In his ground-breaking Frames of Mind (1983), Harvard psychologist Howard Gardner proposed that "intelligence" as such does not exist; rather, human beings exhibit, to lesser or greater degrees, a variety of intelligences, which he described as bodily-kinesthetic, linguistic, interpersonal, intrapersonal, musical, logical-mathematical, spatial, and naturalist. As Gardner has revised and developed what has come to be known as "the theory of multiple intelligences," he has come to consider the possibility of adding "existential intelligence" to the list presented above in order to account for "the capacity to locate oneself with respect to the furthest reaches of the cosmos-the infinite and the infinitesimal-and the related capacity to locate oneself with respect to such existential features of the human condition as the significance of life, the meaning of death, the ultimate fate of the physical and the psychological worlds, and such profound experiences as love of another person or total immersion in a work of art" (Intelligence, 60). While Gardner has expressed concern that an investigation of "existential intelligence" might lead the psychologist into the nonquantifiable realm of the "spiritual," his discussion of "existential intelligence" may help literary scholars to clarify the unique abilities of characters in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, particularly Luna Lovegood and Harry Potter himself. In the early pages of Order of the Phoenix, the reader learns that Luna Lovegood and Harry Potter have one very odd similarity-both can see the skeletal horse-like creatures pulling the Hogwarts' carriages; it appears, however, that very few others can. Not until Hagrid's "Care of Magical Creatures" lesson on thestrals does Harry discover that only those who have witnessed a death can see a thestral.
It is my contention that, in the characters of Luna Lovegood and Harry, Rowling is showing her readers two extremes of existential inquiry. For Luna, death is but a step away from life, as she tells Harry at the end of the novel: "….it's not as though I'll never see Mum again, is it?…You heard them, just behind the veil, didn't you? They were just lurking out of sight, that's all" (Phoenix 863). As "loony" as this may seem, we must also note that Luna is described throughout as being "serene." Harry, however, has had neither the time nor the inclination to reach a state of serenity regarding death. While Luna accepts the inevitability of death and the necessary physical separation that accompanies it, Harry searches for ways to circumvent physical death, as we see in his response to the death of his godparent, Sirius Black. Harry is mired squarely in the middle of Kubler-Ross' stages of dying, caught within a cycle of denial, anger, and bargaining. For example, after Sirius' death, we see him venting considerable anger against Albus Dumbledore. And, in his discussion with Nearly-Headless Nick, he seems to be bargaining for Sirius' return in any form, even as a ghost. Harry has not reached any sort of acceptance by the end of this book, but he is indeed seeking answers to far more profound questions than most of his classmates: Why, he wonders, did Sirius' die? What does it mean "to die"? Indeed, Harry does not know whether he will die at the hands of Voldemort, or he will himself murder Voldemort. And he connects these questions to perhaps the most pressing question of all: Will the wizarding world be lost if Voldemort does win? Rowling, then, puts us in a position to determine whether Luna's serenity (spirituality?) means that she has developed answers to Harry's questions, or that Harry would simply not accept the answers in which Luna finds comfort.
Gardner, Howard. Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences. New York: Basic Books, 1983.
Gardner, Howard. Intelligence Reframed: Multiple Intelligences for the 21st Century. New York: Basic Books, 1999.
Rowling, J.K. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. New York: Scholastic Press, 2003.