Chapter Three            
Fairies and the
Four Elements

Scholars agree that the belief in fairies originated in the superstitions of animism, which in turn goes back to the ancient classification of all matter into the four elements: earth, air, fire and water, that God created in the beginning. The ancient Greek philosophers reduced all of their cosmology to the physics of the four elements. Thus Thales declared water to be the source of all the rest of the elements but Anaximander, says Simplicius, did not think it right to identify the underlying reality with any one of these limited materials; rather, he held to one unlimited material reality from whence the four elements came into being and into which they returned when they perished.
     The Fathers of the Church took up this conception of material/corporeal reality as consisting of the four elements and related them directly to the account of Creation in Genesis One. Thus, Saint Basil says:

‘… although there is no mention of the elements, fire, water and air, imagine that they were all compounded together, and you will find water, air and fire in the earth.’ (Hexaemeron, Hom. 1)

Besides holding that the first principal and basic nature of all material things is water, Thales also held that “all things are full of gods.” This latter statement is the essence of animism. And animism is associated with the four elements from the beginning. However, it is important to make clear at once that the “spirits” connected with natural elements and forces in world mythology and folklore are really fallen angels of the lowest orders and choirs, lower, even, than those of our Guardian Angels who have traditionally been described as coming from the “lowest choirs”.  Nor are these fairy-spirits of the elements, as if informing them substantially, but rather as infecting or inhabiting them accidentally, for the fallen angelic being is forever and absolutely spiritual, not material or corporeal. Furthermore, God made all things good and very good (Gen. 1:31) and the natural being of every created object remains existentially good, or good as to its very being. As St. Thomas says: the demons are not evil by nature but by choice. And their choice, being that of a totally spiritual being of pure intellect and will, embraces by its nature, eternal consequences. Thus Milton captured the irreformable fixity of Lucifer’s will when he had him proclaim, “Evil, be thou my good!”  (Paradise Lost, IV, 108.)
     Brian Froud, artist-illustrator and scholar of world myth and folklore, returns to the ancient classification of spirits in his book Good Faeries/Bad Faeries (Simon and Schuster, 1998) saying:

‘I find that the most useful way to understand the wondrous variety of faeries is to look at the four elements to which they are aligned: earth, water, fire, and air. Faeries are the physical manifestations of these basic building blocks of creation and the spiritual custodians of all natural phenomena.’

Froud goes on to describe the faeries of the four elements as found in the mythology and folktales of the world. The faeries associated with earth are the gnomes, elves, brownies, goblins, pixies, etc., diminutive creatures found in mines and quarries. Celtic tree spirits and Greek dryads also belong to this group.

‘Earth faeries … are the spiritual force of nature, reflecting its power, its moods, its cycles. Water spirits can be found in lakes, rivers, pools, springs, wells, fountains, raindrops, teardrops, and at the ocean’s edge. They love especially running water, bubbling springs and waterfalls. Crossing over (or through) running water is a well-known method of entering their realm. In salt water one finds mermaids and mermen. Water horses (kelpies), water serpents, and water bulls are the magical creatures bound to the potent element of water, the fluid of life, intuition, transformation and the depths of the unconscious.’

Froud combines Jungian archetypal psychology and other Neo-Gnostic-New Age concepts with the mythology of Faeries, thus manifesting, in full force, the Neo-Paganism of our times. Interesting to note, also, that the demonic spirits inhabit human tears, for the magical power of human tears is a frequent theme in the literature, as witness the story of King Midas whose evil spell was broken by his tears, and many instances in the stories of Hans Christian Andersen.
     Fire faeries figure prominently in folklore and mythology. The Greek Titan Prometheus and the Scandinavian god Loki are credited with stealing fire from the gods for humankind. In many societies, fire faeries are entrusted with the care of the house hearth and if neglected, the family can expect dire consequences. Hephaestus, in Roman myth Vulcan, is the craftsman god of the forge and can be traced back to the evil son of Cain, Tubalcain.      
   Froud gives the animistic interpretation:

‘The fire spirits are embodiments of the destructive and regenerative extremes to be found in nature… Air is the element of all winged faeries, whose energies are subtle, quick, and fluid.’

In Greek myth, the god Hermes is their progenitor.
     
There is much more, in fact, a wealth of information about the folklore and mythology of faeries in Froud‘s book, but it all points to one main fact: the real source of all these spiritual influences is Luciferian. Froud himself, although his book is entitled Good Faeries/Bad Faeries, openly admits that there is really no such distinction amongst them, for even those described as “good” are unpredictably mischievous. The author’s illustrations also bear this out, for one can pass from the “good” part of the book to the “bad” part (significantly by turning the book repeatedly upside down!) without noticing any real difference or change in the ugliness and lasciviousness (both signatures of Satan) of the creatures’ faces and forms. Froud himself quotes a 17th century author, with no word of disapproval, who claimed that the good and bad faeries were but the two sides of one coin and that “it is by one and the same malignant fiend that meddled in both, seeking sometimes to be feared, other times to be loved.”
     
To complete the connection of fairyland with Hell, there is the description of animism as distinctly at the root of magical belief and practice. ( Lewis Spence: Encyclopedia of Occultism, 1920.) The literature of fairy tale and fantasy, such as the Chronicles of Narnia, and Lord of the Rings, is therefore one of Lucifer’s most clever disguises for the fact that Fairy-land is Hell and Magic is Demonic Power straight from the same evil source.

                                                                   Chapter Fourteen
J. R. R. Tolkien
(1892-1973)

A legitimate question arises at this point: Why fantasy?

