There and Back Again:

Creation and Reintegration from Ancient Egypt 

to J.R.R. Tolkien

 

Steven  A. Armstrong, M.A., M.Div.

 

This Article is an expansion of the essay in the Rosicrucian Digest, Vol 80:1, First Quarter 2002. To contact the author, please write to him At the Office of the Research Associate of the Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum. The views expressed and the references given are informative only, and do not necessarily reflect the position of the Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum or the Rosicrucian Order, AMORC.

         All traditional cultures and spiritualities seem to have a Myth of creation, how the world came to be. In studying them we sometimes neglect the complementary question: if the cosmos has come to be so scattered, how will it all return to its source? How can that reintegration occur?

         Our experience tells us that the condition of the world we live in is splintered, beings sundered from one another. But how do we return to the Divine Source from which all flows? Myths – coherent bodies of stories that tell us truths about the universe – can assist us in envisioning this flowing out from the Source – the Alpha movement, and returning to the Source – the Omega movement. Together with this, one of the key questions of all of Mysticism and Philosophy is that of “the One and the Many.” How can diversity arise from unity, and how can diversity return to unity, or even coexist with unity? Does such a restoration result in the loss of individuality?

         Few modern mythographers have been so successful, or touched so many hearts as has J.R.R. Tolkien, the author of The Lord of the Rings, – arguably the most popular novel of the 20^th century – and of many other mythological works. For Tolkien, an Oxford Professor of Philology, nothing could be more true than to say, “in the beginning was the Word.” He began his creative myth-making by inventing more than a dozen fully articulated languages, complete with linguistic histories, evolution, etc. which are not only self-consistent, but also in accord with the laws of linguistics in our world.^[1]

        

         Indeed, Creation of Language is a sign of the Divine Spark for Tolkien: “By making a language, the Firstborn of Ilúvatar identified themselves as Incarnates, children of the One: ‘The making of a lambe [language] is the chief character of an Incarnate,’ Pengolodh the sage of Gondolin observed.”^[2]

         The idea that Creation, Creativity and Language and Song are connected to the ancient problem of the One and the Many is as old as humanity. Before exploring Professor Tolkien’s Creation and reintegration myth, we can spend a few moments reviewing briefly several cosmogonic myths which have been held in high esteem by Rosicrucians and other mystics over the ages, those of Egypt, of the Neo-Platonists, and of Martinez de Pasqualles.

         For ancient Egypt, there was no one unified myth of Creation, but several.^[3] In Heliopolis, it was held that from the original unordered primeval waters, Nu, arose Atum the Solar God of his own power. Atum then generated the divine male-female pairs Shu and Tefnut, Geb and Nut representing the natural world. From these descended the divine family more familiar to us: Seth and Nephthys as well as Isis, Osiris, and their son Horus. The story of the dismemberment and restoration of Osiris and his ascension to Lord of the next life is well known. This myth cycle was known as the Ennead (chart from Hart).

         In Hermopolis, the city dedicated to Djeheuty (Thoth), from at least the time of the Middle Kingdom, priests celebrated the myth of the Ogdoad, four pairs of male-female deities who preexisted all, representing the primeval waters, floods, darkness and hidden dynamism. These eight interact with one another and explosively produce a burst of energy which clears the Primal Mound, the Isle of Flame (at the location of Hermopolis) where the Sun God is born and rises for the first time. This Hermopolis creation myth was understood to explain more fully how the sun arose from the primeval waters in the theology of Heliopolis. (chart from Hart):

 

Gods (frogs)	Goddesses (snakes)	Concept
Nu	Naunet	Primeval waters
Heh	Hauhet	Flood force
Kek	Kauket	Darkness
Amun	Amaunet	Concealed Dynamism, hiddenness, twilight

 

         At the city of Memphis, by the time of King Ramases II, the God Ptah’s identity had merged with that of the God Ta-Tenen (“the land which has become distinguishable”) and he was acclaimed as the sole creative deity. Ptah, the consort of Sehkmet, gives life to all divinities and others from the parts of his body, including his speech, his lips and his mouth, which some have seen as an early “logos doctrine.”

         Amun was revered as the unique creator in Thebes, “beyond the sky and deeper than the underworld.” He is the one who gives birth to the primal Ogdoad of the Hermopolis myth, and sparks them in to action with a wind and a great cry. The Leiden Hymn refers to him as “the great Honker.” Designs of geese representing this creative aspect of Amun abound, and our Museum in has an excellent example in the goose-headed striking rods of a lovely sistrum from Roman times. 

