"The Sad Truth Of Tolkien Spirituality"

Aspzan said:

(BACKGROUND) I recently saw some illustrations by a man called Ted Nasmith. I liked some of his artwork. Some of his art is about a book called The Silmarillion. He's done a lot of work for Tolkien's books.

I have a basic knoweldge of The Lord of the Rings from when I was young. I thought it might be nice to read the books and also The Silmarillion but I happened to find this essay. It doesn't outright say do not read Tolkien but it implies his works are not good for Christianity.

I know a lot of people love Tolkien's books. What do you think of this essay? It's a long read btw but this is a shortened version.

The Sad Truth Of Tolkien Spirituality | The Sacred Sandwich

If you do not agree with and/or like the essay, please still try and give some positive thoughts. I don't know much about the author or the website it is posted on.

Thanks

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While I appreciate the fundamentalist tenacity of this C.R. Carmichael, I'm going to have to say he's taking a position that doesn't fully engage the necessary hermeneutics involved in what we might call "The Tolkien Case."

You may want to do some more study on Tolkien beyond this article you've chosen, reading from several diverse sources even. You might even want to watch the recent bio-drama movie that came out about a year or so ago: Tolkien. It's a good movie!

Moreover, there is no "Tolkien Religion." There are, however, nerds and geeks like me who happen to enjoy Fantasy and Sci-Fi, but unlike me, they have decided that paganism is their focal point of choice in life and they've unfortunately dragged Tolkien into their affinities. To my mind, I do find some Christian-esque moral patterns, even if not straightforward lessons, within Tolkien's Hobbit and LOTR works. And I'd say that the whole essay by C.R. Carmichael which you're offering here would more properly pertain to someone like J.K. Rowling, the author of the Harry Potter series.

I mean, we DON'T see a highly commercialized, multi-million dollar "Hobbit" section at Universal Studios, do we? No. We don't. But we do see 'Hogwarts Galore....," where tons and tons of children and families line up to buy their very own, personally chosen Harry Potter brand 'magic wand.' No, REALLY!!!! They do.

Aspzan said:

I see your points but I also see some validity to what the the writer C.R. Carmichael said. Although, the essay isn't as fresh in my memory as it was yesterday.

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He might have some points for us to consider, but then again, you might want to cite and quote specific sentences that you think are particularly poignant in his essay.......and then I'll tell you if I think they really are germane.

Frankly, I have little problem with Tolkien, and anyone who does probably isn't doing the real work needed to understand his Catholic, Oxfordian style myth-telling.

Cheer up and have some Irish myth.

Also

I find it odd we are to judge Tolkien on the basis of others attachments to his work instead of the work for itself according to this article. Especially with regards to so called pagans devoted to Tolkien. I think you would find more secular nerds dedicated to Tolkien than any professed pagans and then below them more Christians.

Yes, Tolkien was inspired by Anglo-saxon myths in his own writings, yet I find this fixation of some Christians to be misguided. It's a syndrome that's been with the Church since Tertullian that refuses to see any good in another foreign doctrine. Instead of following Augustine's recommendation to take the good from Paganism we are to take nothing from it and have our words and thoughts solely from the Bible. This to me will not commend Christianity to anyone. Not even Paul was so severe.

The only problem I have with Tolkien and Lord of the Rings isn't any sort of Paganism found within it (I don't see anything substantially advocating Paganism in Tolkien) but rather the sort of fanbase and lore we expect of fantasy in general. Before Tolkien, I'm unaware of any self-contained fantasy worlds with their own language, history and cosmology. After him the floodgates were opened and now there are countless fictional universes which capture the attention of many. Entire lore videos on Youtube dedicated to something like Warhammer 40k and of course, Middle Earth.

People seem to have a fixation on fictional fantasy lore rather than our own history, religion or heritage. I'm not sure that's an entirely healthy thing.

Another oddity is that Tolkien was a strong Christian. Apparently he thought his work was consistent with Christianity. In my opinion C S Lewis’ best novel is Til We Have Faces, which is based on a pagan myth.

Ignatius the Kiwi said:

I find it odd we are to judge Tolkien on the basis of others attachments to his work instead of the work for itself according to this article. Especially with regards to so called pagans devoted to Tolkien. I think you would find more secular nerds dedicated to Tolkien than any professed pagans and then below them more Christians.

Yes, Tolkien was inspired by Anglo-saxon myths in his own writings, yet I find this fixation of some Christians to be misguided. It's a syndrome that's been with the Church since Tertullian that refuses to see any good in another foreign doctrine. Instead of following Augustine's recommendation to take the good from Paganism we are to take nothing from it and have our words and thoughts solely from the Bible. This to me will not commend Christianity to anyone. Not even Paul was so severe.

The only problem I have with Tolkien and Lord of the Rings isn't any sort of Paganism found within it (I don't see anything substantially advocating Paganism in Tolkien) but rather the sort of fanbase and lore we expect of fantasy in general. Before Tolkien, I'm unaware of any self-contained fantasy worlds with their own language, history and cosmology. After him the floodgates were opened and now there are countless fictional universes which capture the attention of many. Entire lore videos on Youtube dedicated to something like Warhammer 40k and of course, Middle Earth.

People seem to have a fixation on fictional fantasy lore rather than our own history, religion or heritage. I'm not sure that's an entirely healthy thing.

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Those are some good points. HOWEVER, one does need to consider the philosophical (maybe even theological) contours that are expressed in and through a fictional story, such as those found in Tolkien's literature.

The inherent intentions of meaning an author attempts to create don't arrive by accident, but in themselves, they can and often do reflect the outlook on life that an author has, an outlook influenced and maybe even shaped by his own "history, religion or heritage."

My point is this: There is a huge axiological difference between what J.R.R. Tolkien expresses and what someone like Robert E. Howard or Michael Moorcock express in their respective fantasy pieces ...

Aspzan said:

(BACKGROUND) I recently saw some illustrations by a man called Ted Nasmith. I liked some of his artwork. Some of his art is about a book called The Silmarillion. He's done a lot of work for Tolkien's books.

I have a basic knoweldge of The Lord of the Rings from when I was young. I thought it might be nice to read the books and also The Silmarillion but I happened to find this essay. It doesn't outright say do not read Tolkien but it implies his works are not good for Christianity.

I know a lot of people love Tolkien's books. What do you think of this essay? It's a long read btw but this is a shortened version.

The Sad Truth Of Tolkien Spirituality | The Sacred Sandwich

If you do not agree with and/or like the essay, please still try and give some positive thoughts. I don't know much about the author or the website it is posted on.

Thanks

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My takeaways from the blog post (I didn't read the whole PDF):

- New Age groups were able to synthesize the Tolkien universe with occult/New Age beliefs
- Some of this synthesis manifested in weird groups that take the existence of Elves and Valar as semi-literal.
- Tolkien might not have intended this.
- Regardless, he inadvertently helped non-Christian religion and spirituality in the last few decades.

My take on it:

The people and practices described in the post are the result of a cultural turning away from traditional religious beliefs, and in the West, that would be Christianity. However, when someone creates a faith or a spiritual or religious practice, they have already looked away from Christianity, at very least because they don't think it provides enough to scratch their itches, or worse, because they want to believe in something that is doctrinally and morally different. Then, the go searching, and then they start to create what they want to believe in from what they pick up in their search. Fictional religions and cosmologies are easier to take spiritual elements from, because they are ready-made, and they also don't come with the accountability that comes with more established religions because of a general lack of an orthodox faith community. However, syncretism is not limited to that, and more to the point about what has happened in the West, the turning away happened before the syncretized beliefs were adopted. The failure occurred already, before the New Age practices became part of the person's life. The movies or books simply gave people who were already turning away a direction to walk in by providing concepts that they wished to explore. Properly understood, these works are fiction. And in the West, we retained classical Greek and Roman mythology as fiction for hundreds of years, though we did not see people turning to worship Zeus and Poseidon as a significant movement. We then have to ask, why was retaining their stories not a problem either in Continental Europe, or with its freedom of religion, in the US in the 19th century. In other words, what is the greater spiritual movement at hand which motivates the adoption of fiction as spiritual practice? Why do some people turn to agnosticism or atheism, why do others turn to Buddhism or Hinduism, why do others turn to the New Age (and the subset of which that appropriates Tolkiens's works for spiritual practice)?

I would need to read the article more thorougly, but I tried to get the gist of his concerns in a quick perusal. I don't object to a critical article of this sort if it attempts an intelligent assessment, and is well argued, and in this case its clearly not a Jack Chick polemic. I looked at his desertation on it which runs to 400+ pages, but I doubt very much I would have time to study that in any detail, nevertheless i might look at it again.