All story-telling is related to Reality in one way or another: Our Lord’s parables teach us valuable, indeed, most necessary lessons about our natural life on earth in relation to His supernatural life of Grace to aid us Heavenward; the Good Samaritan, the Ten Virgins, the Prodigal Son, Lazarus and Dives, the man who built his house on sand, the man who came to the feast without the proper wedding-garment, and so on.
     Aesop’s Fables and the Uncle Remus tales of Joel Chandler hαɾɾιs teach us pointed lessons about human cunning, stupidity and common sense. Science fiction predicts what is possible given the present state of scientific knowledge and technology. Realistic novels do the same in imaginative but truly human situations.
     Fantasy, however, loses contact with Reality, especially the Reality of this world and proceeds to invent other parallel or alternate universes where the un-real predominates.
     
I can think of only one reason for the popularity of fantasy literature in our time. The reason is this: the Truths of Faith have become so boring or so abstract as to fall into disbelief. The Truths of Faith are no longer real to the modern mind. And so, other more exciting worlds are invented as a means of escape from the real that no longer appeals to the jaded minds of moderns. What is really more exciting and urgent than the fact that we can easily lose our immortal souls by sin in this world and suffer Hell for all eternity? And yet, the modern mind is not moved by this great and inescapable truth! How is it that even Catholics do not see the insult offered to Almighty God when other, fanciful versions of Creation are constructed, as if the one He has given us in His Revelation is somehow unworthy of Him?
     Early in the 19th century, the English Cardinal Nicholas Patrick Wiseman (1802-1865) claimed that some of the early Fathers of the Church, namely St. Justin Martyr, Origen and St. Clement of Alexandria, taught the existence of other worlds and long ages of time before Adam. There is no basis for this theory in St. Justin; there is some in Origen who was deeply influenced by neo-Platonism; and there is some basis in a dubious or lost work of St. Clement of Alexandria. That there are or were other worlds inhabited by men is against the necessary pre-supposition of the dogma of Original Sin and the unity of the human race in one human pair.  In the 9th century, Photius, the Greek statesman and ecclesiastic, who was also very learned and ended as a heretic and schizmatic, claimed that St. Clement of Alexandria was “carried away by strange and impious notions” such as “the eternity of matter ... and of many worlds before Adam …” Because of these opinions, Photius considered the work in which they appeared, the Hypotyposeis, to be spurious.  This work is also said to have taught that the Son was a mere creature that the Logos became man only in appearance, and the Greek doctrine of metempsychosis (reincarnation). These latter ideas regarding the Son of God were common amongst the Gnostics and the Docetists, whereas the existence of other worlds was common amongst the ancient Greek philosophers and was also taught by the Roman poet, Lucretius.
     Now we see these same ancient heresies revived by the foremost makers of fantasy! C. S. Lewis revives the myths of other worlds along with the gods and goddesses of Greek myth, whereas Tolkien revives the myth of ages before Adam, an opinion known in the 19th century as the Gap or Restitution theory, as indicating a gap of many ages between verses one and two of Genesis. This latter was based on the false assumptions of the rising geological sciences, and the implications of these now falsified assumptions are quite clear in Tolkien’s early book, the Silmarillion.
     In the Silmarillion, Tolkien, in true Gnostic fashion, has constructed, detail by detail, a totally different version of the Creation than that given us in Genesis. The ancient Gnostics, refuted at great length by St. Irenaeus, did the same thing when they adapted the old Greek theogonies to the Christian doctrine of Creation. Tolkien has adapted the Revealed doctrine of Creation to the long-ages-geology. Not only that, he, like Lewis, is determined to canonize the gods and goddesses of the ancient myths, making them to be originally angels rather than what they really are: corruptions of the primordial revelation, the inventions of men inspired by Lucifer,  

Tolkien’s Alternative Creation

The Silmarillion begins this way:

‘There was Eru, the One, who in Arda is called Ilúvatar; and he made first the Ainur, the Holy Ones, that were the offspring of his thought, and they were with him before aught else was made.’

That opening passage is so Gnostic it would have pleased Valentinus himself. Especially Gnostic is the phrase “were the offspring of his thought”.  For the Gnostic stresses above all else, Thought and the Self, the One. For there is never in Tolkien even a hint that God is triune – the very point of doctrine that the early Fathers, especially St. Irenaeus, laboured so long and arduously to demonstrate to the Gnostics for their refutation. And the term “offspring” connotes emanation – another major Gnostic tenet.
     It is necessary to recall the profound simplicity and clarity of the inspired text of Genesis:

In the beginning God created heaven and earth.
And the earth was void and empty, and darkness was upon the face of the deep;
And the Spirit of God moved over the waters.
And God said: Be light made. And Light was made.

The Fathers and Doctors of the Church have inferred, from other texts of Holy Scripture, that God created the Angels on the First Day of Creation. But just who these “Holy Ones” of Tolkien are only becomes clear by the end of this first chapter, which is entitled “Ainulindale: The Music of the Ainur,” Ainulindale, according to Tolkien’s own Glossary of names, is a word meaning “The Great Music” or “The Great Song.” And the Ainur are “the Holy Ones, singular Ainu, the first beings created by Ilúvatar – the order of the Valar and Maiar, made before Ea or the material universe.”
     Already, a degree of complexity, mainly by reason of the difficult names, is introduced into Tolkien’s “alternative creation” that sets it far apart from Genesis and places it squarely in the Gnostic tradition.
     One is tempted to think of Job 38:7 where God speaks to Job from the Whirlwind asking him where he, Job, was when “the morning stars praised Me together, and all the sons of God made a joyful melody.” Catholic theology attributes these beings to the Angels created on the First Day of Creation Week. And perhaps Tolkien was thinking of that verse from Scripture when he composed his own creation account. He may even have been thinking of the great Song of the Eldila in Lewis’ Perelandra. At any rate, Tolkien’s God Ilúvatar propounds to the Ainur “themes” of music and they sing before him, at first each one alone, then a few together, and finally, they are given a “mighty theme” that they perform with “deeper understanding” and with “increased unison and harmony.” The God Ilúvatar also kindles these beings with “the Flame Imperishable” which implies the entire doctrine of Grace with respect to the Angels but is not aided or clarified at all in Tolkien’s poetic account:

