# Was Tolkien Familiar with occultism?



## feanor75 (Feb 3, 2014)

The ancient knowledge which was ezoteric for many years, was recently released for everyone. It was known to the ancient cultures such as the Indian and the Persian, The Greek, the Jewish mystics (Kabalah), Christian mystics and other. Rudolf Steiner who lived 100 years ago, and is most known as the founder of Anthroposophy, gave this knowledge in more bright way.
I found several important similarities between the occultism and Tolkien books, for example:

-The Idea of creating the world by music.

-A divine Hierarchy of gods, each of the gods represents a different aspect. This of course we can find also in other known mythologies.

-The devil as one of the gods who betrayed, in order to have his own self, separated from the hierarchy.

-The similarity between the Balrogs and the Seraphim. In the occultism, The Seraphim are beings who stand at the top of the hierarchy, below the Trinity, as much as I know they are spirits of fire. The name Saraph came from Hebrew- Saraf refers to burning. They belong to the good side, but parallel beings from the same kind (all along the hierarchy) serve also in the opposite side, which in some sense is "The evil side".

-In the occultism, unlike the known duality of god and devil, there is a trio: the good spiritualist side (ruled by the trinity), a devil of spiritualism- Lucifer, and another devil of materialism- Ahriman. One must find the balance between Lucifer and Ahriman in order to keep his correct progress, and this he can achieve by the guidance of the good spirit, named Christ by Christianity, "Ahura Mazda" by the Persians, and so on- the names do not matter. And now back to Tolkien, in the Middle earth at the third age we can find a rather similar structure: The good side of course, then the spiritual devil is Sauron who is willing for power, he does not care much about treasures and material, and last is Saruman who is a materialist, he loves machines and advancement, he wants to turn the whole world into one big industrial area, just like Ahriman. Notice that the name Saruman reminds of Ahriman.

My own conclusion is one of two (or both):


Tolkien learned some occult knowledge in the church
Tolkien got a divine inspiration in his work
I tend to the first one, without reducing his great level of creativity.

Would be nice to hear your opinions about it


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## jallan (Feb 20, 2014)

You don’t explain what you mean by ancient knowledge that is now released for everyone.

The idea of the world being created along with music appears in Job 38:7. God asks: 4 “Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation? Tell me, if you understand. 5 Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know! Who stretched a measuring line across it? 6 On what were its footings set, or who laid its cornerstone— 7 while the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted for joy?” However here the earth is only said to have been created along with music, not specifically by music.

The Valar and Maiar are derived from multlple deities of many pantheons: Greek, Egyptian, Phoenician, Babylonian, Hindu, Germanic (Norse and German) and Irish for example. Tolkien himself writes in Letter 131 of _Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien_ about his gods:
On the side of a mere narrative device, this [the existence of the gods] is, of course, meant to provide beings of the same order of beauty, power, and majesty, as the ‘gods’ of higher mythology, which can yet be accepted – well, shall we say baldly, by a mind that believes in the Blessed Trinity.​No knowledge of any occultism is necessary.

The devil does not appear at all in many mythologies, notably Greek and Roman. The Norse mythology has Loki and Persian mythology has Ahriman. Other mythologies introduce demons or giants as the enemies of the gods, but mostly they have no one ruler over them. I suppose in Irish myth the Formorian Balor may count as such a ruler.

Balrogs are simply fire demons of a sort. Of course these are roughly parallel to similar beings in some mythologies, such as the Sons of Muspelheim in Norse mythology or the devils in Christian mythology.

I know of no system that includes both Lucifer and Ahriman as separate beings other than the system of Rudolf Steiner. That Steiner must use two names from different belief systems which in those systems mean approximately the same thing indicates that this was Steiner’s own invention, not part part of your imaginary single occult system.

