Sorcery - The Barrow-Downs Discussion Forum

littlemanpoet · 10-07-2006, 09:55 PM

Tolkien wrote one letter (at least a draft) on the subject. In one dated in the Fall of 1954 he distinguishes between two kinds of magic: magia and goeteia. Both sides use both in LotR, with different motives. Magia is working with natural things and changing something about them, like producing fire from wet wood. Goeteia is calling up spirits of some kind, which in Middle Earth, would be Maiar, I suppose, or perhaps the dead, like Aragorn did in the Paths of the Dead. So Tolkien distinguishes between good and evil magic by motive and purpose rather than by type.

By talking about "spells to be mastered", it seems you're talking about magia. Tolkien also says in his About Hobbits section before the beginning of LotR that Hobbits don't do magic, except for the seeming 'magic' of hiding from lumbering humans.

Spells seem to have been the domain of Gandalf and Elves, though Dwarves seem to have had some knowledge of rune spells. Men seem to have tended toward goeteia.

10-07-2006, 09:55 PM	#2
littlemanpoet Itinerant Songster Join Date: Jan 2002 Location: The Edge of Faerie Posts: 7,066	Tolkien wrote one letter (at least a draft) on the subject. In one dated in the Fall of 1954 he distinguishes between two kinds of magic: magia and goeteia. Both sides use both in LotR, with different motives. Magia is working with natural things and changing something about them, like producing fire from wet wood. Goeteia is calling up spirits of some kind, which in Middle Earth, would be Maiar, I suppose, or perhaps the dead, like Aragorn did in the Paths of the Dead. So Tolkien distinguishes between good and evil magic by motive and purpose rather than by type. By talking about "spells to be mastered", it seems you're talking about magia. Tolkien also says in his About Hobbits section before the beginning of LotR that Hobbits don't do magic, except for the seeming 'magic' of hiding from lumbering humans. Spells seem to have been the domain of Gandalf and Elves, though Dwarves seem to have had some knowledge of rune spells. Men seem to have tended toward goeteia.