The Great Secret Knowledge and JRR Tolkien

The Secret Truth

I have encountered a good deal of people, not to mention movies, that seem to believe that somewhere out there is some secret knowledge that is the key to all things.  Whether it was destroyed in the library of Alexandria, burned with Tenochtitlan or hidden deep in the "secret vaults" of the Vatican, there is some great knowledge that the powers that be have destroyed, repressed, hidden and forbidden the world from finding.  They know this knowledge will destroy their power (so the story goes,) so they spare no cost to keep it. (Think "Davinci Code," and the like.)

Others are content to believe that the secret is simply safely kept by a monk without any vice or plot living quietly in the mountains; it is not "protected," but has simply not been discovered by the world because we haven't taken the time out of our busy lives to travel to Tibet, wander down the mountain path barefooted and there meditate in this most perfect of monasteries.

Delving into the Darkness

Yet, there is something misleading - perhaps even poisonous - about the idea that truth can only be found in a deep and hidden secret that only few will ever find.  Those who choose this path are inevitably looking to obscurity, or - more concretely - to the darkness; after all where else are secrets hidden?

Those who continually delve into the darkness looking for what the light of the sun will  never reveal are always left uneasy and discontent that there is yet some greater secret that some greater power is maliciously hiding from them.  Thus, they are left digging deeper, winding further into the darkness in the hope of finding that secret that none other, or at least only few others, have discovered. Until, like the dwarves of Moria, they delve too deep.

Here we see Gandalf battling the Balrog which they awoke:

Tolkien and the Secret Knowledge

The fantasy of J.R.R. Tolkien suggest that he held a similar opinion - i.e. that looking for secrets in the darkness was indeed poison to the soul.  Here I will use some clips from the movies based on his novels to show the point more visibly.  Besides the dwarves, consider Saruman, who seeking to know the plans of the Enemy, became ensnared by him:

and likewise, Denethor, the Steward of Gondor, whose madness drives him to kill himself:

or Theoden, who was rescued from his darkness, but had sought the secret counsel of Saruman:

There are also the kings of men who became obsessed with seeking answers in the stars or locked away in their towers; the ones who considered the names of their ancestors more important than that of their sons.  Their nobility and kingdoms soon faded.

The Anxiety of Loss


One might note the anxiety felt by the characters of the Lord of the Rings who sought counsel in dark secrets found in the fact that they could not keep the Ring for themselves to keep in secret and use as a final and ultimate weapon:

A similar anxiety can be noted in the way of thinking discussed at the beginning of this post.


On the contrary, the noble and free peoples of Middle Earth - most clearly, their heroes - sought victory in open battle, sought joy in their families and neighbours, and dwelt in the light of day.  No seeking answers in the darkness.

The Faith of Light

Faith in God is a faith of light, not of obscurity and hidden secrets.  God's greatest gift - salvation through the incarnation, death and resurrection of Christ - is most certainly a mystery, but by no means a secret.  It is not only "in the light," but it is in fact the source of light.  It is there in front of us as a free gift for everyone who is willing to receive it.
All of these characters, while not being evil in their beginning or (for the msot part) in their intentions ended up serving wickedness and coming to bad ends. 

While Tolkien's fantasy cannot rightly be called allegory, Tolkien knew that faith in God is a faith of light, and that the desire for unknown secrets leads people to believe lies; this is clearly reflected in his fantasy stories.

Tolkien's Last Letter, Bilbo Baggins' Birthday & the Hobbit's 75th Anniversary

This is an excerpt from a post on an excellent blog I read fairly regularly (my emphases in bold):

Today is Bilbo Baggins’s Birthday and yesterday was the 75th anniversary of the publication of The Hobbit.
I found an image of the edition that I first read.
I first read The Hobbit when I was in 7th grade.  I have a clear memory of sneaking some pages during a wood-shop class.   The following summer, having read everything else I could get my hands on and longing intensely for The Silmarillion, I wrote to The Professor at the urging of my grandmother (the one who had given me sets of lp records of Shakespeare plays).  The professor wrote back.   I received his letter, an aerogramme, in September 1973, some days after he had died.  In his letter he wrote that he had to be brief because people were waiting for him in the car.  He went to Bournemouth and he died that same day.  I may have the last thing he ever wrote.

Tolkien’s books were one of those pivotal forces which veered me into a life changing path.

...

Could you imagine having the last thing J.R.R Tolkien wrote in his lifetime?  Reading The Hobbit and Tolkien's books was also "one of those pivotal forces which veered me into a life changing path" for me.  I think the beauty of Tolkien's writings impact people on a much greater level then simply fictional entertainment.

But the last thing Tolkien ever wrote ... Wow!

Read the entire post at his blog, Some reflections on a life changing book.

A New Title, a New Look for LIVING IN MEXICO

Like returning to a home you haven't been to before ...

Exactly one year ago, I wrote a post about some changes in this blog (A New Direction.)  I had tried writing a blog about religion, and it didn't work. I was no longer only a Canadian living in Mexico, but also a Mexican living in Canada. (Last year was the beginning of an experiment of living in Canada for the summers and Mexico for the winters.)  Also, the blog had gone beyond its original scope of being only about my discoveries while living in Mexico as an expat. It was also about family, neighbors, our experience returning to Canada and rediscovering the Mennonite community as well.  After cancelling my blog about joining the Catholic Church, it also grew to include not only my observations on Mexican religion, but also my own personal experience with religion both in Mexico and Canada.

I considered many other titles, and after thinking I would just keep "Living in Mexico" for quite some time, finally exactly one year later I found the title returning to my favorite book from childhood and teenaged years.  The idea of the title and subtitle isn't a perfect match for the blog, but much better reflects the broad range of adventures and discoveries I like to write about.

The visual theme is also changed, from the former simple green and white to the map theme; ideal for the idea of journeys and discoveries.

St. George Kills the Dragon

I recently realized that my 4-year-old son didn’t realize that dragons are bad.  Over the past while, he has taken a liking to reading parts of the Hobbit. Instead of reading from beginning to end, he chooses the part we’re going to read by looking at the maps or drawings in the book, asking about different things he sees, and then requesting to read a part of the book about the item that caught his interest.

From early on, he was intrigued by the dragons he saw on the maps (Thror’s map, etc.)  So we’ve spent a good deal of time reading about the dragon. We first read the chapter where Bilbo enters the mountain for the first time and chats with Smaug the dragon.  So far so good.  My son asked to repeat this chapter various times, since he enjoyed it and he likes the illustration at the beginning of the chapter (a water painting by Tolkien himself.)

After a while I convinced him that we could read another part about the same dragon.  So, I read the part in which Smaug flies out to the lake town, destroys it, and is finally killed by the archer Bard, crashing down on top of the town itself into the lake.

At this point, my son perked up, looked at me and eagerly asked, “What happened to the dragon?”

“Well, he died,” I explained. “The archer shot him with an arrow, and he fell into the lake.”

“Why?” he asked.  I saw a sad expression on his face and tears started gathering in his eyes.  He was sad that the dragon had died.  I realized at this point that he didn’t know the dragon was evil.  So I explained that the dragon was destroying the town and killing people, so the archer had to shoot him to save the town.  He thought about it, but still looked doubtful and sad.

After putting the book away I thought about it, and remembered why he was sad about the death of the dragon.  The only dragon he had known of so far was the dragon in Shrek, who was a standard fairy tale dragon guarding a trapped princess to start, but turned out to be a sensitive being who falls in love with Donkey.  In the end, she helps save the day and is clearly one of the protagonists and heroes of the story.

Shrek is slightly different from the trash stories about vampires and werewolves that so many people like now (and have really nothing to do with vampires or werewolves); Shrek is a light-hearted spoof; it takes knowledge of standard fairy tales for granted and turns the stories on their heads.  It’s not a story to be taken seriously, but it has it’s humour about it, for those who know the fairy tales.  However, there’s one major problem with the idea; children don’t know the original fairy tales any more.  My generation, for the most most part, does.  We at least saw the Disney versions of fairy tales (as deficient as they are), and the watered down children’s books that are based on illustrations rather than narrative, even if we never got anything better.  At least we have some idea of how they work.  However, my generation of parents isn’t giving fairy tales to their children – not even the watered down versions.  Children think Shrek is funny, but they don’t understand that it’s making fun of another genre of stories.  It’s a genre they don’t know.  They don’t know that the dragon is a spoof on fairy tale dragons who kill heroes; the king she kills is unmanly wimp, and a mean one at that.

Shrek isn’t really important, but it was the cause of my son’s fair tale confusion; he got the spoof without getting the original, and simply thought that’s how dragons were.  The next day he asked for the same passage of the Hobbit again.  This time, I especially pointed out that this was a different kind of dragon from the one in Shrek, a bad one.  He listened carefully.

“That dragon was breaking houses, right?” he asked. “He was bad, right?”  He wasn’t sad this time, and seemed to understand what was happening somewhat.  Since then, we’ve read this chapter a few times, and re-read the previous one, placing some special emphasis on the greedy nature of the dragon as well (I point out the big pile of gold he sleeps on and that it was stolen.)

My son learned that dragons are bad just on time; shortly afterwards a friend gave us an icon of St. George killing the dragon.  Examining the icon, he pointed out to me, “This dragon is bad, like the one in The Hobbit.  He’s not a good one like in Shrek.  That’s why St. George is killing it.”

The icon and St. George are, of course, far more important than the fairy tales, yet The Hobbit helped give him some sort of understanding of what was going on.

The icon has a special meaning (in a double sense) for my son.