"Inherent Magic" in Tolkien's works

[Helcaraxë]

The derivation of "Inherent Magic" in Tolkien's works, at odds with Mechanical magic

The oxford english dictionary defines magic as, roughly, the pretended art of influencing the course of events or producing marvellous physical phenomena by means of invoking spiritual beings or bringing into operation some occult to influence principles of nature.

In letter #155, Tolkien states that the magic in his work (or the "Magia" part of it, as opposed to "Goetia") is the result of an inherent power in beings like the eldar or gandalf. Goetia, which is more of an "artistic magic" in the context of tolkien's work, used not for producing real effects like "fire in a wet faggot", but rather for what can be classified as illusive magic. "Goetia" in LotR obviously is derived from the latter meaning; that regarding the bringing into operation and occult; this relates to "Mechanical magic": that of spells and lore. However, I can find no derivation for "Magia" in his work: the use of an inherent power considered by mortals to be "Magic." Comments?

 

[Niniel]

Interesting subject! Really weird, cause I had never heard the term 'goetia' before, abut the same day you posted this I read it somewhere else... strange world. But I don't exactly know what you mean. Can you explain what the definitions of 'magia' and 'goetia' are, and how they are represented in Tolkien's work?

 

[Helcaraxë]

Here is letter 155.

I am afraid I have been far too casual about 'magic' and especially the use of the word; though Galadriel and others show by the criticism of the 'mortal' use of the word, that the thought about it is not altogether casual. But it is a v. large question, and difficult; and a story which, as you so rightly say, is largely about motives (choice, temptations etc.) and the intentions for using whatever is found in the world, could hardly be burdened with a pseudo-philosophic disquisition! I do not intend to involve myself in any debate whether 'magic' in any sense is real or really possible in the world. But I suppose that, for the purposes of the tale, some would say that there is a latent distinction such as once was called the distinction between magia and goeteia.1 Galadriel speaks of the 'deceits of the Enemy'. Well enough, but magia could be, was, held good (per se), and goeteia bad. Neither is, in this tale, good or bad (per se), but only by motive or purpose or use. Both sides use both, but with different motives. The supremely bad motive is (for this tale, since it is specially about it) domination of other 'free' wills. The Enemy's operations are by no means all goetic deceits, but 'magic' that produces real effects in the physical world. But his magia he uses to bulldoze both people and things, and his goeteia to terrify and subjugate. Their magia the Elves and Gandalf use (sparingly): a magia, producing real results (like fire in a wet faggot) for specific beneficent purposes. Their goetic effects are entirely artistic and not intended to deceive: they never deceive Elves (but may deceive or bewilder unaware Men) since the difference is to them as clear as the difference to us between fiction, painting, and sculpture, and 'life'.
Both sides live mainly by 'ordinary' means. The Enemy, or those who have become like him, go in for 'machinery' – with destructive and evil effects — because 'magicians', who have become chiefly concerned to use magia for their own power, would do so (do do so). The basic motive for magia – quite apart from any philosophic consideration of how it would work – is immediacy: speed, reduction of labour, and reduction also to a minimum (or vanishing point) of the gap between the idea or desire and the result or effect. But the magia may not be easy to come by, and at any rate if you have command of abundant slave-labour or machinery (often only the same thing concealed), it may be as quick or quick enough to push mountains over, wreck forests, or build pyramids by such means. Of course another factor then comes in, a moral or pathological one: the tyrants lose sight of objects, become cruel, and like smashing, hurting, and defiling as such. It would no doubt be possible to defend poor Lotho's introduction of more efficient mills; but not of Sharkey and Sandyman's use of them.
Anyway, a difference in the use of 'magic' in this story is that it is not to be come by by 'lore' or spells; but is in an inherent power not possessed or attainable by Men as such. Aragorn's 'healing' might be regarded as 'magical', or at least a blend of magic with pharmacy and 'hypnotic' processes. But it is (in theory) reported by hobbits who have very little notions of philosophy and science; while A. is not a pure 'Man', but at long remove one of the 'children of Luthien'.2
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



Goetia refers to necromancy when associated with the dark powers, but the elves use it as a kind of "artiscic magic." magia is more of an inherent power or ability. This natural magical ability is what I can find no derivation for in any of either the Celtic mythology from which much of tolkien's works was drawn, or christianity, or the like. The closest thing I can find would only fit the definition of "Goetia." I apologize for my confusing wording.

 

[Osric]

What is the Magia of the Free Peoples?

