Tolkien and purposive evil

[Tar-Palantir]

In the Notion Club Papers Ramer (? Tolkien's mouthpiece) states that dream experiences have informed him that there is purposive evil in the universe, with a specific purpose of harming humans (among other things, presumably), and that this evil may have widespread influence on humanity via dream experiences.

In relation to the telepathic 'reading' of other minds in that come into contact during dreams:

"There's a danger there, of course. You might inspect a mind and think you were looking at a record (true in its own terms of things external to you both), when it was really the other mind's composition, fiction. There's lying in the universe, some very clever lying. I mean, some very potent fiction is specially composed to be inspected by others and to deceive, to pass as record; but is made for the malefit of Man. If men already lean to lies, or have thrust aside the guardians, they may read some very maleficial stuff. It seems that they do."

['Malefit' is a word invented by Tolkien meaning the opposite of 'benefit']

This is amplified by note 47 printed on page 217 which is an early version of this passage, containing the following more explicit account of what Tolkien was driving-at:

"To judge by the ideas men propogate now, their curious unanimity, and obsession, I should say that a terrible lot of men have thrust aside the Guardians, and are reading very maleficial stuff.'

The nature of the 'Guardians' will be elucidated later in the main text as printed. But the first draft makes clear that Ramer (and perhaps Tolkien?) is making the suggestion that purposive evil can perhaps work in dreams to mislead misguided human minds, en masse, to believe false and damaging stuff; and that this may be an explanation for the coordinated deluded behaviour that Ramer sees in mainstream public opinion.

Whether this description of the operations of evil reflects Tolkien's real life experience, conviction, suspicions, or is a purely fictional device - it is a remarkable idea: the idea that humankind has been, and presumably still is being, corrupted and led to disaster by wrong human choices made during dreams, and by deliberately false knowledge spread by purposive evil during dreams.

[Primula Baggins]

It's an interesting idea. Presuming the existence of beings whose purpose is to urge people to commit evil acts, dreams are about the best pathway of influence they could choose in this modern world, at least for individuals.

People can read books and listen to lectures without accepting the ideas proposed in them. But people may be inclined to give weight to their dreams, even if in the light of day they assert that dreams are mere physiological phenomena and don't contain messages. It's hard to dismiss something so visceral and real, which often comes with a huge freight of emotion.

To be clear, I don't believe this. But it's a clever idea.

[Inanna]

I voted "No".

I guess this arises from Hindu philosophy - Hinduism doesn't have a heaven/hell, and no Satan either. Everything comes from one source.

[MithLuin]

Well, everything comes from one source in Christianity, too. Evil is the absence of what should be there, nothing more . Not that this makes it any less horrible...

I think that milieu and environment are important, too. People are more likely to recoil from evil that is consistently painted as evil. [I dunno, something like child sexual assault or murder.] If you can create an environment where evil is acceptable or people will just look the other way indifferently...well, it's easier to fall into that. Societies that practice infant sacrifice, for instance, must make it easier for parents to kill a young child than societies that frown on such things. An 'everybody's doing it' mentality.

No matter what, there will always be people who choose to do these things. And if they're sociopaths, they probably won't even feel guilty about it. I'm not suggesting that the environment makes the crime...merely that people might be more or less prone to fall into such things, depending on their environment.



Tar-Palantir, it's important to point out that Tolkien's time travel stories were meant to be companions to Lewis' space travel stories. I forget the significance of dreams in 'That Hideous Strength', but it's possible Tolkien's ideas here were meant to parallel something there. Certainly, that story had the macrobes, which were essentially evil spirits. [Or not even something in that story, but some conversation between the two about their shared endeavor.]

Also, the dream-traveling in 'The Lost Road' was meant to be trusted, IIRC, and Olórin's role in the Legendarium also suggests a mainly benevolent role of dreams. Sauron does make cheats (for instance, to ensnare Gorlim the Unhappy), but in general, messages in dreams seem to come from a supernatural and good source in LotR.

The exceptions I can think of are 'dark have been my dreams of late' explaining how Théoden succumbed to Saruman's influence, and Frodo seeing the Wheel of Fire with his waking eyes, after it had already taken over his dreams. But there are far more examples of dreams being a source of, well, blessing for the people receiving them. Faramir's dream-warning to go to the Council of Elrond was meant to save Gondor. Frodo's dream of Gandalf at Orthanc and of the silver veil being drawn back in the house of Tom Bombadil, but also his refreshing dream that he couldn't remember in the Emyn Muil.