         As New Kingdom theology developed at Thebes, the Ram-headed deity Khmun was acknowledged as having created humanity on his potter’s wheel, and also cooperating with Amun as he ensures the divinity of the royal line.

         During the Amarna period, Ankhenaten is always the exception in Egyptian spirituality. For his Solar theology, the Aten is the sole divinity, and therefore, the unique creator of all that is, as evidenced in the magnificent Hymn to the Aten so familiar to Rosicrucians. This creation, as is the whole religion of the Aten, is one of light, the energy of all that is, and the outflow of divinity to all:

 

(from The Hymn to Aten Translated by John A. Wilson):

 

How manifold it is, what thou hast made!
They are hidden from the face (of man).
O sole god, like whom there is no other!
Thou didst create the world according to thy desire,
Whilst thou wert alone: All men, cattle, and wild beasts,
Whatever is on earth, going upon (its) feet,
And what is on high, flying with its wings.

 

... The world came into being by thy hand,
According as thou hast made them.
When thou hast risen they live,
When thou settest they die.
Thou art lifetime thy own self,
For one lives (only) through thee.

 

         Thus far, the Egyptian myths have dealt with the flow of creation from One into Many. The road of return is in the myth of Osiris. His dismemberment can be seen as the “bottoming out” of the dissolution of Creation, while Osiris’ restoration by Isis and the birth of Horus represent the beginning of the return, the possibility of reintegration. Thus the King (and through him/her the whole people and land) must become Osiris in the next life, reintegrating with the Divine.

         Those who are interested in researching these topics more thoroughly may also wish to investigate the Hebrew Genesis creation accounts, and the Christian Logos doctrine in the Gospel of John. Modern biblical scholarship points to the complex layers of composition in Genesis, the work of the priestly initiate editor skillfully weaving together the strands of at least two different traditions. Scholars also study the similarities and differences of the Johannine “In the beginning was the Word,” with Gnostic and Neo-Platonist wisdom. Two of the most distinctive features of this Logos mysticism derived from St. John are the absolute divinity of the Word, and the Divinization of all creation (Theosis).

         Neo-Platonism was a pervasive Mediterranean philosophical movement during the first few centuries of the Common Era, including such spiritual figures as Plotinus, Porphyry, Iamblichus, Origen and Dionysius the Areopagite, and later in a modified Christian form, Maximos the Confessor and many other Byzantine theologians.^[4]  Schematically, Neo-Platonic creation is usually understood as an emanation of being from the One (Nous in itself) to the Demiurge (Dynamis - Nous as the object of contemplation). Then the ideas or forms in the divine Mind coalesce into the World Soul, which then instantiates or incarnates them in the Cosmos.

         Important in this philosophy is the ladder of Being, emphasizing the iconic relationship of the cosmos to the One, as encapsulated in the dictum: “As Above, so Below, As Below, So Above.”

         According to both Plotinus and the Christian Gnostic Origen, the descent into matter is not evil, but is “a necessary moment in the unfolding of the divine Intellect, or God. For this reason, the descent itself is not an evil, for it is a reflection of God's essence.”^[5] It is simply experienced as an evil by the individual, veiled in ignorance of the whole. Theoria – contemplation of the Divine Nous – and the transformation of the self that results from such a contemplative orientation – accomplishes the return to the whole. Thus Neo-Platonism envisions both a descent into the world, and an eventual return of all.

         Martines de Pasqualles (1727-1774) is a mysterious figure in history, but one well known to Rosicrucians and Martinists. His creation story can be found in The Treatise on the Reintegration of Beings.^[6]  One reading of this deep work suggests the following interpretation: The first beings (Angelic) emanated from God, but some of these fell by lacking harmony with God, and were sent into a lower world for their restoration. A collective Humanity “Adam” was created to guide them back, but was also deluded by the fallen spirits and falls into further dissolution. The Reconciler is sent to restore the Way of return. The road back is based on re-establishing that Harmony, and humanity will be the reconciler for all other parts of creation.

         Pasqualles’ Creation theology is a mystical and contemplative combination of Judaeo-Christian, Neo-Platonic and Hermetic thought, but also emphasizes, without pride and very humbly, the role that humanity must play in the reintegration of Being.

 

         For decades, critical attention has been focused on the literary and philosophical work of the group of Oxford writers known as “The Inklings.” Best known of these, and most frequently discussed together in scholarship, are C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien and Charles Williams, but the group also included, sometimes tangentially, Owen Barfield, Dorothy Sayers and others.

         Some have seen Platonic and Neoplatonic elements in Lewis, Tolkien and Williams, yet Mary C. Rose hits closer to the mark when she reflects that it is much easier to categorize Lewis and Williams as Christian Platonists than Tolkien.^[7]  Tolkien’s project is more complex, and draws elements from Platonism & Neoplatonism, Christianity and other mythologies, yet is an original synthesis of these elements, and a unique contribution to Literary theory and practice.  

         Tolkien, a devout Roman Catholic was certainly a committed Christian; yet, his Secondary World is one of “High Fantasy”: there are no obvious links or movement from our world to “Middle-Earth,” and, while there are “Christ figures” in The Lord of the Rings (as there are in most of Western Literature), there is no allegorical symbolizing of Christian history, metaphysics, etc.

         Indeed, the name of God is not mentioned in The Lord of the Rings, and the characters appear to pray to god-like beings known as the  Ainur or Valar, and chiefly to the female Vala, Varda, known in Elvish Sindarin as Elberteth Gilthoniel (“Star-Queen Star-Kindler”).

         There are several keys to understanding the work of Professor Tolkien. First, the Professor often remarked on his “cordial disregard for allegory in all its forms.”^[8]  He insisted that his work not be interpreted in this way, but rather be understood as “applicable” to real life, not isomorphic to it.

         Second, in 1947, Tolkien contributed an essay, “On Fairy Stories” to a Festschrift for Charles Williams.^[9]  This essay, sets forth his understanding of anthropology and human creativity, and their ramifications.

         Third, 1977 saw the long awaited edition of The Silmarillion published posthumously, edited by the Professor’s son Christopher. It contains the finished form of Tolkien’s Cosmogonical Myth (as he called it), Ainulindalë, that is, in the Elvish tongue Quenya, “The Music of the Ainur.” Subsequently, Christopher Tolkien has published two older versions of the Ainulindalë in his 12 volume History of Middle Earth from his father’s notebooks, from 1918 to the 1930s.^[10]

         Before examining the text itself, it is important to briefly sketch Tolkien’s philosophical underpinnings for his art. In “On Fairy Stories,” he writes:

 

“Dear Sir,” I said -- “Although long estranged,

Man is not wholly lost nor wholly changed.

Dis-graced he may be, yet is not de-throned,

and keeps the rags of lordship once he owned:

Man, Sub-creator, the refracted Light

through whom is splintered from a single White

to many hues, and endlessly combined

in living shapes that move from mind to mind.

Though all crannies of the world we filled

with Elves and Goblins, though we dared to build

Gods and their houses out of dark and light,

and sowed the seed of dragons -- ‘twas our right

(used or misused). That right has not decayed:

we make still by the law in which we’re made.”^[11]

 

         “On Fairy Stories” is filled with important material, but this vision of humans as Sub-Creators is the key for our present investigation. In an Epilogue to the essay, Tolkien amplifies this concept by reference to the Christ-mythos.^[12] Primary Art is Creation, and God is the Primary Artist. The Primary world or cosmos created by God is real, and therefore self-consistent. Secondary worlds may and should be sub-created by creatures, since the Primary World (and especially human beings) are made in the Image and Likeness of The Creator.

         Sub-Creation is in some sense the job of all art, but, according to Tolkien, especially the task of the writer of the tales of Færie.^[13]  Such an artist sub-creates a Secondary world, that, while different from the Primary world, has the “inner consistence of reality,”^[14] and therefore can command Secondary Belief. It does not contradict the underlying principles of the Primary Creation.

         This conception of the Human artist as Sub-Creator is not entirely alien to Platonism in the “ladder of being.” We share with The Creator, in a diminished way, the “form” of “Creator.” Indeed, it seems that in some sense for Tolkien, the most salient aspect of the Good (God) is that it is Creative. The Good is an awesome beauty, both terrifying and fascinating, similar to the way in which Being appears in Qaballah:

 

“...the Oxford Mythmakers held that the Good, or its representative, unites within itself the qualities of severity and largesse, great beauty and great dreadfulness.”^[15]

 

         Tolkien’s praise of Creativity as one of the most important aspects of God is not that distant from Plotinus and Origen’s idea that the involution or emanation into matter is “a necessary moment in the unfolding of the divine Intellect.” Tolkien views creation as the supreme art, God’s greatest achievement. Creative creatures (humans, elves, et al. – the Erusen – children of The One) can do few things more Divine than to sub-create, especially in language and myth.

         With this understanding of Tolkien’s approach to Sub-Creative art, we may now look at his “Cosmogonical Myth” in the Ainulindalë. Knowing that he dislikes and disdains allegory, we should not expect a roman à clef  for any other story. Its narrative fabric must have inner consistency, and an applicability to the Primary Creation. Sub-Creation (secondary art and belief) cannot, for Tolkien, at its deepest levels of meaning, contradict Primary reality and belief.

         First, let us sketch briefly the Ainulindalë’s Cosmogony:

 

“There was Eru, the One, who in Arda is called Illúvatar; and he made first the Ainur, the Holy Ones, that were the offspring of his thought, and they were with him before aught else was made. And he spoke to them, propounding to them themes of music; and they sang before him, and he was glad. But for a long time they sang only each alone, or but few together, while the rest harkened; for each comprehended only that part of the mind of Illúvatar from which he came, and in the understanding of their brethren they grew but slowly. Yet even as they listened, they came to deeper understanding, and increased in unison and harmony.”^[16]

 

Then Eru finally propounds a musical theme, and commands the Ainur to fashion it into a “great music.” This they do, making the most wonderful music of all, so powerful that it

 

“went out into the Void, and it was not void. Never since have the Ainur made any music like unto this music, though it has been said that a greater still shall be made before Illúvatar by the choirs of the Ainur and the Children of Illúvatar after the end of days.”^[17]

 

         This blissful state of affairs continues until Melkor, most powerful of the Ainur, decides to weave themes of his own into the music, and creates a dissonance, striving to create a reality of his own. His discord spreads, until The One must intervene. This he does three times, once inviting Melkor to join a new theme. When Melkor refuses, and sticks to his old dissonance, overwhelming the new melody, Illúvatar brings forth a music “wide and beautiful, but slow and blended with an immeasurable sorrow, from which its beauty chiefly came.”

         Still Melkor refuses to cease his own theme, and a third time Illúvatar arises, and silences all the music. He declares that although the Ainur are mighty, “no theme may be played that hath not its uttermost source in me.” He tells them that he will show them what they have wrought with their music. But Melkor begins to nurse a secret anger born of his shame before Illúvatar.

         The One leads them to the Void, and shows them a vision of the cosmos, which is the product and working out of their music, including Melkor’s. They gazed in wonder at the vision of the world and its peoples. But it was a vision only, and it vanished after a while. The Ainur were troubled by this, so enamored had they become, and so Illúvatar declared to them:

 

 “’I know the desire of your minds that what ye have seen should verily be, not only in your thought, but even as ye yourselves are, and yet other. Therefore I say: Eä! Let these things Be! And I will send forth into the Void the Flame Imperishable, and it shall be at the heart of the World, and the World shall Be; and those of you that will may go down into it.’ And suddenly the Ainur saw afar off a light, as it were a cloud with a living heart of flame; and they knew that this was no vision only, but that Illúvatar had made a new thing: Eä, the World that Is.”^[18]

 

         When they descend into Eä (known from the point of view of creation as Arda), they find it not yet as in the vision of their music, but still “on the point to begin and yet unshaped.” It is their task to shape all the world: this is, in the medieval sense, to be their achievement. Many of the Valar – as the Ainur are known in the midst of creation – descend into Arda, taking forms similar to Humans and Elves, and begin their work. Melkor, comes later, and makes war upon his fellow Valar, constantly spoiling or limiting what they can do. Thus Creation begins.

         Much of Creation is the work of the Valar, but the Creation of Elves and Humans is Illúvatar’s own. They are the Erusen, the Children of Eru, and – I would argue, have much the same role as Adam Cadmon or Adam-Eve in Martines de Pasqualles and Qaballah: to ultimately reintegrate the Cosmos with Eru, even finally harmonizing the music of the Ainur, since “a greater [music] still shall be made before Illúvatar by the choirs of the Ainur and the Children of Illúvatar after the end of days.”

         The Valar who descend into Arda are a company of 14 male-female pairs, headed by Manwë and Varda, and a 15^th, alone, the rebel Melkor. The concept of the necessity of the balance of masculine and feminine energy is consistent with Egyptian, Qabbalistic and the thought of Pasqualles:

 

Lords of the Valar    Queens of the Valar (Valier)[19] 

 • Manwë Súlimo      • Varda Elentári 

 • Ulmo                  • Yavanna Kementári 

 • Aulë the Smith       • Nienna 

 • Oromë                 • Estë the Gentle 

 • Mandos (Námo)     • Vairë the Weaver 

 • Lórien (Irmo)         • Vána the Ever-young 

 • Tulkas Astaldo       • Nessa

 

         The rest of the Silmarillion carries out these themes. One of the key mythic motifs of this cycle of tales is the diminution and splintering of the divine light in the world, which Manwë and the Faithful Valar and others try to preserve, and Melkor continuously tries to destroy. The last remaining splinter of the that light is in the surviving Silmaril (a Jewel) which Eärendil the Mariner took upon his brow, as he sails among the heavens (becoming the evening and morning star).^[20]

         The Quenta Silmarillion ends with an interesting note, which actually turns out to be of the utmost importance, to which we will return in a moment. The following book, the Akallabêth is concerned with Men and the rise and fall of their Island Kingdom of Númenor, tricked by Sauron, servant of Melkor.

         The idea of Creation as a musical Theme has resonances in the ancient concept of Amun as “the Great Honker” and Ptah creating by his Mouth.  More important for the Narrative, however, is that a musical creation enables Tolkien to creatively play with the concepts of unity and diversity.

         Music in parts is a union of diverse elements, all oriented together to create harmony. Thus the Unity of the One is not diminished by the diversity of the contributions by the Ainur, who after all are singing themes from his mind, Diversity in itself is not destructive of unity, only discordant difference is, as is seen when Melkor tries to strike out on his own.

         Melkor wants to create his own cosmos, of which he will be the god. His sub-Creation lacks one of the necessary elements: consistency with the Primary Art (Reality). The Ainur, even when they descend into Arda, have creative power, but it is, in the final analysis, Sub-Creation of a special sort. They have a delegated power to Create,  The implication is that what they create, although real, is a reflection of the really-real, which is in the mind of Eru. The Valar’s being, and the being of what they create, is after all, contingent being.

         That this is Tolkien’s intent is made clear in the tale of the Vala Aulë’s creation of the Dwarves, told in the Quenta Silmarillion. Aulë attempts to make the race of Dwarves in secret, apart from Illúvatar, but can only cast images of himself. “For thou hast from me as a gift thy own being only, and no more...,” God tells him. When he repents of his attempt, Illúvatar endows his Sub-Creation, the Dwarves, with real being, but they still carry the flaws of being made in the filtered image of Aulë, rather than directly in the image of Illúvatar. ^[21] The “Children of Illúvatar” are specifically the Races of Elves and Humans, who were created directly by Eru in his “third musical theme” of beauty and sadness.^[22]

         These Valar may be Demiurgic^[23] Sub-Creators, but they are not (except for Melkor), rebellious or fallen Emanations. Their descent into Arda is not only voluntary, but urged on them by Illúvatar: “...they had become enamored of the beauty of the vision...”^[24]  Instead of a Fall, this is Illúvatar’s way of making sure that they would want to descend into the unformed Arda to set about its effoliation!

         It is Melkor’s disharmony which is the introduction of evil into the whole created cosmos. All the rest of creation is simply born into “Arda Marred,” (the fallen world), and shares la condition cosmique. The melody of the Children of Eru is of beauty and sadness because of their coming struggles to reconcile oppositions.

         Finally, some last pieces fall into place to make it clear Professor Tolkien’s conception. Even though the first harmony of the Ainur was wonderful, a yet more wonderful music would be sung at the end of time by the Ainur and the Children of  Illúvatar:

 

“Then the themes of  Illúvatar shall be played aright, and take Being in the moment of their utterance, for all shall then understand fully his intent in their part, and each shall know the comprehension of each, and  Illúvatar shall give to their thoughts the secret fire, being well pleased.”^[25]

 

         This will be the resolution of the splintering of the light, and the sundering of the melodies. This is Tolkien’s hope for a solution of the problem of the One and the Many. Balance, complementarity and the uniting of opposites are themes running throughout Tolkien’s work, from the male-female complementarities to the dual nature of the Children of Illúvatar.   

         In Middle-Earth, Humans have the “gift of death” and Elves journey to the Undying Lands: the two races of the Children of Illúvatar seem destined to eternal separation. Despite this, notable Human-Elf relationships, creative, military, spiritual, and romantic abound, and in fact are the solution to most major crises in Tolkien’s history. In The Lord of the Rings, it is the coalition of the five disparate peoples which undertakes the Fellowship of the Ring. 