‘¬Never since have the Ainur made any music like to this music, though it has been said that a greater still shall be made before Ilúvatar by the choirs of the Ainur and the Children of Ilúvatar after the end of days. Then the themes of Ilúvatar shall be played aright, and take Being in the moment of their utterance, for all shall then understand fully his intent in their part, and each shall know the comprehension of each, and Ilúvatar shall give to their thoughts the secret fire, being well pleased.’

There are hints here that evil enters somewhere and somehow and that in the end all shall be put to rights – very reminiscent of Origenism. Also, there is no hint here nor in what follows that Tolkien’s God has any idea of the Incarnation. His text becomes more Gnostic as it proceeds. And there is really no use trying to make Tolkien’s alternative creation accord in any way with the divine Revelation of Genesis where God created by His Word, for He spoke, He commanded, and it was done, creatures sprang into existence from Nothingness. Tolkien’s account is thoroughly heretical and Fantasy is no excuse for heresy!
     For a “great while” there were no flaws in the music. But as the theme progressed:

‘…it came into the heart of Melkor to interweave matters of his own imagining that were not in accord with the theme of Ilúvatar; for he sought therein to increase the power and glory of the part assigned to himself. To Melkor among the Ainur had been given the greatest gifts of power and knowledge, and he had a share in all the gifts of his brethren. He had gone often alone into the void places seeking the Imperishable Flame; for desire grew hot within him to bring into Being things of his own, and it seemed to him that Ilúvatar took no thought for the Void, and he was impatient of its emptiness. Yet he found not the Fire, for it is with Ilúvatar, but being alone he had begun to conceive thoughts of his own unlike those of his brethren.’

As soon as he enters the story, Melkor is a mythic being both like and unlike the Lucifer of Scripture and Tradition. In Tolkien’s account, there is no test, no trial of the Angels’ loyalty, love and obedience. Rather, Melkor is rebellious against Ilúvatar from within himself, with no external provocation other than the Void in Creation and his coveting of the Imperishable Flame that belongs to Ilúvatar alone. Melkor aspires to create. Gradually, other of the Ainur “began to attune their music to his” and the discord of Melkor spread ever wider.
     It is typical of the Gnostic to reduce everything to subjective Thought and Passion, to deny any given external criterion or command arising solely from God’s Will and Supreme Authority. And so, Melkor’s evil subjectivity spreads and produces around the very throne of Ilúvatar “a raging storm, as of dark waters that made war one upon another in an endless wrath that would not be assuaged.”
     Melkor is very like the Manichean god of evil who was created evil from the beginning. This, of course, is heresy.
     Amidst the turmoil, Ilúvatar raised his left hand and introduced “a new theme” but the discord of Melkor contended with it and the uproar was so great that many of the Ainur sang no more.
     Again, Ilúvatar rose and lifted his right hand and a third theme grew unlike the others. It was at first soft and sweet but took on a power and profundity. These two musics, of Ilúvatar and of Melkor, were utterly at variance and at length, Ilúvatar, with a severity of countenance terrible to behold, raised both hands and the Music ceased.
     What Ilúvatar says at this moment is important to remember, for it seems to be contradicted as “the Holy Ones” later proceed to do what only the Creator can do:

‘Then Ilúvatar spoke, and he said: “Mighty are the Ainur, and mightiest among them is Melkor; but that he may know, and all the Ainur, that I am Ilúvatar, those things that ye have sung, I will show them forth, that ye may see what ye have done. And thou, Melkor, shalt see that no theme may be played that hath not its uttermost source in me, nor can any alter the music in my despite. For he that attempteth this shall prove but mine instrument in the devising of things more wonderful, which he himself hath not imagined.’ (my emphasis)

What is at stake here is God’s power of creating. St. Thomas insists that only God can create and that creatures cannot even be the instruments of His creative power. “It is impossible for any creature to create, either by its own power, or instrumentally – that is, ministerially.”
     But Tolkien’s Ainur, as we shall see, were responsible for all that went into adorning the earth after the first two Days of Creation-Week. This is typical Gnosticism – to modify, “correct”, improve upon and change the Creation as given us in Divine Revelation of Genesis. In ancient Gnosticism, this was done by the Aeons and Archons of neo-Platonism; in modern times, it is done by natural means operating over ages and ages of geological time.
     Ilúvatar takes all the Ainur into the Void and says to them:


‘And he showed to them a vision, giving to them sight where before was only hearing; and they saw a new World made visible before them, and it was globed amid the Void, and it was sustained therein, but was not of it. And as they looked and wondered this World began to unfold its history, and it seemed to them that it lived and grew. And when the Ainur had gazed for a while and were silent, Ilúvatar said again: “Behold your Music! This is your minstrelsy; and each of you shall find contained therein, amid the design that I set before you, all those things which it may seem that he himself devised or added. And thou, Melkor, wilt discover all the secret thoughts of thy mind, and wilt perceive that they are but a part of the whole and tributary to its glory.”’

And reinforcing this all-important point of Ilúvatar’s power, the author says of the Ainur that while few things are unseen by them, yet some things there are that they cannot see:
 
‘… for to none but himself has Ilúvatar revealed all that he has in store, and in every age there come forth things that are new and have no foretelling, for they do not proceed from the past.’

And of the Children of Ilúvatar, who are Elves and Men, the author insists “none of the Ainur had part in their making.” But a little further on in the narration, speaking of the Children of Ilúvatar, there is this:

‘And amid all the splendours of the World, its vast halls and spaces, and its wheeling fires, Ilúvatar chose a place for their habitation in the Deeps of Time and in the midst of the innumerable stars. And this habitation might seem a little thing to those who consider only the majesty of the Ainur, and not their terrible sharpness; as who should take the whole field of Arda (Earth) for the foundation of a pillar and so raise it until the cone of its summit were more bitter than a needle; or who consider only the immeasurable vastness of the World, which still the Ainur are shaping, and not the minute precision to which they shape all things therein.’

When the Ainur behold the habitation in a vision “and had seen the Children of Ilúvatar arise therein, then many of the most mighty among them bent all their thought and their desire towards that place. And of these Melkor was the chief,... but he desired rather to subdue to his will both Elves and Men, ...”
     
It is said that “the turmoil of the heat and the cold” had “come to pass” through Melkor. This implies certain extremes of weather that Tradition teaches did not afflict Adam and Eve, before the Fall, in the Garden of Paradise.
     But Tolkien’s account is evolutionary and knows nothing of an Original State of Justice and Innocence in our First Parents.
     And so, Ilúvatar has emanated the world and the Void and shown it all to the Ainur as the habitation of Elves and Men. But before they arise, certain of the Ainur appropriate to themselves by reason of their own nature (which turns out to be quite physical) certain parts of the world. Thus, according to the Eldar, or “People of the Stars” – of all the matters of which the Earth was made – wind and air, iron, stone, silver, gold and many substances – “of all these the Ainur most greatly praised water, for “in water there was yet the echo of the Music of the Ainur, more than in any substance else that is in this Earth...”
     “Now to water that Ainu whom the Elves call Ulmo turned his thought.” Another Ainu, Manwë, turned his thought to the airs and winds. Still another, Aulë, thought of the fabric of the Earth, and his “delight and pride was in the deed of making and in the thing made ... passing ever on to some new work.”
     Ulmo and Manwë find a deep affinity, and so “Manwë and Ulmo” (air and water) “have from the beginning been allied, and in all things have served most faithfully the purpose of Ilúvatar.” (p. 9) It is only the action of Melkor that causes extremes of temperature and the turbulence of storms.
     The Ainur, then, see the Creation “and some have said that the vision ceased ere the fulfilment of the Dominion of Men and the fading of the Firstborn;...”  that is, the fading away of the Elves. Are there intimations of human evolution here?
     When the Music celebrating the Creation is over, all the Valar, that is, the great Ainur who entered Earth at the beginning of Time, these Valar “have not seen as with sight the Later Ages or the ending of the World.”
     The following paragraph could be seen as the basis for all animistic beliefs that are also “at the root of magical belief and practice.”  Animism is prominent today in the newly revived religions of Native American tribes. Tolkien says:

‘Thus it came to pass that of the Ainur some above are still with Ilúvatar beyond the confines of the World; but others, and among them many of the greatest and most fair, took the leave of Ilúvatar and descended into it. But this condition Ilúvatar made, for it is the necessity of their love, that their powers should thence forward be contained and bounded in the world, to be within it forever, until it is complete, so that they are its life and it is theirs. And therefore they are named the Valar, the Power of the World.’ (p.10)

Next there is put forth that most Gnostic of themes – that the Archons, especially the Demiurge, are makers of the world, not as Plato’s Divine Craftsman who makes according to the eternal exemplar in the mind of God, but rather according to what is already made and therefore, according to Gnostic theology, imperfect. and defective – against the Catholic doctrine that God created all things good and very good, and it was only by means of Lucifer – Satan’s temptation and the Fall of Adam and Eve, our First Parents, that sickness and death, and ignorance and concupiscence and inclinations to evil came into the world. As Tolkien has it, these three “archons” come into a world as yet unshaped, and they set to work; and Melkor, too, is there from the beginning, as the chief Archon, according to Gnostic theology, but somewhat subordinate in Tolkien:

‘But when the Valar entered into Ea they were at first astounded and at a loss, for it was as if naught was yet made which they had seen in vision, and all was but on point to begin and yet unshaped, and it was dark. For the Great Music had been but the growth and flowering of thought in the Timeless Halls, and the Valar perceived that the world had been but foreshadowed and foresung, and they must achieve it. So began their great labours in wastes unmeasured and unexplored, and in ages uncounted and forgotten, until in the Deeps of Time and in the midst of the vast halls of Ea there came to be that hour and that place where was made the habitation of the Children of Ilúvatar. And in this work the chief part was taken by Manwe and Aulë and Ulmo; but Melkor too was there from the first, and he meddled in all that was done, turning it if he might to his own desires and purposes; and he kindled great fires. When therefore Earth was yet young and full of flame, Melkor coveted it, and he said to the other Valar: “This shall be my own kingdom; and I name it unto myself!”’

When those, like the Gnostics, wish to re-construct the making of the universe, they must of necessity reject the Creation as revealed in Genesis, especially the Six Days of Creation Week. And so, in true Gnostic fashion, Tolkien ignores the Six Days of Genesis and assumes, instead, both the theories of the Renaissance wherein the earth is originally cast off from the sun, and that of the long geological ages that took over the minds of all by the 19th century.
     
