Looking for Tolkienists (religion).

[Firinne_Gile]

Hi. I'm doing research based on the work of Markus Altena Davidsen on religions based on Tolkien's Legendarium and I already have a lot of information on the subject. In summary, there has been such a movement since 1970 and until today. Most of these religions are syncretic, and mix paganism with Tolkien's "gods". We also have another side, black religions that are based on the Russian book "The Black Book of Arda" and apparently there were secret groups practicing this religion. There are also people with individual faith, more or less faithful to Tolkien's Legendarium. I would like to know if there are people today who have this faith. If anyone wants to talk to me privately too, I would be happy.

Note: Tolkienists is one of the names for someone who considers Tolkien's stories to be true. Other names are: Eruists, Iluvatarists, Valarists and also, on the other side, Melkorists; from Eruism, Iluvatarism, Valarism and Melkorism.

[Saranna]

Very interesting subject @Firinne_Gile although not one I can contribute to in that sense of Tolkienist. I have always assumed that word was more or less definable as 'Tolkien Scholar but I think there's plenty of room for the study you propose. My only quirk in that direction is to sometimes ask myself in a dilemma (or pinch!); 'What would Gandalf do?'

Good luck with your research.

[Firinne_Gile]

Very interesting subject @Firinne_Gile although not one I can contribute to in that sense of Tolkienist. I have always assumed that word was more or less definable as 'Tolkien Scholar but I think there's plenty of room for the study you propose. My only quirk in that direction is to sometimes ask myself in a dilemma (or pinch!); 'What would Gandalf do?'

Good luck with your research.

Thank you Sarama. Tolkienist was one of the most common terms I've seen for a religious denomination in this regard. It was used for lack of a more appropriate term as I understand it. Religious Tolkienists are actually a sub-group of Tolkienists, Tolkien Scholars as you said, or RPG players based on the professor's Legendarium, very common in Russia.

If you want to read Davidsen's work, go to this link:: https://www.academia.edu/25302152/2014_ ... full_text_

[Chrysophylax Dives]

Hello @Firinne_Gile, the link you post is to a 500 page document. It looks fascinating but time is precious, so would you be so kind as to explain a little more? What do you mean by 'denomination'? To be a religious Tolkienist do you have to do rituals and declare beliefs of a certain kind? Or is it that people who are really into Middle-earth (like us on this forum) are religious Tolkienists without knowing it?

On a side note, you confirm my long held feeling that the most interesting reception of Tolkien is in Russia.

[Fuin Elda]

Very interesting but I do have to admit I took one look at just how many pages were in that document and fled. I am not a Tolkienist from my understanding of your concept though I will admit that as a pagan I do have a 'LOTR' aesthetic to my house and my yard.

I also remember some long time ago (perhaps this is in the document but I have not checked) about people that believe all stories are just histories we've forgotten or from another timeline that the author was reincarnated from.

[Quill]

Never heard of Tolkienist used in this context either. I am also a pagan, and in pagan circles online I have encountered the term "Ardan paganism" to describe those of us who use elements of Tolkien's legendarium in our spirituality (which I do). Or, more generally, pop culture paganism.

[Firinne_Gile]

Hello @Firinne_Gile, the link you post is to a 500 page document. It looks fascinating but time is precious, so would you be so kind as to explain a little more? What do you mean by 'denomination'? To be a religious Tolkienist do you have to do rituals and declare beliefs of a certain kind? Or is it that people who are really into Middle-earth (like us on this forum) are religious Tolkienists without knowing it?

On a side note, you confirm my long held feeling that the most interesting reception of Tolkien is in Russia.

On the subject Russia: Different interpretations have emerged of Tolkien's work there, such as people who believe the stories are a metaphor for the war between East and West and that Tolkien classified the Russians as Orcs. Following this line some declared themselves worshipers of Morgoth as Tolkien's values ​​were inadequate for them.