Steiner named this system Anthroposophy. There are many system which may be called occultism besides Steiner’s. Tolkien was a member of the Inklings of which another member was Owen Barfield who was a declared Anthroposophist and follower of Steiner all his life. But except for one remark in _The Hobbit_ by Tolkien in chapter 12, little influence of Barfield is visible. The remark is:
To say that Bilbo’s breath was taken away is no description at all. There are no words left to express his stgggerment, since Men changed the language that they learned of the elves in the days when all the world was wonderful.​But this remark relates to Barfield’s theory of the development of language rather than anything that Steiner wrote, so far as I know. And Barfield’s own books scarcely refer to Steiner’s own teachings.

Tolkien’s mythology comes from common knowledge of Christian belief and pagan beliefs direct, not from any of Steiner’s writings.

You are dishonest in identifying Steiner’s Anthroposophy with occultism in general.


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## feanor75 (Feb 28, 2014)

-The ancient knowledge, ezoteric knowledge from different cultures: Kabalah, Christian saints, Zarathustra and else, all gave different ways and aspects for actually the same thing.

I suggest you would not talk so confidently about things you do not understand. If you got your knowledge in universities you better forget of it, because it does not worth much when talking about the real existence. The modern world including the education institutes are completely ruled by the material illusion, by Ahriman.
To define Anthroposophy as "Steiner invention" is nothing but ignorance, from the evil kind and not much intelligent. Steiner has not invented anything. Like all the occultists who lived before him, he got his knowledge directly from the spirit worlds. It's more "knowing" than a "knowledge". All along the history there were sanctified and got the access to the truth, each of them in his own level. Steiner was one of them, and I believe he reached a very high level, that helped him to see that the humanity goes between Ahriman and Lucifer. The old Christian view of reality puts all the material as negative, and spiritualism as positive, but this exactly the way of Lucifer to oppose the humanity progress by keeping it "flying" in spiritual fantasies.
Tolkien's friendship with an enthusiastic Anthroposophist such as Owen Barfield which you've mentioned, absolutely can be the source for some of the similarities I've pointed at. This we might never know.
I got the feeling that Tolkienists do not like this comparison because in their eyes it damages the level of originality of Tolkien in his works. This has no base, because Tolkien was only inspired by other in a very legitimate way, and he created a new master piece with the highest level of creativity. Unnecessary to say he was and will always be my favorite author ever.


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## jallan (Mar 22, 2014)

feanor75 said:


> -The ancient knowledge, ezoteric knowledge from different cultures: Kabalah, Christian saints, Zarathustra and else, all gave different ways and aspects for actually the same thing.



No they don’t. Steiner himself disagreed with these different faiths as actually preached. And only Steiner’s Anthroposophy system distinguishes Satan and Ahriman as different beings within the same system. Prove me wrong by naming a source dated before Steiner invented Anthroposophy that does so. If you can‘t then your claim that all these other systems are the same is not true.



> I suggest you would not talk so confidently about things you do not understand. If you got your knowledge in universities you better forget of it, because it does not worth much when talking about the real existence. The modern world including the education institutes are completely ruled by the material illusion, by Ahriman.



So all university teaching is wrong. Only Steiner is right. All teaching by universities about literature, science, mathematics, biology, physics is wrong, absolutely worthless, unless it agrees with Steiner’s teachings. I don’t believe that at all. Either do most people. You don’t believe it either, or why are you seeking knowledge by looking for it on a computer system developed by those trained primarily by the university system?

Tolkien’s similarities to various occult beliefs have been studied by many scholars and their origins are well known by those who have never read Steiner. It is simply not necessary to read Steiner to understand them, or to read most medieval Christian or pagan sources. And Tolkien’s legendarium has only one being of primal evil only, Morgoth, of whom Sauron is only a servant in origin. I mention this because this is one of the main differences between Tolkien’s cosmos and the cosmos of Christianity, Judaism, Islam, and Zoroastrianism/ as compared to Anthroposophism. 

To a true believer likewise Jesus, Mohammed, Zarathustra, Mani, Krishna, and Confucius got their knowledge directly from the spirit world, and yet their religious systems do not agree. How is Steiner any different, except he does not have as many followers. 



