Four approaches to understanding JRR Tolkien: historical, philological, Roman Catholic, unique genius

At the time of his death in 1973, not much was published concerning the nature of JRR Tolkien as a man - and a fair bit of what I knew and was publicly available was riddled with inaccuracies (e.g. William Ready's "Understanding Tolkien..." of 1969). 

I think that the present understanding of Tolkien emerged in a broadly chronological fashion, through four broad phases:

1. Historical

2. Philological

3. Roman Catholic

4. Tolkien as an unique genius 

The first major source of information was of an historical and biographical nature; especially the authorized biography by Humphrey Carpenter (1977) and the edited selection of Letters in 1981; and much has been added since, especially by Hammond and Scull's "Companion". This approach provides what might be termed Tolkien in his historical context. We learned such matters as the facts of Tolkien's life, marriage and family, his career, friends and colleagues, publication history of his works, the rise of his reputation. 

Although it had always been noted that there were influences in the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings that derived from his academic specialty; in 1981 came the seminal Road to Middle Earth, from TA Shippey. This (and further work since, from other scholars in the field) revealed Tolkien as philologist; and explained how the philological approach motivated and underpinned the fictional works. At this point we began to get a feel for Tolkien's inner life - because this way of working was distinctive to the particular tradition of scholarship of which he was so gifted an exemplar. 

From the 1990s, and especially through the work of Joseph Pearce; I began to become aware of a growth in scholarship that recognized JRR Tolkien as a devout Roman Catholic. This has since grown considerably, and it can be seen that there are many characteristically Catholic themes and perspectives throughout Tolkien's work. 

These three approaches all regard Tolkien mainly as an example of some broader category: man of his time and class, man of his academic speciality, man of his church. But perhaps it was not yet clear what made Tolkien his own unique self. 

It was after reading Verlyn Flieger's A Question of Time, and being stimulated to read Christopher Tolkien's History of Middle Earth that I began to develop some idea of his father's distinctive innermost nature. This is an extraordinary resource, and different people will respond to different aspects. Here I speak for myself. 

I began to feel an inner perspective when studying the very close-up and empathic exposition of the writing of Lord of the Rings. I was also affected by some of the factual material on particular characters and races - Galadriel, Morgoth, Sauron, the Elves, and others. 

But mainly, it was due to the semi-autobiographical qualities of the Notion Club Papers that I began to realize that Tolkien was an unusually inner-motivated person; exceptional in the strength and dominance of his imaginative life. 

Here were serious and engaged discussions of mystical, paranormal, supernatural and magical phenomena of many kinds - from personal experience, seemingly - and sometimes confirmed by Christopher Tolkien's notes.  

This domination by an inner perspective was, I think, the basis of Tolkien's genius; indeed, I then began to realize that this was a defining aspect of genius. 

For me at least; my understanding of Tolkien has traversed a great span. Starting from the rather dull, typically Oxfordish, reactionary, and narrowly-opinionated character of Humphrey Carpenter's evaluation...

And going all the way across the spectrum to my current picture of a man who experienced extremely strong inner drives, vivid imaginative pictures, powerful emotions, and extreme mood swings. 

The Three Rings magic and High Elven agriculture

I find myself inclined to speculate on the workings of agriculture among the High Elves of Middle Earth leading up to the time of the War of the Rings* - and from information within The Lord of the Rings.

We are told enough about the agriculture and gardening among Men and Hobbits to understand how they sustain themselves, but very little indeed about the Elves. We hear nothing of fields and farms, or agricultural labour, of the kind that would be needed to sustain Men and Hobbits. 

Elves are said to enjoy hunting, arts and crafts, singing and scholarship; but the idea of a Elf engaging in ploughing, herding cattle, shearing sheep and other agricultural tasks seems almost absurd. 

Indeed, it seems as if the Elves of Rivendell and Lothlorien must support themselves "by magic" - and what slender evidence there is, suggests that this might be so - in a way.  

In The Lord of the Rings, there are only three colonies of High Elves in Middle Earth: Rivendell ruled by Elrond, and Lothlorien ruled by Celeborn and Galadriel Of these we are told a fair amount. Of the third enclave, the Grey Havens ruled by Cirdan, we know almost nothing. 

The problem is that it is made clear the Elves of Rivendell and Lothlorien have almost-nothing to do with the Men (or Hobbits) in their vicinity. 

There is near zero communication between these Elves and the agriculture-pracicing Men (and Hobbits) living nearby; which apparently rules out any significant amount of these Elves trading for food.

Yet, there are certainly feasts at the rather small and exclusive enclave of Rivendell (population a few hundreds, at most) - and there are plenty of other good like clothes, and the materials for craftsmanship in several areas.

Lothlorien supports an apparently larger population, of what seem like thousands (from the description of their tree city, and implied by their role in the War of the Ring); Lothlorien Elves also weave cloth, make ropes, have tools and weapons in plenty; and access to supplies of the cereal grain that goes-into Lembas.    

Lothlorien provides a clue to part of a possible answer in the form of Galadriel's gift to Sam: the little box containing a marvellous kind of earth; even a single grain of which is capable of causing massively accelerated and healthy thriving of plants - such that several/many years of growth happen in just one season. 

This must be magic, not biology; and that points at Galadriel's Elf ring - one of The Three - as a possible basis for this magic. 

I am therefore inclined to speculate that the Elves of Lothlorien were capable, by using the same kind of magic that enchanted Sam's gift, to grow what they needed very quickly, with little effort, and using only small areas of land. 

So, there is indeed "High Elven Agriculture" - but it is highly and rapidly productive on such a small and temporary scale as to be almost unnoticeable to the casual and short term visitor. 

If this can be allowed; then we have the same answer for Rivendell, where Elrond wields another of the Three Rings, and indeed the senior and most powerful of them.   

As for the High Elven enclave of the Grey Havens, we know that its ruler Cirdan originally had the other Elf ring, but yielded it to Gandalf (who puts it to altogether different uses). There must be sufficient elven mariners and shipbuilders in the Grey Havens to fulfil its primary role - a few hundred, perhaps? - and these will need feeding and provisions.  

But we also know that there is a frequent movement of High Elves between the Grey Havens and Rivendell. 

So, in terms of its agricultural "means of support" - how it feeds and clothes itself - the Grey Havens, may well be an outpost of Rivendell, and so a beneficiary of the magical agriculture sustained by Elrond's Elf Ring.

+++

*I leave aside the Wood Elves of Mirkwood - because they are only much known via the Hobbit; and before the habitations of Middle Earth had been defined by the later book. From what we are told in The Hobbit, the Wood Elves live by hunting and trading (for instance for wine and food) with the Men of Lake town; and - it is vaguely implied - with other more distant but undefined Men. 

What the Wood Elves are trading for their food and wine is unclear; although it may be that the large treasury of the Elvenking (gold, silver, jewels etc) is being gradually expended as a capital resource. If the Mirkwood Elves do depend on Lake Town, it provides a self-interested motivation for the Elvenking's crucial assistance in saving the residual population, and rebuilding Lake Town after Smaug's depredations.

I also tried to focus here, only on what is gathered or guessed from a reading of Lord of the Rings as such - therefore ignoring any things JRRT said about Middle Earth; and also ignoring the posthumously published material of a History of Middle Earth nature.    

Frodo is the only "intellectual" among Hobbits

As I was reading through Lord of the Rings this time; it struck me that Frodo's conversation with Faramir about the history of Men (in The Window on the West chapter of The Two Towers), is something that I cannot imagine occurring with any other Hobbit than Frodo. 

Of course, Bilbo and Merry are also unusually intelligent Hobbits, who were much more accomplished as scholarly authors than Frodo. 

But from what we see of them in the books, neither of these exhibited the patience and sustained concentration that Frodo does while Faramir is discoursing on the distinctive aspects of Gondor, Numenor, and comparisons with other types of Men such as the Rohirrim. 

It therefore seems that, aside from innate intelligence, which Tolkien often terns "wisdom"; Frodo is more of "an intellectual" in his tastes and behaviours than are other Hobbits that we encounter. 

Instead of a Dark Lord...

 

Instead of a Dark Lord, you would have A Cat! 

Beautiful and terrible as the dawn! Tempestuous as the sea, and stronger than the foundations of the earth! 

All shall love me... and despair!

H/T - My wife; for the idea. 

Frodo claims the power of The Ring on the slopes of Mount Doom, rather than beside the Cracks of Doom

It has been insightfully suggested by "Mikke" that the moment when Frodo claimed for himself the power of the One Ring actually happened a little earlier than most people realize. 

The usual reading is that Frodo makes this claim inside Mount Doom, standing next to the Cracks of Doom - just before he puts The Ring on his finger, and is perceived by Sauron. 

But Mikke has noticed that - a few minutes earlier - after Frodo grapples with, and casts down, Gollum; he makes a statement that is usually regarded as a prophecy that if Gollum touches The Ring again, he will himself be cast into the Cracks of Doom. 

This comes true, in effect - although it seems that Gollum falls into the fire by accident, rather than being thrown. 

But instead of a prophecy, Frodo's statement can plausibly be regarded as a command; as "casting a spell" or "geas"; and that Frodo is able to do this by claiming and using the power of the One Ring - but by grasping the ring to his chest (in effect to his heart) rather than putting it on his finger: Frodo becomes a figure robed in white, but at its breast it held a wheel of fire. 

In effect, it is The Ring speaking, when Frodo casts the geas; as is confirmed by Tolkien's phrasing: Out of the fire there spoke a commanding voice.  

By using the One Ring to dominate, to coerce; Frodo places himself under the "curse" that applies to all who claim the One Ring for the purpose of domination. 

After doing this, he was necessarily going to be incapable of destroying the One Ring.

This use of The Ring to command would also be an alternative explanation for Frodo's subsequent sickness of heart after The Ring had been destroyed; for which the only cure is his (therapeutic) sojourn in the undying lands. 

Here are Mikke's own words, which I have edited and re-ordered for greater clarity of exposition (since the ideas were published over several, confusingly-embedded, Tumblr entries), and to cut-out swear words:

**

When Gollum attacks Frodo on the slopes of Mount Doom, Frodo has the chance to kill him, but he doesn’t. Instead, he says: Frodo: Go! And if you ever lay hands on me again, you yourself shall be cast into the Fire! 

Frodo is literally, magically laying a curse. He’s holding the One Ring in his hands as he says it; even Sam, with no magic powers of his own, can sense that some powerful mojo is being laid down. 

Five pages later, Gollum tries to take the Ring again. Frodo’s geas takes effect and Gollum eats lava. 

Other people in the franchise who were offered the Ring declined to take it because they were wise enough to know that if they used its power – and the pressure to do so would be too great – they would be subject to its corruption. 

Also, after Frodo has thrown Gollum off and laid the geas, Sam observes that Frodo seems suddenly filled with energy again when previously he had been close to dead of fatigue. He hikes up the mountain so fast he leaves Sam behind – and doesn’t even seem to notice that he’s left him behind. Could he have been drawing on the Ring’s power at this point in the story? 

The moment that Frodo succumbs to temptation is not the moment at the volcano – it was already too late by then. The moment he is taken by temptation was when he used the power of the Ring to repel Gollum. 

If so, this ties in neatly with discussions I’ve seen about how Tolkien subscribes to a “not even once” view of good and evil – that in many other works it’s acceptable to do a small evil in service of a greater good, but in Lord of the Rings that always fails. 

In Lorien: 

‘I would ask one thing before we go,’ said Frodo, ‘a thing which I often meant to ask Gandalf in Rivendell. I am permitted to wear the One Ring: why cannot I see all the others and know the thoughts of those that wear them?’ ‘You have not tried,’ [Galadriel] said. ‘Only thrice have you set the Ring upon your finger since you knew what you possessed. Do not try! It would destroy you. Did not Gandalf tell you that the rings give power according to the measure of each possessor? Before you could use that power you would need to become stronger, and to train your will to the domination of others.’ 

On the slopes of Mount Doom:

‘Down, down!’ [Frodo] gasped, clutching his hand to his breast, so that beneath the cover of his leather shirt he clasped the Ring. 'Down, you creeping thing, and out of my path! Your time is at an end. You cannot slay me or betray me now.’ 

Then suddenly, Sam saw these two rivals with other vision. A crouching shape, scarcely more than the shadow of a living thing, a creature now wholly ruined and defeated, yet filled with a hideous lust and rage; and before it stood stern, untouchable now by pity, a figure robed in white, but at its breast it held a wheel of fire. 

Out of the fire there spoke a commanding voice. ‘Begone, and trouble me no more! If you touch me ever again, you shall be cast yourself into the Fire of Doom.’ Then the vision passed and Sam saw Frodo standing, hand on breast, his breath coming in great gasps, and Gollum at his feet, resting on his knees with his wide-splayed hands upon the ground.

**

I find this idea to be coherent and very well supported by the text, and I am convinced by it; despite that (so far as I know) the interpretation is not explicitly confirmed as authorial intent by Tolkien himself. Perhaps Tolkien wrote it this way because it felt right, although the reasons for this were, apparently, unconscious.   

Note: Further interesting discussion of this theory, may be found here. 

The Voyage of Éarendel the Evening Star - For me, Tolkien's first good poem

The Voyage of Éarendel the Evening Star 

First version - dated 24 September 1914 

JRR Tolkien was 22 years old. 

Éarendel sprang up from the Ocean's cup

In the gloom of the mid-world's rim; 

From the door of Night as a ray of light 

Leapt over the twilight brim, 

And launching his bark like a silver spark 

From the golden-fading sand 

Down the sunlit breath of Day's fiery Death 

He sped from Westerland. 

He threaded his path o'er the aftermath 

Of the glory of the Sun, 

And went wandering far past many a star 

In his gleaming galleon. 

On the gathering tide of darkness ride 

The argosies of the sky, 

And spangle the night with their sails of light 

As the Evening star goes by. 

But unheeding he dips past these twinkling ships, 

By his wandering spirit whirled 

On an magic quest through the darkening West 

Toward the margent of the world; 

And he fares in haste o'er the jewelled waste 

To the dusk from whence he came 

With his heart afire with bright desire 

And his face in silver flame. 

For the Ship of the Moon from the East comes soon 

From the Haven of the Sun, 

Whose white gates gleam in the coming beam 

Of the mighty silver one. 

Lo! with bellying clouds as his vessel's shrouds 

He weighs anchor down the dark, 

And on shimmering oars leaves the skiey shores 

In his argent-orbéd bark. 

And Éarendel fled from that Shipman dread 

Beyond the dark earth's pale, 

Back under the rim of the Ocean dim, 

And behind the world set sail; 

And he heard the mirth of the folk of earth 

And hearkened to their tears, 

As the world dropped back in a cloudy wrack 

On its journey down the years. 

Then he glimmering passed to the starless vast 

As an isléd lamp at sea, 

And beyond the ken of mortal men 

Set his lonely errantry, 

Tracking the Sun in his galleon 

And voyaging the skies 

Till his splendour was shorn by the birth of Morn 

And he died with the Dawn in his eyes.

**

I first had this poem brought to my attention by the reading and analysis on John Garth's Tolkien and the Great War; although it was mentioned by Carpenter's biography as the earliest recorded beginning of the Legendarium, and was featured in The Book of Lost Tales which I had read - but without registering this lovely poem.

In my slow read through of the chronological ordering of JRR Tolkiens poems (in the 2024 three volume Collected Poems, edited by Scull and Hammond) this is the sixteenth poem, and the earliest that I whole-heartedly enjoyed and appreciated. 

I also preferred the first draft - that version reproduced above - over Tolkien's several later revisions. Some of my favourite lines, including the first, were omitted or changed in later versions. 

The revisions came after JRRT tried to discover what this poem meant - he was (apparently) not consciously aware of the poems meaning at the time of writing.

The word Earendil (encountered in the context of an Old English poem Crist) was of great significance to Tolkien - it seems to have acted as a catalyst which started the creation of his mythology (the Legendarium) - initially with the Lost Tales. 

At the point when the above poem was written, the meaning of Earendil had not crystallized for Tolkien. It was during the process of working on this poem that it began to be "discovered". 

At the time of writing, Earendil was apparently a person, a mariner who launches from the ocean into the skies; and who encounters personified celestial bodies the Sun, and Moon, and Venus - the evening star. 

He traverses the dark aspect of the earth from West (sunset) to East (sunrise); and then dies, apparently in a kind of blissful consummation, by being consumed by the light of dawn. 

This may be a cyclical myth of the events of every night; or it may be the account of a single day's - triumphant, but terminal - voyage. Tolkien seems to have been drawn to both possibilities in his later work.   

Later revisions tried to clarify, or impose, a more consistent allegorical and/or mythological meaning. After many intermediate stages; the character of Earendil (half-elven, father of Elrond and Elros) was eventually given a vital role in the mythology. 

And - in his enchanted boat and with a Silmaril on his brow - Earendil was ultimately transformed into what we call "Venus", which is (at different phases of its orbit) both the Evening Star and the Morning Star (brightest of all celestial bodies, except the moon); recognized as a sign of new hope for the elves of Middle Earth. 

But this destination not was evident to Tolkien at the time of first writing the Voyage of Earendil. He was groping in the dark, and working almost entirely by inspiration and intuition. 

A great deal was gained by the subsequent development of the myths - and we modern readers look back from this state of knowledge; but I also feel that something fresh and lovely in the September 1914 poem was lost in the process.     

Where now the horse and the rider? For Tolkien, death (and "entropy") is more fundamentally tragic than evil

"Where now the horse and the rider?" is a poem of the Riders of Rohan, recited by Aragorn in The Two Towers, as he approaches Edoras with Gandalf, Gimli and Legolas. It is perhaps my favourite of all the poems by Tolkien, and indeed one of my favourite poems.

