Every facet of life now has the stench of marketing and almost everyone seems to have caught on to the “winning equation” that says if you want a customer for life, “get ’em while their young.”

In strategizing about the future of their “Emerging Church Movement” (which is really aimed at ushering in a New Age “One World Religion”), American evangelicals, according to the ECM website, emergingchurch.org, are targeting the generation known as “The Millennials,” or those born between 1981 and 2000.

ECM guru Dan Kimball, author of the book, “The Emerging Church: Vintage Christianity for New Generations,” makes clear he “sees a new worship generation in the making based on experience that is essential to the emerging church.”

Of course, kids love experience. Just ask J. K. Rowling, who’s probably being studied at M.I.T. at this point for her marketing genius in hooking young kids to all things supernatural. She has helped spawn an entire new segment of young children’s books.

When Rowling gave a “charity reading” last month at Radio City Music Hall to spellbound audience of 6,000 screaming fans, many of whom were kids with their Rowling-worshipping parents, she cleverly used horror author Stephen King as her “warm-up band” and marketing tie-in for the more “mature” kids now ready to enter the more gruesome “adult” territory.

Rowling is even quoted saying in a Reuters wire story about her recent New York City love-in, “When fans accuse me of sadism, which doesn’t happen very often, I feel I’m toughening them up to go on and read John (Irving) and Stephen’s books. I think they’ve got to be toughened up somehow. It’s a cruel literary world out there.”

It’s a cruel world all right, made crueler every day by Rowling and her ilk instilling in young minds a desire to enter their demonic pit.

If you look at just one of the current bestseller books for children, “Ptolemy’s Gate”—which is book three in “The Bartimaeus Trilogy”—the inside jacket cover reads, “For the first time, we will learn the secrets of Bartimaeus’s past, and catch a glimpse into the mysterious Other Place—the world of the demons—as together, the threesome faces treacherous magicians, a complex conspiracy, and a rebellious faction of demons.”

Anyone who knows anything about New Age code knows that “gate” is a reference to Satan’s kingdom. In the ancient satanic apocryphal book, “The Shepherd of Hermas,” there is actually the verse, “The gate was made recent that they which are to be saved may enter. . .”

Of this verse, author Gail Riplinger explains in her 1993 expose book, “New Age Bible Versions,” “This Calvinistic predestination statement appears in numerous new (Bible) versions, particularly the NIV (New International Version). Edwin Palmer, its Executive Secretary, wrote The Five Points of Calvinism. The gate referred to here is the ‘wide gate. . . that leadeth to destruction’ (Matt. 7:13) and the ‘gates of hell’ (Matt. 16:18). Blavatsky (co-founder of The Theosophical Society) boasts that this is the Gate of Metatron, which is one of the names of Satan (Isis Unveiled Vol. II, p. 245).”

Posted to the website of the Science Fiction Book Club is this glowing review of the first installment in the Bartimaeus’ trilogy, “The Amulet of Samarkand”:

“I’ve always wanted my own demon,” writes SFBC editor Andrew Wheeler. “It would be great to have a powerful supernatural entity at my beck and call, catering to my every whim. But after reading this tremendously entertaining book, I’m starting to wonder if the real fun wouldn’t lie in being a demon….Bartimaeus, of course, considers “demon” to be a derogatory term — he is a djinn, about mid-way up on the scale of magical power from imps to marids, living peacefully in his own world until a very young wizard — a strange boy named Nathaniel — summons him to Earth.”

Wheeler summarizes, “This is a great, quick-moving novel with two great (and very different) main characters. It’s also one of the best fantasy novels about a young wizard that I’ve read since You-Know-Who. And, since Bartimaeus will be back for two more books, I know there will be more wisecracking djinni in my future — and, I hope, yours. This book is a lot of fun and is going to be a huge hit; if you buy it now you can be the one telling your friends to read it….”

Do you see the “umbrella marketing” technique being used? It’s what’s called “co-branding.”

According to a story last month in the New York Post, Daniel Radcliffe, the now-17-year-old star of the Harry Potter movies, is doing his part by playing the role of an “emotionally disturbed boy who takes off his clothes and blinds horses in a London revival of Peter Shaffer’s drama ‘Equus,’ ”set to open in the West End in January.

“Richard Griffiths, known to millions of Harry Potter fans as nasty Uncle Vernon, has been asked to co-star as the psychiatrist who tries to save the boy,” reports the Post. “Griffiths, who declined comment for this article, was with Radcliffe last week, shooting the fifth installment of the Harry Potter series, ‘Order of the Phoenix.’ ”

At this point, it’s hard for me not to remember back five years ago to all the people, including members of my own family, who pooh-poohed me (and were sometimes even disgusted with me) for suggesting Harry Potter books were aimed at indoctrinating unsuspecting children into the Occult and giving them a “good solid grounding” in evil.

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My pastor, Richard Jordan of Shorewood Bible Church in Rolling Meadows, Ill., gave a series of studies years ago on evil spirits (to listen go to www.rightdivider.net and click on “Richard Jordan,” then “Luke Series,” and scroll down to Luke 8 and “Demons” listings) in which he discussed just some of the passages in the Bible dealing specifically with demon possession, divination, exorcism, wizards, etc.

Acts 16:16, for example, says, “And it came to pass, as we went to prayer, a certain damsel possessed with a spirit of divination met us, which brought her masters much gain by soothsaying.”