> To define Anthroposophy as "Steiner invention" is nothing but ignorance, from the evil kind and not much intelligent. Steiner has not invented anything.



If Steiner invented nothing, then those who follow him must be morons. Steiner at least _created_ Anthroposophy as a system which at least incorporates a form of Christianity different from all other forms of Christianity. So, the true believer in Antroposophy of course believes that Steiner invented nothing and he got everything from some spiritual reality. The nonbeliever of course takes it as only invention. Again this is the usual religious non-argument, whatever the believer believes is true, and so not an invention, and whatever other religious or agnostics or atheists say is at least partially false invention. But really, simply taking the religious line that any one who does not share your faith is automatically wrong on every point and depraved just doesn’t work. Most religious people admit that some of other faiths are mostly good people, and that some may be better people than many who follow their own faith. And that the marks their doctor got at university are more important usually than his or her religious or philosophical beliefs.

If not believing in Steiner according to your belief makes me and so many others evil, then maybe it is your belief that is at fault.



> I got the feeling that Tolkienists do not like this comparison because in their eyes it damages the level of originality of Tolkien in his works.



Then you are wrong. Tolkien’s work, except on the literary level, is not particularly original. If you had come here honestly and said that you were a follower of Steiner and wanted to know if there was evidence of any influence of Steiner’s thinking or of his Anthroposophical system on _The Lord of the Rings_ you might have gotten an honest and friendly answer. Instead you mentioned neither Steiner nor Anthroposophy but only used the word _occult_, which is not in normal use equated with Anthroposophy. See any web dictionary or non-web dictionary for common use of the word _occult_. Are you in fact ashamed of Steiner and Anthroposophy?

Now you blame Tolkienists in general because they don’t like to bring Steiner into the mix because they believe that doing so would damage his originality. Tolkien was an English professor specializing in Old English and Middle English and he also taught Old Norse. He also wrote some fantasy works. He was also a strong and traditional Roman Catholic. And he had an interest in medieval Welsh literature and the Finnish _Kalevala_ and was somewhat interested in Arthurian legend and in fairy tales. I do not see anything in Tolkien’s fantasy cosmos that is not fully explained by those interests and that requires any knowledge of Anthroposophy whatsoever. The pagan related material that appears in his fantasy works is reasonably common knowledge and appears in earlier fantasy works some of which it is known that Tolkien enjoyed.

One does not needs to know anything about Anthroposophy for anything that Tolkien has written. or indeed for any fantasy novels. If Tolkien’s writing in this area seem esoteric and Steineristic to you, then I suggest it is because you are more familiar with then from Steiner than from Tolkien’s actual sources, the original medieval texts and, of course, Plato and the Bible. Most important, Tolkien only has one prime evil being, Morgoth, not two, which I still believe to be Steiner’s invention because I am unaware of any system before Anthroposophy which had two prime evil beings and, like most people, I do not accept Rudolf Steiner as my prophet. If you say that this is standard occult tradition, provide the source.

Rather than inventing the factoid that Tolkienists do not accept Steiner’s influence on Tolkien for extrinsic reasons you might consider the possibility that, in reality, Steiner had no noticeable influence on Tolkien.


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## feanor75 (Apr 5, 2014)

well, you fail into the same old trap. there is no contradiction between all the different kinds of occultism which I've mentioned, just that each of them give a different aspect or represents a different level of sphere which those who gave it to the world have reached in their occult research, occult seeing of the reality.

you are right only about that Steiner was the first one among occultists who presents a trio and not a dual about god&satan.
You were not able to understand these simple points because of a typical materialis failure in your logical thinking, which is not high enough. All the universities and sciences you mentioned suffer the same failure like you, so you can be proud if you want..but this why science does not go anywhere since tens of years, because thinking of the reality only in material terms, just like you in you examine.
you are negative, It's usually comes from fears you have inside, but it shows weakness and not strength.

