|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
jpospich1
Lindon
Sat, 7:08pm
Post #1 of 3
(270 views)
Shortcut
|
|
Tolkien's Strange Christianity
|
Can't Post
|
|
NOTE: This is yet another essay in the tiresome genre of "what Tolkien really believed". But it's one, I hope, that will prove a little more useful to the general reader than most. Be aware that I am still developing my thought on this subject and that some of following conclusions must remain, for the time being, tentative.
As Verlyn Flieger long ago discovered, it is helpful to approach Tolkien through one of his associates and admitted influences: fellow "Inkling" Owen Barfield. Barfield, it is well known, was a follower of Rudolf Steiner, the German occult philosopher, and I think it must be admitted that both Barfield and Steiner, whilst incorporating aspects of Christianity in their thought, could be called Christian only in a very special, esoteric sense.
Barfield viewed the Christian myth as, above all, symbolically true, in the sense that it reflected the evolution of human consciousness which he believed, with Steiner, is a mode of divine consciousness. The broad outlines of the evolutionary process Barfield described belong to the familiar Romantic picture. In the beginning man is a part of Nature - which is divine - and one with it. Gradually however, a separation occurs, and this primordial unity is broken. The awakening of man as a being apparently separate from Nature and God is the birth of self-consciousness. According to Barfield, this long evolutionary process terminated around the time of the birth of Jesus; indeed, this is how Barfield interprets the Christian "incarnation". Coincident with the life and teachings of Jesus, the opposite movement then commenced: the crest of the Spirit - now fully 'internalized' within man - began to emanate outward, clothing nature in its own character and hue. The prospect of a total transformation of the natural world by the work of the human mind and hand became conceivable. This is the basis of the Romantic creed of rebirth (and it is also how Barfield interprets the nature of the Christian "universal resurrection."). It is not simply that man can remake nature through his own material labor and effort, although that is certainly possible to a degree. Rather, man can transform nature and himself from the inside-out by means of the transformation of the human imagination by Art. After all, of what is nature composed but the substance of the divine imagination? And what is the human imagination but a mode of the divine? Human beings, like all of nature, are projections of the divine self. The separate self - the self-conscious self - is ultimately an illusion, and at this point of the evolutionary process, an outmoded one in its current state. Redeeming this separate self - 'dying' to it, as it were - and re-establishing a unity with the divinity on a higher level is the primary task of the current stage of world evolution and the sole means of deliverance. According to many Romantic artists, this rebirth or Resurrection - of the individual and mankind as a whole - can only occur through Art. Indeed, the artist is destined to play the pivotal role in bringing about the next stage of humanity's evolution. In so doing the artist will be raised to the level of the creator-God and through his artistic activity effect a universal Apocalypse. The redemption of the self coincides with the redemption of the world.
Now, what does all this have to do with Tolkien? I believe that Tolkien broadly subscribed to the vaguely Christianized Romantic worldview held by Barfield and others and roughly outlined above. Moreover, I believe his magnum opus The Lord of the Rings was an attempt to overcome the separate self and establish identity with the divine being along the lines of much Romantic art. That is, The Lord of The Rings is essentially a religious exercise, and perhaps even a kind of ritual activity designed to effect a world transformation. To see how this may be, we will now examine his little-known poem "Mythopoeia," and then his well-known essay "On Fairy-Stories".
TOLKIEN'S BARFIELDIAN VISION IN 'MYTHOPOEIA'
Though now long estranged,
man is not wholly lost nor wholly changed.
Dis-graced he may be, yet is not dethroned,
and keeps the rags of lordship one he owned,
his world-dominion by creative act:
not his to worship the great Artefact.
As Barfield has explained in his books, the greatest danger of the current stage of evolution is "idolatry," which is the perception of the world and the things within it as objects wholly external to the human mind. This is the great illusion that must be overcome in our age. Here Tolkien seems to agree, describing the world as a "creative act" which man originally participated in. Man must remember his "lordship", and recover his creative powers, not "worship the great Artefact" in a spirit of idolatry.
