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Real Wizards: The search for Harry's ancestors

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26 November 2001, 8.30pm

Wizards and witches, cauldrons and broomsticks, spells, potions and a game called Quidditch. The phenomenal success of JK Rowling's Harry Potter books must be partly due to the fact that they portray a world which is already familiar to us.

But is magic really just a subject for children's stories? Where did our modern ideas about wizardry come from? Is magic a modern-day fantasy, or is it a genuine part of our history? And could it be that the magical worldview is still with us - that magical practices are part of present-day reality?

Channel Four's Real Wizards, made by Lion Television, is a challenging investigation of the reality of magic, from its 40,000-year-old beginnings to the present-day. From the oak groves of the druids to the tents of Siberian shamans, Real Wizards offers a dazzling journey through time and space, uncovering a buried tradition of magic and demonstrating its wide-ranging effects on present-day society.

The programme explores the historical roots of magic, and features contributions from a range of experts, including archaeologists, anthropologists, historians, herbalists and pharmacologists.

Real Wizards will tell you about:

The figure of Merlin: medieval sage or Dark Ages wild man?
The druids: the wizards who once ruled Britain
Shamanism: the mysterious beginnings of magic
Herbs and potions: the chemistry of witchcraft and its present-day uses
Modern magic: how magical thinking and magical practices have survived until today

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