[Magia] is the result of an inherent power in beings like the eldar or gandalf.
Goetia, which is more of an "artistic magic" in the context of tolkien's work, used not for producing real effects like "fire in a wet faggot", but rather for what can be classified as illusive magic.
[...]that regarding the bringing into operation and occult [...] relates to "Mechanical magic": that of spells and lore. However, I can find no derivation for "Magia" in his work: the use of an inherent power considered by mortals to be "Magic." Comments?

Helcaraxë, a kindred spirit!
Firstly forgive me if my selective quoting has spoilt your original meaning!
I found it a bit confusing, and the selective quote here at least summarises what my response deals with.

I've tried to pursue these tracks on a couple of occasions, and frankly not got very far. 'Magia' isn't in the OED (and I think 'Magian' (sic), "of or pertaining to the Magi" doesn't relate), and I've concluded that Tolkien used it

• to match the form of "goetia"
• to do anything to get away from the modern connotations of the over-familiar "magic"
• borrowing terms from some other source(s) I don't know about (which the full quotation appears to suggest)
• and quite possibly for philological or Latin-grammar reasons not clear to a layman like me.

'Goety' is in the OED and the internet turns up the Greek goeteia but we still don't get any further, as it all just refers back to effects mediated in some way by spirits -- as Helcaraxë's first definition already gave us, above. (N.B. Neither form of the word appears AFAIK outside of Tolkien's Letters; so no one in Middle-earth should ever use them!) Sadly the dictionary definitions of magic, goety, sorcery, necromancy and witchcraft all go along the same lines and therefore offer little distinction between them. And Tolkien certainly did intend a distinction!

Although there are tempting hints of spirits in LOTR and many more in his earlier works (see esp. the Books of Lost Tales) I don't think he wanted it to be too significant. It can be argued that the activity of spirits was there, underlying Sauron's sorcery and necromancy (see esp. the Sauron passages in The Silmarillion), and that it is not referred to directly because LOTR was a "consciously Catholic work" deliberately omitting references to cults and magical practices. But even in this case, spirits should not be seen to have any role in the powers of Gandalf and the Elves, the 'magia' we're discussing. For that we are looking at the second clause of the OED definition: influencing the course of events by bringing into operation some occult controlling principle of nature.

It's telling that Tolkien stated "Their magia the Elves and Gandalf use (sparingly)" in that this defines the stuff that Men cannot do. Men can learn the sorcery of the Dark Religion e.g. the Mouth of Sauron, and occasionally the ability to work power into things of craft e.g. the daggers of Cardolan, the Seat of Amon Hen, the Pillars of the Argonath, the tower of Orthanc and the pûkel-stones of the Drúedain could do. But the other 'magical' things in LOTR that are not magics of perception, illusion or mind control must be "magia". (In this, Aragorn and the Line of the Kings are special, on grounds of their Elf/Maia ancestry.)

But this still leaves a lot of different ways of "influencing the course of events" under the category of Good "magia". How is it best to proceed? To establish a list of the things we include in this category? To look for a unifying principle of how it/they operate? To concentrate on the specific instances that most interest us?

-- Osric of Ossulston, at your service.

 

[Helcaraxë]

Very well-researched, Osric.

To be qualified as magia, a form of magic would have to be inherent. It seems as though goetia can also influence events, but it is not inherent. More later.

 

[Osric]

Re: The derivation of "Inherent Magic" in Tolkien's works, at odds with Mechanical magic

[...] However, I can find no derivation for "Magia" in his work: the use of an inherent power considered by mortals to be "Magic." Comments?

I have researched further since this. (Sadly the computer on which I collated a weekend's worth of work into a five page essay with over a dozen useful references got reformatted when I wasn't looking! )

Goeteia was the chthonic magic of the Greeks, and seems broadly shamanistic with emphasis on the medicine, the safe conduct of soul after death, and general affairs of the spirit. The word derives from the Greek for "chanting" or -- less charitably -- "howling".

Mageia was so-named as the magical tradition of the Magi of neighbouring Persia which came into Greece as a novel import in the 5th to 4th century BCE. Mageia was received as more sophisticated, and the standing of goeteia suffered by comparison. Goeteia came to be viewed as low magic, associated with marketplace charlatanry and trickery as well as dealings with spirits. (I'll just nod to the fact that the high moral theourgeia or theurgy came along in turn, and everyone had to redefine their positions again.)