         In an epilogue to The Lord of the Rings, Aragorn, the ruler of the restored Kingdom of Gondor tells his Elf-wife Arwen Evenstar just before their sundering at his death, that beyond the circles of the world, there may yet be a re-uniting of which they do not know, when the world is changed.^[26]

         This same yearning and hoping for reintegration is signalled most poignantly in the note at the end of the Quenta Silmarillion:

 

“Here ends the SILMARILLION. If it has passed from the high and the beautiful to darkness and ruin, that was of old the fate of Arda Marred; and if any change shall come and the Marring be amended, Manwë and Varda may know; but they have not revealed it, and it is not declared in the dooms of Mandos.”^[27]

        

         This is an image of a world not yet at the bottom of the cycle of involution. In this history, there is much more disintegration to go, which includes the histories of the wars with Melkor and Sauron. The story does not end, even at the finish of The Lord of the Rings.

         For Tolkien, the turn of events which begins the reintegration of Arda with Eru is the Christ-event, as it is for Martines de Pasqualles, and for many of the later Neo-Platonists. Without dogmatizing, one can broadly say that this Christ-event symbolizes the realization that the Divine and the Created are not utterly sundered, but that the Cosmos comes from the Divine and can return to it, but now, even more beautiful for its “splintered light.”

         The Professor even coined a new word for this kind of turn of events Euchatastrophe – the happy ending.^[28] It is the darkest moment when all looks lost, that we glimpse the light shining through. Everything we had hoped for is true, after all. As opposed to the artificiality of a Deus ex machina, however, this happy ending is completely consistent with history and reality.

         Popular culture examples of this kind of Eucatastrophe are plentiful in both drama and comedy: the last valorous act of Annakin Skywalker in Return of the Jedi; the coming of the Vulcans in Star Trek: First Contact; the first glimpse of the saurian herds in Jurassic Park; and even the teen fan’s reaction when Commander Taggart tells him, “its all real!”

                  The Christ-Mythos for Tolkien, participating as it does in both realms of Primary and Secondary Art, transcends them both, and bridges the sundering of our reality from our imaginations:.

 

“But this story is supreme; and it is true. Art has been verified. God is the Lord, of angels, and of men -- and of elves. Legend and History have met and fused.”^[29]

 

         The two Kindreds of the Children of Illúvatar will be able to be reunited after “the changing of the world.” This change -- unforeseen in the “dooms of Mandos” will amend the “Marring of Arda” and reunite the separated. Humanity can begin the upward journey of reintegration, working to reconcile opposites and restore all.

         At the very beginning of his Mythos, Tolkien signals this restoration and more, for he says that the music at the end of days, sung by the Ainur and the Children of Illúvatar will be more wonderful than even the first music of the Ainur. Further, he does not say, “sung by the remaining faithful Ainur...,” but simply, “by the Ainur...”

         When The One chastises Melkor, at the first vision of Arda before it is brought into being, he says to the rebellious Ainu:

 

“And thou, Melkor, wilt discover all the secret thoughts of thy mind, and wilt perceive that they are but a part of the whole and tributary to its glory.”^[30]

 

There is no thought or hint of punishment or expulsion from heaven. Later, as Melkor battles the Valar in Arda, he is eventually bound and imprisoned beyond the world, but this is a functional imprisonment, not an eschatalogical one.

         Professor Tolkien seems to hope for a Platonic restoration anakephalaiasis – (recapitulation), or apocatastasis ( universal salvation as taught by St. Gregory of Nyssa).  It would not be surprising if he did so hope. One of the literary predecessors of the Inklings was George MacDonald, whose novel, Lilith, is perhaps the finest modern fictional treatment of the universal salvation theme.^[31]

         It is in our ability to create, as well as contemplate, that Tolkien sees our work of reintegration. Humans and Elves are the Children of Eru, meant to reunify and restore all, even the Valar, just as Adam-Eve in Pasqualles and Qabalah is meant even for the reintegration of the Angels.

          We are called to be part of the diversity of the Many, but it is also our work to accomplish the drawing together of the oppositions of the Many into the One. But this One is not a isolated monad.

         The One has emanated the Cosmos from itself, and now, as the Splintered Light returns, the One can be seen as a Symphony, or a multifaceted diamond. How else could infinity become more infinite, or eternity more eternal? Consistent with almost all Western Mysticism then, in Tolkien’s philosophy individuality is not lost when it is harmonized with the whole, but it is not “idiosyncratic” either. Each necessary part harmonizes with the whole.