On the subject of 'denomination': Tolkienists believe that Tolkien's books are accounts of historical facts and that his characters were real people and they worship Ilúvatar as the supreme and creator God or just the Valar. There are also those who believe in the stories as another way of presenting ancient legends, paralleling the Valar and pagan gods. Some, as I said, believing Tolkien's Legendarium occurred in the past of our real world, others in a parallel world. A religious Tolkienist generally believes that some of Tolkien's stories, more or less, are based on real facts. Some do rituals, usually based on Wicca, others do Christian rituals like prayer and candles, but there are those that do not do any rituals.

[Firinne_Gile]

Very interesting but I do have to admit I took one look at just how many pages were in that document and fled. I am not a Tolkienist from my understanding of your concept though I will admit that as a pagan I do have a 'LOTR' aesthetic to my house and my yard.

I also remember some long time ago (perhaps this is in the document but I have not checked) about people that believe all stories are just histories we've forgotten or from another timeline that the author was reincarnated from.

Here is a summary of Davidsen's work, where I describe the groups he found:
In 2003 and 2012 because of the movies (The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit) the subject of "Tolkienian spirituality" or spirituality based on his Legendarium came up again so I'll create this topic with future discussions in mind because maybe the Amazon series can rekindle the debate.

I wrote a text describing the groups that developed some kind of religiosity based on the books written by J.R.R Tolkien based on the work of Markus Altena Davidsen "The Spiritual Tolkien Milieu: A Study of Fiction‐based Religion".

Davidsen deals with various issues in his work, such as the origin of these groups, their internal logic and justification, their rituals (based on Legendarium or not), mergers with other religions, passages in Tolkien's books and other writings that would give reason for these beliefs, other works and authors dealing with this theme, etc.

Below I have written a summary of these groups, their origin, purpose, rituals, spiritual vision, and influence they had on Tolkien's works.

The first group Davidsen mentions was Mytle Receeo, a woman resident of Southern California in the year 1973. She believed the stories written by Tolkien were “real, although [Tolkien] for convenience 'wrote the chronicle in fiction form'.” She claim to had conversations with Elves, Dwarves and Hobbits and that Bilbo appeared to her once as a child and revealed to her the return of the Nine Walkers (The Fellowship of the Ring). Her group had the intention of digging up Minas Tirith from the Mojave Desert (California), which she would have located by psychic powers. The project, however, was always postponed and the group disintegrated.

In 1972, "Arwen" and "Elanor" founded the feminist group "The Elf Queen Daughters", claiming they were mentored in a Ouija board session. These were not their real names, but taken from The Lord of the Rings book. The two established centers in Illinois and across America. They were practitioners of Wicca however and used elements from Tolkien's works only as complements. They understood that Elbereth would be Arda or Gaia and sang songs to her in rituals. Varda's use was actually metaphorical used to revere the "feminine", just as his identification as Elves was a reference to respect for nature.
This move was later succeeded by "Zardoa Love and Silverflame" which can be found here https://www.instagram.com/silverelves/. Zardoa met The Elf Queen Daughthers and began to receive their letters. Afterwards, one night he claimed that he had "awakened as an elf" and received his initiation into the group The Elf Queen Daughters. After this event he founded his own center in Carbondale (Illinois). Unlike the feminist group, Zardoa took her "elven identity" and awakening seriously. Zardoa in his partnership with Silverflame claimed that without Tolkien they would probably not call themselves Elves and refer to themselves as "Silver Elves". Among their beliefs, they linked Arda to Gaia and believed in cyclic Elvish reincarnation to aid the evolution of Man. Although they referred to the Silmarillion and The Lord of the Rings in several of their letters, they dropped the Legendarium years later. Furthermore, they do not consider Tolkien's stories as factual reality, just a source of inspiration.

