Students at a Catholic school in Nashville, Tennessee will no longer have access to the Harry Potter series after the books were banned and removed from the library.
Exorcists advised a Nashville school priest to ban the Harry Potter books, over fears the popular children’s novels could be used to summon spirits.
Reverend Dan Reehil contacted exorcists in Rome and the US, who recommended removing the fantasy novels from St. Edward Catholic School’s library in Tennessee.
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Launched in 1997, the series of books spins an epic tale of good and evil focused on the adventures of the eponymous bespectacled young wizard as he struggles against the dark wizard Lord Voldemort.
The Reverend revealed his decision in an email to parents St Edward Catholic School.
I know that in the process they were going through and kind of weeding out some of the content in hopes of sprucing it up and improving the circulation
“The curses and spells used in the books are actual curses and spells; which when read by a human being risk conjuring evil spirits into the presence of the person reading the text,” the reverend said the email obtained by local media.
“These books present magic as both good and evil, which is not true, but in fact a clever deception,” the Reverend Reehill wrote, apparently in all seriousness.
Rebecca Hammel, the superintendent of schools for the Catholic Diocese of Nashville, told the newspaper The Tennessean that Reehil had “canonical authority to make such decisions.”
Although the school used to stock the books, it will not offer them to pupils in its newly opened library, Hammel said.
“I know that in the process they were going through and kind of weeding out some of the content in hopes of sprucing it up and improving the circulation,” she said.
However, Hammel did say the school would not stand in the way of students reading Harry Potter at their parents’ discretion.
Read more: Catholic priests burn Harry Potter books in Poland
A global success, the Potter series by British author J.K. Rowling has been repeatedly banned from schools in the US and Britain, mostly for allegedly promoting satanic values or black magic.