And then there's movie!Aragorn's dream trysts with Arwen.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Tar-Palantir, it's important to point out that Tolkien's time travel stories were meant to be companions to Lewis' space travel stories.

I don't think that is an accurate statement, except on the most superficial level. It is true that Tolkien and Lewis mutually decide that since there was not enough of the type of stories that they liked, they would have to write them themselves, and that when they "tossed up" Lewis got the space travel and Tolkien got the time travel, and that out of that discussion came Out of the Silent Planet and the aborted Lost Road. But there really is not any way in which Tolkien's works could be seen as "companions" to Lewis's works, particularly The Notion Club Papers (although it is true that Tolkien named a section of the NCP something like "Out of the Talkative Planet" as a take-off on Lewis's first space travel book). The themes and deeper meanings of Lewis's space travel books and Tolkien's unfinished time travel works were completely different.

T-P, as for Ramer being representative of Tolkien himself, that is also only loosely true. As Flieger points out, Tolkien actually puts aspects of himself in several of the members of the Notion Club (and the correspondence between various Notion Club members and various Inklings varied at different times).

[Tar-Palantir]

Voronwë -

T-P, as for Ramer being representative of Tolkien himself, that is also only loosely true. As Flieger points out, Tolkien actually puts aspects of himself in several of the members of the Notion Club (and the correspondence between various Notion Club members and various Inklings varied at different times).

I realize that I am making an extrapolation to regard Ramer as a mouthpiece for Tolkien - but I am doing so because it can be confirmed that some of Ramer's experiences were also Tolkien's, and I am assuming that so were the other, unconfirmed, experiences - at least when they are consistent with Tolkien's views as expressed elsewhere.

Mithluin -

there are far more examples of dreams being a source of, well, blessing for the people receiving them.

I would agree. I think Tolkien (cautiously) valued dreams greatly in his own life, where I believe they served as a part of his 'creative method'; and this was also so the case in most of his fiction.

[N.E. Brigand]

Tar-Palantir, it's important to point out that Tolkien's time travel stories were meant to be companions to Lewis' space travel stories.

I don't think that is an accurate statement, except on the most superficial level. It is true that Tolkien and Lewis mutually decide that since there was not enough of the type of stories that they liked, they would have to write them themselves, and that when they "tossed up" Lewis got the space travel and Tolkien got the time travel, and that out of that discussion came Out of the Silent Planet and the aborted Lost Road. But there really is not any way in which Tolkien's works could be seen as "companions" to Lewis's works, particularly The Notion Club Papers (although it is true that Tolkien named a section of the NCP something like "Out of the Talkative Planet" as a take-off on Lewis's first space travel book). The themes and deeper meanings of Lewis's space travel books and Tolkien's unfinished time travel works were completely different.

Lewis may have seen Tolkien's time-travel stories that as companions to his space trilogy: I haven't read more than a few snatches of the Lewis books, but I know that in the introduction to either Perelandra or That Hideous Strength, he says that more information on "Numinor" (referenced in one of those books) will be found in Tolkien's then-unpublished work.

[N.E. Brigand]

Spiritual warfare is something that creeps me out a bit...

Just a passing note that the theme of next summer's Mythopoeic Society conference, to be held in Dallas in July (exact dates still tba), is "War in Heaven", a phrase taken from Charles Williams, of course.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I believe that Lewis was actually referring to what he he hoped would be the imminent publication of Tolkien's legends of the First and Second Age, not the time travel stories. Note Tolkien's comment in his September 11, 1955 letter to Hugh Brogan (letter 169):

Your discovery of 'Numinor' in C.S.L.'s That Hideous Strength is discovery of a plagiarism: well, not that, since he used the word, taken from my legends of the First and Second Ages, in the belief that they would soon appear. They have not, but I suppose now they may. The spelling Numinor is due to his hearing it and not seeing it.

[MithLuin]

In That Hideous Strength, Merlin comes from Numinor (sic). It is referenced about 4 times in the book, and in the preface (see below).

Several other names in the Space Trilogy sound like they are from Tolkien, the most significant being Tor and Tinidril sounding an awful like Tuor and Idril, eldil as the name of the supernatural angel-like beings, etc. Also, Ransom being a philologist and working out the language spoken on Mars seems to be as serious a nod to Tolkien as the Notion Club was to the Inklings. Elwin means 'elf-friend' of course, and thus meshes with the Lost Road (which is where the legend of Númenor began).