Man, sub-creator, the refracted light
through whom is splintered from a single White
to many hues, and endlessly combined
in living shapes that move from mind to mind.
Refract light is a familiar Romantic metaphor since Newton's Opticks of the nature of Creation. The imagination of man is a prism through which passes the pure white light of God, which is then refracted, imbuing the world with "many hues" that combine to form "living shapes that move from mind to mind". Ordinary perception is the result of a creative act, and the external, phenomenal world, as with Blake and other Romantics, is essentially mental in its nature.
Though all the crannies of the world we filled
with elves and goblins, though we dared to build
gods and their houses out of dark and light,
and sow the seed of dragons, 'twas our right
(used or misused). The right has not decayed.
We make still by the law in which were made
As manifestations of the divine, we have formed this world through a "creative act," filling it with "elves and goblins" and "gods", however unconsciously at first. Moreover, this was our "right" as we are essentially divine beings. We still possess this ability of world-creation, but in our fallen state have nearly forgotten it.
Now Tolkien turns to a triumphant vision of "victory" over our fallen human condition. This victory, he suggests, will be accomplished by the Artist, specifically by the "legend makers" who resist the abyss of modern "progress".
Blessed are the legend-makers with their rhyme
of things not found within recorded time.
It is not they that have forgot the Night,
or bid us flee to organized delight,
in lotus-isles of economic bliss
forswearing souls to gain a Circe-kiss
(and counterfeit at that, machine-produced,
bogus seduction of the twice-seduced).
Through their Art, the modern myth-maker will inspire men with visions of paradise.
Such isles they saw afar, and ones more fair,
and those that hear them yet may yet beware.
They have seen Death and ultimate defeat,
and yet they would not in despair retreat,
but oft to victory have turned the lyre
and kindled hearts with legendary fire,
illuminating Now and dark Hath-been
with light of suns as yet by no man seen.
In the last stanza of the poem, Tolkien describes his vision of paradise. It is, strangely enough, a vision of Earth "as it is," not abolished or wholly transformed, but redeemed. Evil, he says, will no longer exist, as it stems from fallen consciousness. In this Earthly paradise the Artist will reign supreme, and his creations will become realities continually made anew.
In Paradise perchance the eye may stray
from gazing upon everlasting Day
to see the day-illumined, and renew
from mirrored truth the likeness of the True
Then looking on the Blessed Land 'twill see
that all is as it is, and yet made free:
Salvation changes not, nor yet destroys,
garden nor gardener, children nor their toys.
Evil it will not see, for evil lies
not in God's picture but in crooked eyes,
not in the source but in malicious choice,
and not in sound but in the tuneless voice.
In Paradise they look no more awry;
and though they make anew, they make no lie.
Be sure they still will make, not being dead,
and poets shall have flames upon their head,
and harps whereon their faultless fingers fall:
there each shall choose for ever from the All.
TOLKIEN'S REDEEMING JOY
"Mythopoeia" was first composed in 1931. The essay "On Fairy-stories" was initially delivered as a lecture in 1938, then published in an expanded form some years later.
At the end of a later version of the essay, we find Tolkien discussing a curious emotion or affect which he claims the best "fairy-stories" elicit and which he calls "Joy". This "Joy," he writes, is a result of the sudden "turn" in a fairy-story in which the forces of Good, by "a sudden and miraculous grace, never counted on to recur", overtake the forces of Evil, and begin to triumph over it. This is none other than the joy of the "happy ending", so common to the classical fairy tale. It denies, Tolkien writes, "(in the face of much evidence, if you will) universal final defeat," and gives a "fleeting glimpse of Joy, Joy beyond the walls of the world, poignant as grief." When the "turn" in a fairy-tale occurs, "we get a piercing glimpse of joy, and heart's desire, that for a moment passes outside the frame, rends indeed the very web of story and lets a gleam come through."
