I have just enjoyed Joseph Pearce’s latest work, Frodo’s Journey, which I find he has dedicated to me, an honour I am sure I do not deserve. It is an excellent book, bringing out how The Lord of the Rings is, in the words of its author, “a fundamentally religious and Catholic work”, and I am sure the good Professor Tolkien would have been greatly pleased and heartened by reading it.
Excellent as it is, I feel in one respect it could have been even better. Joseph does tackle the widespread canard that LOTR is somehow unsuitable for a Christian readership because it “promotes the use of magic” contrary to the teachings of the Faith. Tolkien himself would undoubtedly be irritated and not a little hurt by such bracketing of his writings with the likes of J.K. Rowling’s “Billy Bunter with Broomsticks” saga and sundry feebly imitative fat fantasy volumes, many of which mimic the form whilst wholly perverting the substance of LOTR.
Joseph rightly argues that, as a good Catholic who tried to reflect his Faith in his writings, Tolkien does not in fact deviate in any way from the Church’s teaching, that the use, or attempted use, of “magic”, causing things to happen in breach of Nature’s laws by use of spells, wands, rituals etc., is completely forbidden. The reason for the Church’s position is that nature’s laws can only be temporarily superseded as a result of the Will of the One who made them, whether that Will is exercised directly by the One or through the agency of a supernatural being to whom He grants permission.
Were it possible for men by their own will to compel such overriding of Nature’s laws, through reciting some often dog-Latin or pseudo-Hebraic gibberish, waving sticks about, performing rituals bizarre or worse, drawing esoteric-looking symbols on floors, or whatever, they would ipso facto be compelling the omnipotent One who made said laws, which is logically impossible. It therefore follows that the “magic” of mortals is either not magical or not mortal. Their “magic” is either a fraud perpetrated by one of their fellow “magicians” or a delusion practised upon them by a non-mortal being.
As Joseph demonstrates, much that might seem magical in Tolkien’s work is clearly natural and not magical, such as the cloaks of the Elves, which are not in fact in violation of Nature’s laws but the result of great craft and skill. Arthur C. Clarke’s famous Law – “any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic” – is true in this sense. For all his learning and wisdom, St. Thomas Aquinas, for example, would no doubt initially suppose the front light of my bicycle to be magical, even sorcerous, were he to be transported into the twenty-first century. He would come to realize that, far from being magic or sorcery, it simply uses the laws of nature in ways he did not know. This is why the craftsmanship of the Elves in weaving cloaks and ropes for the use of the Fellowship of the Ring appears to be magical to the eyes of men and hobbits whereas, in fact, it is entirely natural for the Elves and not magical at all. Although technology may be – and nowadays often is – used for evil purpose, it is not in and of itself inherently evil. It uses Nature’s laws. It does not purport to break or override them.
Where real magic appears in Tolkien it is made very clear it is not performed by Men, Elves, Dwarves, Orcs or Hobbits. Gandalf is indeed a Wizard, and one whose magic, bringing forth Fire and Light notably, certainly is depicted as really working, but, crucially, he is equally clearly not a mortal. He is a Maia, in Christian terminology an angel, as indeed is another wreaker of spells that work in Middle-Earth, Sauron, a fallen angel turned to the service of Darkness.
The Wizards of Middle-Earth differ fundamentally from those of Hogwarts in that they not only wield supernatural powers but are themselves supernatural beings, immortal members of the Hierarchy of Heaven (in some cases in revolt against Heaven, but that does not alter their essential nature). Gandalf did not learn his magic in a classroom or from a book, it was something he was created able as part of his (super)nature to do. In his case he was also sent by his Creator to Middle-Earth to do it where necessary, although he had free will and could have chosen to betray his mission without thereby forfeiting his powers, as his colleague Saruman did.
Parenthetically Gandalf’s “death”, protecting his friends in Moria, and his subsequent return as Gandalf the White, was not technically a Resurrection. As an immortal being Gandalf could not die. What he could do was lose his corporeal form and thus become impotent to act effectively in Middle-Earth unless it was restored to him by a Higher Authority – which he had no assurance would happen, so his sacrifice was genuine. A similar fate appears to have befallen Sauron, a fallen Maia, at the end of the Second Age of Middle Earth, rendering him impotent for centuries until he could regain corporeal form in the world.
As Joseph demonstrates, although I feel he could have made his point here a little more explicit, there is a fundamental difference between Tolkien’s Wizards and for example Rowling’s. Unlike Albus Dumbledore, Gandalf is not a mortal, with or without some inherited “special powers”, and also unlike Dumbledore, Gandalf’s actions do not therefore depict, approvingly or otherwise, the violation of the Christian teaching that mortals cannot practice magic, cannot command supernatural powers, and should not try to do so.
It is perilous to ask those who can wield such powers to do so. The power of Magic is wielded not by the purported magician but by a darker and far greater Power whose ends would assuredly not include the spiritual welfare of the requester, and there would be a price.
However, Tolkien goes further in supporting the Christian ban on mortals attempting magic, and thus in teaching the very lesson his critics denounce him for failing to teach, and I think Joseph would have further strengthened his defence of JRRT by pointing this out. For Tolkien does depict mortals who try to emulate Mr Potter and his chums by becoming magicians, or, as he rightly calls them, sorcerers; and those depictions are of characters very far from innocent schoolkids, with or without funny birthmarks, who come to much stickier ends.
Take, for example, the personage described by Gandalf, hardly in tones of warm approval, as “King of Angmar long ago, Sorcerer, Ringwraith, Lord of the Nazgûl, a spear of terror in the hand of Sauron, shadow of despair.” (The Return of the King, Book V, Chapter 4, The Siege of Gondor). It is made clear that he was originally a mortal Man, who sought forbidden sorcerous knowledge, and no doubt welcomed the ring he was given because it was “magic”, as did eight others of his mortal and human compeers. Magic those rings were indeed, but the magic was not of mortal making – it was imbued with its powers by one not mortal, the Maia, the fallen angel, Sauron. It was magic that served the end of its real, supernatural, non-mortal source, and not the purpose for which, no doubt, the mortal deluded into trying to wield it intended. As, one suspects the significantly-named “Witch-King” was promised, the ring he was so generously offered by Sauron did indeed extend his existence, but as a horrible torment, an apparently endlessly prolonged un-death as a slave of the ring’s real Master. This is not a depiction of magic which is likely, one suspects, to seduce the reader into dabbling therein.
Another mortal would-be magician emerges from the Black Gate of Mordor in The Return of the King, Book V, Chapter 10, The Black Gate Opens. The Mouth of Sauron is described as “of the race of those that are named the Black Numenoreans; for they established their dwellings in Middle-Earth during the years of Sauron’s domination, and they worshipped him, being enamoured of evil knowledge. And he entered the service of the Dark Tower when it first rose again, and because of his cunning he rose ever higher in the Lord’s favour; and he learned great sorcery, and he knew much of the mind of Sauron; and he was more cruel than any orc.” Again, not a role-model likely to inspire emulation.
Moreover the position of the founts of moral authority in Middle-Earth, the White Council of the Wise, on the question of mortal magic is made entirely clear when they initially, if as matters transpire incorrectly, suspect that the evil arising in Mirkwood, centred at Dol Guldur, is directed by a mortal wielding dark powers actually originating in an even darker Power. They name that would-be mortal magician the Necromancer, hardly a term of approbation.
So I would argue that it is not only the case, as Joseph ably argues, that Tolkien is true to Christian tradition in making clear that mortals cannot actually “do magic” and any genuine wizards – and sorcerers – must therefore not be mortals. He also makes absolutely clear that mortals should not try, and that such attempts inevitably end in much worse than tears.
Far from promoting, still less encouraging, anyone to dabble in “magic”, as some of his Christian critics allege, Tolkien very clearly warns them not to, and depicts terrible consequences for them if they do. Such critics should in fact be promoting Tolkien in support of their beliefs and indeed positively encouraging the impressionable to read him as an antidote to the likes of Rowling and what Joseph aptly characterizes as the “orc-oriented imitations and gollumized parodies” infesting the fantasy genre.
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