The preface to That Hideous Strength was written on Christmas Eve of 1943, so the 'unpublished work' of Tolkien alluded to in it could well have been Lord of the Rings. In 1955, it makes sense that Tolkien himself would allude to the unpublished Silmarillion, of course.

Those who would like to learn further about Numinor and the True West must (alas!) await the publication of much that still exists only in the MSS. of my friend, Professor J. R. R. Tolkien

My only point was that it is clear Tolkien and Lewis discussed these works as they were writing them, since Lewis wrote about Númenor (a little bit). Rereading a plot synopsis of THS reminded me that Jane has prescient dreams in that story, as well, and much is made of 'opening' oneself to the macrobes (evil eldili). So I do think it is worth considering The Lost Road and The Notion Club Papers in the context of Lewis' Space Trilogy, even if they are only loosely connected.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

That's probably fair to say, particularly since Tolkien did subtitle part of the work "Out of the Talkative Planet." And he actually went back and forth between identifying Ramer as himself and as Lewis. He also identified Latimer as himself, and Franks as Lewis, however. And there are elements of similarity with That Hideous Planet as you point out. But it also worth noting that Tolkien largely disapproved of THP (particularly compared to the first two space travel books of Lewis), because he disapproved of the strong influence that Williams exerted on Lewis in the writing of that book. Yet there are elements of the NCP that show Williams influence, as well.

[N.E. Brigand]

But it also worth noting that Tolkien largely disapproved of THP (particularly compared to the first two space travel books of Lewis), because he disapproved of the strong influence that Williams exerted on Lewis in the writing of that book. Yet there are elements of the NCP that show Williams influence, as well.

Thanks for the correction regarding the context of Lewis's "Numinor" reference; I was working from faulty memory. As for That Hideous Strength, if Tolkien disapproved of it for derailing Lewis's trilogy, still he did describe it in 1955 as "good ... in itself" (Letter #252).

[Tar-Palantir]

While it is clear that Tolkien identified some characteristics of himself with several members of the Notion Club, Dolbear is mostly drawn from Havard while Lowdham has the personality of Dyson. Interestingly, I cannot get the feel of Lewis from any of the characters, nor that of Williams.

(I have read a great deal of and about Lewis and quite a lot of and about Charles Williams - and I feel as if I would be able to 'recognise' them.)

Jeremy is the other interesting character - and from the fact that his identification is not mentioned by Christopher Tolkien, from a few hints about Jeremy's fictional writings, and from his 'filial' relationship with the other NCP-ers I suspect Jeremy is actually based on Christopher Tolkien.

Jeremy is repeatedly identified as bird-like - and this _might_ also fit CRT, from what I have seen in photos and videos of him interviewed as an old man. Only someobody he knew CRT around the mid 1940s would really know this. Still, I 'see' CRT as I read, however this really is a big guess!

I defended my interpretion of Ramer as the primary mouthpiece for JRRT in a blog posting which I reproduce here. I hope this is not too far off topic - my idea is that this following piece provides evidence that Ramer's strange ideas and experiences are at least sometimes also those of JRRT:

***

Several of the characters in the Notion Club seem to contain elements of Tolkien. But the main protagonist of Part 1, Michael George Ramer, seems to contain some of the most surprising elements - including aspects of belief and behaviour which do not (so far as I know) come through in other writings by or about Tolkien.

In particular, Ramer gives very detailed accounts of psychological experiments concerned with 'telepathic' attempts at space and time travel, mainly using dreams. These accounts are given in such extreme detail, and with considerable conviction, that they raise the likelihood that Tolkien made such experiments himself and had similar experiences (or even exactly the same experiences) as described by Ramer.

If Tolkien did not actually embark on these experiments and have these experiences, then the NCPs constitute evidence that he had at least thought about these matters in considerable detail, and followed through the possible outcomes of such experiments.

Ramer's accounts go beyond anything published elsewhere, as I mentioned, but there are at least three experiences of Ramer which are given specific endorsement by Christopher Tolkien in the notes, as having been actual experiences of his father - while others are fascinations that appear elsewhere in Tolkien's writing at times distant from the composition of the NCPs.

Therefore, my inclination is to assume that these specific confirmations are but the tip of an iceberg - and that pretty-much all of Ramer's comments are probably 'Tolkien talking'.