In 1984 the "Tribunal of Sidhe" is founded in Sacramento (California). One of its founders is known as "Lady Danu". Tribunal of Sidhe followed the neo-pagan line and its members called themselves "Changeling", that is, mythical/fairy creatures incarnated in a human body from the "Astral Plane". The group synthesized elements of Tolkien's Legendarium with Wicca, Celtic mythology and their own personal beliefs. They used Tolkien's mythology as well as several other known mythologies for rituals and for them ancient folklore, myths and stories about fairies and elves reflected the historical fact that they co-inhabited the land. Correlating the work of Tolkien, the group considered that the Changeling's home in the astral plane would be the "Blessed Kingdom", where they would inhabit the "kin people", thus, the Valar, Maiar and Elves. They claimed that Tolkien himself was a Changeling and his work "the story of the Changeling in mythic form", the author having changed some things so that his story seemed less controversial.

In the "Alternative Tolkien Society", which you can access here (http://alt-tolkien.com/), active from 1996 to 2005, members shared, among other accounts, visits to Middle-earth through rituals and encounters with elves . It was the founder of the site, Martin Baker, who introduced Calantirniel and Nathan Elwin, founders of the Tië Eldaliéva group and its Ilsaluntë Valion arm, which we'll talk about below. Baker who was interested in Western esoterism considered Tolkien's works as spiritually strong as other myths. He wrote a series of articles he called the "Tresco manuscript" which claimed to come to him by "Alice Bailey", in which the historicity of Tolkien's works would be proven. In them, the author extended Tolkien's plot connecting Middle-earth and Anglo-Saxon England. He claimed the manuscript and related tradition as "intensely real" if not "really true".

Tië Eldaliéva was founded in 2005 by Nathan Elwin and Calantirniel. Access their website here https://elvenspirituality.com/. Elwin searched for decades for people who shared his belief that Tolkien's stories were not fiction but rather "myth-history* with euhemeristic elements**". What he always found was "Tolkienian spirituality" mixed with neo-pagan elements. After reading “J.R.R. Tolkien’s Gnosis for our Day” by Stephan Hoeller, Elwin founded an online community for Gnostic and myth-historical exploration of Tolkien's Legendarium. After meeting Calantirniel, they both decided to create a "spiritual path embodying Tolkien". Although Elwin's initial intention was to distance himself from other beliefs, Tolkien's history does not relate to rituals, so the group decided to create their own lunisolar calendar, incorporating practices such as ceremonial magic from the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn and Wicca. The group Ilsaluntë Valion (https://forum.westofwest.org/) was born precisely because of differences between the members of the group. While at its root Tië Eldaliéva dealt with an "elven spiritual view", some members preferred a spiritual view of Men (or Human), or an approach encompassing both sides. Some members were also troubled by the additions of pagan rituals used by leaders for the purpose of "filling in the blanks", ie the lack of ritualistic acts in Tolkien's works. These required a strict exploration of Legendarium, without additions. Another group, divergent in the form of rituals, preferred shamanic practices, while others preferred Wiccan magic. For this reason, Elwin split from the group and founded Ilsaluntë Valion. The new group asserted itself against the Otherkin¹ view, but opened up the possibility of elven ancestry in the human gene (Half-Elves of Legendarium) and blended a spiritual vision of both elven and human. The group emphasized a Gnostic line of interpretation and considered Tolkien's tales as mytho-historical, along with the intention of identifying parallels to Tolkien's stories and the real world though not fully.

Middle-Earth Pagans was a group founded in 2004 by Laurasia Sluyswachter to be a space for sharing experiences of integrating Tolkien's work with "spiritual paths". Access here https://mepagans.proboards.com/. Most of her group, as well as the founder, met in Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings movies. Unlike other groups, this one focused its rituals on the characters in the movies themselves through Wiccan rituals. She correlated each character with a power and function to claim in her rituals. For the group, the characters in The Lord of the Rings would be a metaphorical expression of the pagan God and Goddess. Laurasia said that some members of the group imagined that Middle-earth would exist in a different dimension and that they could connect with it by visiting the "astral realm". Many of the members lost interest after a while. The site was widely used for diverse discussions unrelated to the central idea and was never institutionalized or centered on basic ideas. The group eventually dispersed.

