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And yet Tolkien was interested in 'occult' subjects - communication across time, telepathy & the nature of other dimensions - in particular Faery - & how they interact with our own. Clearly, these being subjects touched upon by all three Inklings in their fiction, & by Barfield the Anthroposophist, Tolkien would have been up for such discussions (cf the rather arcane subject matters under discussion in The Notion Club Papers).
Now, I know that Carpenter in particular tends to dismiss any notion of the Inklings having any influence on each other's writings, but in a recent study of the Inklings 'The Company They Keep', Diana Glyer explores this whole idea, & apparently (haven't read it, but know people who have) she reads things very differently. I think the case of the excised Epilogue to LotR speaks to a real influence & refutes the theory that Tolkien would have produced exactly what he did if he hadn't been part of the Inklings. Tolkien states that he had read or heard much of Williams' work & clearly Williams' work would have been discussed at Inklings meetings. So, its not a matter of Tolkien either being directly, or consciously, influenced by Williams (or Barfield), but of ideas being batted around, picked up, changed, interpreted & made to fit a writer's needs. We often look to Tolkien's Catholicism & his love of myth as sources for his writings but we can't completely dismiss the idea that he may have picked things up from Inklings' discussions. I just don't see Tolkien listening in to these discussions & refusing to take part, or making a mental note every time the conversation strayed onto such subjects & deciding 'Right - that's something I definitely will exclude in all its possible forms from my writings!' Its the very fact that he didn't believe such things that would make them usable as source material.
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