In Master of Middle Earth, Paul Kocher's superb literary criticism of Tolkien's published work as of 1972, the author reflects on the frequency and significance of the theme of a Man in (literal or imaginative) contact with Faery.
Kocher further, and plausibly, suggests that Tolkien's interest derives from his personal feelings - the contrast he felt between those times when he dwelt imaginatively, and created, in the enchanted world of fairy stories; and the rest of his life.
The painful nature of this contrast is evident at least from Looney (from 1934, when Tolkien was aged 42) which was the earlier-published version of a poem that later became The Sea Bell - and it is the main theme of Tolkien's last published new work, Smith of Wootton Major (1967).
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At the end of my teens, in the late summer and autumn (after my family moved from Somerset to Scotland), I seemed to go through a stage of development towards becoming more self-aware.
This manifested in many ways, including a greater interest in philosophy of an existential flavour, and in books that explored similar territory. But in terms of personal relationships, I became aware that there was a qualitative difference between the level of everyday interactions on the one hand, and what I then termed as "touching minds" - which phrase is pretty self explanatory.
I would nowadays probably equate touching minds with "direct knowing" - an un-mediated relationship between persons or other Beings, without the interposition of senses and communications - something akin to a simultaneous (albeit momentary) sharing of thoughts.
Anyway; I had the idea that touching minds was what it was all about; and would often brood on the rarer occasions in which this had happened, and what these might mean - and, reciprocally, I also became much more conscious of the lower, and unsatisfying, level of most of life.
In sum; I became aware of the problem of "alienation" and that it was my usual state - and apparently that of nearly everybody around me; the difference being that (unlike most people around me) I was aware of and interested by the situation, and wanted to escape from it, as much as possible - whereas "they" were neither aware nor interested.
This self-recognition coincided-with, followed, and was amplified-by; reading Colin Wilson's The Outsider, and parts of William Arkle's A Geography of Consciousness (especially Wilson's introduction to this). I was ready and primed for this reading; and/but the reading also interacted with my dawning self-awareness to accelerate it.
Ever since that time, some half a century ago, I have believed that such moments as "touching minds" are among the most significant in life - and this significance somehow transcends the moment, and has almost nothing to do with what happens afterwards; and also that the great bulk of our life (including most of our relationships with other people) are, by comparison, trivial.
At first, I imagined that this new knowledge would enable me to transform my own life positively - for example by having more of these enriching mind-touching experiences, more often and with more people.
At first I supposed that this lack of mind-touching was due to the undoubted presence of those defensive shells or manipulative pretences with which most people chose to surround themselves. Maybe if these shells could perhaps be dissolved mutually, or the self-image unilaterally cracked... Maybe we could live in realities rather than images?
But I soon discovered that - once the mind's capacity for self-delusion had washed-out (and the touching of minds had become distinguished from sexual attraction!) - this was, beyond a rather limited point, not something to be got by wanting, nor even by striving.
This early conclusion was, I now think, a correct generalization about life; and one that tends to lead to the condition of "romantic despair" so commonly found among the most reflective and responsive people.
I mean the conclusion that the primary and most-valued of our experiences are relatively infrequent and temporary - and the bulk baseline of mundane living is second-level, and a majority of human relationships (even some that have frequent interactions, and are relatively long-term and intense), are apparently stuck at a level of indirect, distanced, symbolic "communication" - with a complete (or nearly complete) absence of mind-touching.
The idea that the higher we have risen, the further we shall be compelled to fall - so that one who successfully sometimes "escapes" into a more intense, better, more creative and participatory - more real world; is "doomed" to a sharply-divided, and thereby tragic life...
In that the mundane and false troughs will always be our baseline; but can never be merged with the best of which Men are capable.
This would be, and was, where matters rested - until after I began to understand more about the possibility (and choice) of Resurrection and Heaven; and how these post-mortal states are rooted in our mortal experiences and character.
Without that which Jesus did for us - life is a Tragedy, albeit it rises to the level of a comic-tragedy: fun and joys en route to a bad finale, the stage strewn with corpses: an unhappy ending.
Whereas with Jesus; life is a Comedy, symbolized in Shakespeare by the open-ended possibilities of loving "marriage"...
Albeit that life is more like a tragi-comedy than a pure comedy - life usually being strewn with serious travails (including deaths) en route to that happiest of possible endings...
Which will include "touching minds" featuring as the normal, maybe universal, form of relationship; instead of being a rare and fleeting experience.
Heaven will also be, as Tolkien stated at the conclusion of his essay On Fairy Stories; the fulfilment of the romantic impulse as it applies to Faery.
In conclusion; it seems to me that, as Kocher suggested, the incompatibility between Faery and the mundane world, between the realm of Fantasy and ordinary life, was and is insoluble in mortal life. Tolkien never found an answer to it, because there is no answer to be had.
But if Faery is seen to be a glimpse of some aspects of Heaven, much as "touching minds" is a brief experience of normal relationships in Heaven; then a Christian can look forward with confidence to living whatever is good and valid in Faery on the other side of death...
Such that the relatively brief glimpses of enchantment Tolkien (and others) experience, will also be discovered to have served as both incentive and permanent memories throughout eternal resurrected life...
Much as Tolkien himself described allegorically in Leaf by Niggle.
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Note: The above derived from reflections provoked by yet-another engagement with JRR Tolkien's great essay On Fairy Stories.