Even about Tolkien world you were not precise, even Melkor was not exactly evil at the first moment, his actions expressed more a wish to be an individual, out of the divine order of Iluvatar. and in this point again its very similar to occultism, its rather the same explanation for what happened to Lucifer, that made him "evil", he wanted an independence. so thank you for strengthen my argument in another point.


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## jallan (Apr 22, 2014)

feanor75 said:


> well, you fail into the same old trap. there is no contradiction between all the different kinds of occultism which I've mentioned, just that each of them give a different aspect or represents a different level of sphere which those who gave it to the world have reached in their occult research, occult seeing of the reality.



You believe a particular system that you call occultism. Others don’t believe it at all. Others disagree with many occult practices while agreeing with others. That’s not going to change. Do you believe in gematria? Which of the various systems of gematria? Do you believe in astrology? Which of the various systems of astrology? These occult systems exist as belief systems which are incompatible with one another. Same with tarot interpretations or any other occult system you can find. I only hear you saying that Steiner alone gives the truth, in which case you are no different from any other pusher of a belief system that simply claims that they alone speak the truth, while everyone else is wrong. *Sigh!* These various systems disagree radically with one another.

You can say that Roman Catholicisim, Mormonism, Islam, Protestantism, Buddhism, Hindusim, and Shintoism are really the same thing, but in so doing you indicate that most teachers in those traditions are liars. They don’t agree with you. At the same time you insist that your teaching is the true teaching, even where it disagrees with what these religions state. Your belief is very confused, unless you are truly teaching that only Steiner is the true teacher and only those who accepted Steiner’s beliefs on religions have the truth. So which is it? 



> you are right only about that Steiner was the first one among occultists who presents a trio and not a dual about god&satan.



Then you admit that your claim that what you presented as arising from general occultiim does not arise from general occultism, but was an innovation of Steiner’s. Then why did you lie so obviously by posting quite differently before?



> You were not able to understand these simple points because of a typical materialis failure in your logical thinking, which is not high enough. All the universities and sciences you mentioned suffer the same failure like you, so you can be proud if you want..but this why science does not go anywhere since tens of years, because thinking of the reality only in material terms, just like you in you examine.
> you are negative, It's usually comes from fears you have inside, but it shows weakness and not strength.



Science has progressed widely in the last ten years, and long before that. No I am not able to believe your statement, which is simply not true. Advances in genetics are obvious, and also in physics, and also in computer science, but really in all fields of science. So why do you lie so obviously by suggesting that science doesn’t go anywhere? The micro-computer you are using is probably far more powerful than any micro-computer available ten years ago, and by Moore’s Law, this is expected to continue, though some slowing is expected by many, in the number of the number of transistors on integrated circuits doubling every three years instead of every two years as has been true since Moore first stated his projection in 1965. My computer has more power than any print shop on earth had twenty years ago in what it can produce, and I only use free fonts and fonts that come to me free with my operating system.

This putting down of science, with no details, is something I expect from fundamentalist religious organizations, not from a movement which claims to be humanist and rational. However one finds Steiner himself claiming that islands on Earth are not based on a fixed foundation but float on the sea, being held in place by stellar influences. And gravity does not exist. 



> Even about Tolkien world you were not precise, even Melkor was not exactly evil at the first moment, his actions expressed more a wish to be an individual, out of the divine order of Iluvatar. and in this point again its very similar to occultism, its rather the same explanation for what happened to Lucifer, that made him "evil", he wanted an independence. so thank you for strengthen my argument in another point.



I am quite aware that Tolkien believed that his Melkor was not evil in the beginning. You make a false accusation about beliefs that I do not hold and have never expressed. What argument that you made do you think I have strengthened? Why do you think such lies will convince me or anyone?

You have no idea of what I know about various mythologies and where I have learned it. So how do you expect to impress me or anyone with your invented data? Stop lying, if you can. You are not making followers of Steiner look convincing by lies and false accusations.


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