The next incident in Tolkien’s Creation is a strife between the three Archons and Melkor: “and for that time Melkor withdrew and departed to other regions and did there what he would; but he did not put the desire or the Kingdom of Arda from his heart.”
     And so, while Melkor goes off to sulk and plan, the other Archons begin to shape and hue. Now Tolkien tries to have it both ways, for his Valar shape the world “after that manner which they had beheld in the Vision of Ilúvatar...” but also “their shape comes of their knowledge of the visible World, rather than of the World itself...” In Plato’s Timaeus, the Demiurge or Logos makes the world solely by gazing at the eternal pattern or exemplar and rejects the created forms as full of defects. The Gnostic’s Craftsman rejects the eternal pattern and chooses only the material and defective. Tolkien tries to have his makers do both.
     Next occurs what seems to be a more major war. As Melkor sees the Earth becoming as a garden for the Children of Ilúvatar, he becomes in form ever more dark and terrible. He descended upon Arda in power and majesty greater than any other Valar:

‘Thus began the first battle of the Valar with Melkor for the dominion of Arda; and of those tumults the Elves know but little. For what has here been declared is come from the Valar themselves, with whom the Eldalie spoke in the land of Valinor, and by whom they were instructed; but little would the Valar ever tell of the wars before the coming of the Elves. Yet it is told among the Eldar that the Valar endeavoured ever, in despite of Melkor, to rule the Earth and to prepare it for the coming of the Firstborn; and they built lands and Melkor destroyed them; valleys they delved and Melkor raised them up; mountains they carved and Melkor threw them down; seas they hollowed and Melkor spilled them; and naught might have peace or come to lasting growth, for as surely as the Valar began a labour so would Melkor undo it or corrupt it. And yet their labour was not all in vain; and though nowhere and in no work was their will and purpose wholly fulfilled, and all things were in hue and shape other than the Valar had at first intended, slowly nonetheless the Earth was fashioned and made firm. And thus was the habitation of the Children of Ilúvatar established at the last in the Deeps of Time and amidst the innumerable stars.’  (pp. 12-13)

This is a Gnostic mythic version of the explanations of the earth’s formation so popular in the 18th and 19th centuries, whether in the wholly naturalistic version or that of the Gapists or Restitutionists, such as Cardinal Wiseman.  Also, so far is it from any kind of adaptation of the Great War in Heaven between Michael and Lucifer-Satan that the geological explanations force themselves to the fore as being the working and shaping of the Archons rather than the merely natural forces over time. As St. Irenaeus says, according to the Gnostic heretic Basilides, “Those angels who occupy the lowest heaven, that, namely, which is visible to us, formed all the things which are in the world, and made allotments among themselves of the earth and of those nations which are upon it.”  And so, according to Tolkien and his Gnostic predecessors, the Great War in Heaven was not a rebellion against the divine revelation of the Incarnation but rather a de-construction of the true account in order to re-construct a version more acceptable to the modern mind as it incorporates the long ages of geological time and resurrects the heroes of pagan myth. The Great War in Heaven becomes but a territorial strife on the newly forming Earth.
     
In the next Section, entitled the Valaquenta, we find that the great Valar, seven in number, each has a Queen consort. But Melkor is no longer counted among the Valar “and his name is not spoken upon Earth.”
     That the Valar have feminine partners destroys, at once, all resemblance to the Angels of Catholic Theology and Tradition and places them squarely amongst the Gnostic Archons and heroic figures of pagan mythology.
     
The seven main lords of Tolkien’s universe are Manwë, who corresponds roughly to the Greek-Roman Uranus and Aolus; Ulmo, who corresponds quite closely to Poseidon/Neptune; Aulë, the great Craftsman of Earth and Gaia. These three represent the original four elements of the creation, made much of in Greek and Roman mythology as well as in the Christian exegesis of the Six Days. The remaining Lords are Mandos and Lorien, brothers, who are masters of spirits; they are also called Namo and Irmo. Namo is the Keeper of the House of the Dead as Pluto in the Greco-Roman, and Irmo is the master of visions and dreams. Orome [Mars] is the Great Warrior “and even in the face of Melkor he laughed in battles before the Elves were born.” Tulkas, the Valiant, is Tolkien’s Mercury.
     These Lords with their spouses and further elaborations, form the Gnostic genealogies of Tolkien’s fantasies that out-do the genealogies of the ancient Gnostics. For Tolkien’s genealogies emphasize more the ages and aeons of the “Deeps of Time”, thereby accommodating modern evolutionary theories, whereas the ancient Gnostic genealogies stressed the hierarchical nature of the Archons and Aeons, these latter being almost timeless in their abstraction.
     Here is the origin of Sauron who figures prominently in The Lord of the Rings:

‘Dreadful among these spirits were the Valaraukar, the scourges of fire that in Middle-earth were called the Balrogs, demons of terror.
Among those of his servants that have names, the greatest was that spirit whom the Eldar called Sauron, or Gorthaur the Cruel. In his beginning he was of the Maiar (spirits of lesser degree than the Valar) of Aulë, and he remained mighty in the lore of that people. In all the deeds of Melkor the Morgoth upon Arda, in his vast works and in the deceits of his cunning, Sauron had a part, and was only less evil than his master in that for long he served another and not himself. But in after years he rose like a shadow of Morgoth and a ghost of his malice, and walked behind him on the same ruinous path down into the Void.’ (pp. 25-26}

There is no Hell in Tolkien’s fantasies: there are only the fires on Earth produced by Melkor, and the Void – the final extermination of all evil, as in Origen?  Probably.
     