                  As we have seen both in Egyptian myth and Tolkien, perhaps one of the first steps in this reintegration is a harmonization of the masculine - feminine energies. The Valar are paired as male-female, except for Melkor. Perhaps Melkor’s task, as the greatest of the Ainur, is to balance the male and female within the self, a task not yet accomplished in the circles of the world.

         Egyptians lived in a mythopoeic world, as did Tolkien. Tolkien encourages those who can live on more than one level at a time, as demonstrated by his support of myth over allegory. No Egyptian would have blinked at this rich intertwined fabric of realities. 

         In this way, ultimately creation entails the necessary splintering of the Light, so that it returns even more beautiful than before, as celebrated in the journey of Osiris from King through dismemberment to God of the next world.

         When the forces of darkness (be they Melkor, Set or others) dismember the light, they believe they are destroying it, but in fact, it is all part of the journey, to restore the melody re-harmonized. Word, song and melody, these are the metaphors which connect Amun with Eru, Egypt with Tolkien in the journey There and Back Again.  Let us take heart, bolstered by these myths of return, to live our melodies within the symphony of the One.

 

© Steven A. Armstrong

January 2002

frsteven@joyfullight.org

 

Selected Bibliography:

 

1. Egyptian Creation Myths

 

Allen, James P. Genesis in Egypt: The Philosophy of Ancient Egyptian Creation Accounts. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1988.

 

Hart, George. Egyptian Myths. London: British Museum Publications, 1990.

 

Hornung, Erik. Conceptions of God in Ancient Egypt: The One and the Many. Translated by John Baines. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1996.

 

____________. Idea into image : Essays on ancient Egyptian thought. Translated by Elizabeth Bredeck New York: Timken, 1992.

 

____________. The Secret Lore of Egypt: Its Impact on the West. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2002.

 

2. Plotinus

 

Gregory, John. The Neoplatonists: A Reader. Routledge, 1999.

 

Plotinus.  The Enneads. John Dillon (Editor), Stephen MacKenna (Translator). Abridged Edition. New York: Penguin, 1991.

 

The complete Greek and English text may be found in the Loeb Classical Series (Harvard University Press.

 

The complete English text of the Enneads is available on the Web at http://pict.spiritweb.org/Plotinus/

 

An excellent Web article on Neo-Platonism: http://www.utm.edu/research/iep/n/neoplato.htm

 

3. Martines de Pasqually

 

Martines de Pasqually.  Traité sur la réintégration des Êtres. Edited by Robert Amadou. Paris: Diffusion Rosicrucienne. Available from http://www.rose-croix.com/  or http://www.drc.fr/

 

. A new english translation by W. John de Campenhout is available in a limited edition from Johannine Press / 4A Antrim Crescent Box 907 / Toronto, Ontario, M1P 4Y8 / Canada.

 

4.  J.R.R. Tolkien:

 

See also: The Inklings (includes MacDonald, George; Sayers, Dorothy L.; Tolkien, J.R.R.;  Williams, Charles; and C.S. Lewis), and http://members.aol.com/theloego/inklings.html 

Armstrong, Steven A. “There and Back Again: Creation and Reintegration in the Work of J.R.R. Tolkien.” Rosicrucian Digest 80:1 (Spring 2002) 2 – 5 . An expanded, interactive version is at http://www.joyfullight.org/essays/tolkien.html . 

Allen, Jim. An Introduction to Elvish. Hayes, Middlesex: Bran’s Head Books Ltd., 1978.

 

Chance, Jane. The Lord of the Rings: The Mythology of Power. Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 2000.

 __________.  Tolkien’s Art: A Mythology for England. Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 2001.

 

Clark, James Andrew. “The Idea of the Good, Duality and Unity: A Study of C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, and Charles Williams.” Ashland Theological Journal 19 (Fall 1987): 1-34.

 

Dowie, William. “The Gospel of Middle-Earth according to J.R.R. Tolkien,” in J.R.R. Tolkien: Scholar and Storyteller, ed. Mary Salu and Robert T. Farrell, 265-285. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1979.

 Flieger, Verlyn.  A Question of Time: J.R.R. Tolkien’s Road to Faerie. Kent: Kent State University Press, 1997.

_________.  “Naming the Unnameable: the Neoplatonic ‘One’ in Tolkien’s Silmarillion,” in Diakonia: Studies in Honor of Robert T. Meyer, ed Thomas Halton and Joseph P. Williman, 127- 132. Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1986. 

