[Child of the 7th Age]

Birdland -- In several places in Tolkien's Letters, the author talks about the particular question you are raising: why there isn't any evidence of what we would call concrete religious forms and institutions in Middle-earth? If you can get hold of a copy of the letters, look at nos. 142,153,156,165, and 211.

Basically, this is what I understood from reading this material. In the first, second, and third ages, evil ofen took an incarnate form so the chief means for hobbits, elves, men etc. to show allegiance to the good was to physically oppose the incarnate being which was Evil. It was the job of the Valar themselves to praise and adore Eru through their music (a function that today we might term worship).

Plus Tolkien, as a Catholic, wouldn't have felt totally comfortable creating a universe where there was formal worship of entities like Manwe or Arda. The One was viewed as being very remote, and, to quote Tolkien, "all things and beings and powers that might seem worshipful were not to be worshiped, not even the gods (Valar), being only creatures of the One." Different characters may call on these Valar when there are in need (as Sam and Frodo did when fighting), but he says this is more like children calling on their parents when they get into a jam.

Faramir does have a kind of grace before eating a meal. Didn't they stand and face towards the West and remember the significance of these sacred places? This is apparently a remnant of the kind of ritual which had taken place originally in Numenor.

And at the same time Tolkien says the above, he also states in letter 142: "The Lord of the Rings is of course a fundamentally religious and Catholic work; unconsciously so at first, but consciously in the revision. This is why I have not put in, or have cut out, practically all references to anything like "religion"....For the religious element is absorbed into the story and the symbolism."

How does this tie into our thread? There is in my opinion, some relationship. Surely, when we are talking about Frodo's face or eyes glowing, we are talking about some form or reflection of his spirit and/or moral refinement going beyond that which is strictly "natural". It's as if the people of Middle-earth didn't need or use the kind of words or rituals we use to express that which goes beyond the natural world. They, or at least some small portion of those indviduals who were specially gifted in this regard, had a kind of direct experience of it which involved symbols like light rather than words.

Again, I'm just talking about my peronal response to the writings, and not some canon about how all people should see this work or respond in some particular fashion. I think the spiritual is there on some level, but not in the forms we are more famiiar with in our own world.

Surely, if one could board the ship at Grey Havens and sail to the Uttermost West, there had to have been a pervasive element of that which we would define as "spiritual" or "magical" depending on our orientation. (I always love the illustration of the ship coming into Elvenhome and Frodo up in the mast looking out, presumably with interest and longing, to see just what he's coming into!)

Anybody else with ideas on this? sharon, the 7th age hobbit