In the next Section, entitled Quenta Silmarillion, the spouse of Aule, Yavanna (compare with the Greco-Roman Ceres/Demeter) planted the seeds “that she had long devised” and her prayers to Aulë brought forth two lamps, one in the north of Middle-earth and one in the south “so that all was lost as it were in a changeless day.” Then the seeds that she had sown began to sprout and to burgeon and there arose all the plants” and “beasts came forth and dwelt in the grassy plains...”
     So here are lesser beings adorning the earth with plants and animals, works that in Reality, Divine Revelation tells us, belong to God alone. Tolkien, however, is a master of the Gnostic heresy of alternative Creations.
     
After this great work, Manwë ordained a great feast for all the Valar, since Aulë and Tulkas were “weary after their labour”.
     Meanwhile, Melkor now “grown dark as the Night of the Void,” came into Middle-earth from over the Walls of the Night with a host of spirits. They began “delving and building of a vast fortress, deep under Earth... named Utumno.” (Compare with Milton’s Pandemonium) From thence, the blight of Melkor’s evil and hatred flowed out and the Springtide of Arda was marred. Green things fell sick and rotted, rivers were choked with slime, beasts became monsters of horn and ivory dyed the earth with blood... Tolkien thus separates in an absolute manner sickness and death and the other consequences of Original Sin from the personal sin of Adam and Eve and allows God’s good creation to be corrupted solely by an evil god. This is purest Gnosticism. So deep is this evil caused by Melkor that “the shape of Arda and the symmetry of its waters and its lands was marred in that time, so that the first designs of the Valar were never again restored.”
     Again, this implies a theory like that of the Gapists who place untold catastrophes in the Earth between Genesis One, 1 and 2.
     
Next in Tolkien’s epic, the Valar build the city Valmar of many bells. In this garden-city, on a green mound, there is the Ring of Doom and also therein are Two Trees. One tree is masculine with dark green leaves and the other is feminine, with young green leaves. From the elder of the trees, the Valar counted the ages of their reign. Each day contained twelve hours with the waxing and waning of the blossoming of the trees. “Thus began the Days of the Bliss of Valinor; and thus began also the count of Time.”
     But there are “ages” after this, for:

‘… as the ages drew on to the hour appointed by Ilúvatar for the coming of the Firstborn, Middle-earth lay in a twilight beneath the stars that Varda (the spouse of Manwë) had wrought in the ages forgotten of her labours in Ea. And in the Darkness Melkor dwelt, and still often walked abroad, in many shapes of power and fear, and he wielded cold and fire, from the tops of the mountains to the deep furnaces that are beneath them; and whatsoever was cruel or violent or deadly in those days is laid to his charge.’ (p.34)

There always seems to be more of Melkor than of the other more beneficent gods in Tolkien’s epic, and this manifests a strong Manichean strain in his work.
     
Meanwhile, Aulë, the Craftsman, and his Spouse Yavanna, continue to make and shape things that grow and bear fruit. And Aulë is also named as the friend of the Noldor who are the most skilled of the Elves. “The Noldor also it was who first achieved the making of gems and the fairest of all gems were the Silmarils, and they are lost.
     The Vanyar are the most beloved of the Elves, and from Manwë they received song and poetry, “for poetry is the delight of Manwë, and the song of words is his music,”
     So the Elves came before Man, and in today’s climate of evolutionary thought, they could be taken for “primitive” men.
     This Section concludes with a comparison of the Elves and Men:

‘Now all is said concerning the manner of the Earth and its rulers in the beginning of days, and ere the world became such as the Children of Ilúvatar have known it. For Elves and men are the Children of Ilúvatar; and since they understood not fully that theme by which the Children entered into the Music, none of the Ainur dared to add anything to their fashion.’’ ’

The passage I have underlined can easily be taken to refer to the absence in Holy Scripture of any hint of the long ages of evolutionary time during which “the Children of Ilúvatar entered into the Music” – that is into the “fabric” of the Thought of Ilúvatar.

‘For which reason the Valar are to these kindreds rather their elders and their chieftains than their masters; and if ever in their dealings with Elves and Men the Ainur have endeavoured ‘to force them when they would not be guided, seldom has this turned to good, howsoever good the intent. The dealings of the Ainur have indeed been mostly with the Elves, for Ilúvatar made them more like in nature to the Ainur, though less in might and stature; whereas to Men he gave strange gifts.’

This passage stating that the Ainur had dealings mostly with the Elves, could well refer to the fact that animism predominated amongst “primitive” peoples, savage tribes and degenerate humans. Then Tolkien relates the appearance of Man:

‘For it is said that after the departure of the Valar, there was silence, and for an age Ilúvatar sat alone in thought. Then he spoke and said: “Behold I love the Earth, which shall be a mansion for the Quendi and the Atani! But the Quendi shall be the fairest of all earthly creatures, and they shall have and shall conceive and bring forth more beauty than all my Children; and they shall have the greater bliss in this world. But to the Atani I will give a new gift.”  Therefore he willed that the hearts of Men should seek beyond the world and should find no rest therein; but they should have a virtue to shape their life, amid the powers and chances of the world, beyond the Music of the Ainur, which is as fate to all things else; and of their operation everything should be, in form and deed, completed, and the world fulfilled unto the last and smallest.’

And so it seems that only Men will have the power to overcome or to change “the music of the Ainur” which is Fate and necessity.

‘But Ilúvatar knew that Men, being set amid the turmoils of the powers of the world, would stray often, and would not use their gifts in harmony; and he said: “These too in their time shall find that all that they do redounds at the end only to the glory of my work.” Yet the Elves believe that Men are often a grief to Manwë, who know most of the mind of Ilúvatar; for it seems to the Elves that Men resemble Melkor most of all the Ainur, although he has ever feared and hated them, even those that served him.’