He mentions the history of Middle Earth being a "feigned history", which I suppose what Tolkien meant by that was "fictional history". He says this leads to the "thematisation of its veracity", but I am not sure whether I know what he means and whether that really is the reason for groups getting into Tolkien's world more seriously. In the time Tolkien wrote, a story was pretty much taken as that, there was a sort of prejudice (which still exists) about fairy stories, that they belonged in the nursery and he sought to challenge that in some of his essays - however he didn't look favorably on all fairy stories as being equal in merit. He did seem to think the realm of Faerie was "more real". So maybe some misunderstanding of what he meant by that has slipped in.

People who had never read his works, did start to ask at times, what or where is Middle Earth supposed to be? And that question might arise for the first time reader or someone who has a friend who is into it and talking about it.

We would also have to understand Tolkien's purposes in writing his Middle Earth stories, for instance are they for edification of the reader, to help him discern good from evil? In fact Tolkien thought sub-creation was part of his christian worship. He been inventing Elfin languages at first, and wanted to incorporate them into a story.

To locate the source of the problem with Tolkien's mythology is to ignore the later sesmic shifts in culture and society that came about for other reasons and led to the phenomenon the writer is concerned about. That is more difficult to analyse. I read the Hobbit and LOTR in my twenties. But I was earlier interested in them through their cultural spinoffs like the early computer games based on the Hobbit and LOTR.

Another thing in reference specifically to Gnosticism rather than Paganism. This was a philosophical movement that chiefly existed parasitically as it were on other host traditions and religions and canons, not having any canon as such of its own. Gnosticism equally has made use of Homer for its own purposes and re-signified that. Something similiar happens in the more recent Disney, where stories like Aladdin are re-invented with a new set of values, in a shift away from the moral of the original tales.

So I don't think Tolkien's mythology is Gnostic. The author of the article is trying to locate something in Tolkien's stories that makes them more likely than others to be subverted, I think he misplaces the locus of the problem however, and that it is less something about Tolkien and his Middle Earth, and more about the nature of gnosticism and its need for a host.

It's rather unlikely that many people take it so far, that comes more from the role-playing culture which might re-inforce such beliefs in a few. I don't know that many Tolkien fans could be termed religious about it except in a very loose sense, rather much of it is counter-cultural.

2PhiloVoid said:

My point is this: There is a huge axiological difference between what J.R.R. Tolkien expresses and what someone like Robert E. Howard or Michael Moorcock express in their respective fantasy pieces ...

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I am not so familiar with those writers can you say any more about how they differ? I only know of Robert E Howard through the Conan films (which i quite liked, or the first one at least), and I suppose one theme there was the contrast between Barbarian way of life and 'wicked' civilisation as they see it.

Also Sky-God, contrasted with Earth-God, and the alliance of the two in the two main characters versus Thulsa Doom. I assume these imagined times as being pre-christian, but Conan in one scene is crucified, then I think revived by Dark Magic. So there would be a quite a contrast there with Tolkien who distinguishes Good magic and Bad Magic - yet he is not talking about so called white magic and black magic as in the Occult. For him Good magic is about freeing others to make responsible moral choices, not controlling them. It should not be interpreted as a parallel with white magic and black magic. None of the characters Gandalf, Galadriel etc. are immune to temptation and would do greater evil if they owned the One Ring, in fact they must give up power, doesn't Galadriel, correct me if I am wrong (its been a while since I read it) give up her ring Nenya (one of the three)?

dms1972 said:

I am not so familiar with those writers can you say any more about how they differ? I only know of Robert E Howard through the Conan films (which i quite liked, or the first one at least), and I suppose one theme there was the contrast between Barbarian way of life and 'wicked' civilisation as they see it.

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Sure. J.R.R. Tolkien was working within a creative frame of mind that incorporated motifs of his Roman Catholic Christian faith.

Robert E. Howard wasn't a Christian and had what I'd call other, older Modernist ideologies, not quite Christian.

Michael Moorcock isn't a Christian and had more esoteric interests in his fantasy fiction; at the same time, he was more concerned with ethical issues in his fiction than with those of metaphysical truth or religion.

See, in hermeneutically analyzing the ideology that is represented within a fictional work, I NOT ONLY look into the work and its literary structures and meanings found therein, I also attempt to vet out the intricacies of the philosophies held by the authors in their actual lives.

