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Regarding "foretelling" as possibly connected with the Music of Creation... That's a very interesting way of viewing this, especially in terms of Elves. But there is also the chance, even likelihood, of Men acting outside the Music. Perhaps prophecy can only concern those events where Men's unpredictable actions are unlikely to have a determining role? Yet Frodo's reference to Sam having children and being the mayor wouldn't seem to fall in that category, but rather solely within the province of Men (i.e, or hobbits as their relatives).
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But Illuvatar's knowledge isn't bound by the Music. So Illuvatar would know every decision which is made from his position outside time. Illuvatar would be in the position of an observer in the aircraft, watching the whole history of ME in a single instant. He could permit a glimpse of that vision to any being he chose, & the person he chose would not have to be what we consider 'spiritual', only suitable in Illuvatar's eyes. Dunne seems to have thought that we all exist in a 'higher state' & have access to the Music (or whatever the equivalent of that would be in this world. Charles Williams said we are all strands in kind of cosmic, spiritual web, & that 'The Strand exists for the Web, not the Web for the Strand'). So, in dreams, visions, heightened states of awareness we can tap into that vision, & see past, present & future. So, Frodo in his dream kind of 'jumps' to another part of his story & sees from the bow of the Ship, while he is still, from the point of view of his worldly consciousness, asleep in Tom's house. Again, in Lorien Tolkien says that even after he had left still Frodo the wanderer from the Shire would walk there (don't have the exact quote to hand ) but this implies that on some level the whole of Frodo's (& everyone else's) life is like an eternal 'moment', any point of which can be accessed at any time. I suppose you could think of this 'higher' observer as being like ourself, the reader of LotR. We can pick up the book & go to any point in Frodo's story. We can read it through, or jump from point to point as we wish, or read the same event over & over, because the whole story exists in a complete form. Frodo's 'higher self', the observer who can be both in bed in Tom's house & standing at the bow of the ship coming into Tol Eressea, is like the reader of his story.
Clearly, this makes prophecy possible, but it also makes mistakes possible - the equivalent of mis-readings, or attempts to read a text in a language you aren't familiar with. Galadriel's statement implies that from the point of view of the limited consciousness of an individual within the world there are different possibilities, which are affected by all the decisions made by all the individuals involved - from the perspective of the person in the boat, any number of things could be around the next bend, any action taken by that person could affect what happens to the boat, but from the perspective of the person in the plane, or of the reader of the story, the events are fixed. Frodo cannot know what will result from his decisions, but we, like the 'observer at infinity' as Dunne puts it, do.
From this perspective, Malbeth the Seer, was 'present' both at the time he was writing the prophecy, & at the time Aragorn entered the Paths, or rather he was in a 'state' where both points in time/space were accessible to his consciousness.
<font size=1 color=339966>[ 1:35 PM January 16, 2004: Message edited by: davem ]