In the recently published Collected Poems of JRR Tolkien (edited by C Scull and WG Hammond, pp 1225-6) is quoted some annotations by Tolkien with reference to this poem, in relation to the Old English lyric The Wanderer from which the first line is derived: 

["Where now the horse and the rider"] laments the ineluctable ending and passing back into oblivion of the fortunate, the full-lived, the unblemished and beautiful.  

To me that is more poignant than any particular disaster, from the cruelty of men or the hostility of the world. 

This strikes me as a profound and startling statement from Tolkien, and one with which I am in full sympathy. What he is saying is that the ultimate tragedy of this mortal life and world is not evil, but death and what we might term "entropy". 

In other words, for JRRT and for myself; what is ultimately tragic is the inevitable and unavoidable evanescence of all that is Good, all that is True, Beautiful and Virtuous; all that is best - and every person and "thing" that we most love. 

In this life; all changes, and eventually degenerates and dies. 

Yes there is new creation, but it is not the same. 

There is only memory; but memory fades. And even while memory survives, over the generations and the span of time, this loss accumulates in our awareness.

What Tolkien is saying here; is that even if we consider only the very best of this mortal life, the fortunate, the full-lived, the unblemished and beautiful - considering only that which is good, and eliminating from consideration all that is evil - the cruelty of men or the hostility of the world... 

Even then; the sufficiency, the adequacy, the acceptability of our life and world is undercut by the fact that the best and good will move towards the ineluctable ending and passing back into oblivion.

It is from this inevitability of change and death - as much as, or indeed more than, from evil - that Jesus Christ has offered us salvation. 

Charles Williams and Magic

From Charles Williams's point of view; the most relevant aspect of magical societies (in the Golden Dawn tradition*) was that training (initiation) was a matter of inner visualization and concentration. For instance, in meditation, holding attention on imagined scenes, leading onto imagined journeys. 

These scenarios were then populated with symbolism, and the meaning of this symbolism had previously been assimilated by meditation. 

Golden Dawn symbolism was rooted in the Qabalah (variously spelled), which was regarded as a complete categorization of reality, and its inner relations. 

This inner work of imagination was linked with everyday reality - so that what happened in imagination, and via the symbolism, had effects on the inner plane, which necessarily affected material life. 

To put it differently; members of the GD who were conducting a magical ritual or ceremony, would do so with the conviction that what was happening in the minds of the participants here and now in their temple, would be having general effects (effects for the good, beneficial effects - or so they intended) on other people elsewhere, and the world at large. So this kind of white society was a serious and high-minded business, much like a church; or more accurately a monastery consisting of priests and acolytes.   

The Golden Dawn ceremonies and rituals were really just a way of enhancing the above inner processes. 

There was also the matter of "energizing" the above processes, infusing psychic energy, generating (or tapping) the power to make these work. This was the sex magic aspect ("polarity") analogous to Hindu Tantric sex stuff, "raising the Kundalini" - or generating sexual desire, but re-directing it to energize the above processes. 

There seems to have been disputes and schisms about this aspect. Alistair Crowley, for example, was one extreme - using polarity, and drugs, to fuel manipulative power and attain pleasure. (I have not studied Crowley, however, just picked up bits and pieces). 

Dion Fortune is another (good) extreme in which the process was celibate and the energies directed to Christian and altruistic goals. 

All this magical method/ technique/ process was regarded as value neutral, a means to an end; and could be used for evil and selfish goals, as well as for good. 

This was the reason for oaths of secrecy and the screening process of Golden Dawn members (through multiple levels of initiation) - the leaders were trying to prevent this power from falling into the hands of evil-motivated people (black magicians - like Crowley  - who pursued the left hand path; and intended to use the power for gratification or domination). 

The white magic GD societies used these powers for "good" - rather variously defined. 

Early on this was Christian ideas of good (albeit, various understood Christianity), but after the schisms other ideas splintered off; sometimes more secular and utilitarian ideas of promoting the general well-being of the nation, or the world - sometimes with a socio-political focus. 

However, these white magical societies were intense and controlling, very constraining - and it is not surprising that CW left them after he had learned all he could - which seems to have been a lot. 

Williams was apparently what would be called an "adept" of the Greater Mysteries, rather than a mere initiate of the Lesser Mysteries - self-sufficient, and a potential leader, in terms of his magical stature. 

Adepts often went on to found their own magical societies; as did Willaims; because that was the nature of the Companions of the Co-Inherence. 

Alice Mary Hadfield was (she has said) unhappy that the Companions were Not Christian primarily; e.g. she noticed that "substitution" was being regarded by CW as a pure technique or technology - rather than a high level spiritual activity requiring the support of the Holy Ghost. 

This is confirmed by the descriptions of of substitution was administered/ imposed top-down by CW on the other Companions (instructing one Companion to substitute for another in specific respects). The magical society quality of the Companions also fits with the "homework" (e.g. memorization of passages of writing) that Williams demanded of (especially female) disciples - and the sanctions and punishments (including physical) he imposed upon them for their errors in such tasks. 

 All of which makes me think that the Companions of the Co-Inherence were primarily (in effect, and by CW's intention - if not explicitly) a magical society. 

(I tend to think CW's secrecy about the magical societies was not so much a matter of honouring the oaths, as simply wanting to conceal the nature as sources of his remarkable mental powers - which so many people remarked when they met him. These powers were exactly what the Golden Dawn system was intended to train.) 

With respect to CW; it seems to me that - as an adept - he had highly developed his powers of concentration (focusing attention) and inner visualization, and all the other magical methods; such as being able to perform ritual movements and speeches with a high degree of physical control and continuous self- and other-awareness - practised and repeated until they became spontaneous and habitual. 

My inference is that it was these habitual abilities of Williams - magically trained to a high level - that contributed significantly to the charismatic personal magnetism that so many found impressive, or even overwhelming.  

But Williams seems to have used (or desired to use) these magically-derived powers to generate his creative writing, especially poetry; rather than for the usual purposes of magical societies - whether white or black.  

It seems that to use magic for writing was not the intent of the white magic side of the Golden Dawn, and would not have been regarded as a valid purpose - except insofar as such writings were dedicated to "good" ends, perhaps. 

(This was probably another factor in CW leaving the official GD societies). 

I think CW also somewhat deviously abused the powers and methods of GD magic in order to manipulate others; attempting to make them go along with and do things they would otherwise not have done. 

I think he justified this to himself as necessary (or at least permissible) for the generation and energizing of poetry, which he justified as a positive contribution to God's work. 

But I personally don't find these self-justifications convincing - I think there was a great deal of ego and hedonism mixed in with CW's motivations! 

In plain words; I think that Charles Williams was sometimes (but recurrently) guilty of using his Golden Dawn training for black magical purposes, on the left hand path. 

At least, that is what comes through in the utilitarian and pragmatic ways Williams talked about his work - writing for money was a recurrent theme; even something his insisted upon as right and proper. If CW's poetry and writing had been the kind of sacred practice that would have justified the use of magical methods, then I do not think he could have taken this materialistic attitude in public utterances (and in some of his writings). 

Also the self-justification of magical usage is contradicted by CW's long-term concern for attaining greater personal status and recognition - for fame and fortune! 

While such conceits are normal and understandable - when it comes to justifying manipulating and exploiting others by magical techniques - this was surely to abuse his occult powers is on the dark side, on the left hand path. 

And then there are the ways that CW dissipated his time, energy and opportunities - all those pot-boilers, all that writing for money instead of working on poems (money which he mostly spent on unnecessary rather selfish frivolity, and buttering up women!).

All those pointless lectures to all and sundry, all that socializing with strangers - when he claimed to lack time and energy for his core creative work! 

What, for me, contradicts Williams's self-excuse for using Golden Dawn techniques on fascinating and influencing younger women, for deploying polarity/ sex magic, and for forming a magical society that he ruled in a controlling fashion; are things that Williams did instead of doing the best poetic work of which he was capable in a disinterested spirit. 

The Golden Dawn White magicians intended their magical system to be used for the general good of Mankind; especially with a Christian understanding of good.

Instead, Williams claimed that he used the abilities developed by his Golden Dawn magical training to energize, shape and enhance his own writings - specifically poetry of the spiritually highest kind. This was supposed to be the real and only justification for CW's deployment of magic.  

And this he did, but only to a limited extent; and he did much else besides - including activities which would seem intended to benefit CW himself; in terms of personal gratification, domination of others, and status.  

 

*The original Golden Dawn magical society had ceased before the time of Charles Williams, and schism-ed into various strands, in a complex and interactive way (which seems not to be fully understood); several groups persisted for various periods - some groups continue to this day. 

Note: H/T - The above was generated by a query from, and letter to, Sorina Higgins on this subject. It represents my current level of understanding of the Golden Dawn tradition is drawn from the past several years of reading widely but unsystematically in the field; especially Dion Fortune, Gareth Knight and writings of those who influenced and interacted with them - these two are explicitly Christian magicians, but many of their descendants are not Christian. Therefore I have been engaged in some dipping into material from those in contrast or opposition to that tradition - neo-pagans (some of whom I rather like), anything-but-Christians, magical leftists, and those who use magic as de facto psychotherapy. I have also sampled from some of those I would regard as Black Magicians on the left hand path - whether they acknowledge it or not; most of whom have been and are linked to the Crowley tradition in schism from Golden Dawn... Those using magical techniques aiming to get sex, money, attention/ fame, domination; or subversively to attain personal or societal destruction etc. In sum: magic used against The Good. There is a great deal of this on-line, including YouTube.  

The Most Reluctant Convert (2021) - Max McLean in a short movie about CS Lewis's conversion

Lastnight we watched "The most reluctant convert" a short (90 minute) movie about CS Lewis's life and conversion - written-by and starring the excellent Bible Gateway performer Max McLean. 

It is a meaty and uncompromising piece, which managed to interest me and hold my attention; even though I have read the contributing texts, especially Surprised by Joy; and indeed I've seen several earlier movies that covered much the same ground. 

Like many adult converts to Christianity over the past seventy years - CS Lewis's writings played a significant role in this process. 

Looking back, I can see several respects in which Lewis's experiences, and his answers, seem wrong to me now - including his experience of having to resist being-converted, his orthodox-traditional-classical theology, and the way he equates being-a-Christian with joining a (mainstream) church. 

Nonetheless, CSL (and a few others) got me over the line, which is What Matters! 

(The rest was, necessarily, Up To Me.)

I was pleased that the movie's take-home message, spoken by Lewis during in the last few minutes, focused on what was, for me, the most effective of the "arguments" that Lewis made (with Tolkien) - the argument from desire, as it is called: 

The final step was taken... It was like a man who, after a long sleep, has become aware that he is now awake. 

My conversion shed new light on my search for Joy. The overwhelming longings that emerged from reading MacDonald's Phantastes, and seeing my brother's toy garden when a child; were merely signposts to what I truly desired. They were not the thing itself. 

I concluded that; if I find in myself a desire that no experience in this world could satisfy  the most probable explanation? I was made for another world. 

At present we are on the outside of that world, the wrong side of the door. We cannot mingle with the splendours we see. 

But all the leaves of the New Testament are rustling with the news that it will not always be so; that one day, God willing, we shall get in.

Meanwhile: the cross comes before the crown. And tomorrow is another morning.  

A cleft has opened in the pitiless walls of this world. And we have been invited to follow our great Captain inside. 

Following Him is, of course, the essential point. 

What is our civilization's equivalent Age of Middle Earth?

The Tree of Woe author ("ToW"), who has commented here - and who I respect as a thoughtful (but IMO very over-optimistic!) reactionary thinker, influenced by Spengler, and with a strong interest in Tolkien - has written a big essay suggesting that Western Civilization is now at an crux analogous to the transformations between Tolkien's Second (Numenorean) Age, and the Third Age of the dwindling of Numenor (and elves and dwarves). 

Regarding the previous era of modernity and the Industrial Revolution as a Faustian Age; ToW presents a detailed argument that Elendil is the current equivalent cultural figure that Faust was for the era from which we are emerging. 

So that JRR Tolkien's fictional character of Elendil is (or could represent) a current analogy to what the historical figure figure of Goethe and his fictional/ legendary character of Faust represented for the late 1700s and early 1800 - and until recently. 

Tree of Woe's conclusion is as follows:

Yet this ought be no cause for despair. If the Aenean spirit [i.e. the spirit of Aeneas who in legend fled the defeated Troy to set in train the foundation of Rome - and indeed Britain) or Tolkien’s northern courage means anything, it means that the fight must be fought regardless of the likelihood of success. And Tolkien’s myths remind us that even in decline, there is beauty, heroism, and meaning. The Elendilian Age, if it were to come, might not shine as brightly as the Faustian, or even the Aenean; but it would still carry forward the light of what came before. And in the end, that light—however faint—will be enough to illuminate the path for those who follow.

 

I think ToW is mistaken, and that our culture is not at an analogous transition of Second to Third Age - but instead at a much later phase during or following Tolkien's Fourth Age (as, indeed, Tolkien himself said many times). 

There are indeed genuine similarities with Tolkien's Second to Third Age - but essentially we are at a far later stage of cultural decline; in which the mainstream, dominant a highest status official world view (widely shared by the masses, especially in The West) is atheist materialism. 

For the first time in history; we inhabit a world in which deity is regarded as unreal - ignored or ridiculed, and indeed opposed and inverted; in which "the material" is regarded as the only reality; and in which a kind of incoherent but moralistic hedonism is the global ideology.

In other words; here-and-now it is regarded as obvious and ethically imperative that the alleviation of suffering and promotion of gratification ought to be the underlying basis of all ideologies and policies. 

(Yet the ruling ideology of leftism is not coherent, precisely because it is essentially oppositional (and opposition to God, creation and The Good can and does take limitless and mutually-inconsistent forms): and that there is a strand of Leftism expressing indifference to human experience, and instead taking the side of The Planet Earth (or the Biosphere) against Men.)

The consequence is that we are in an era of established and increasing value-inversion: which means that what have been regarded throughout human history as the values of Goodness (roughly - truth, beauty, virtue, coherence); have been inverted so that Good is now regarded as evil, and sin as virtue. 

We are therefore in a fundamentally unprecedented situation - and in a far-more deeply corrupted and evil situation than was the case in Tolkien's Second, or Third, Age.

And a situation in which the ideal of preservation of this uniquely depraved culture has itself become aversive to the best of people, and the best within each person. 

Demotivation has become so prevalent and pervasive that even basic human survival (and reproductive) instincts have become diminished to the point of ineffectuality... That is, when they are not actually inverted into covert or explicit cultural and personal self-hatred, and an active desire for (suicidal) personal and cultural annihilation.   

My impression is that ToW recognizes this, and seeks for an antidote to the consequent Demotivation and Despair. 

D&D are indeed sins to a Christian - despair representing lack of faith in God's creative power and loving nature, and demotivation representing a giving-up on our destiny in this mortal life). 

But ToW is seeking to reconstruct a motivating and optimistic ideology from selected and secular aspects of the past - so that instead of passive (or active) acquiescence in terminal decline; a fight will be fought. 

The intent is that decline would be opposed, and a work of preservation and rebuilding begun; on the basis of the new Western spirit - analogous to the Elendil's creation of Arnor and Gondor in remembrance (as as lesser derivatives) of Numenor. 

I regard this optimism as mistaken for at least two reasons:

One reason why ToW is mistaken, is that human beings have changed, irrevocably (I call this "the development of consciousness"); such that they neither want, nor could sustain, past forms of human societies. 

The future must therefore be something that accepts the given-ness of current basic human nature; and adds to it to restore God, creation, and the world of spirit. The outcome will be something fundamentally unprecedented - not a restoration. But what that outcome shall be we cannot know until after enough individuals have personally changed. 

I believe that this developmental process must be conscious and voluntary, and come from the inner freedom of each individual. 

A worse society can indeed be imposed top-down, by the ruling class; by propaganda, brain-washing and external incentives (bribes and blackmail). This is indeed what we have seen, accelerating, over the past fifty years. 

But a better society can only arise bottom-up, from robust positive change in sufficient individual persons... 

That is; bottom-up in socio-political terms - but it is vital to remember that anything Good will be aided by God, via his continuing divine creation. Any Good an individual does (including in thought, in the spiritual realm) shall be incorporated into ongoing divine creation.    

The second reason why his proposals do not fly; is that ToW is applying a fundamentally secular analysis to history; whereas all historical societies were (IMO) primarily religious: i.e. they perceived and interpreted the world through the lens of their religions. 

Therefore ToW's selective version of history leaves-out that which was most important to historical societies; that upon-which both their coherence was based, and in which their core-motivation was rooted. 

This omission of that which was fundamental to past societies is a further reason why this kind of restoration cannot work.  

Finally; to add a specifically Christian perspective; ToW is basically mistaken to seek a solution to demotivation and despair in this mortal life and world. 

The human condition is (as the ancients all knew) essentially tragic, and anything we can do, even in theory, is merely palliative. 

What this means is that - while motivation and hope are necessary to mortal life - no fundamentally secular-material socio-political plan or destiny can provide sufficient motivation and hope.

"The Answer" is to start-with and build-upon a solid basis for hope that comes from the expectation of resurrected eternal life; and personal knowledge of the reality of the personal and loving God the Creator. 

Only after that perspective has been established can we attain that hope which overcomes despair. 

Only Frodo and Sam, of all the Fellowship, could sufficiently resist the corrupting/ confusing power of The One Ring

On my latest slow read-through of Lord of the Rings; I noticed for the first time, a very clear and striking depiction of the way that the One Ring had corrupted almost the entire Fellowship by the time they reach the Falls of Rauros and must decide whether to turn west towards Minas Tirith, or east towards Mordor. 

This is apparent from the fact that - except for Sam, every single one of the Fellowship who express an opinion - Aragorn, Merry, Pippin, Legolas, Gimli - as well as (obviously!) Boromir - say they would choose to turn west and go to Minas Tirith.

"[Frodo] is debating which course is the most desperate, I think,’ said Aragorn*. ‘And well he may. It is now more hopeless than ever for the Company to go east, since we have been tracked by Gollum, and must fear that the secret of our journey is already betrayed." 

[Legolas said:] "I should vote for Minas Tirith."

"And so should I,’ said Gimli. "... I would choose Minas Tirith

[Merry:] "It would be mad and cruel to let Frodo go to Mordor.  Why can’t we stop him?"

"We must stop him," said Pippin. "He knows we shan’t agree to his going east". 

Sam is the only one in this debate who sees matters clearly and aright: "What’s the good of Minas Tirith anyway?"

Going west to Minas Tirith is the wrong decision, and contradicts the plan by which the Fellowship set out. 

Yet it is evident that all of the Fellowship except Frodo and Sam have been at-least indirectly (and, in the case of Boromir, directly) corrupted by The Ring, into wanting to change the plans to go to Minas Tirith. 

Again excepting Boromir; all members of the Fellowship pledge to follow Frodo east to Mordor, if that is Frodo's choice. But my point is that all the company (except Sam) state that they would choose instead to go west. They believe west is the correct choice.  

They say this despite that going to Minas Tirith would be a change of plan that does nothing towards achieving the the objective of the Quest ("What's the good of Minas Tirith anyway?"), and instead adds further delay to an already critically delayed quest.

Furthermore; there is a high probability of disaster from bringing The Ring into a fortress full of Men who are by-far that race most susceptible to temptation and corruption from the Rings of Power (examples include Isildur, Boromir, and Denethor - and the Ringwraiths). 

Getting the One Ring out from Minas Tirith might well have proved impossible - if once it had been carried into that citadel.  

I think we can infer that this loss of mission-clarity at such a critical point of the quest is likely to be effect of the proximity to the ring, as Frodo guesses ("This at least is plain: the evil of the Ring is already at work even in the Company, and the Ring must leave them before it does more harm.").

The only members of the Fellowship who resist the evil of The Ring, and remain clear-headed about what needs to be done, are Frodo and Sam - who are, of course, those who actually embark-upon and succeed-in the quest. 

It is evident that divine providence did well in choosing these two as the only members of the Fellowship who set forth east! Only their un-muddled and single-minded commitment to the job in hand was sufficient for its completion (and, even then, only with the ambivalent/ inadvertent "help" of Smeagol/ Gollum). 

The presence of anyone else than Frodo and Sam on the eastward journey to Mordor; might fatally have clouded the mission. 

*Aragorn is probably not "corrupted" by The Ring; but feels strongly the pull of a personal destiny that draws him towards Minas Tirith. Thus he is sufficiently confused - perhaps by the action of The Ring - so as to have lost sight of the absolute primacy of the Ring Quest. He is not sufficiently clear that Frodo must turn east as soon as possible - and that this is The Priority towards which everything else needs to be subordinated, without prevarication or delay. 

The Notion Club as a Magical Society - implications for Tolkien's attitudes to magic in the modern world

In the years since I first encountered The Notion Club Papers (NCPs) I have read much about some of the groupings that constituted White (Christian) Magic in England - and the various societies in a tradition that goes back to the Golden Dawn at the turn of the 19th-20th century, through Dion Fortune in the early-mid 20th century, and to Gareth Knight in the late 20th century and his death only a few years ago.   

Gareth Knight is especially significant, since he authored "The Magical World of the Inklings" (1990) which was endorsed by a foreword from Owen Barfield; and constitutes a frequently insightful overview of the work (and, to some extent, lives) of CS Lewis, JRR Tolkien, Charles Williams and Owen Barfield. 

But Knight does not consider the NCPs - which were only published after the first edition of GK's Inklings book, and had not been accorded the specific and defining consideration of Verlyn Flieger's A Question of Time (2001). 

The Notion Club, as depicted by Tolkien, is a magical society; albeit not of the earlier and formal kind (of which Charles Williams was an active and advanced participant) that was characterized by graded initiations, sworn secrecy, and costumed and scripted rituals. 

Instead; the Notion Club (written in 1945-6) more resembled that informal, fluid, late 20th/ early 21st century magical practice - sometimes solitary, dyadic, or among small-groupings of friends or colleagues - which Gareth Knight describes in his autobiography (I Called it Magic, 2011). 

The Notion Club are described as deploying a variety of spiritual/ magical techniques in pursuit of their goals. 

1. There is a "Jungian" focus on dream journaling and analysis, as routes to self-understanding but also to developing explicit awareness concerning unconscious knowledge of spiritual, remote and historical reality. 

2. Several instances of what later became termed "channelling", are described or implied - such as when Lowdham and Jeremy speak with the voices of people from the mythical past; or when Frankley unconsciously composes the relevant mystical poem of St Brendan's voyages after sleep, as if "given" to him by another consciousness.

3. Clairvoyance and clairaudience (referencing sight and hearing) are evident when Ramer and Jeremy experience visions of the mythic-past and remote places; and when Lowdam hears phrases in strange languages (he also clairvoyantly sees them written). 

There are also mentions that Dolbear has been "training" Ramer, and later Lowdham and Jeremy, in (what sounds like) some kind of method of "lucid" dream awareness, with hints of "exercises" for training and strengthening the imagination. 

Dolbear himself often enters a suspended and partial sleep state (hypnagogic/ hypnopompic) in which he remains both aware of the club and of other-place/time visions. 

The above list is not exhaustive. There are many indications that - even if not self-consciously so - the Notion Club, which seems to have begun as a literary club, has come to function, more and more, as a Magical Society - as its members develop methods for attaining the altered states of consciousness by which they become aware of, and influenced by, the society and events of a remote and indeed mythical past. 

Furthermore; the Notion Club is a "contacted" magical group; in that particular NC members derive knowledge from particular "spirit guides" who might (since they exist simultaneously in the mythic past and the contemporary setting of the NCPs) be regarded as closely analogous to the benign "inner plane guides" that stand-behind, teach and advise the closed and formal (later more open and improvised) magical societies of Dion Fortune (Society of the Inner Light) and the Gareth Knight Group.

I find it very striking to notice the extent to which the Notion Club functions as a real but unconscious Magical Society; in the sense of deliberately developing a methodology of using the trained imagination, altered states of consciousness and inner contact with persons/ beings in other times and places. 

This extends to describing members' experiences encountering non-human beings (Ramer's other planets), non-physical planes (discussions of the reality and nature of ghosts), and (what sound like) demonic attacks happening during dreaming.  

In sum: although the Notion Club were initially loosely-modelled on the mundane Inklings group, with its focus on literary composition and critique; as the story developed, so did distinctly magical behaviours and aims. 

Since the magical techniques are described from a distinctly positive perspective, and in pursuit of aims of which Tolkien approved; it seems that Tolkien was implicitly (although he tended publicly to deny this) far more positive concerning the nature and possibilities of "magic" in the modern world, than might otherwise have been suspected. 

 

History of Middle Earth free online

For those of you who have not yet tried reading Tolkien's posthumously published works, you can find the twelve volumes of The History of Middle Earth in rather user-un-friendly - but free! - online versions at this website. A real treasure trove. 

This provides access to The Notion Club Papers (Volume 9), The Lost Road (Volume 5), Athrabeth Finrod ah Andreth (Volume 10) and a lot of interesting stuff about elves and dwarves (Volume 12). 

If you enjoy these, you will probably want to buy paper copies of all twelve books; but these versions provide a comprehensive taster. 

CS Lewis on immortality

Like many people in the past decades, I owe a significant debt to CS Lewis as an agent of my conversion to Christianity. Lewis is more than a beloved and much pondered writer for me - he is more like a friend. 

Nonetheless; beyond the basic fact of that conversion (which is, after all, the main thing), I also absorbed from CSL several elements of what I now regard as serious error, especially in terms of the ultimate question of "what Christianity is". 

Even before I became a Christian, and for a good while afterwards (many months, and indeed residually for some years) I would have subscribed to this statement by CS Lewis's in Surprised by Joy. The bolded sections I have added for emphasis: 

My conversion involved as yet no belief in a future life. I now number it among my greatest mercies that I was permitted for several months, perhaps for a year, to know God and to attempt obedience without even raising that question [i.e. the question of whether - and how - there was a connection between God and Joy]. 

My training was like that of the Jews, to whom He revealed Himself centuries before there was a whisper of anything better (or worse) beyond the grave than shadowy and featureless Sheol. And I did not dream even of that. 

There are men, far better men than I, who have made immortality almost the central doctrine of their religion; but for my own part I have never seen how a preoccupation with that subject at the outset could fail to corrupt the whole thing. 