Jordan explains, “The woman is possessed with that (demonic) spirit of divination. Divination, or to divine something, is to be able to tell the future. That's why in the Book of Revelation, it says it’s ‘The Revelation of St. John the Divine.’ ”

From the passage, we see demonic spirits “have intelligence; they have intellect; they have personality,” says Jordan. “They are real, personal creatures. It's not some mythical, mystical, ‘Woo, woo, woo,’ kind of thing. These are real creatures like you're real.”

Acts 19:13-18 reads, “Then certain of the vagabond Jews, exorcists, took upon them to call over them which had evil spirits the name of the Lord Jesus, saying, We adjure you by Jesus whom Paul preacheth. And there were seven sons of one Sceva, a Jew, and chief of the priests, which did so.

“And the evil spirit answered and said, Jesus I know, and Paul I know; but who are ye? And the man in whom the evil spirit was leaped on them, and overcame them, and prevailed against them, so that they fled out of that house naked and wounded. “And this was known to all the Jews and Greeks also dwelling at Ephesus; and fear fell on them all, and the name of the Lord Jesus was magnified. And many that believed came, and confessed, and shewed their deeds.”

Jordan explains, “Where it says ‘naked and wounded,’ down South we’d say, ‘He beat the britches off of him.’ These evil spirits weren't fooled by these false prophets. It turned out (the priest) wasn't anything. He was a phony. So these evil spirits have the capacity to discern; to know what's going on. They are not just influences, they are real specific beings.”

From Rev. 16:13-14, we see the evil spirits have tremendous power and can do miracles. The passage reads, “And I saw three unclean spirits like frogs come out of the mouth of the dragon, and out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet. For they are the spirits of devils, working miracles, which go forth unto the kings of the earth and of the whole world, to gather them to the battle of that great day of God Almighty.”

Jordan says, “Notice these evils spirits are under the control of the satanic trinity in the Tribulation. The beast, the false prophet and the dragon. That’s Satan, the Antichrist and the false prophet. They are the ‘spirits of devils, working miracles.’ These creatures have tremendous power to produce supernatural-appearing phenomena, and it’s supernatural because it isn't in the natural realm of things. They can produce miracles—something beyond the natural course of something. They have the capacity to wreak havoc. They can cause dramatic things to happen in relationship to people, and have a dramatic impact on their victim.”

Luke 8:29, Jordan says, “Shows a guy is literally controlled, and he would literally lose control of his physical capacities, and this demon would take over and do all kinds of terrible things. He had supernatural strength.”

Luke 13:11 reveals a woman’s evil spirit had inflicted physical infirmities and deformities.

“Some of the passages talk about them being dumb—they couldn't speak,” says Jordan. “Many times the way Christ would go in and heal was by casting these evil spirits out. They had inflicted a disease that would come from a breakdown of the natural functioning of your body. You get a sickness.”

Jordan says the Book of Leviticus shows the “cunning terminology used to describe these dudes.” Lev. 19:31 has God warning, “Regard not them that have familiar spirits, neither seek after wizards, to be defiled by them: I am the LORD your God.”

“Notice the word ‘familiar’ in this context has the idea of ‘friendly,’ ” explains Jordan. “They get to be friendly with you because they want you to freely participate with them. These spirits don't come in like fire-breathing enemies. They come in like, ‘Hey, have I got a deal for you!’ They court you in order to deceive. That's why they're called ‘lying spirits.’ They came to corrupt the nation Israel away from the truth into (Satan’s) Lie Program using supernatural means of demonstration in order to draw them away. You don't do that unless you come in and trick people.”

Speaking directly about the evil element Harry Potter represents, God warns in Lev. 20:6, “And the soul that turneth after such as have familiar spirits, and after wizards, to go a whoring after them, I will even set my face against that soul, and will cut him off from among his people.”

A wizard is a man and a witch is a woman and the people ‘go a whoring after them,’ being bewitched by them.

“The whoring here is not physical in the sense of adultery and fornication; it's spiritual,” says Jordan. “They are the willing participants and medium for these spirits. Now the guy in Luke 8 is not willing. They just took him over. So he wasn't a wizard—he wasn't ‘practicing’—it just took him. It seized him. It says in Luke 8:29, ‘For oftentimes it had caught him: and he was kept bound with chains and in fetters.’ It took him up and grabbed him.”

In Lev. 20:27, God promises, “A man also or woman that hath a familiar spirit, or that is a wizard, shall surely be put to death: they shall stone them with stones: their blood shall be upon them.”

Jordan explains, “Obviously this is a serious issue. The Book of Leviticus represents the very beginning of the nation Israel. Israel was under satanic attack from way back and Satan’s approach was to take the nation and seek to corrupt them spiritually so they could not be used by God to accomplish His purpose with them in the earth.

“The same thing is true with the Body of Christ today. In I Tim. 4, when Paul refers to ‘doctrines of devils,’ do you see that's with a plural? The way Satan corrupts today is with doctrinal corruption, so rather than Believers standing and living in the identity they have in Christ, they live like Israel did, or ‘as other Gentiles walk, in the vanity of their mind.’ (Eph. 4:17)

“Paul says in II Tim. 2:25 they ‘oppose themselves.’ They've been caught in ‘the snare of the devil.’ The Believer is living contrary to who he is, beguiled by ‘seducing spirits.’ That word ‘seducing’ means to draw you away from what's right with the promise of some physical, experiential, delightful thing, and they'll use all kind of experiential things over here to draw you away from the doctrine.”

Editor’s Note: By clicking on “Back Issues,” you can read previous articles I’ve written on this same subject, including “Flip Wilson Defense,” dated Aug. 19, 2005; “Hogwarts and Shadowlands,” dated July 29, 2005; and “Big Problems,” dated Feb. 12, 2006.