An Outlook

In this week’s column I explore a word origin and how it relates to J.K. Rowlings; remember a 17th century “heretic;” mention John Milton and Harold Bloom; and illegal drugs. Trust me, it will all make sense at the end (I hope).

A few years ago, my mother surprised me with a book. This is not an easy accomplishment as I’m sure you can appreciate. Her gift was a copy of Harold Bloom’s book Genius, an overview of the 100 greatest “literary geniuses” the western world has ever produced (at least in Bloom’s estimation). This is a massive tome, and I’ve been slowly working my way through it, enjoying Bloom’s take on a wide range of authors.

While reading Bloom’s chapter dealing with John Milton, I ran across the following curious line: “A.D. Nuttall (one of the best critics alive) doubts that the aging Milton believed in the basic tenets of normative Calvinism, while the late historian Christopher Hill suggested that Milton had become a Muggletonian, which sounds silly, but the personal inspiration of Lodowicke Muggleton, who died in 1698, forty-odd years after founding his sect, is very close to Milton’s version of Inner Light.”

Lodowicke Muggleton and Muggletonians? What in the world?

As readers of the Harry Potter series know, those who are capable of magic in J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter books (i.e. the students and staff of Hogwart’s) refer to those who are not capable of magic as “muggles.” In other words, everyone reading this (to the best of my knowledge) is a muggle.

Rowling’s books have taken considerable criticism from fundamentalists for promoting magic and the occult among young people. In part this criticism is the result of thoroughness of her research. Indeed, entire websites and several books have been devoted to exploring the real world historical and esoteric roots of her imaginary world. So, in thinking about the new Harry Potter book and Rowling’s extensive research, and then mulling the line I had read in Bloom’s book, I began to wonder: is Lodowicke Muggleton and his Muggletonian sect the possible root for Rowling’s muggles?

According to Rowling, she created the term “muggles” from the English colloquial word, “mug,” meaning easily fooled; similar to our term “rube.” She further explains that she made the term muggle because “it sounds gentler.” Okay, but still…

The Oxford English Dictionary says that the first recorded use of the word muggle occurred in 1205 when it meant tail, as in “The police officers tailed the suspect.” The same word shows up in a different usage in 1607 when it apparently was a term of endearment. So the word, itself, is not brand new, though Rowling’s use of the term is certainly new.

Then there’s our friend, Lodowicke Muggleton. Muggleton was born in London in 1609 and worked as a journeyman tailor for his cousin, John Reeve. In 1651, Muggleton and Reeve proclaimed that they were the two witnesses mention in Revelations, with Reeve being the visionary and Muggleton his interpreter. The following year they published a book entitled The Transcendent Spirituall [sic] Treatise and in 1656 a full documentation of their beliefs was published under the title “The Divine Looking-Glass.” The essence of their doctrine was a denial of the Holy Trinity and the assertion that God has a real body and that he came to earth to die on the cross while leaving Elijah in charge of heaven. Muggleton’s views gained a number of notable adherents (Milton?), but he was imprisoned for blasphemy once, repudiated on two separate occasions by his own followers, and through his attacks on the Quaker faith led William Penn to write a condemnation of Muggletonianism in 1672.

Reeve died in 1651, but Muggleton continued promoting his sect until his death. Indeed, Muggletonianism (and hence, Muggletons) was still an active sect until 1846.

So is Rowling having some fun here? Is her use of the term muggles a sly reference to a 17th century cult leader, thereby providing more fuel for those who are so quick to condemn her books? Well, probably not, although now that I’ve put this in print someone is sure to use this as justification for another attack on her books.

There is, of course, another, more contemporary use for the word muggles that still predates Rowling’s usage. In New Orleans in the 1920s, particularly among musicians in the (in)famous Storyville district, muggles was the common colloquialism for a variety of hemp known as cannabis. Indeed, this usage was so widely accepted that the local newspapers regularly used the term.

Following the destruction of Storyville by city leaders, the term dispersed across the south and up through the Midwest, following the migration path of many contemporary musicians. It wasn’t until the term marijuana was created (a story for another time) that muggles became displaced as the name of a choice for a type of smoke-able hemp.

So is it possible that Rowling’s use of the term muggles in her Harry Potter books is a reference to illegal drug use? Or is she honoring American musicians in the first half of the last century? Well, again, probably not.

In all likelihood, Rowling’s version of how she came up with the term is accurate. Still, the term muggles has an amazing history. At various times during the past 800 years it has meant, “to tail,” has been a term of endearment, has been the name for what we now call marijuana, and now – in Rowling’s parlance – it refers to those of us without any magical skills.

Still, I wonder: if Rowling had been aware of the Muggletonian cult, or if she knew that at one time the term referred to marijuana, would she still have chosen muggles as her appellation for we average folk?