This belief of the Elves, however, is reflected in all the fantasy, and it evokes a profoundly pessimistic view of Earth and mankind. And this view would be justified if one looked only at human nature unaided by Divine Revelation, by Divine Grace, and by the glorious history of the Church and Her Saints. Such is the view of Tolkien, the “Catholic” and of all his co-workers in the field of devastation called fantasy literature -- “poetry and song” serve Lucifer and not God, in this domain. For totally obscured and obliterated is the ultimate Victory over Lucifer and Sin by Jesus Christ and His holy Mother at the End of Time.
     When it comes to the truths of Scripture and Tradition, Tolkien seems wholly ignorant. This is because he has filled this space with the modern sciences of evolutionary geology and anthropology, using the figures of pagan myth as their representatives. I term this kind of philosophy, the Neo-Gnosticism of modern science.
     This section concludes with some statements that indicate Tolkien’s view of Death and its origins:

‘It is one with this gift of freedom that the children of Men dwell only a short space in the world alive, and are not bound to it, and depart soon whither the Elves know not. Whereas the Elves remain until the end of days, and their love of the Earth and all the world is more single and more poignant therefore, and as the years lengthen ever more sorrowful. For the Elves die not till the world dies, unless they are slain or waste in grief (and to both these seeming deaths they are subject); neither does age subdue their strength, unless one grow weary of ten thousand centuries and dying they are gathered to the halls of Mandos in Valinor, whence they may in time return.
But the sons of Men die indeed, and leave the world; wherefore they are called the Guests, or the Strangers. Death is their fate, the gift of Ilúvatar, which as Time wears even the Powers shall envy. But Melkor cast his shadow upon it, and confounded it with darkness and brought forth evil out of good, and fear out of hope. Yet of old the Valar declared to the Elves in Valinor that Men shall join in the Second Music of the Ainur; whereas Ilúvatar has not revealed what he purposes for the Elves after the World’s end, and Melkor has not discovered it.’ (p. 39)

The Elves most nearly resemble the spirits of the natural world, the gods and goddesses of animism – all things are alive with “gods” or spirits, as Thales believed. And so, they only die when the World ends, unless slain or “waste in grief.”
     But what of Men? It would seem, from Tolkien’s words, that Death was originally a gift but that Melkor cast his shadow over it and brought “evil out of good, and fear out of hope.” This is terrible heresy! Death is solely the punishment for Sin and ultimately a test of our Faith and Hope and Charity. But Tolkien makes it a merely natural event that the evil god Melkor has poisoned with evil and fear. Such a view of Death is not tolerable for the Christian.
     But the making of sub-creations is not over yet. Aulë, the Maker god, Tolkien’s Craftsman and Demiurge, was unwilling to wait for the fulfilment of the decrees of Ilúvatar and made, in his impatience, creatures to his own liking – the Dwarves. But he worked in secret for fear of the displeasure of the other Valar: “he made first the Seven Fathers of the Dwarves in a hall under the mountains in Middle-earth.”
     But Ilúvatar was displeased; he calls Aulë to task; Aulë repents and begins to destroy the Dwarves but is prevented by Ilúvatar who compromises with Aule, decreeing that the Dwarves must sleep in darkness under stone until “the Firstborn have awakened upon Earth;...” Ilúvatar will then himself awaken the Dwarves but they shall be Aule’s children “and often strife shall arise between thine and mine, the children of my adoption and the children of my choice.”
     When Aulë told his spouse, Yavanna, all that had happened, she replied:

‘… thou hast received not only forgiveness but bounty. Yet because thou hidest this thought from me until its achievement, thy children will have little love for the things of my love. They will love first the things made by their own hands, as doth their father. They will delve in the earth, and the things that grow and live upon the earth they will not heed. Many a tree shall feel the bite of their iron without pity.’

Aulé responds that this shall be true also of the Children of Ilúvatar. Even so, Ilúvatar (Eru) will still give them dominion and they shall use all that they find in Arda (Earth) though they use it badly, without the purpose of Eru and without respect or gratitude. (p. 43) Here again is that deeply pessimistic attitude towards mankind – and of course, it would be the only one for those who have no Faith or Hope in the Absolute dominion of Jesus Christ and His Mother and of Their Redemption. All this presages nothing but battles and warfare in the future, and so it happens. As Time Magazine described the work of Tolkien:

‘Majestic! … readers of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings ... will find in The Silmarillion a cosmology to call their own ... medieval romances, fierce fairy tales, and fiercer wars that ring with heraldic fury ... it overwhelms the reader.” ’  (quoted on the back cover of the paperback edition)

It is cause only for all Neo-Pagans to rejoice! But certainly for all Catholics to weep in shame that one of their own brought forth such a monster of literary achievement.
     However, many Neo-Catholic scholars while agreeing with my description of Tolkien’s cosmogony in its accommodation of both modern evolutionary theory and ancient paganism still do not recognize the heterodoxy, not to say the Gnostic heresy that results. Joseph Pearce in his book, Tolkien: Man and Myth (Ignatius Press, 1998) says this of the Silmarillion:

‘Tolkien then states that “amid all the splendours of the World, its vast halls and wheeling fires”  Ilúvatar chose a place for the habitation of his Children “in the Deeps of Time and in the midst of the innumerable stars.” Thus, in a feat of ingenious invention, or sub-creation, Tolkien not only distinguishes the Men and Elves as being made directly “in the image of God,” essentially different from the rest of Creation, but at the same time accommodates the theory of evolution. The evolution of the cosmos was simply the unfolding of the Music of the Ainur within which the One places his Children in a habitation prepared for them. The enormity of the concept, and its apparent paradox, was addressed by Tolkien in words of poignant mysticism: “this habitation might seem a little thing to those who consider only the majesty of the Ainur, and not their terrible sharpness.” In a similar feat of ingenuity, Tolkien explains that the Valar, the angelic powers given the responsibility of shaping the cosmos, have often been called “gods” by Men. In this way he manages to accommodate paganism as well as evolution within his mythology, making both subsist within Christian orthodoxy.’ (pp. 90-91)