Children of Varda was born in 2003, in the Yahoo groups and was a group aimed at pagans and believers in the existence of elves. The group also welcomed Christians, both united in their appreciation of Tolkien's works and belief in elves. Some members also displayed the elven self-identification factor. The prominent topics were about elven music and elven memories of the past which were most often linked to Middle-earth, whether on the astral plane or in the prehistory of the world. The group however dwindled after a while. The focus of discussion turned to alternative subjects such as tarot, horoscope, reike, karma, guardian angels and so on. As with the Middle-earth Pagan Group, the variety of subjects and lack of focus caused members to migrate to more organized groups. Since 2006 there has been no further activity in the group.

The Elendë group was created in 2005 on Yahoo (originally named Quest for Middle-earth and the Elves) by Dana. Their group's premise was to bring together people who believed that Middle-earth was a real place just like the Elves. Unlike other groups, Elendë did not perform rituals and only a minority of members self-identified as an elf. Discussions focused centrally on debating encounters and experiences with elves. Though founded on Middle-earth's idea of reality, most members discarded this possibility, adopting instead the interpretation of the existence of another world inhabited by elves or their existence in the real world not tied to Tolkien's Legendarium. From this thought onwards the discussions disappeared and there was nothing more to be said, as a study of elves from other mythologies was never encouraged, nor any ritualistic connection employed. Since 2004 the group has spent most of its time inactive.

Indigo Elves is a discussion forum active since 2005 on Proboards (visit https://indigocrystals.proboards.com/ here). Its focus is on belief in self-identification and elven nature, its awakening and return. Their leader, Ravenwolf, discourages rituals aimed at the Valar, as in Tolkien's works they would be more like angels rather than gods to be worshipped. He also opposes the elven incarnation view, however defending elven descent by gene. Furthermore, he believes that Middle-earth and the core elements of Tolkien's Legendarium occurred in real time from our physical world. He mentions that after the flood there was still a period when elves and magic remained strong, but after that they "faded out". However, the blood elven bloodline still remains among humans from Arwen and Aragorn. Regarding the group name, Indigo is a person considered more sensitive and spiritually developed. Some members of the group self-identify Indigos and consider Tolkien's work as well as ancient myths about Elves and Changelings a metaphorical way to refer to the actual Indigo phenomenon.

Summing up this information, Tolkien-based religion has a deep and inseparable connection with paganism when carried out in practice. In most cases those spiritually affected by the Legendarium seek correlations in pre-established religions and are mainly found in neo-paganism and the ritualistic adoption of Wicca.
Two distinct groups can be observed: those who take the mythopoetic*** view of the works, claiming that Tolkien's Legendarium carries universal spiritual expressions found in various religions and cultures, and those who view tales in a mytho-historical way, albeit always linking them to other myths and spiritual visions as a form of justification. With few reservations, the religions presented tried at least some kind of ritual, mainly the contact with the deities, giving more importance to the experience of ritual connection than to the exploration and historical correspondence of the Legendarium.

*Mytho-historical: "the text is dramatized history".
**Euhemeristic: "the text is a legend".
***Mitopoeic: "the text reveals supernatural entities in a metaphorical way".
¹Otherkin: someone who feels he is not human.

______________________________________________________________

Although I found divergences of belief in these groups, none of the groups fit the parameters I'm looking to learn more about: a non-ecumenical, non-ritualistic, mytho-historical and monotheistic belief. If any of you have information about it I would like to know.

[Firinne_Gile]

Very interesting but I do have to admit I took one look at just how many pages were in that document and fled. I am not a Tolkienist from my understanding of your concept though I will admit that as a pagan I do have a 'LOTR' aesthetic to my house and my yard.

I also remember some long time ago (perhaps this is in the document but I have not checked) about people that believe all stories are just histories we've forgotten or from another timeline that the author was reincarnated from.

One difficult thing to find is a consensus on what they should be called or called themselves. Pagans, as you said, call themselves Pagans. But those who are not pagans do not give themselves a name, perhaps just 'Children of Ilúvatar'.

______

When writing the summary of Davidsen's work (which deals only with Western groups) I still didn't know about the Russians. I found this recently.