What is this "Joy" that Tolkien speaks of? It is, I believe, divine joy. It is the joy of discovering our true identity. We are not merely our separate selves or egos; we are the manifestations of God, and this world and all things within it are but a figment of God's imagination as made manifest through the human mind. All suffering, all pain and unhappiness and longing must fade away in the face of this highest, living truth. For as a result of accepting it we must also accept that it is impossible for Evil to ultimately triumph over Good. All must - and will - be redeemed.
The "turn" in a great fairy-story, Tolkien asserts, produces in us the same "quality of Joy" as would the realization that our own reality was nothing but a fairy-story with a necessarily happy ending. In fact, this is precisely how Tolkien characterizes the Christian myth: it is a fairy-story that is true in THIS reality. "Art has been verified," he writes. "Legend and History have met and fused." This understanding of Christianity, I would argue, is essentially identical with Barfield's Romantic, esoteric version As Barfield has written in his 1965 essay "Philology and the Incarnation":
"Well, as I say, the supposition is an impossible one, but it is possible — I know because it happened in my own case — for a man to have been brought up in the belief, and to have taken it for granted, that the account given in the gospels of the birth and the resurrection of Christ is a noble fairy story with no more claim to historical accuracy than any other myth - and it is possible for such a man, after studying in depth the history of the growth of language, to look again at the New Testament and the literature and tradition that has grown up around it, and to accept - if you like, to be obliged to accept - the record as an historical fact, not because of the authority of the Church nor by any process of ratiocination such as C.S. Lewis has recorded in his own case, but rather because it fitted so inevitably with the other facts as he had already found them. Rather because he felt, in the utmost humility, that if he had never heard of it through the Scriptures, he would have been obliged to try his best to invent something like it as an hypothesis to save the appearances."
In other words, Barfield was led by his tracing of the history of the "evolution to consciousness" to conclude that the Christian myth was true - not only in a certain "allegorical and symbolical" sense (Tolkien's words), but also historically - in the sense that it marked a definite "turn" in the evolution of consciousness from inward to outward, as evinced by the figure and life of Christ. ("Spirit, then, or God - sooner or later I think we must make the equation - progressively incarnates itself in the phenomenal world, then narrows itself into human consciousness, and at the point of the Incarnation begins a movement back upward toward Spirit again, having assumed, or subdued, all things to itself.") Again, my contention here is that Tolkien's understanding of the Christian "Incarnation" and "Resurrection" has far more in common with that of Barfield - and Romanticism in general - than to any orthodox understanding. Nothing that Tolkien says in "On Fairy-Stories," at least, seems to contradict this.
One conclusion we can draw from Tolkien's essential identification of "Christian joy" with the seemingly secular "joy" elicited by the best fairy-stories is that the latter must be considered, in some fundamental sense, religious. In other words, when Tolkien crafted his fairy-story to elicit the same kind of "joy" produced by the realization that the Christian myth is true, he was engaged in an essentially religious task. In fact, we must wonder if, like other Romantic artists, he ultimately considered his artistic efforts - and their products - the highest religious activity possible at this stage of the evolution of consciousness. For to effect the redemption of self and world ("The Resurrection"), the Romantic Artist must overcome modern man's exclusive identification with his ego-self. He must induce a gnosis - a deep and reverberating realization - of the essential identity of the seemingly individual self with the higher, cosmic Self or Spirit, which is ultimately God. For Tolkien, apparently, this gnosis or realization can be effected by means of the "Joy" elicited by the fairy-story at its finest. This "Joy," he writes, is a "piercing glimpse of... heart's desire, that for a moment passes outside the frame, rends indeed the very web of story and lets a gleam come through." It is a Joy so powerful and glorious that it can overcome our exclusive attachment to our lower selves, and deliver us from Evil. Insofar as the Romantic Artist can elicit this Joy in us, he can help liberate mankind, and insofar as he helps liberate mankind, he serves as a divine instrument of God, and indeed helps brings about the "Eucastrophe" - the "turn" leading to the happy ending - symbolized in the Christian myth.
