08-16-01: Interesting Discussion Surrounding Tolkien

My Dad found this discussion thread on a message board the other day and he sent it to me. I thought I'd share it with all of you because I found it most interesting (the first poster is an ignoramus, but it's still interesting):

ORIGINAL POST:

When I was growing up, I became a devoted Tolkien fan. As a teen-ager dragged to church by my parents, I would sit there with my rebellious heart and daydream that Gandalf was coming any minute to rescue me and take me to Middle-Earth. I cared much more for his books than I did the Bible. Years later, I repented and threw away my many copies of his writings, becasue I had valued them higher than the scriptures; but at that time I hadn't considered Tolkien's material occultic or opposed to true Christianity. I was influenced by looking into his life and reading that he considered himself a Christian. Of course he was good friends with C.S.Lewis, whom the churches praised as a great man of God. Texe Marrs boldly disagrees with the Christian world on C.S.Lewis.
see http://www.texemarrs.com/122000/witin.htm

Upon hearing that they were making a bona-fide feature-length movie of the Lord of the Rings, I immediately began to look forward to watching it whan it comes out in December. Then I felt the Lord telling me he didn't want me to go. This was confirmed when I read in a recent newsletter from David Meyer of Last Trumpet Ministries, that J.R.R.Tolkien was a known witch. I'm suspicious that this 'Inklings' group that Tolkien and Lewis belonged to was more than just old men casually reading their manuscripts in progress to each other.

Eastern religious thought would be melded with the so-called Christians principles in the name of tolerance and unity. Wild music and drums would be heard, and even witchcraft and books of fantasy and fables would be used to teach so-called Christian principles, such as the works of C.S. Lewis, the Harry Potter series and others. Incidentally, Clive Staples Lewis was a disciple of J.R.R. Tolkein, a known witch, and Lewis was known as "the reluctant Christian" all of his life. He had a job to do for the Illuminati. ( http://www.lasttrumpetministries.org/2001/July2001.html )

I finally had to stop denying that Tolkien's works were Satanic. Wizards like Gandalf who cast spells and use white witchcraft, Galadriel's mirror, the palentir(equivalent of a crystal ball), occultic runes, even the all-seeing eye is snuck in there and much more. And what about that one ring to rule them all? That theme seems to have been adapted for mind control programming. Fritz Springmeier has had experiences with mind-control victims who are always searching for that 'one ring'.

While reading about Joseph Smith's occultic connections on a gnostic website, I came across a lecture where they endorse Tolkien's books as one of the three greatest writings promoting the gnostic occultic worldview.

I would suggest that uncompromising Christians prayerfully consider removing Tolkien's and Lewis's books from their libraries and if they were thinking of going to see the Lord of the Rings in December, to pray about it first.

Ye cannot drink the cup of the Lord, and the cup of devils: ye cannot be partakers of the Lord's table, and of the table of devils.

I Corinthians 10:21 (see also II Corinthiams 6:14-17)

an unworthy servant of the LORD MOST HIGH YAHWEH,
James E.Whisler
http://poweredbychrist.homestead.com
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/poweredbychrist

Tolkien was a linguist. Even though he abhored allegory, if you do the research and find out when the various parts of the books were writen, you will find that the darkest parts of the books were written during the darkest days of WWII for the Allies. He nearly did not finish the books, but his (i think) nephew begged for more episodes, and in keeping the nephew's head up, Tolkien kept his OWN head up enough to finish, working through the unuterably dark days of WWII, to the end of the War.

CS Lewis is widely considered to be the dean of Catholic Fictionists. Oh right, I forgot, Catholic = Anti-Christian around here.

WHAT

A

LOAD

OF

TRIPE!!!!!

Abbey don't ever post crap like this again, you hear? Tolkien a witch? I mean, please, you must not post material that will make me puke my health-shake on the computer: you KNOW I log on at the library, and it just won't do to have my chocolate barf running all over the computer room table and into the keyboard -- especially not with school starting again here next week.

Tolkien was NOT a known witch, nor an unknown witch, nor w which or a what and... and... and in fact he didn't even inhabit the same two-dimensional universe as Texe Marrs and Mr. Whistler. Tolkien was a brilliant linguist and poet who held the .. what was it? The Bosworth-Tollers? Head Chair in the Departent of Anglo-Saxon at OXFORD, young lady. That's a raaaather large and prestigious university across the pond. His impeccable scholarly essays on the "Battle of Maldon" "Beowulf" the "Finnsburg Fragment" and various aspects of Old English language and literature fill a number of volumes. He was a devout Catholic - the most devout of catholics, in fact, and this rules out dabbling in sorcery, witchcraft, magic, etc. If you or Mssrs. Marrs or Whistler could READ THE BOOKS for starters, then READ TOLKIEN's LETTERS, then READ A FEW BOOKS OF OLD ENGLISH ESSAYS you could find absoltuely NO (repeat: NO) material with which to support this TRIPE slander-thesis which is useful only to scare the innocent, sell shit-newsletters, and keep the ignorant ever ignorant evermore.

Lewis was not a witch-disciple of Tolkien neither. He was a professor of Milton at Cambridge, as I recall. He has a number of essays on reniasance literature and a book on Milton, at least. The Inklings were together for only a few years in pubs in London, and Tolkien and Lewis had an early falling out as Lewis got the idea of writing his own fairy tales, just like JRR: Tolkien actally disliked much of Lewis' fiction as crude, slapdash, obviously allegorical and derivative -- which it is. That of course doesn't prevent it from being better than most stuff written in the 20th century. Chas. Williams (Inking No. 3) was the closest thing to a mystic or "mage" but it is still a broad libel to suggest that he had anything to do with witchcraft.

Now, granting all three of you the benefit of the doubt: what you fail to incorporate into this "review" of TLOTR is that it is set in a PRE-CHRISTIAN universe, in which the only wordly "powers" known at the time are 1) cunning 2) military might) and 3) "magic" to use the word you use. Their ain't no Christianity in Middle Earth, just as there wasn't any Christianity on Earth for 4-5 thousand years. That's the imaginative uiniverse Tolkien chose to work in. Tolkien was wrestling with the common medieval literary theme of the virtuous pagan, and what the salvation of Christ might mean for him.

In that regard, YOU WILL NOTICE that the protagonist, FRODO, renounces all three of the powers of that universe: cunning, military might, and magic. Christ did the same thing; He "renounced" all cunning and deception; He refused to augur the militant Millenial Reign of the Messiah his disciples wanted for Him, and refused to summon the angels to His defense. He renounced all power. So did Frodo: he never used the ring, except once by accident almost; he refuse military assistance, and he avoided all deceit.

One obvious object of the TLOTR trilogy is to display these chistian virtues in a pre-christian context, in order to make them come vivdly alive to the imagination again -- whereas toooooooo many so-called christians have nothing better to do with their time than bash anyone who tries to really see or understand what self-giving & self-sacrifice means. Go browse around at http://www.theonering.net and http://www.lordoftherings.net

This is so embarrassing: this crap.

Texe Marrs is like a booger on the face of literary criticism: HE DOESN'T BELONG THERE, AND HE DOESN'T LOOK VERY GOOD AS LONG AS HE HANGS ON. He's a modern Cromwell, attacking many sacred and beautiful things because his heart is like a petrified turd, God bless him, and turds are only effective while being thrown at great art.