[Chrysophylax Dives]

First, wow, just wow. I am not as fanatical as I thought I was. But @Firinne_Gile your terms are not easy to understand. Could you help me on two terms of your last sentence?

Although I found divergences of belief in these groups, none of the groups fit the parameters I'm looking to learn more about: a non-ecumenical, non-ritualistic, mytho-historical and monotheistic belief. If any of you have information about it I would like to know.

(i) non-ecumenical - I'm not sure what this means in this context.
(ii) mytho-historical - people who read the stories (e.g. Lord of the Rings) as real history, as in there was once a Mythical War of the Rings and later a legendary War of the Ring. Yes?

If I am right on (ii) then, while if I met someone who believed this I would suspect mental unbalance, I would also suspect that they were intuiting something real from Tolkien, whose work was both (a) filling in the vast unknown of the ancient history of the North, but doing so as a philologist who always had an eye on the earliest known traditions (so that, e.g. the story of Frodo and the Ring can be understood as the 'real' story behind the Great Peace associated with the Heathobard King Froda); and (ii) an exploration of myth as a universal mode of talking about certain profound truths of reality.

[Firinne_Gile]

First, wow, just wow. I am not as fanatical as I thought I was. But @Firinne_Gile your terms are not easy to understand. Could you help me on two terms of your last sentence?

Although I found divergences of belief in these groups, none of the groups fit the parameters I'm looking to learn more about: a non-ecumenical, non-ritualistic, mytho-historical and monotheistic belief. If any of you have information about it I would like to know.

(i) non-ecumenical - I'm not sure what this means in this context.
(ii) mytho-historical - people who read the stories (e.g. Lord of the Rings) as real history, as in there was once a Mythical War of the Rings and later a legendary War of the Ring. Yes?

If I am right on (ii) then, while if I met someone who believed this I would suspect mental unbalance, I would also suspect that they were intuiting something real from Tolkien, whose work was both (a) filling in the vast unknown of the ancient history of the North, but doing so as a philologist who always had an eye on the earliest known traditions (so that, e.g. the story of Frodo and the Ring can be understood as the 'real' story behind the Great Peace associated with the Heathobard King Froda); and (ii) an exploration of myth as a universal mode of talking about certain profound truths of reality.

Ecumenism is the mixing of beliefs for a common end result. Many pagans do this, as I said, but there are others who mix small concepts from other religions when worshiping Ilúvatar/Valar.

Mytho-Historical is the view that Tolkien's Legendarium is an account of real facts, of the real world. Yes.

Many members of religions based on Tolkien's Legendarium, perhaps a large majority, actually believe that his story was a mythical way of reporting aspects of reality, whether gods/legends/philosophical concepts/actual facts. But a minority doesn't believe this, they think the Legendarium is a truth in itself and not a metaphor for anything else.

[Androthelm]

Just posting this here @Firinne_Gile to say that this is the kind of thing which interests me very much and I'm going to try and find some time to read through Davidsen's work soon. Hope to be of more help once I've looked it over -- first heard about the BBoA / ЧКА years ago but I'll confess to only having read snippets here and there (I really should track it down in full) and scholarship about this kind of fan response to it would be really interesting.

[Firinne_Gile]

Just posting this here @Firinne_Gile to say that this is the kind of thing which interests me very much and I'm going to try and find some time to read through Davidsen's work soon. Hope to be of more help once I've looked it over -- first heard about the BBoA / ЧКА years ago but I'll confess to only having read snippets here and there (I really should track it down in full) and scholarship about this kind of fan response to it would be really interesting.

I agree with you. I am doing my individual research although it is very difficult to find information on the subject. My next step is to study more about Russian Tolkienism, and in the future read The Black Book of Arda as well. Perhaps I will summarize the book to show what is the line of thought of the religious who follow this book as canonical (they do). What I've seen is that they consider the author of this book to be a prophet, and Tolkien just as her predecessor. If any of you have more information, please share it with us.

[Androthelm]

Just posting this here @Firinne_Gile to say that this is the kind of thing which interests me very much and I'm going to try and find some time to read through Davidsen's work soon. Hope to be of more help once I've looked it over -- first heard about the BBoA / ЧКА years ago but I'll confess to only having read snippets here and there (I really should track it down in full) and scholarship about this kind of fan response to it would be really interesting.

[...] in the future read The Black Book of Arda as well. Perhaps I will summarize the book [...]

Do you have access to a copy? I'm struggling to find one in Russian (I know about the translated sections which have made their way to English but I'd like to read the original if I can)

[Firinne_Gile]

Just posting this here @Firinne_Gile to say that this is the kind of thing which interests me very much and I'm going to try and find some time to read through Davidsen's work soon. Hope to be of more help once I've looked it over -- first heard about the BBoA / ЧКА years ago but I'll confess to only having read snippets here and there (I really should track it down in full) and scholarship about this kind of fan response to it would be really interesting.

[...] in the future read The Black Book of Arda as well. Perhaps I will summarize the book [...]

Do you have access to a copy? I'm struggling to find one in Russian (I know about the translated sections which have made their way to English but I'd like to read the original if I can)

Unfortunately no, just a copy in Portuguese with several formatting errors, but with all the texts I think.

[Chrysophylax Dives]

[...] in the future read The Black Book of Arda as well. Perhaps I will summarize the book [...]

Do you have access to a copy? I'm struggling to find one in Russian (I know about the translated sections which have made their way to English but I'd like to read the original if I can)

Unfortunately no, just a copy in Portuguese with several formatting errors, but with all the texts I think.

This thread bakes my brain.

[Firinne_Gile]

Do you have access to a copy? I'm struggling to find one in Russian (I know about the translated sections which have made their way to English but I'd like to read the original if I can)

Unfortunately no, just a copy in Portuguese with several formatting errors, but with all the texts I think.

This thread bakes my brain.

Why?

[Chrysophylax Dives]

Why does it bake my brain, @Firinne_Gile? For the reasons indicated in my last post above. On the one hand, as a devout Catholic, I presume Tolkien would have been horrified at the idea that he had founded a new religion. On the other hand, the ritual side of things aside (this strikes me as an alien implant) the people you describe do in some way 'get' what Tolkien was trying to do at a deep level. (Probably there is no contradiction and the apparent tension can be explained through Tolkien's 'On Fairy-stories', with its distinction between enchantment and delusion, with the latter said to be what happens to mortals who witness a real elvish fairy story. Still, given that Tolkien makes clear that he aspires to the elvish craft, religious Tolkienists pay the highest complement to his mortal art.)

[Androthelm]

@Chrysophylax Dives I think I understand the tension you're speaking to. I also think that Tolkien as an individual created a world which he strove to make consistent with his own religious worldview -- but, by giving it that substance of that religion, he also set up this exact situation where those who don't share the broader system of belief which the Legendarium fits into are free to re-invent faith stemming out of it -- a bit like if, instead of a lizard regrowing its tail, the tail regrew a lizard.

[Chrysophylax Dives]

@Chrysophylax Dives I think I understand the tension you're speaking to. I also think that Tolkien as an individual created a world which he strove to make consistent with his own religious worldview -- but, by giving it that substance of that religion, he also set up this exact situation where those who don't share the broader system of belief which the Legendarium fits into are free to re-invent faith stemming out of it -- a bit like if, instead of a lizard regrowing its tail, the tail regrew a lizard.

Yup. Still bakes my brain.

[Firinne_Gile]

Why does it bake my brain, @Firinne_Gile? For the reasons indicated in my last post above. On the one hand, as a devout Catholic, I presume Tolkien would have been horrified at the idea that he had founded a new religion. On the other hand, the ritual side of things aside (this strikes me as an alien implant) the people you describe do in some way 'get' what Tolkien was trying to do at a deep level. (Probably there is no contradiction and the apparent tension can be explained through Tolkien's 'On Fairy-stories', with its distinction between enchantment and delusion, with the latter said to be what happens to mortals who witness a real elvish fairy story. Still, given that Tolkien makes clear that he aspires to the elvish craft, religious Tolkienists pay the highest complement to his mortal art.)