That Tolkien believes the artist of "Fantasy," as he defines it, is a divine instrument is made clear by his statement at the end of his essay. There he writes that the "Christian" artist may "actually assist in the effoliation and multiple enrichment of creation." An earlier draft of this essay contained a more revealing version of this line: "For all we know, indeed we may fairly guess, in Fantasy we may actually be assisting in the evolution of Creation" (my italics). Needless to say, it is difficult to imagine an Orthodox Christian making such an assertion. Only when placed in the perspective of the "evolution of consciousness" as expounded by Romantic artists and interpreters such as Barfield does the true meaning of such an assertion become clear.
SYMBOLISM IN THE LORD OF THE RINGS
We may now put forth some tentative suggestions regarding the symbolism of Tolkien's great myth The Lord of the Rings.
1. The One Ring. The Ring seems to symbolize the very consciousness of "idolatry" - i.e. the consciousness of fallen man - described by Barfield. It is the fallow egoism so pervasive in the modern world. Such consciousness lacks any felt internal identity with its source, and indeed viciously denies such a connection in its quest to dominate and control. This separate self - once the goal of the evolution of consciousness - is now the source of evil insofar as it fails to transcend itself and re-impregnate the world with meaning and significance. In this regard, it is interesting to note that the Ring grants its wearer invisibility, just as fallen consciousness renders ones spiritual connection to the world invisible. The Ring bestows upon its wearer great power, but this power is a wholly worldly one, for to stand separate from the world permits one to possess and control the things within it like never before. Yet the Ring also exercises a baleful influence upon its wearers, enslaving them to Evil.
2. The Phial of Galadriel - In this Phial is captured a remnant of the original light of creation. Frodo uses it several times to drive back the darkness and advance in his quest. In terms of Barfield's "evolution of consciousness," we can view the light of Galadriel's phial as the divine light of imagination put in service of redemption. This light is the awareness of man's essential identity with divinity. It is this awareness or gnosis which can drive back the evil brought about by fallen consciousness.
3. Hobbits, Elves and Men. The notion of the Ring as fallen consciousness helps explain why the burden of carrying it falls exclusively to Frodo. For Frodo - and Hobbits in general - seem to represent modern man. That is why elves and heroic men are present in the story, but cannot undergo the pivotal struggle which is reserved for Frodo alone. Elves, ents, wizards and heroic men are like ancestral memories within Frodo (Tolkien was apparently a reader of Jung), present and participating in the conflict but unable to take his place in the central role, which was occurring in HIS time, not theirs. In this sense the quest can be viewed as ultimately internal, rather than external.
4. The destruction of the Ring. Frodo, famously, is unable to dispose of the Ring by dint of his own efforts. In the crucial moment he holds back, and refuses to cast into it the fire. At this point there occurs an act of "a sudden and miraculous grace, never counted on to recur," as described by Tolkien in "On Fairy-stories". Gollum, the mirror-image of Frodo as fallen man, rips the Ring from Frodo's hand and falls with it into the pit of fire, accidently destroying himself as well as the Ring. The Artist-Author, as a manifestation of God, intercedes in the story as Providence intercedes in reality. Just as Frodo requires divine intervention in order to succeed on his quest, so too does modern man. It seems likely that Tolkien viewed his work as exactly that - divine intervention in history.
|
|
|
Voronwë_the_Faithful
Doriath
Sun, 2:09pm
Post #2 of 3
(226 views)
Shortcut
|
I quite enjoyed reading that, and your view of Tolkien's is not inconsistent with my own, though I tend to approach from different angles.
'But very bright were the stars upon the margin of the world, when at times the clouds about the West were drawn aside.'
The Hall of Fire
|
|
|
Silvered-glass
Nargothrond
5:51am
Post #3 of 3
(182 views)
Shortcut
|
Thank you jpospich1 for your interesting and thought-provoking post that had much new material to me. In particular, I had paid very little attention to the miscellaneous Inklings.