***

The NCPs start out with a critical discussion of a science fiction story which has been read out by Ramer - until Ramer is pressurized (mainly by Dolbear) into admitting that he had not 'made-up' the story about visiting another planet, but had actually been to the place: 'there is such a world, and I saw it - once.'

On page 173 Ramer begins to explain that he was attracted by the 'telepathic notion' that the mind can travel while the body is in a trance. He relates this to the phenomenon which he says 'cannot reasonably be doubted' that the future can be foreseen in dreams, and that there are 'authenticated modern instances' of visions of this type. Ramer describes this as a 'case of translation', a transference of observation which is usually obscured by the 'never ending racket of sense impressions'.

This interest in, or belief in, the possibility of 'telepathy' chimes with Tolkien's Osanwe-Kentar (published in the magazine Vinyar Tengwar in 1998 Vol 39). This was probably from work on the Silmarillion Legendarium around 1959-60 (more than a decade after the NCPs). Tolkien here asserts that direct communication of thoughts is possible not just for elves but men also, but it is subject to interference from spoken language. Also that men's abilities are weaker than the elves (especially the Eldar) due to men’s relative lack of control of the body.

Ramer then traces the sequence of his psychological experiments, and the ideas which lay behind them. On page 178 he says: 'I had the notion (...) that for movement or travelling the mind (when abstracted from the flood of sense) might use the memory of the past and the foreshadowing for the future that reside in all things, including what we call 'inanimate matter' (...) I mean, perhaps, the causal descent from the past, and the causal probability in the present, that are implicit in everything. At any rate, I thought that might be one of the mind's vehicles [for travelling in space and/ or time]'.

Ramer’s aim was 'to observe new things far off in Time and Space beyond the compass of a terrestrial animal.'

'...I thought that all I could do was to refine my observation of other things that have moved and will move: to inspect the history of things whose paths have, at some point of time and space, crossed the path of my body.'

'The mind uses the memory of its body. Could it use other memories, or rather, records? (...) The fragments, right down to the smallest units, no doubt, preserve the record of their own particular history, and that may include some of the history of the combinations they are entered into.'

(page 180) 'I expect there are in fact lots of neglected chances of historical research, with proper training, especially among old houses and things more or less shaped by man.'

'So I tried various experiments, on myself; various forms of training. It's difficult to concentrate, chiefly because it's difficult to get quiet enough. (...) I wanted to discover if my mind had any power, any trainable latent power, to inspect and become aware of the memory or record in other things. (...) I don't think I have any special talent for it. (...) It is difficult, and it is also frightfully slow. Less slow, of course, with things that have organic life, or any kind of human associations. (...) It's slow, and its faint. In inorganic things too faint to surmount the blare of waking sense, even with eyes shut and ears stopped.'

My interpretation is that, via Ramer, Tolkien is here either describing his own beliefs and self-experiments; or at the least his own potential beliefs and detailed thought-experiments. Either way, it is telling us something about Tolkien's personality which is considerably at odds with that rather hidebound reactionary which the young Humphrey Carpenter put forward in the authorized biography - a much stranger and intellectually unorthodox personality.

At this point, Ramer's experiments in trying to attain telepathic movement in time and space via inspecting the 'memories' located in other entities seems to have failed. However, at this point Ramer brings in the third 'thread' in his argument - which was the deliberate use of dreaming.

'Remember, I was also training my memory on dreams at the same time. And that is how I discovered that the other experiments affected them. Though they were blurred, blurred by the waking senses beyond recognition, I found that these other perceptions were not wholly un-noted; they were like things that are passed over when one is abstracted or distracted, but that are really 'taken in'. And asleep, the mind rooting about (...) in the day's leavings (...) would inspect them again with far less distraction, and all the force of its original desire.'

Again, to me, this passage has the feel of direct reportage.

Ramer then goes on to talk about some of the dreams: 'I used to get at that time very extraordinary geometric patterns presented to me, shifting kaleidoscopes especially, but not blurred; and other queer webs and tissues too. And other non-visual impressions also, very difficult to describe; some like rhythms, almost like music; and throbs and stresses.'

Again my impression is that Tolkien - via Ramer - is here striving to express something very difficult to express from his personal experience. This, especially, because the passage does not work very well in the narrative and stands-out as being unnecessarily detailed.

