be like." (link)
I wouldn't be at all surprised if Jo was thinking of the seven-part series itself as a "wizard's school," figuratively speaking. I had proposed an idea a while ago that she might not end the series conclusively, but design it so that the last chapter acts like a "Portkey" or "Time Turner," kicking the reader back to the first book to run the gauntlet again and again until they finally look in the mirror and feel the stone drop into their pocket. I imagine this would induce a mild sense of vertigo — like being flipped out of a Penseive — but at the same time the conclusion would be completely unavoidable...
Like a giant in the doorway.
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* The Biology of Transcendence, by Joseph Chilton Pearce
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