I understand guys, but as a matter of fact, I don't see that any religion has been founded, at least not yet. Most of them are very small groups that usually cease to exist after some time when the founders stop trying to coordinate a deeper vision of that faith. It is very difficult to reach a consensus among them and the openness to other religious and philosophical ideas makes everything worse. Most of them consider the gods or the God of Tolkien's Legendarium to be inspirational, even in a religious form of inspiration. Most of this people don't take this as deeply as a traditional religion. And most of them accept the idea of just calling God by the name Ilúvatar. When you look at these groups closely you see that their faith is not as deep as for example, Abrahamic religions. They can accept that the God of the Bible and the God of Tolkien are the same, that both stories are true since Tolkien was a Catholic. It's a faith that's very open to accepting other religious aspects, so it's not as well-founded as it might seem.

[Chrysophylax Dives]

Hi @Firinne_Gile,
I've enjoyed thinking about this - thank you (though i have been too lazy to read any of the long pdf studies). you did cause me to question my identity as a 'fanatic' (as a member of this plaza). and i can see why, with your questions in mind, you came to an online home of self-identifying fanatics. you maybe should enter other forums with your question; lore is not usually where the great and dubious and wonderful of the plaza are to be found. but i also wonder if the very word 'religion' closes doors. the word can mean lots of things, not all welcome to everyone. You say as much:

Most of this people don't take this as deeply as a traditional religion. And most of them accept the idea of just calling God by the name Ilúvatar. When you look at these groups closely you see that their faith is not as deep as for example, Abrahamic religions. They can accept that the God of the Bible and the God of Tolkien are the same, that both stories are true since Tolkien was a Catholic. It's a faith that's very open to accepting other religious aspects, so it's not as well-founded as it might seem.

You see, while I would reject any label with the term 'religion' I could go along with the most of this - the way you put things seems to me to come quite close by what Tolkien had in mind when he wrote of 'true myth'. So much of the emphasis on Tolkien as a philologist concerns the lost Northern or Germanic stories that it is easily overlooked that the more general context of later 19th-philology was a highly explosive Biblical criticism, which opened the door to educated atheism. I think it would not be wrong to say that Tolkien went against this grain and perceived a profound harmony between language, story, and the Bible (and other 'true myths'). The way you put things seems quite a good expression of this, and to the degree that I understand such high reading (little) I am sympathetic to it.

Edit. The other side of the coin, though, is that if the biblical stories and the ancient greek and (largely lost) northern stories of the gods are myths on a par with those that Tolkien composed, this suggests that all the traditional religion that has come down to us is the product of wild artists like Tolkien. I don't think Tolkien quite understood how his own stories were so good that they undermined Revelation.

Not sure any of that helps. But thanks for posting something interesting!

[Ankala Teaweed]

@Chrysophylax Dives I think I understand the tension you're speaking to. I also think that Tolkien as an individual created a world which he strove to make consistent with his own religious worldview -- but, by giving it that substance of that religion, he also set up this exact situation where those who don't share the broader system of belief which the Legendarium fits into are free to re-invent faith stemming out of it -- a bit like if, instead of a lizard regrowing its tail, the tail regrew a lizard.

From what I have read in his Letters, J.R.R. Tolkien pulled out every overtly religious element from his story. Yet, his firm belief in humanity's "Fall," remains. A person can "fall" and be redeemed, such as was Boromir. Gollum wasn't redeemed, nor was Saruman, though he was given every chance.

Wow there are a lot of strange things people do--that list of groupings or cult formations is wild.

Love that last post, @Chrysophylax Dives fans vs fanatics, maybe we all are a bit of both.

[Firinne_Gile]

Sorry for not responding sooner. I've already posted this on other forums, and I still intend to bring you more information on the subject in the coming months. Thanks for the answer.