I had been brought up to believe that goodness was goodness only if it were disinterested, and that any hope of reward or fear of punishment contaminated the will. If I was wrong in this (the question is really much more complicated than I then perceived) my error was most tenderly allowed for. I was afraid that threats or promises would demoralise me; no threats or promises were made. The commands were inexorable, but they were backed by no "sanctions". 

God was to be obeyed simply because he was God. Long since, through the gods of Asgard, and later through the notion of the Absolute, He had taught me how a thing can be revered not for what it can do to us but for what it is in itself. That is why, though it was a terror, it was no surprise to learn that God is to be obeyed because of what He is in Himself. 

If you ask why we should obey God, in the last resort the answer is, "I am." To know God is to know that our obedience is due to Him. In His nature His sovereignty de jure is revealed.

**

Lewis explains that it was a good thing for him - implicitly in a psychological sense:

1. That he was unconcerned by the question of immortality: of life beyond mortal life.

2. That he regarded his faith essentially as obedience; and obedience to a God to whom obedience was due impersonally - because he was God - (which I take to mean, the creator of everything from nothing, omnipotent, omniscient etc.)  - and without consideration of any personal values. 

And it seems clear, and Lewis himself confirms, that this attitude to God is closely analogous to that of Judaism - and, he might have added, to Islam.   

Lewis even goes so far as to say that it is corrupting to religion for "personal immortality" to be the central doctrine. 

Unfortunately (as it now seem to me) I imbibed this personal prejudice of Lewis's along with my conversion. Consequently, I found that reading the Fourth Gospel was extremely confusing - since it seemed obvious that "immortality" (of a particular kind - resurrected) was the focus of Jesus's teaching. 

(There are also accounts, which impress me, that suggest immortality was a primary means of conversion.) 

I am forced to conclude that Lewis's personal history and psychology led him into a very serious misunderstanding of Christianity - but I would add that it is not at all uncommon and I had exactly the same misconception. 

And for much the same reason - in that I became a Christian via monotheism. That is, through intermediate stages of recognizing that we inhabited "a creation", and recognizing the reality of transcendental values (truth, beauty, virtue, cohesion)...

In other words, again much like Lewis, I regarded the history of Christianity as essentially cumulative, and the nature of Christianity as added-on to pre-existent Greek philosophy and Hebrew theology. 

I now regard this as deeply wrong, in its essentially reality. Of course Jesus lived at a point in time, in which there were pre-existent cultural and religious realities. 

But I now see Jesus as offering something fundamentally simple (eternal, Heavenly, resurrected life), and qualitatively new - a second creation. 

I see the intellectual structures of pre-existent Hebrew monotheism and Greek philosophy as not just irrelevant but distorting to the real nature of the religion of Jesus Christ. 

In particular; it seems like bad advice to suggest that people ought not to be concerned with the question of immortality; and that we ought not to try and understand the relationship between their own values and the nature of God. Such ideas point away-from (not towards) Christianity as it ought to be understood - the teaching of Jesus Christ revealed in the Fourth Gospel; and (much more importantly) an understanding which is simple and clear enough to be knowable by direct personal revelation.   

JRR Tolkien Letters on audiobook, performed by Samuel West

I reviewed the new edition of JRR Tolkien's selected letters earlier this year; and I saw at the time that the whole thing was also available as an audiobook - which was a mammoth twenty-nine hours yet cost me just one "Audible" credit to buy (less than five pounds). 

So, strangely, the audiobook of Letters is much cheaper than the paper copy! (So long as you are an Audible member.)  

Listening to these letters was a tremendously enjoyable experience - probably more so than reading them. Also I felt that I was taking in more of the meaning aurally, than when reading to myself - perhaps due its being easier to concentrate. 

...For which much of the credit must go to Samuel West; who is "the voice of Tolkien" in this production. 

Samuel West is a very experienced Tolkien audiobook reader of the Silmarillion and broadly Legendarium material, typically reading Tolkien's text - and has often made a team with his father Timothy - who plays the "editorial role" of Christopher's voice. 

But these letters represent SW's greatest challenge yet; since there are so many of them and they lack an over-arching dramatic structure, and because they are letters rather than fictions, and were not intended for publication. 

Yet West does a simply superb job! What greatly impressed me was his sustained focus on the reading; on the precise meanings of the sentences. He also made the letters dramatic - full of light and shade; with a wide range of emotions - happiness, anger, tragedy, irritation, the sublime... So that each letter becomes a structured exposition of some aspect of Tolkien the man. 

I think this convincing interpretation of Tolkien as a character is made possible by Samuel West's unusually high intelligence for an actor - so that he pronounces extremely wide vocabulary of the words correctly, phrases the complex sentences grammatically, accurately inflects their meanings.  

An unreserved recommendation from me  - I anticipate relistening many times. 

JRR Tolkien did not finish and publish The Silmarillion because the motivational aspect of his genius had dwindled

It is an interesting question why JRR Tolkien did not finish and publish The Silmarillion; despite that The Lord of the Rings was published in late 1955 and Tolkien did not die until mid-1973; and despite that all through these seventeen-plus years he was insistent that making The Silmarillion publishable was his number one priority. 

Much has been written, and truly enough, about the many technical difficulties facing Tolkien in this work, and about his habits of making matters harder for himself by writing new material (and radically changing old material) rather than focusing on the core task of making The Silmarillion both internally consist, and consistent with the published Lord of the Rings.  

I would like to take a different approach altogether. This recognizes that JRR Tolkien was a genius, The Lord of the Rings was a work of genius, and Tolkien wanted The Silmarillion also to be a work of genius.

By my understanding of the nature of genius; to do work of genius requires both exceptionally high ability, and also exceptionally strong motivation. 

This exceptional motivation comes from within (i.e. is "endogenous" - inner-generated) - and can only come from within. The motivation is focused to accomplish the particular task a genius feel inwardly compelled to accomplish. 

Such a powerful and sustained inner motivation is something present... or not. 

Because of the difficulty of accomplishing a work of genius, only a genuine and inner motivation will suffice to provide the sustained and directed energies and concentration that is necessary. 

Self-exhortation, external pressures, the sense of duty, potential financial or other benefits... these things can be no substitute for a genius's special capacity for inner motivation, directed to do what he "must". 

The Letters of JRR Tolkien document the power and resilience of his motivation to write the Lord of the Rings (LotR), extending over more than a decade - and persisting despite many obstacles such as multiple urgent and competing duties at home and in work, World War Two, physical and psychological illness; and his innate reluctance to finish any piece of work, but instead to "niggle" at it.  

Tolkien wrote and published Lord of the Rings; despite several longish hiatuses and interruptions - some self-inflicted; but always he would return to the job, again and again, pushing forward over-and-over with the massive task - even as its difficulties continued to expand.

We need to recognize the colossal expenditure of directed and sustained effort that this required - Tolkien often emphasized this himself in later writings, including the Foreword to Lord of the Rings.  

My point is that genius-level writing is not only a product of genius-level ability; but also genius-level motivation.

It was primarily a decline of motivation that failed Tolkien in his intention to complete and publish The Silmarillion - at a level of attainment commensurate with the earlier published book. 

Such a decline in motivation was, of course, not Tolkien's "fault". Indeed, it is more accurate to put things the other way around...

More accurate to say that Tolkien was temporarily blessed with a tremendous power of self-motivation during the years of his late middle-age; carrying him through from the beginnings of LotR in 1937, at least to submission of its final volume in 1955 - by which time Tolkien was sixty-three years old.

The (apparent) fact that this extraordinary motivation was not sustained over the entire remainder of his life and through into extreme old-age; is simply that such things depend on our mortal and vulnerable bodies and minds; therefore they don't usually last very long.  

I think his ability as a writer remained largely intact; in that some of his very best pieces of writing came after the publication of Lord of the Rings and up to the late 1960s. these including Silmarillion themed pieces; posthumously published in Unfinished Tales and The History of Middle earth.   

So I believe it was diminished motivation rather diminished ability that was the problem with The Silmarillion. 

Tolkien was to some extent unable, and also to some extent unwilling, to focus his motivation on The Silmarillion. This is evident in the memoir from Clyde Kilby, about assisting Tolkien in the middle 1960s - ostensibly to help him complete The Silmarillion. 

Kilby reports that (on a day by day basis) Tolkien went to considerable lengths to do almost-anything-else, other than work on The Silmarillion!

But a particularly telling example is documented in the published Letters.

Immediately after the publication of LotR; Tolkien claimed, in many letters, to be unable to focus upon The Silmarillion because he needed to complete several philological publishing commitments, as well as continue the duties related to his position as a Professor of English at Oxford. 

However he was due to retire in just a couple of years...

But in 1957 Tolkien arranged to stay on as Professor for an extra two years. This he stated to be due to money worries, related to a modest pension. In the event (as Tolkien realized by 1958) there was no reason to be concerned about his income, because income from royalties on LotR soon proved to be very substantial indeed. 

In correspondence; Tolkien said he wished he had known this before taking on the extra two years as Professor - which was not, after all, proving to be financially helpful (due to the effect on taxation of his royalty income). Tolkien said that if he had known about the extra LotR income, he would have retired earlier, at the statutory age. 

Tolkien finally retired in 1959, aged 67 - this was now four years post-LotR. 

However, in a letter dated 21st July 1962; Tolkien announced that from October 10th "I have to stand in for the outgoing Professor of Anglo Saxon" until the new Professor took up his post in Easter 1963. 

Of course; Tolkien did not "have to" do anything of the sort! It was Tolkien's choice - a matter of his priorities, not his duties; and there was no financial necessity. 

Tolkien was by 1962 now seventy one years old, and had been fully retired for three years; and was five years post his official retirement - and it was now fully seven years since the Lord of the Rings had been published. Seven years since he was supposed to be concentrating his best energies on completing and publishing The Silmarillion...

Yet, here was Tolkien voluntarily returning to university duties that had stood in the way of his writing for decades, the onerous nature of which he had very frequently complained in his earlier letters!

What I infer from this is that, in his later life - approximately the final eighteen years, Tolkien lacked the colossal drive necessary to making The Silmarillion his priority, setting aside other claims on his time and energies, and pushing through to its completion. 

It was this inner lack of motivation, presumably due to increasing age and diminishing vitality - rather than anything else; that was critical in Tolkien's failure to finish The Silmarillion.  

Frodo in the tower of Cirith Ungol - The ultimate hopeless situation?

When the Lord of the Rings begins, we see almost everything from Frodo's perspective, through Frodo's eyes. But after as Frodo and Sam leave the Fellowship, and their separate journey with the One Ring proceeds, the point of view shifts from Frodo to Sam. 

One consequence is that the situation of Frodo's paralysis by Shelob, the ring being taken from the apparently-dead Frodo by Sam while he is only unconscious; and then Frodo's capture, imprisonment and torment in Cirith Ungol - are all seen from the perspective of Sam; who is trying to find and rescue Frodo. 

We therefore hear about Frodo's response to the (apparent) utter hopelessness of his situation; only after he has already been rescued by Sam. And Frodo's desolation at the loss of The Ring is described only for a few moments before Sam returns it to him.

‘They’ve taken everything, Sam,’ said Frodo. ‘Everything I had. Do you understand? Everything!’ He cowered on the floor again with bowed head, as his own words brought home to him the fullness of the disaster, and despair overwhelmed him. ‘The quest has failed, Sam. Even if we get out of here, we can’t escape. Only Elves can escape. Away, away out of Middle-earth, far away over the Sea. If even that is wide enough to keep the Shadow out.’

Frodo's despair at losing The Ring is depicted while the reader is aware that The Ring is not incipiently in Sauron's hands, but is in Sam's possession, in the room and right in front of Frodo. 

So, for us, Frodo's cry of desolation is tinged with irony, and we realize that this misery will be brief. We don't, therefore, appreciate the full impact of Frodo's earlier situation - as it was experienced by Frodo at the time.  

But if we imagine how matters seemed to Frodo, just a few minutes before this scene; it is apparent that here again is one of those situations in Lord of the Rings where there is apparently no hope at all... 

After all; Frodo is in Mordor - far from any possibility of help; in a fortress full of hundreds of orcs who all hate him; and are arguing whether to torture him immediately; or obey orders and send Frodo to the impregnable Dark Tower where he will encounter Sauron himself. 

Meanwhile, Frodo is sick from Shelob's venom, stripped and whipped and taunted incessantly; and worst of all he has the "knowledge" of having failed his friends and the world and lost the "precious" One Ring that has a terrible and addictive grip upon him.

It is hard to imagine a more validly despair-inducing situation; a situation more genuinely hope-less. And yet that estimate of "no hope" turns-out to be wrong, a factually incorrect assumption. 

Of course; the situation is fictional. But it is nonetheless true. By this point in the story, we are reading Lord of the Rings exactly because of its truth, because its characters and situations are real. So, the mistaken nature of Frodo's despair is a genuine life-lesson for us; if we care to learn from it. 

The lesson that we ought never to despair: and never means never, no matter what. 

At the practical level, we should never give up hope because we never know all the relevant facts - and some of what we don't know may make all the difference. 

At the deepest level, we should never give up hope because we inhabit the divine creation of a good and loving God - and therefore we always can and will be helped ultimately... 

We will be helped, that is, as long as we have not given-up hope... 

Because despair is a rejection of the reality of divine creative goodness; and despair is what cuts us off from divine providence.

By despairing; we choose to believe that God cannot help us (or does not want to help us) and thereby we place our-selves beyond reach of God's help...

As we see elsewhere, with the self-chosen fate of Denethor - we actively embraces despair, and from doing so embraces evil, and does the work of Sauron.

Significantly; it was Denethor's vision of Frodo's captivity in the Palantir - true, yet incomplete as it was - that was what finally broke his spirit, and destroyed his last hope. 

A "Postal Map" of The Shire by Tom Maringer, 1991

 

Another reproduction of this map is at my BC's Notions blog - according to what I can glean, the map was part of a kind-of role playing game c. 1991 - in which participant would exchange realistic Shire-style letters using hobbit names and locations on this partly-conjectural (and therefore non-canonical, and non-official) map. Anyway, Tom Maringer (about whom I know nothing) did a great job in imagining and making this map. 

 

Whatever happened to Folco Boffin?

When The Lord of the Rings begins, it seems as if Folco Boffin is destined for a role as a significant minor character among the Hobbit "gentry" who are relatives of Frodo. If not as important as Merry and Pippin, then at least as relevant as Fredegar ("Fatty") Bolger, or Farmer Cotton. 

We hear in the first pages that Frodo had "a good many friends" among the younger hobbits who, as children when Bilbo resided there, were often in and out of Bag End: the first name mentioned is Folco Boffin, followed by Fredegar Bolger, then Pippin and Merry.   

Later, when Frodo is about to leave Bag End and is packing his possessions to move to Crickhollow; we are told that "some of his friends came to stay and help with the packing: there was Fredegar Bolger and Folco Boffin...". 

By that evening, only the special four friends (i.e. Folco, Fredegar, Merry, and Pippin) remain in Bag End to join Frodo in his final farewell birthday feast - and these four stay the last night.

But through all this there is an ominous foreshadowing of Folco's fate; in that he is never given a single line to speak, nor are his actions referenced... 

It is as if Folco was a Non Playable Character in a computer game; or maybe an actor without an Equity Card, who can appear on screen, but is not allowed dialogue...

Because the next morning, as Frodo prepares to depart on his quest; Pippin stays to accompany Frodo on his walk (as well as Frodo's servant, not yet friend, Sam); and before lunch, Merry and Fredegar drove off with Frodo's furniture on a cart. 

Frodo has his last Bag End lunch with Folco and Pippin. Just the three of them. 

And then? 

"Folco went home after lunch..."

Folco went home after lunch. 

And is never mentioned again*. 

Folco, one of Frodo's very best friends, just disappears - Forever! 

When the travellers return to Scour the Shire; we are told about Fredegar's fate during the tyranny of the Ruffians; but we never hear a word about Folco. 

Poor young Folco! - forever destined to be a Loose End, maybe a "nod"?... 

*Except in the Boffin Family Tree** in the Appendix C, and then only in the posthumously revised version of Lord of the Rings, with its two additional Trees. But the fact that there exists a Boffin Family Tree - alongside others for Baggins, Took, Brandybuck, Gamgee, and Bolger -  is further evidence to suggest that Folco was (at some point) anticipated to become one of five significant hobbit friends-of-Frodo. 

**This is entitled Boffin of the Yale - who was called Buffo, and describes the relationship between Folco's lineage and that of Fredegar, Bilbo and Frodo. Bilbo and Frodo are descendants of Buffo's daughter Berylla (who married a Baggins); and Fredegar of Buffo's eldest son Bosco via his grandaughter Jessamine who married a Bolger. 

However, Buffo's other two sons left no issue: Basso is "reputed to have 'gone to sea'"; while Briffo "removed to Bree".     

From these clues I have philologically reconstructed what I propose is the original of the Northumbrian folk song, dance and nursery rhyme:  "Bobby Shafto" - Shafto being the surname of an old family of minor gentry, owning several farms. 

Of course, the words have been corrupted by cumulative scribal errors over the millennia, but the tune remains the same. This was, I believe, how it was originally sung by Bosco's wife (name unrecorded):

Basso Boffin's gone to sea

Briffo Boffin went to Bree

Bosco stayed to marry me

Bonny Bosco Boffin

When Gandalf was beardless...

A young Gandalf, perhaps? 

From "The Istari" [i.e. "the wizards") chapter of Unfinished Tales (1982) we know that Gandalf's name was derived from an Old Norse name list, having the presumed Icelandic meaning of approximately "elf with a staff"; and this is supposed to be a translation into modern English of the Common Speech word of the Men of Northwestern Middle Earth. 

Tolkien explains: "Gandalf was not an elf, but would be by Men associated with them, since his alliance and association with them was well-known."  And also because Gandalf was observed to have lived many lives of Men. 

We also learn that "Men perceived that [wizards] did not die, but remained the same (unless it were that they aged somewhat in looks)..."

From The Nature of Middle Earth, 2021 - in the chapter "Beards"; we discover "the fact that the elvish race had no beards". 

Putting together elvish beard-less-ness which was presumably obvious to Men (who, the "Beard" chapter says, all had beards except for the Numoreans and those of other elvish descent such as Aragron and Imrahil); with the fact that Gandalf had been given the name of "elf" with a staff; it seems we must infer that Gandalf had no beard at the time he was given the name Gandalf. 

Probably the characteristic Gandalfian beard was one of the signs by which men observed the Wizards had "aged somewhat in looks"? 

Tolkien plus something-else made me a Romantic

Before reading JRR Tolkien's Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings at age 13, my attitude was that of a mainstream, down to earth, science and adventure orientated kid. I was very much a "materialist", and externally focused and driven. My favourite reading was Biggles and war memoirs of fighter pilots

Post Tolkien I became - although I did not know the term - a Romantic. 

Although I did not for some decades set aside the scientistic, rationalistic side to my character; my deepest hopes and fears were romantic. From then onwards, compared with nearly everybody I knew or met, I seemed to have stronger ecstasies and hopes, and also a stronger tendency to existential angst and melancholy - in general a tendency to brood on The Human Condition (but especially as it applied to me). 

Just on the cusp of my adolescence; Tolkien's work gave me strong and sustained glimpses of "higher things"; and it was my experience of a world of engagement in a living and conscious reality, where there were depths of purpose and meaning not just among human beings but other sentient beings, and all through nature and beyond (e.g. in mountains, rivers, the sea...)... A world and state of mind where both beauty and evil were sharper and realer.

It seems to me that part of being and staying "a romantic" is ecstatic experience of in inner and imaginative nature. 

It is this experience of heightened consciousness that - by its contrast with the mundane quality of everyday life; and also by its unsustainability, its brevity - apparently creates the typically "romantic" mind-set and life. 

However; it soon dawned upon me that nearly everybody I met seemed to lack either the capacity or desire (or both) to have ecstatic romantic experiences. 

Some lived life, apparently, always behind a transparent wall of exclusion of such experiences, self-control exerted against such loss of control. This would include "Normans" and those who emulated them or wished to ally with them. It would also include the classic respectable middle classes, and the (self-consciously, ostentatiously) down-to-earth working classes. 

Their appreciations seemed at second-hand, "as if", undercut by a safety-net of irony and facetiousness; consequently, although such people got miserable, that misery had a mundane not existential quality.

The mass of other-people whom I encountered either could-not, or (for some kind of defensive reason, perhaps regarding it as childish, ignorant, a sign of weakness, or low status) would-not allow themselves to have these experiences. 

In conclusion: two things at least were required for the unique life-transforming effect that Tolkien had upon me: one was the special quality of Tolkien's work; and the second was my (partly innate, partly chosen) latent romantic nature - which was probably enhanced by my stage of psychological development. 

 

Charles Williams's false ideal of the mathematical impersonality of love

Mrs. Anstruther opened her eyes and met Pauline's. She smiled. "My dear," she said, "I've been meaning to ask you something for the last day or two." Pauline thought it might be the hot afternoon that gave the voice that effect of distance; it was clear, but small and from afar. The words, the tone, were affectionate with an impersonal love. Pauline thought: "She might be talking to Phoebe"—Phoebe being the maid—and at the same time realized that Mrs. Anstruther did so talk to Phoebe, and to everyone. Her good will diffused itself in all directions. Her granddaughter lay in its way, with all things besides, and it mingled with the warm sun in a general benediction.

**

As if in a last communion with the natural terrors of man, Margaret Anstruther endured a recurrent shock of fear. She recalled herself. To tolerate such knowledge with a joyous welcome was meant, as the holy Doctors had taught her, to be the best privilege of man, and so remained. The best maxim towards that knowledge was yet not the Know thyself of the Greek so much as the Know Love of the Christian, though both in the end were one. It was not possible for man to know himself and the world, except first after some mode of knowledge, some art of discovery. The most perfect, since the most intimate and intelligent, art was pure love. The approach by love was the approach to fact; to love anything but fact was not love. Love was even more mathematical than poetry; it was the pure mathematics of the spirit. It was applied also and active; it was the means as it was the end. The end lived everlastingly in the means; the means eternally in the end.

From Descent into Hell, by Charles Williams, 1937.  

Love is regarded as the primary value of Christianity; yet that statement leaves it unclear what is meant by love, and indeed by Christianity. 

Speaking from my personal understanding; I regard it as a profound error when Christians strive to assert of love that it is ideally impersonal, universal, unconditional, impartial... I mean the error that love is best to be understood by abstract metaphors drawn from mathematics, physics, astronomy, and the like. 

Charles Williams was certainly very prone to asserting this perspective - as illustrated above by descriptions relating to Mrs Margaret Anstruther; a character in the novel Descent into Hell, who is pretty-clearly intended to represent Williams's idea of a modern saint: a genuinely wise and good person. 

In this novel and elsewhere; Williams frequently referred to his ideal situation as mathematical, a geometric pattern; characterized alike by precision and abstraction. But in this respect, except for his emphatic and stark rhetoric, Williams was not at all unusual among the main-stream of theologians from very early in Christian history. 

Indeed; Williams's attitude seems to me the normal and mainstream Christian theologian's view that ideal love - i.e. the love of God for all of creation - is necessarily impersonal. 

This due to the assumption that God as Creator is of an utterly different nature and quality than any created thing; and because of God's attributes of omnipotence, omniscience, omnipresence, and God's unchanging/ unemotional character (immutable and impassible); therefore it is supposed that love (like God) is best to be understood using impersonal metaphors such as mathematics, geometry, physics etc.

As I say; in contrast I regard love as necessarily personal; including ideal love, and God's love. 

I believe that such notions as universal, unconditional, impartial love are false importations from outwith Christianity - whether the pre-Christian Greek (e.g. Pythagorean, Platonic, Aristotelian) and Roman (e.g. Neo-Platonic, Stoic) philosophy (in the case of ancient Christian theologians); or from oneness-belief/ aspirations of (Western understandings of) Hinduism and Buddhism in the case of theologians of the past century plus. 

I believe abstract ideas of love are harmful to Christianity here and now. However; I do not think that such false theology did much harm in the past, in the pre-modern era. 

The reason is to do with the development of human consciousness; and the rather gradual but progressive loss of what Barfield terms Original Participation. I mean, that Mankind began having a natural and spontaneous, and largely unconscious, immersion-in the world of the divine and of spirits. But that Men have gradually (over centuries, and millennia) become more self-conscious, and more separated from this divine-spirit world; until now the separation is very nearly complete (except in early childhood). 

(This modern separation from the spiritual and divine - and from participation in The World - is sometimes called alienation.)  

This separation is also a development of the potential for freedom. But separation means that Men now need to make a conscious and active choice of beliefs, and we cannot (do not) unconsciously benefit from an implicit knowledge of God and Creation (and God's Will). 

In different words; Men used to find-themselves automatically aligned with divine creation and God (to a significant degree); whereas now Men find themselves alienated from creation to the point of denying the reality of creation and God.

What this meant was that in the past Men could hold all kinds of false beliefs, including the falsehoods of mainstream Christian theology; without coming to significant harm - whereas nowadays, because our theology is actively and consciously chosen - false theology is harmful; and indeed nearly always leads out of Christianity. 

As for Charles Williams; he was regarded by several influential intellectual Christians (especially adult re-convert authors such as CS Lewis, TS Eliot, Dorothy L Sayers, WH Auden; but also a significant following of "disciples") as an exemplary and inspiring Christian writer - and indeed person.  

IMO: For all William's many flaws; this informed positive evaluation of CW as Christian and theologian deserves considerable weight.  

On the other side; a knowledge of CW's biography (including autobiographical writings) suggests that he found his own religious understanding to be deeply unsatisfactory - indeed tragic to a degree only a hairsbreadth away from despair (and apostasy)... Yet, a hairsbreadth away (i.e. CW remained Christian, and continued to hope).

 

William's religion was rigorously derived from his theological assumptions - far more rigorously so than for most theologians. 

Yet, even among the mass of not-rigorous Christians, assumptions have consequences; and I believe that the assumption that Christian love ought to be impersonal, mathematical, has taken a terrible toll on the faith of individual people... Causing variously disbelief, confusion, disgusted rejection, and opening the door to assimilation of "Christianity" with the abstractions of Satanic totalitarianism.   

Therefore, what was (only just) possible for Charles Williams - i.e. to have a false understanding of love and yet be Christian - is probably not possible for those born several generations later and in our grossly-corrupted civilization. 

We (here and now) must be clear and explicit that love is personal and inter-personal - and that God is a person, and of the same kind as ourselves - else we will (sooner or later, whether acknowledged or denied) not be Christians.