'But all the time, of course, I wanted to get off the earth. That's how I got the notion of studying a meteorite' (...) I took to hobnobbing with [a large meteorite in a public park]. (...) It seemed to be quite without results. ‘

However, later Ramer found that 'there had been results. It had evidently taken some time to digest [the memory records in the meteorite], and even partially translate them. But that is how I first got away, and beyond the sphere of the Moon, and very much further.'

This begins to sound more speculative, and yet the following reported experience is explicitly verified by Christopher Tolkien: Ramer reports that he got 'some very odd dreams or sleep experiences. Some were quite unpictorial, and those were the worst. Weight, for instance. Just Weight, with a capital W; very horrible. But it was not a weight that was pressing on me; you understand; it was a perception of, or sympathy in, an experience of almost illimitable wieght.'

The note from Christopher Tolkien reads: 'My father once described to me his dream of 'pure weight''.

Ramer is struggling to describe a very strange dream experience, and it seems that it was also describing an actual dream of Tolkien's. This was not what Ramer desired from his dreams, and he again changed strategy:

(Page 183) 'I found it all very disturbing. Not what I wanted, or at least not what I had hoped for. So I turned more than ever to dream-inspection, trying to get 'deeper down'. I attended to dreams in general, but more and more to hose least connected with the immediate irritations of the body's senses. Of course, I had experienced, as most people have, parts of more or less rationally connected dreams and even on eor two serial or repeating dreams. And I have had also the experience of remembering fragments of dreams that seemed to posses a 'significance' or emotion that the waking mind could not discern in the remembered scene. (...) Many of these 'significant patches' seemed to me much more like random ages torn out of a book.'

Christopher Tolkien's notes reads: 'Of this experience also my father spoke to me.'

So here we have further corroboration that Ramer is speaking of Tolkien’s experiences. And these experiences constitute an account of experiments in dreaming. In Verlyn Flieger's Question of Time she goes into great detail about the use of meaningful dreams not just in the NCPs but throughout Tolkien's whole corpus. It seems likely to me that this was a major interest of Tolkien’s, including a practical and self-experimental interest; and that he was discussing this via the mouthpiece of Ramer in a form where the whole matter could be discussed week by week in Inklings meetings.

I think it likely that a major motivation for writing the Notion Club Papers was precisely that it served as a semi-fictional vehicle whereby some of Tolkien's most strangest and most compelling beliefs and experiences could be presented candidly, yet somewhat indirectly, for detailed discussion in the safe and trusted context of the Inklings.

[axordil]

I think it likely that a major motivation for writing the Notion Club Papers was precisely that it served as a semi-fictional vehicle whereby some of Tolkien's most strangest and most compelling beliefs and experiences could be presented candidly, yet somewhat indirectly, for detailed discussion in the safe and trusted context of the Inklings.

As speculation goes, I like it. It feels very much like the approach someone in his position would take, and it's also a very writerly thing to do.

I pulled the core of a novel from a single dream I had, so the notion isn't all that odd to me.

[Inanna]

Well, everything comes from one source in Christianity, too. Evil is the absence of what should be there, nothing more . Not that this makes it any less horrible...

That's different. Hinduism just doesn't talk in terms of good and evil at all. There is no embodiment of evil, or the absence of something to be evil. In the Gita, Krishna says that he is everything. In his "god" form, he has a dead body (of the leader of the Kauravas (whom they are fighting against)) as a nosepin.

Unfortunately, as I am only vaguely religious, I would not be able to ascribe the right text to my "gut feeling".

[Nin]

Why can I not vote in this poll?

(I wanted to vote No, but it's impossible for me)

[Lalaith]

I think maybe the poll is closed or something. I logged in as Freddy, and he can't vote in it either.

[narya]

I logged in as Freddy...

In a thread about morality?

Tar-P, could Tolkien be describing lucid dreaming? I've done some myself and it's a very heady thing, being the producer of my own movie. Wish I could do it more often.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Why can I not vote in this poll?

(I wanted to vote No, but it's impossible for me)

Nin, Tar-Palantir apparently set the poll to last only three days. I don't think he is quite attune to the, erm, slow pace of the discussions here. I'm tempted to edit it to re-open the poll, but I think that would be overstepping the bounds of my authority, without his permission.

[Lalaith]

Oh, don't worry, narya. I didn't post or vote as Freddy. I just logged in under his name to see if it could be done.