So Barfield was apparently a heretic or even not really a Christian at all, which raises uncomfortable questions about Tolkien as a supposed Christian author...
Barfield even might have been influenced by Tolkien's private thoughts rather than the other way around.
From the Wikipedia page on Anthroposophy:
The Catholic Church did in 1919 issue an edict classifying Anthroposophy as "a neognostic heresy"
This connects to some things I had been thinking about Tolkien's worldbuilding...
The Flame Imperishable and the Two Trees
The Book of Lost Tales describes the early Arda illuminated by a strange liquid light that moves about with apparent free will and in later sections appears to have emotions and possibly even thought processes of some sort. I think this liquid light can with good reason be interpreted as fragments of the Flame Imperishable. In any case, the Valar are unhappy with the light moving where it wills and proceed to gather and trap the light, first in the Two Lamps, then the Two Trees.
In a major difference to the later depictions that portray the Two Trees as nothing but good and wonderful and make no mention of what makes them shine, the original Lost Tales description of the Two Trees has a darker undertone that can be detected by an attentive reader.
As originally described, the Two Trees are powered by an amount of liquid light circulating in a closed loop, from which some liquid light is occasionally removed to create permanent magic items by the Valar and the Elves. As the Elves are said to have preferred to work with the light of Telperion, this neatly explains why Telperion in a later description was said to be dimmer than Laurelin and why Sun the ended up much brighter than the Moon. This line of thought can be further extended into issues of male/female dualism, which is an important concept in occultism. Tolkien also appears to have been aware of the yin/yang division as he wrote The Book of Lost Tales.
I think the Two Trees - where the light moves from the roots to the trunk and then to the branches and rains down from the flowers, only to be used to water the roots again - are probably supposed to embody some form of a reincarnation cycle. Notably, the Two Trees do not bear fruit until their deaths and would never have borne fruit if not for Morgoth.
If you really think about it, the Two Trees as originally described are things of horror that keep living spirits trapped in an eternal cycle with only an illusion of growth that amounts to nothing as the light in the trees very slowly diminishes from being used to create objects and also implicitly from being unhappy. The small amount of remaining liquid light that powers the Sun can shine brighter than the entire Laurelin, and I think that is because the light is happy to be free from the tree. The light conceivably becoming unhappy again when the Valar constrain the movements of the Sun is another thing entirely...
I also suspect the destruction of the Two Trees made the Awakening of Men possible. Humans would have tiny sparks of Flame Imperishable in them: men from Laurelin, women from Telperion. (This is not a Christian idea, by the way.) Some individuals, especially those not human, might not have sparks at all, and that could be the reason most of the Shire is so predictable to Frodo. In one of his letters Tolkien mentions that most hobbits do not have some "spark" which he doesn't describe in the letter, and I think this spark might have been a share of the Flame Imperishable, required to be a real individual rather than an automaton obeying social conventions.
In the real life there are occultists thinking themselves wise and special and claiming that at least 99% of all humans currently alive (or possibly all humans outside of their particular cult) are soulless automatons and therefore can be freely harmed and exploited without bringing about bad karma, so this is getting into a really dark and evil territory that is not Christian at all...
Colors and Light
In Tolkien's Mythopoeia we see a chain of influence through Steiner from Goethe who came up with his own alternative to the excessively prosaic normal science called Goethean science. Notably, Goethe was interested in optics and opposed to Newton's theories.
It sounds very plausible that Tolkien was influenced by (or even believed in) Goethe's dualistic color theory which has darkness as its own positive thing. In particular, Gandalf's words about breaking light would be in line with Goathe's philosophy of science as well as Goethe's ideas, which have white light as an indivisible thing and the dualistic counterpart to darkness, combining with it to create all the visible colors, while Saruman instead takes the (correct) Newtonian approach in which the white light is a mixture, so that breaking apart the mixture to bring out the separate colors is entirely compatible with the path of wisdom.
|
|
|
|
|