Also Sky-God, contrasted with Earth-God, and the alliance of the two in the two main characters versus Thulsa Doom. I assume these imagined times as being pre-christian, but Conan in one scene is crucified, then I think revived by Dark Magic. So there would be a quite a contrast there with Tolkien who distinguishes Good magic and Bad Magic - yet he is not talking about so called white magic and black magic as in the Occult. For him Good magic is about freeing others to make responsible moral choices, not controlling them. It should not be interpreted as a parallel with white magic and black magic. None of the characters Gandalf, Galadriel etc. are immune to temptation and would do greater evil if they owned the One Ring, in fact they must give up power, doesn't Galadriel, correct me if I am wrong (its been a while since I read it) give up her ring Nenya (one of the three)?

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I don't know. Which books are you referring to specifically?

2PhiloVoid said:

Sure.
I don't know. Which books are you referring to specifically?

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With regard Conan, I was just talking about the film. As regard to Tolkien, I was refering to Lord of the Rings, I cannot remember which volume. But I maybe am not explaining it quite right. The three rings, one of which Galadriel had - they would lose their power when the One Ring was destroyed I think.

dms1972 said:

With regard Conan, I was just talking about the film. As regard to Tolkien, I was refering to Lord of the Rings, I cannot remember which volume. But I maybe am not explaining it quite right. The three rings, one of which Galadriel had - they would lose their power when the One Ring was destroyed I think.

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Maybe some of what you're referring to is in the Simarillion, the one Tolkien book I haven't read among The Hobbit/LOTR novels (two or three times through). Otherwise, I'd have to research the names and fictional subjects you're comparing.

I've also seen the Conan movies from the 1980s, and I read Elric of Melnibone back in the mid 1980s as well after having seen the character referenced in a D&D manual.

2PhiloVoid said:

Maybe some of what you're referring to is in the Simarillion, the one Tolkien book I haven't read among The Hobbit/LOTR novels (two or three times through). Otherwise, I'd have to research the names and fictional subjects you're comparing.

I've also seen the Conan movies from the 1980s, and I read Elric of Melnibone back in the mid 1980s as well after having seen the character referenced in a D&D manual.

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The ring Nenya is definitely Galadriel's ring, but it may not be refered to directly in LOTR. The Silmarilian does mention the forging of the rings of power. In the story, the three rings (for the Elfin Kings) have not been touched by Sauron but the power of them will diminish and fade once the One Ring is destroyed.

I just mention because Tolkien's depiction of magic is quite contrary to other fantasy tales in certain respects. The good (albeit sometimes flawed) characters might use magic occasionally but they finally will give most, perhaps all their power up.

I honestly don't quite see Tolkien as incorporating motifs of his Roman Catholic faith In LOTR, I see him as building upon Norse motifs. Which are "of a more personal sort: deceit, violence, and fallibility, which are all tied together in drama and tradegy."

Nevertheless he thinks his Creation Myth in the Silmarilien will be acceptable to people who believe in the Holy Trinity.

His Middle Earth stories incorporate element of both Mythology and Saga, but the crucible in which it was worked out was Tolkien's christian imagination and intellect.

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thecolorsblend said:

I would not be the first to draw parallels between the Blessed Sacrament and lembas bread, Galadriel as a Mary figure, etc. Personally, I would even suggest that Sauron being a disembodied (but still highly potent) force for evil reflects the view many Catholics have of Satan, i.e., a concept of darkness who is both nowhere and everywhere, always seeking the corruption and destruction of man, attracting witting and unwitting followers, etc.

I can draw quite a few fairly straight lines between LOTR concepts and Catholic belief.

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Yes I see how these parallels can be drawn

I have wondered at times if the Elfin lembas bread parallels anything would it be more likely to parallel the manna (which was made into cakes) which God provided to feed the Israelites in the wilderness? But again the parallel breaks down after a point, because the Israelites were not to store up manna - they had to rely on God providing fresh manna anew each morning Exodus 16 - wereas Lembas could keep fresh for a long time.

In the course of posting - I have just read Lembas is likely based on Hard Tack, a sort of cracker which was often used for provisions on sea and land journeys. The same article does say its possible Tolkien also modeled it on Catholic sacramental bread.

Lembas

Melkor/Morgoth/Sauron are like the Devil - but I haven't read enough (I have read LOTR and the Hobbit - and a bit of the Silmarilion) to know the progression from Melkor to Morgoth to Sauron (is Sauron and Morgoth the same character?).