The classification that emerged in the Middle Ages had the now Latinised magia as working 'scientifically' with esoteric supernatural forces (trying desperately to be classified as White Magic along with theurgia), whilst goetia was the black magic that used the spirits of the Devil.


So the important question is: with all this evolution of terminology down the centuries, which of the possible meanings did Tolkien intend?

We ought to be able to take a hint that the passage in Letter 155 oddly opposes the Latin form "magia" to the Greek form "goeteia". But my suspicion is that Tolkien's knowledge of these terms was not purely that of a linguist, and might well have come from some other source where they were used with the 'inconsistent' spellings. C S Lewis also uses the words in his own fiction, and it is intriguing to think that they were discussion-terms used amongst the Inklings, either as a convenient makeshift classification of their own, or as imported from some other work or tradition. (Wasn't another of the Inklings at some point associated with the Rosicrucians or the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn or something...)


I confess that I have mostly been moved to seek out the meaning of goeteia as the more obscure of the two terms, magia having clearly come down to us as the root of "magic". I probably haven't been a great deal of help on magia as inherent magic, but the truth is out there, if the next reader would care to take up the baton...

Estel!
--Os.

 

[Walter]

Re: The derivation of "Inherent Magic" in Tolkien's works, at odds with Mechanical ma

We ought to be able to take a hint that the passage in Letter 155 oddly opposes the Latin form "magia" to the Greek form "goeteia". But my suspicion is that Tolkien's knowledge of these terms was not purely that of a linguist, and might well have come from some other source where they were used with the 'inconsistent' spellings. C S Lewis also uses the words in his own fiction, and it is intriguing to think that they were discussion-terms used amongst the Inklings, either as a convenient makeshift classification of their own, or as imported from some other work or tradition. (Wasn't another of the Inklings at some point associated with the Rosicrucians or the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn or something...)

First and foremost: Welcome and "Well met", Osric. Some excellent contributions you have provided so far...

Maybe the use of magia vs. goeteia was an editorial slip...

Charles Williams was the Inkling, who is said to have joined the Golden Dawn, and Carpenter in The Inklings (HC paperback p. 80ff) uses the same distinction of Magia, as 'white' or 'good' magic and Goetia, as 'black' or 'bad' magic' that Tolkien uses in his letter (#155). Carpenter also suggests, that Williams acquired his extensive knowledge of 'Goetia' not from the Golden Dawn, but from other sources, such as Aleister Crowley's novel Moonchild and the stories of 'Sax Rohmer' (A. H. Ward). He also notes that, by the late 1920s Williams was ...thoroughly acquainted with the terminology and practices of black magic.

Maybe these links are helpful:
http://hjem.get2net.dk/333/qabalah/picooration.html (Mirandola's Oration on the Dignity of Man (1486))
http://www.gavagai.de/fizmo/oratio.pdf (the original - latin - text of Mirandola's "Oratio...")
http://www.doaks.org/ByzMagic/magic07.pdf
http://www.albany.edu/faculty/lr618/51to.htm
http://www.darkwoodofpangaea.org/magic.html

What is interesting is that Tolkien, and probably the Inklings, were using the later - mediaeval - meanings of mageia and goeteia rather than their original - classical - meanings. Moreover Tolkien in his legendarium used the term magic for both, on the one hand the positive 'art', 'craft', 'wisdom' or 'knowledge' of the Eldar and for the negative 'machinery', an - admittedly (Letters #131) - somewhat inconsistent use.

I also wonder whether or not Tolkien was aware of Frazer's now widely accepted view of 'magic' as a predecessor of 'religion' and 'science', and if he had read Frazier's elaborations in The Golden Bough...

 

[Barliman Butterbur]

Re: The derivation of "Inherent Magic" in Tolkien's works, at odds with Mechanical ma

...What is interesting is that Tolkien, and probably the Inklings, were using the later - mediaeval - meanings of mageia and goeteia rather than their original - classical - meanings. Moreover Tolkien in his legendarium used the term magic for both, on the one hand the positive 'art', 'craft', 'wisdom' or 'knowledge' of the Eldar and for the negative 'machinery', an - admittedly (Letters #131) - somewhat inconsistent use.

I have myself pondered "magic" as it expressed itself in LOTR and TH. Obviously, it was not a be-all end-all tool, or Middle-earth would have been destroyed almost immediately in a confrontation between the forces of good and evil. It definitely wasn't that strong a power, because stout hearts and giant armies were still called for, as well as hard work in the garden, and judicious use of tinder and flint...

Barley