________. Splintered Light: Logos and Language in Tolkien’s World. Grand Rapids:  Eerdmans, 1983.

 ________, ed, with Carl F.Hostetter. Tolkien’s Lengendarium: Essays on the History of Middle-Earth. Westport: Greenwood Press. 2000. 

Helms, Randel. Tolkien and the Silmarils. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1981.

 

Irving, James. “The Succor of Those Years: Fallenness in Tolkien’s Cosmos.” Crux 23 (September 1987): 7-9.

 

Lobdell, Jared. England and Always: Tolkien’s World of the Rings. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1981.

 

 MacDonald, George. Lilith: A Romance. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1981. Reprint, Cover illustration by Jim Lamb, with preface by C.S. Lewis. PR4967 .l5 1981 (UCB)

 

 ________.  Phantastes, and Lilith. With an introd. by C. S. Lewis. London: Gollancz, 1962.

 

Montgomery, John W., “Introduction: The Apologists of Euchatastrophe,” in Myth, Allegory and Gospel, ed J.W. Montgomery, 11-32.  Minneapolis: Bethany Fellowship, 1974. 

 

Noel, Ruth S. The Languages of Tolkien’s Middle-Earth. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1974.

 

__________. The Mythology of Middle-Earth. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1977.

 

Provost, William. “Language and Myth in the Fantasy Writings of J.R.R. Tolkien,” in Modern Age 33:1 (Spring 1990): 42-52.

 

Purtill, Richard L. J.R.R. Tolkien: Myth, Morality and Religion. San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1984.

 ________. Lord of the Elves and Eldils: Fantasy and Philosophy in C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien. Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1974.

Rose, Mary Carman. “The Christian Neo-Platonism of C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien and Charles Williams,” in Neoplatonism and Christian Thought, ed. D.J. O’Meara, 203-212, (notes): 289-290. Norfolk, VA: International Society for Neoplatonic Studies, 1982.

 

Shippey, T.A. “Creation from Philology in The Lord of the Rings,” in J.R.R. Tolkien: Scholar and Storyteller, ed. Mary Salu and Robert T. Farrell, 286-316. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1979.

 

Tolkien, J.R.R. The Book of Lost Tales, Part One. (The History of Middle-Earth, Volume I). Edited by Christopher Tolkien. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1984.

 

________. The History of Middle-Earth. (12 volumes). Edited by Christopher Tolkien. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1984-1996.

 

________. The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien. Selected and edited by Humphrey Carpenter. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1981.

 

________. The Lord of the Rings (3 vv). Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1967. (First Edition: London: George Allen & Unwin, Ltd, 1954-55.)

 

________. The Lost Road and other Writings. (The History of Middle-Earth Volume V). Edited by Christopher Tolkien.  Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1984.

 

________.  “On Fairy Stories,” essay in Tree and Leaf, reprinted in The Tolkien Reader. New York: Ballantine Books, 1966. p. 33-99. [Originally published in Essays Presented to Charles Williams, ed C.S. Lewis, 38-89. London: Oxford University Press, 1947.]

 

________. (with Donald Swan). The Road Goes Ever On. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1967.

 

________. The Shaping of Middle-Earth : The Quenta, the Ambarkanta, and the Annals, Together With the Earliest 'Silmarillion' and the First Map.  (The History of Middle-Earth Volume IV). Edited by Christopher Tolkien.  Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1986.

 

________. The Silmarillion. Edited by Christopher Tolkien.  Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1977.

 

________. Tree and Leaf (including the Poem Mythopoeia). Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1988.                                                                                                    

Urang, Gunnar. Shadows of Heaven: Religion and Fantasy in the Writing of C.S. Lewis,Charles Williams and J.R.R. Tolkien. Philadelphia: United Church Press (A Pilgrim Press Book), 1971.

 Wright, Marjorie Evelyn. “The Vision of Cosmic Order in the Oxford Mythmakers,” in Imagination and the Spirit: Essays in Literature and the Christian Faith presented to Clyde S. Kilby, ed Charles A. Huttar, 259-276. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1971. 

 Where to begin on the Web:

 

Google Search for Tolkien: 

 

Fauskanger, Helge K. Ardalambion: Of the Tongues of Arda, the invented world of J.R.R. Tolkien:  http://www.uib.no/People/hnohf/ .  The most comprehensive site with many links as well.

 

The Mythopoeic Society: http://www.mythsoc.org/ . The major organization in the US devoted to the works of the Inklings.

 

The Enclyclopaedia of Arda: http://www.glyphweb.com/arda/ . A excellent reference work for Tolkien’s world.

 

Notes to the text: