BEWARE OF "GOLDEN COMPASS

The following is excerpted from "The Upside-down World of Pullman's 'Golden Compass,'" Berit Kjos, November 13, 2007: "More than 15 million copies of Philip Pullman's trilogy have been sold. The first movie in the series opens December 7. Flying witches, evil specters, talking bears and evolving 'Dust' abound in The Dark Materials, Philip Pullman's popular fantasy series for children. In this confusing cosmos of multiple universes, humans are linked to personal daemons, and telepathic seekers find answers to life's mysteries through divination, Eastern meditation, ancient 'wisdom' and ritual magic. These occult practices are essential to the battle for the 'free' Republic--against the despised old Church. Lyra, the pre-teen heroine, is a headstrong tomboy raised without parents at an Oxford college in a universe parallel to ours. A proficient liar, she's first seen snooping in a forbidden area with her daemon camouflaged as a moth. From then on, she follows her intuition from one crisis to the next until all remnants of Biblical truth and authority have been destroyed. By the end of the series, God is dead. Free-spirited Lyra (still a 12-year-old) has sexually 'come of age' and fulfilled her prophetic assignments in the war against Christianity. As readers move from book to book, they meet likeable God-haters, experience magical worlds, and discover the strange forces that drive Pullman's occult cosmos. ... Pullman's crafty tale pulls the readers' minds into an occult context where--through their imagination--they experience life from his atheist/occult perspective