There could hardly be a clearer statement of the root differences between traditional Catholic theology and that of the Neo-Christian! Elsewhere, the Silmarillion is described as the Elves’ version of Genesis. If the Elves represent “primitive man” and his monotheism, then this accounts for the one-ness with no hint of the Trinitarian God in Ilúvatar, the One.      
     Pearce quotes Jesuit Father James V. Schall; echoing the views of another Jesuit, Fr. Robert Murray, a friend of Tolkien:

‘I have never read anything quite so beautiful as the first page of The Silmarillion ... the prose was appropriately scriptural.’

Another close friend of Tolkien admitted:

‘I am rather fond of The Silmarillion,… the idea that God allows the archangels to take part in the Creation ... It strikes me that his picture of the archangels is surprisingly like small children with their father,...  All of this is the background to The Lord of the Rings as having been created by the archangels, the Valar, under the direction of the One.’

It does not seem to disturb in the least these so-called Christian scholars that Tolkien’s “Archangels” are quite physical beings, even having cohorts or spouses exactly in the manner of the old Gnostic pairs of Archons. Nor does it occur to them to object to the fact that Tolkien’s archons are delegated by Ilúvatar to make and shape the creation whereas Catholic theology insists quite emphatically that God alone can create and do the works of distinguishing and adorning described in Genesis One.
     
As pointed out earlier, a major error committed and elaborated by both Lewis and Tolkien and serving as a kind of foundation for their mythologies, is that of assuming that the ancient gods and goddesses of paganism represent an original polytheism, a pantheon of deities invented by mankind as a kind of preparation for the divine Revelation of Scripture; whereas the truth is just the opposite: an original primordial Revelation was given to Adam in which the main facts of the Incarnation and Redemption were outlined and preserved by the Chosen People. The mythologies of ancient peoples, who all received this original Revelation from their most ancient ancestors, the sons of Noe, represent rather corrupted vestiges of the primordial revelation, in turn elaborated upon and further degraded by the inventions of men under the inspiration of Lucifer.
     
In more than one accolade gathered in Pearce’s book in praise of Tolkien’s work, his cosmogony is described as “a totally orthodox understanding of the Fall and Redemption of Man” yet Pearce quotes another admirer as asserting that “though Tolkien makes never so much as a glancing reference to Jesus Christ in a single-paragraph of all The Lord of the Rings’ thick volumes, His face is glimpsed on virtually every page.” (p. 82)
     
I cannot share the “glimpse” that this critic finds in the epic of the Hobbits, for while it is noteworthy that Tolkien never makes so much as a glancing reference to our Lord Jesus Christ, it certainly does not follow that His presence is to be glimpsed on any page. This enthusiastic admirer is reading his Christianity into the epic and in doing so, mistakes the obviously shining and exemplary natural virtues of the heroes for the supernatural virtues of Faith, Hope and Charity which are manifestations of holiness.
     
The admirers of Tolkien are trying to make Saints of the Hobbit-heroes whereas they are but secular heroes really no better than the basically decent heroes of the novels of someone like Clive Cussler. Gnostic heroes all, however, saving the world and reforming it by means of their natural efforts alone and without any acknowledgement of the absolute necessity for divine grace and most of all, for Divine Faith, Hope and Charity.

The world today has plenty of the Pelagian heroes and heroines who are out to build a better world on any and every “spirituality” that appeals to human sentiment. But the world will not be saved by them.
     
It was C. S. Lewis who prophesied that if The Lord of the Rings succeeded in selling and profiting economically, “it would inaugurate a new age,” (p. 79) And somewhere else, Tolkien has been hailed as the “father of modern fantasy literature” This is a most dubious honour! It is certainly true that C. S. Lewis with his space trilogy and his Chronicles of Narnia must share the honour with Tolkien’s epics in siring the genre of fantasy fiction, giving due credit to Jules Verne (1828-1905) for fathering the genre of science fiction.  However, when we look at the kinds of works that have issued from these sources in recent years, we may well be dismayed and even alarmed.

It reminds me of those who argue Shakespeare's writings are also Catholic even though they are riddled with Masonic symbolisms and from my own studies I believe Shakespeare himself gives the game away when he acts totally out of character by his vicious attack on the integrity of (St) Joan of Arc, treating the English as having ‘God as our fortress’ and the French as being one with the ‘witches and the help of hell’ (Act.II, Sc.1) and ‘Devil, or devil's dam’ (1:5).

CathInfo: Is there a doctor in the house?  I was thinking maybe Dr. White?

I know plenty of people who are avid fans of the Tolkein books and films and not one of them has been become stronger in the Faith or converted to Catholicism because of it.  By the fruits you will know it.

Quote from: magdalena

I know plenty of people who are avid fans of the Tolkein books and films and not one of them has been become stronger in the Faith or converted to Catholicism because of it.  By the fruits you will know it.

If you are trying to get someone to convert I would recommend some of St Augustine's writings. Not a fantasy book for entertaining young adults.

Exactly.

Tolkien wrote and published his books during the reign of Popes Pius XI and Pius XII.  The Index was fully in force during this time.  The Popes and the authorities of the Church never placed the book on the Index and never warned Catholics to avoid reading it.  This alone says it all.