LOTR & Spirituality [Archive]

Lil_Roo

10-04-2005, 10:21 AM

Sister Golden Hair

10-04-2005, 10:52 AM

Hello Lil_Roo and welcome to Entmoot. :)

I am moving your thread to the Lord of the Rings forum, and you will find that we already have a numerous amount of spiritual threads in the General Messages forum. Please feel free to participate in any one of them.

Again, welcome and enjoy your stay. :)

brownjenkins

10-04-2005, 11:14 AM

welcome! good question... i'm not spiritual, but since lotr is something i read at a very young age (my first "adult" book), it certainly had an effect on my outlook on life... will try to add some detailed thoughts later

Spock

10-04-2005, 11:43 AM

:( :( ;)

The Gaffer

10-04-2005, 12:18 PM

I'm not religious, but I would say that LOTR hooked into a spiritual aspect of how I relate to the natural world. Like BJ, I was probably at a particularly susceptible age, but LOTR embeds respect for nature in a way that I have not seen elsewhere.

Specifically, good things in LOTR are the ones which respect and live in harmony with their environment while evil things are the ones which don't.

olorin hamfast

10-04-2005, 04:06 PM

I was wondering if anyone could help me. I am doing some reasearch on LOTR for my 3rd yr dissertation and I would love people's input. If you could take a moment to answer the following question:

Has LOTR has any deep impact on your spiritual journey and if so in what way? (Either films or books but please state which or both)

If you don't feel comfortable posting here, please send me a message or email. By the way, this is any kind of spirituality, you don't have to be of a particular religion or belief but if you follow a particualr religion, please let me know if you answer!

Thank you very much :D

-Emily
Its possible that people, religious or not, select spiritual meaning from anything that stimulates it. A psychologist(cant remember the name) did a thesis on the soul and how (it) sings the blues by nature, even if the individual has no interest in the blues or is not musically inclined. I believe Mr Tolkien related personal spirituality in his writings, particularily in his elvish hymns, if you will. His higharchy has Eru on top, and others that follow with Mithrandir as some sort of angel from heaven who has come to help the little folk. I believe it bears some similaritites to popular religions. The Silmarillion is a good study of that, although I myself havent read any of it for many years; i have to finish reading the LotR aloud before i even think of going there! But as an agnostic, it fills a spiritual role for me. Hooray for JRR

Spock

10-04-2005, 04:09 PM

I hates the blues, I loves the reds. I also believe in Hobbits. :D

olorin hamfast

10-04-2005, 04:23 PM

Red smarties? you eat the red ones last?

Curubethion

10-04-2005, 10:21 PM

I'm not quite sure yet how much of an impact LOTR has had on me, but I do know it's chock full of Catholic allegory. Yes, I will answer objections, starting with Lotesse :D
P.S., welcome to the moot, Lil Roo :D ...you should get an avatar.

rohirrim TR

10-05-2005, 11:29 AM

Spock

10-05-2005, 12:18 PM

What????????? :confused:

Lotesse

10-05-2005, 12:21 PM

Lotesse whispers behind hand, little smile on my face *shhh! they're trying to sound like intellectuals; let 'em play! ;) *

Spock

10-05-2005, 12:29 PM

my friends in London have a name for such people: "twits". :D

rohirrim TR

10-05-2005, 02:57 PM

you have friends?? :D :D

just kidding

Spock

10-05-2005, 03:01 PM

Oh, jocularity, I recognize that. :)

inked

10-05-2005, 06:03 PM

techically LOTR has spirutual applicability, not allegory, tolkien himself despised allegory and all its forms, granted there is a spirutual applicability that i'm sure you and Lotesse can argue about :D ;)

rTR,

YOU ARE SO RIGHT!!!!!!!!!

APPLICABILITY DOES NOT EQUAL ALLEGORY!

Just thought I'd let you know you were right and all... :D .

See The Choice in Middle Earth thread for pertinent applicable commentary.

rohirrim TR

10-05-2005, 06:11 PM

thanks, at least someone agrees, or at least seems to agree ;) There really is a lot of symbolism that can be applied to life in LOTR and as tolkien was catholic i'm sure there are some parts of LOTR that were influenced by his faith

Curubethion

10-05-2005, 07:15 PM

Spock

10-05-2005, 08:16 PM

where did you get that date, no one ever mentioned that date to me, my reference books don't have a date, are you sure about that date? :confused:

Curubethion

10-05-2005, 08:27 PM

Google it. There's tons of stuff. Incidentally, what was the date this year of Good Friday? March 25
But there's more references than that. For instance, Purgatory (Paths of the Dead), Christ's Resurrection (Gandalf, it's probably been said a million times...), and in the Silmarillion are references to a Heaven and a Hell, as well as angels(good Maiar), archangels(Ainur), Satan (Melkor, including a rebellion remarkably similar to the one depicted in Revelation), and demons (evil Maiar).
But I think there's another thread for this discussion...something like "Christian themes in LOTR"...

rohirrim TR

10-05-2005, 10:19 PM

its not surprising, tolkien was a devout catholic from what i've heard and read

Spock

10-06-2005, 07:22 AM

Google it. There's tons of stuff. Incidentally, what was the date this year of Good Friday? March 25.

Ok, so this year it's 25Mar05, but another important date has been moved:
the Annunciation is being transferred to April 4th this year, more than a week after its usual date of March 25 (nine months before Christmas). So it would seem the date is a bit arbitrary; somewhat like Christmas celebrating the birth that took place in the spring.

Gwaimir Windgem

10-29-2005, 05:04 PM

The answer is a definite and profound Yes. I have always my life considered the Lord of the Rings to be a deeply spiritual work, "true" on some gloriously fundamental level, and even more concretely, it helped me to come to have a greater respect for Catholicism, which was a contributing factor in my conversion from nondenominational Protestantism to Catholicism.

I actually have know some people who considered Tolkien's mythos to be true in an astounding literal sense; I seem to remember that they called themselves "Tolkienists".

I am referring to the Book (singular!), in conjunction with Tolkien's mythos as a whole.

I was wondering if anyone could help me. I am doing some reasearch on LOTR for my 3rd yr dissertation and I would love people's input. If you could take a moment to answer the following question:

Has LOTR has any deep impact on your spiritual journey and if so in what way? (Either films or books but please state which or both)

If you don't feel comfortable posting here, please send me a message or email. By the way, this is any kind of spirituality, you don't have to be of a particular religion or belief but if you follow a particualr religion, please let me know if you answer!

Thank you very much :D

-Emily

Arien the Maia

11-11-2005, 10:44 PM

Whoops I think I used the wrong term...not allegory, but "suspicious similarities". For example, March 25 (the day the Ring was destroyed) coincides with the traditional date of the Crucifixion. Was it really a coincedence?

I also remember reading something about MArch 25th being the date of the Conception of Jesus and how this had in fact influenced Tolkien to set the date for the destruction of the Ring...as his birthday is celebrated Dec 25th...so 9 mths previouslly would be March..

LotR has helped me I think appreciate my faith more. I'm Catholic so I understand alot of the similarites in Tolkines work...mainly the ones in the Silmarillion

Forkbeard

11-17-2005, 02:16 AM

I also remember reading something about MArch 25th being the date of the Conception of Jesus and how this had in fact influenced Tolkien to set the date for the destruction of the Ring...as his birthday is celebrated Dec 25th...so 9 mths previouslly would be March..

If I may folks.....the short form, and I can provide primary evidence, is this:
in medieval thought Adam and Eve were created on March 25 and sinned on that day; the Annunciation took place on March 25, as did the Crucifixion, Jesus was hung on a tree which of course was either a descendant of the tree, or the very tree itself from which Adam and Eve ate and by the way, Adam was buried on Golgotha.

The Tolkien associations are many: the Fellowship begins its journey from the "inn" at Rivendell on Dec. 25. The whole thing is over on March 25. I think Tolkien is using medieval typology....an event or person who remains and always is itself, but is also a type or signifies something or someone else: Moses is always Moses, but he also signifies Christ in this kind of thinking. It isn't allegorical in which the thing really has no identity of its own independent of what it signifies: Everyman in the play has no real identity in the story apart from signifying what Everyman faces if that makes sense.

Arien the Maia

11-17-2005, 10:19 AM

If I may folks.....the short form, and I can provide primary evidence, is this:
in medieval thought Adam and Eve were created on March 25 and sinned on that day; the Annunciation took place on March 25, as did the Crucifixion, Jesus was hung on a tree which of course was either a descendant of the tree, or the very tree itself from which Adam and Eve ate and by the way, Adam was buried on Golgotha.

The Tolkien associations are many: the Fellowship begins its journey from the "inn" at Rivendell on Dec. 25. The whole thing is over on March 25. I think Tolkien is using medieval typology....an event or person who remains and always is itself, but is also a type or signifies something or someone else: Moses is always Moses, but he also signifies Christ in this kind of thinking. It isn't allegorical in which the thing really has no identity of its own independent of what it signifies: Everyman in the play has no real identity in the story apart from signifying what Everyman faces if that makes sense.

this is an interesting take on it...I had no idea about the whole thing/belief about Jesus' cross being descended from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil...