Sauron's ESP

[mark12_30]

A couple of points.

Osanwe is similar to telepathy, but do read the article Olorin kindly provided! It will answer many of your questions.

Sauron was a Maia, and osanwe was their first method of communication going back to before they incarnated into bodily forms at all. Remember it was elves (quendi -> speakers) that invented lauguage. Valar/maiar used osanwe til they learned language from the elves. Valar and Maiar are more used to osanwe. I'm sure Sauron was skilled at it.

Secondly, remember Sauron's main mode of ooperation was domination of the will (for which, again, he probably made use of osanwe or something similar to it.) The real power of the Ring is to dominate the will of others; that is its function. But even without it, Sauron was still dominating the will of those under him. When Frodo at the Sammath Naur puts on the Ring and claims it for himself, Sauron's attention is diverted from his armies-- and without his will focused on them, they falter. It was his will driving them on all along, and without it, they quail. From RotK, Mount Doom: (the italics are mine) :

And far away, as Frodo put thon the Ring and claimed it for his own, even in Sammath Naur the very heart of his realm, the power in Barrad-Dur was shaken... From all his policies and webs of fear and treachery, from all his stratagems and wars his mind shook free; and throughout his realm a tremor ran, his slaves quailed, and his armies halted, and his captains suddenly steerless, bereft of will, wavered and despaired. For they were forgotten. The whole mind and purpose of the Power that wielded them was now bent with overwhelming force upon the mountain. At his summons, wheeling with a rending cry, in a last desperate race there flew, faster than the winds, the Nasgul, the ringwraiths, and with a storm of wings they hurtled southwards to Mount Doom.

<font size=1 color=339966>[ 7:45 PM January 04, 2004: Message edited by: mark12_30 ]