JRR Tolkien & CS Lewis - Occult Affiliations Pt 1
RobinMFisher
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oL5NEXCDsxo
I am commenting on first fifth. How so? Well, the two parts together are 130 minutes long, and I am commenting up to past 26 minutes on part 1, which would be one fifth of the total.
If NO serious reasons to consider CSL and JRRT as occultists have been given during first fifth of total or near half of first part, I hope it will be clear to most the accusation is no good.
If you SHOULD listen to all of it, and if you SHOULD find something more serious in the second, third, fourth and fifth of the fifths of this, either part one or two, DO please inform me.
One similarly idiotic accusation (not saying the accuser is an idiot in general, he's just so about beer) is some other video claiming CSL got drunk with his students. No, he DRANK with his students. Like all people belonging to a gentleman culture (since his father was a lawyer he was so), and who are not alcoholics (he had relatives who were into binges), he knew his limits. He knew how much he could drink and get just a bit pleasantly tipsy, without losing his mind even momentarily to drunkenness.
I might add that under one video I found a lady saying that if you smoked - not just marijuana, which actually doesn't concern these two men, though she didn't seem to understand that, but simply tobacco too (yes, she specifically said tobacco) "the truth is not in you".
I am reminded of that man who once said of CSL "that man does drink whisky and that man does smoke the pipe, but I do believe that man is a Christian" - now we are dealing with people who reverse this judgement on CSL and say instead (of both) "that man does drink whisky and that man does smoke the pipe, SO that man cannot be a Christian."
But this has not (yet) been the angle of attack of RobinMFisher.
Now, here we come to the accusations on this video, by him, and as said only FIRST 26+ minutes of 130.
3:29 Author of video reads from a pastor, former witch, who practised palmreading, astrology, numerology and a few more, I halted it where it says:
"all these practises are forbidden in the Bible"
Wait - is numerology as in gematria forbidden in the Bible? No. Apocalypse 13:18 says sth else about that.
5:44 "'I can spot witchcraft in a moment' - see he has a very unique perspective."
OK, quite sure the former witch is not practising some crystal gazing now?
Or is seing witchcraft basically everywhere, because that is what he did when he was a witch (btw, wouldn't it be warlock for a man)?
6:07 [Was the context Harry Potter?] "These people are taken advantage of, because they are absolutely ignorant of Satan and his devices."
Sure.
I totally agree. My OWN take on LotR, Narnia, That Hideous Strength is that CSL and JRRT were agreeing too, asking how someone not reading the Bible or St Thomas or going to Church should be warned.
Hence fictional characters like Jadis, Tash, Sauron, Saruman, Ring Wraiths, N. I. C. E. and Westonism. CSL and JRRT are not exactly exalting these.
9:05 "Witches do not 'believe in' Satan."
This is one in favour of CSL and JRRT. Neither of them denied, both clearly affirmed that Satan exists.
9:32 "There is a force, the force has two sides, and can be controlled by ..."
This may mean Star Wars is Witchcraft, once again, CSL and JRRT go clear.
There is a creator. There are created spirits and men. Some rebel. Some stay faithful. BOTH these Inklings belived THAT.
9:53 "Witches also believe battles are fought in the Middle Earth".
So do we Christians!
Earth surface is the Middle Earth between Hell below us (pretty close, a few thousand miles) and Heaven above us (God knows how far above). Heaven and Hell have neither spiritual nor corporeal battlefields, Earth - Middleearth also so called - has both.
10:05 "They believe that battles are fought in the Middle Earth..." - yes, Earth, so what? - "... and in the astroplane causing upheavals."
What is the "astroplane" here?
Stars announcing the will of God by omens and signs mentioned in Matthew 24, and astrological/astronomical events corresponding to Apocalypse 12, and an astro-event back in the manger - that lends some credence to even if horoscopes are bosh, (ok, that astrologer in Archenland ...), signs in the Heavens for general public events are not necessarily so.
"both above and below"
You mean both in stars and on Earth?
To the theology clearly stated in Narnia (the one work which is "astrological" in the broadest sense) there are three planes, not just two: God's Providence is above both stars and Earth. And God knows how to time things.
Some astrology may be involved in major cosmic events, like Birth of Our Lord and Last Times (though the astronomical signs in Matthew 24 are also interpreted as referring to Christ, the Church, its bishops).
Some - notably if I recall correctly Nogaret - considered this was even normally the case for major public events.
10:36 The penalty of witchcraft was death?
Writing a story in witch stars coordinate with earth is not witchcraft.
It is neither an occult prediction about Earth as we live outside the story nor even less trying to make any effect on Earth with some covenant with devils. Or "powers".
10:29 "I am not telling you to go and kill witches"
Perhaps CSL was closer than you to do that?
White Witch and her witches and hags - killed. Which witchkilling - involving resurrected Aslan - saved Narnia. (The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe)
The hag invited along with a werewolf by Nikabrik - killed, so as to save Dr. Cornelius and the others. (Prince Caspian)
The Lady of the Green Kirtle - killed while she took the form of a snake. (The Silver Chair)
I think Narnia is closer to Witch Hunting than to Witch Craft. So is the Cosmic Trilogy:
Ransom kills the seducer (yes, this is how the "new adam and eve of venus" are preserved from the fall : someone on Earth who knew what the snake's words had meant came to kill a new seducer, him also coming from Earth, possessed) after hearing the seducer tempt "venus' eve" to become basically, independently of Christ, the like of a lesbian or a witch.
However, in That Hideous Strength, the witch den N.I.C.E. is overcome by a confusion of tongues.
In Silmarillion/LotR, any mortal who dabbles in rings is considered as highly risking his soul, and the risk is described in less attractive and more realistic terms than Goethe gives the Faust deal.
10:43 "as far as the NT dispensation goes"
Though the NT does not enjoin death penalty, it does not exclude it. A Church Father said murder, sodomy and witch craft deserve the same penalty. If you give death to one, give death to all. If you give seven years prison (erstwhile Cypriotic penalty for sodomy) for one of them make it seven years prison for all of them.
Gabriele Amorth has mentioned that witches could be exorcised instead of killed - whereever exorcism was remaining in prominence. That might be true enough for say some little witch who was pulled into seeking possession or who was curious herself, but would be somewhat soft on someone who slave hunted to make witches, and used witches to slave hunt.
Just before 11:25 "there is not much you can do to defile your soul that is worse than participating in witchcraft".
Agreed again. So did CSL and JRRT. Agree with you, that is.
You have NOT yet said anything to justify that they braved that prohibition.
12:08 Chick publications has Satan's Little White Lie, you said?
Good for them to be denouncing SOMETHING that actually SHOULD be denounced. They ALSO, ALAS, have books or tracts or both (at least tracts) denouncing Catholicism! Denouncing the one true Church of Christ.
12:50 From Wicca to getting even to doing curses and hexes ... how about checking on Narnia and LotR, no one is ever cursing, except cursing demons on behalf of God - unless they are bad characters, baddies, in the books.
Nobody is doing a good spell in LotR, unless of angelic nature (Gandalf who had been around since 1000's of years was not a man), or taking a very unusual risk for once only (Aragorn handling the palantir).
13:56 Someone was speaking about a new Narnia "this weekend"? He was referring to films, I do NOT endorse Walden Media's treatment of Voyage of the Dawn Treader.
There is a problem in Lucy - confer Aragorn above - once only saying a spell, to solve a problem caused by a spell. But what Walden Media made of the book is not bettering things at all, it is in a way making the HP-like search for magical objects (swords vs hoarcruxes) part of the object of the voyage. Which was NOT the case in the book. And still isn't. For the book, there is an act of ascetism and of self sacrifice which ends the spell and makes the meaning of the voyage complete.
14:13 "A lot can be said about you from the kind of company you end up keeping and if you are a true bornagain Christian ...."
For one thing CSL and JRRT (Anglican and Catholic) didn't divide Christians in born-again or nominal, but baptised (and therefore born again of water an spirit) in fervent, less fervent, not fervent but still believers AND nominal because heretics or apostates.
And they may have been a bit too tolerant. People were back then before tolerance had been so overdone by Vatican II and Assisi 86 that conservative believers started to be suspicious of tolerance. When I hear Catholics agreeing with youse, or rejecting CSL because he was Anglican, I think the pendulum has swung to an overreaction.
14:19 "... you are not going to be confortable with people who aren't saved, particularly those who are either flat out satanists or luciferians or heavily involved in the occult."
I think that CSL and JRRT thought Charles Williams and Owen Barfield fitted none of these descriptions.
Charles Williams was heavily involved in a psychological experiment, in getting wives to love their husbands (this is probably an influence on parts of That Hideous Strength relating to Jane Studdock), which involved the wife of a near broken marriage lying down beside CW a few nights or as long as necessary, getting to love him (and CW not getting physical) and then transferring that love to her husband, CW getting out and hubby and wife presumed to get physical with renewed love.
Occult? Weird? Or was CW relying on prayer, as a Christian?
Owen Barfield now ... he believed in a spiritual evolution of mankind. He also believed looking back to "earlier stages" was necessary to get each new step right. CSL actually at times at least, certainly while writing Cosmic Trilogy, bought into this idea.
Of CSL and JRRT, it was JRRT who had a problem with OB.
So much that CSL said that OB was behaving as if showing jealousy in what was supposed to be friendship.
Note, JRRT more than once seems to have felt as a kind of inofficial godfather of CSL. 1929 to 1930 CSL admitted God was personal. Tolkien involved him in reevaluating "the Christian myth" - which CSL was looking at from a Zeitgeist perspective, that year, as previous to admitting there was a God. JRRT cured him of Zeitgeist, with some help by Dyson, I think, and so felt as if he would be held accountable if anything went wrong with CSL's salvation. He felt terrible about CSL resuming practise (as per his childhood) as an Anglican. JRRT was Catholic and in some ways respected Nonconformism (was living part of his childhood with a Methodist), but he hated Henry VIII and what he produced, be it anglicisation of Wales or early stages of anglicanism - with their later stages.
15:00 "I am amazed that they say the same things that initiated coven witches are saying. Which is that"
Well, if an initiated coven witch says 4+4=8, I will not even condemn Harry Potter on agreeing with them on that one.
I DO in fact condemn HP.
But HP and LotR/Narnia are very different works.
Now, I'd like to know WHAT these things are. Are they the really bad ones? And are LotR and Narnia really agreeing with them?
15:02 "good triumphs over evil"
So, Apocalypse 19 says so too, is Apocalypse 19 wiccan?
15:06 "it is all witchcraft"
Narnia and LotR are not saying that. They are saying EVIL uses witchcraft.
16:09 The book "Finding God in the Lord of the Rings" was promoted with a calling price 13 dollars, that is the number of rebellion ...
I am very sure the original prices for a Narnia book would have been 3 or 4 pounds, that the original prices for a volume of LotR was somewhat higher, but NOT 13 pounds.
I am also positive no part of either series has 13 chapters and no series comprises 13 books.
We are talking someone other than Lemony Snicket here. And even LSn is not witchcraft (except in very diluted form of believing bad luck charms bring bad luck), it is comedy.
16:20 THUS these Christian ministries are making witches their evangelists ...
There is a difference between prosecution and hysteric overprosecution. Of the Salem Witchhunt types (which were probably caused by real witches who were sometimes escaping the executioners who thus were sometimes executioners of innocents).
This type of prosecution is like what made "accuser" a very bad word in Greek and Hebrew.
So, you know what "accuser" was in Greek and Hebrew? Diabolos. Satan. BOTH words also mean backbiter.
16:56 I am not sure you should as a Christian teacher turn over your teaching to the Hollywood Movies, perhaps rather not. I am sure you should as a Christian teacher give credit to CSL and JRRT as Christian teachers.
Note well, HP is by Rowling who is NOT a Christian but an Atheist, and who has in one early interview (I have't read it in original, but know it by rumour, through an article in "Mitteilungsblatt der Priestrbruderschaft St Pius X", which endorsed Narnia and LotR but said a very committed no to HP) made antichristian comments and even related them to her writing HP.
But CSL and JRRT were not as publically known members of any secret society (accusations by John Todd came after they had died, they couldn't answer : he could have been mistaken, he could have traded his exit from Illuminati against lying about them and kept the deal, or he could have been lying about most - I don't know which it is, I hope not the last).
They each went to their Church every Sunday and many weekdays and each prayed outside Church too. Each took the trouble to go to confession (yes, Anglicans have it as optional, and JRRT did it more often than the once a year required of a Catholic). CSL's one stepson is involved in a Christian ministry against abortion. The other one apostasised, but to Judaism, not Wicca (the wife and mother of stepsons was of Jewish family and had not always been Christian). One of JRRT's three sons went Anglican (i e apostasised from Catholicism) in order to remarry after divorce (divorce being a practise JRR hated), but the oldest one was a priest (or is, not sure if he's alive).
So, yes, I think you can turn over your authority to CSL and JRRT as to greater ones than yourself. And I mean Christians. If you are a layman, and not very fervent, since a priest could say they were laymen, and a very fervent one could call them worldly. But they took care to not be that worldly as to be modernist, and had certain solitary habits not found in accomplished worldlings.
17:35 I would not recommend ANYONE taking Harry Potter to Sunday school!
As to Narnia of LotR, I do not recommend reading all of the books in Sunday School either, but rather to take up a chosen chapter and then show children how to get spiritual Christian lessons from it.
And if necessary anywhere ignore or set aside what might possibly be harmful. And show them how to do that. AND then leave the rest of the reading to themselves, after their taste, if they like it.
A teetotaller would perhaps ... well, it's not my business telling them what to do of certain passages, I'm not one myself.
17:55 How you were trying to say this?
... nanana to draw them in, that is what they are trying to do, they know, deep down ...
OK, consciously they are so innocent in so good faith that if they know it is deep down, but they are still "trying to draw in"?
Yeah, right!
I think there are other books than Narnia some would need warning from. You are welcome to forward anyone with a title saying "They Know Deep Down - and so they are guilty in the most straightforward and social and conscious sense!"
I will be glad to put it on the list of books one needs to warn for - if Pope Michael makes me head of the Index commission (I'll decline any offer if he plans to put CSL and JRRT opera omnia or even LotR and Narnia on the index librorum prohibitorum - they were not so back when the list still existed as an annual publication from the Vatican and was still being updated - past the publication date of these works and earlier ones).
17:42 "They've got to use the wold [world?] in order to draw people in"
Nice little accusation, but first you should have established that CSL and JRRT are occult.
Or you could have said this first too and then "you don't believe me?" and then set out to prove it.
Of course, when it comes to Harry Potter, I am not disputing it.
17:53 "They know deep down"
As said, knowing deep down and plainly knowing are two different concepts. Actually trying to do soething with one's plan behind it involves plain knowing and not just knowing deep down.
"These ministries know deep down, they are out of the will of God"
Possible, but that is not same thing as knowing plainly they are "using witchcraft".
18:09 "They have to go outside into the world, to bring in all these worldly things ..."
Now, CSL and JRRT are distinctly LESS worldly than some other literature.
They are for one thing not pornographic, and for another they plainly warn against the temptations specific to worldliness and that in more than one disguise.
Worldliness as believing what your pals would want you to believe, worldliness as in keeping up diplomatic relations at expense of political morals, worldliness as in occult research "because one has to know the moves of the enemy", and so on. CSL and JRRT more than once warn against worldliness.
"... in order to get the worldly people in and get them converted."
Well, possible. Is it preferrable worldly people should be left outside and damned?
"So that they can be twice the children of Hell that they are."
OK ... ? Wasn't that one about Pharisees going over land and sea to force one man to keep their law?
"That's why we have these big gigantic ministries that particularly exist in America"
When we talk of those, wouldn't it be more appropriate to think of teachings like keeping one's money without sharing with one's workers (beyond agreed pay)? Or like teachings of "prosperity Gospel"?
Which once again, CSL and JRRT were not very culpable of.
Joel Osteen was mentioned ...
If you know anything about "The Problem of Pain" you will know CSL was not into prosperity Gospel of Joel Osteen. "Suffering is the royal road, Christ has trod it before us" - not really Osteen.
That book has its own problems, it was written pretty soon after his conversion while he was still fairly decidedly evolutionist (he even denies unicity of the first sinning parent Adam and says it must have been a group of people - but JRRT does NOT do that.) But it does clearly contradict Osteen.
18:55 "Worldly methods, whether it's Christian rock ..."
Wait a second.
There is a difference between Christians being musicians and for instance renouncing rock rhythms (which they should perhaps do) and on the other hand Christian rock (not renouncing these rhythms)used as a missionary method.
Also, JRRT and CSL were more meant for the former use : as a Christian way of using the distraction called literature, and perhaps as a bonus some outreach to neopagans, but they weren't meant either of them as a missionary method.
You cannot blame them for not working as what they didn't try to be!
"Things like Walden movies"
You cannot blame CSL for all what Walden Media did to Narnia (especially not in Voyage of the Dawn Treader).
19:12 "Soon they [the ministries] will find their children are in the craft and are good little [Christian] witches."
There are other avenues to such results, like too intense ecumenism with kabbala practising Jewry.
And private reading of LotR or Narnia is not likely to bring about this result.
19:28 "The guy has four names"
Yes, sure, what about it? Actually it is a double first name, John Ronald, plus a middle name, Reuel, which was traditional in the Tolkien family, in that branch of it. Plus of course the official family name.
19:36 "This man did his writing during the midnight hours"
Sometimes possibly, but no reason to think this was his main writing hour. He didn't wait till midnight, make a seance for writing, and go to bed at 1 or 2. He did, and probably very often, start a writing session in the evening when it was calm and go on to midnight.
His schedual as a professor, both tutor and researcher, was not that harrassed he could never get around writing on his novel at day time.
19:42 "He worked for twelve years and released the story LotR in the thirteenth year"
Seeing Wiccan symbolism where there is perhaps just a coincidence of his story being ready then? Plus I was hearing a documentary which said it was actually 14 years. Perhaps there is no contradiction, like Fellowship being published in 13th and Return in 14th year after starting the work.
19:48 "He did his work during the midnight hours and he waited 13 years!"
The midnight hours preference remains to be proven. And the 12 + years was not a question of waiting but of pretty intense reworking. His son in the series "History of Middle Earth" or "HoME" has a few books just about the earlier versions of parts of LotR.
19:59 "Tolkien became known as the Master of the Middle Earth"
How unusual is it to be considered "master" by someone in a field one writes extensively in?
20:16 "these are like hybrid demonic like creatures"
Halflings are that?
VERY misleading description, I would say.
The word refers to them being about half the size of a normal man, not to hybridisation. And they are more like Englishmen from the countryside than like demons. Even with furry feet and leathery soles.
20:30 "pointed ears" - not mentioned in story.
"furry feet" - yes.
"and carries a cursed object" - the story is about the destruction of the object so as to undo the curse.
Since it is set in pre-Christian and even pre-Hebrew times, the Cross of Christ was not yet available to undo that curse.
20:46 "if Frodo would fail, the ring would fall into the hands of the evil wizard Sauron"
Well, more than "wizard" it's a matter of a kind of self-incarnate Abaddon figure. A fallen angel taking visible shape. Who in this imaginary time had done the stupid move of putting his powers into the ring, thereby exposing himelf to defeat should it be destroyed.
21:15 "Christ is my hope"
Mine too. Frodo is supposed to have done a thing thousand years before Christ, and Satan had changed his tactics since.
What if for instance Nimrod really was killed by Esau, as book of Jasher says?
Doesn't mean we do not need Christ next time such a guy (or himself) is around. See Apocalypse 19. Tolkien is fantasising about the past and of how demons may have been beaten before Christ came.
21:27 "heroes, where these vile unsaved people are here to save humanity"
Unlike LotR these are put in present or future. And vileness is hardly a trait of either Frodo or Gandalf.
What exactly has LotR to do with things like Marvel Comics and DC Comics? For my part I can only say, thankfully, both to God's providence and to these authors, I grew into them while growing out of superheroes.
21:38 "ascended masters that are coming soon, lord maitreya"
Nothing of that in Tolkien, when it comes to human participants. And the really angelic "wizards" (when he had thought it through and decided they were angelic in nature, he was already stuck with "wizard" - he had already written the Hobbit in a decidedly more worldly moment) can hardly be considered as "ascended".
Once again, you are trying to push accusations against Tolkien by what you manage to associate his work with, not by what you actually find in it.
21:44 "to save humanity by their occult powers"?
In LotR, the occult power is precisely presented as the THREAT, exactly as a Christian should have it!
And, again as a Christian would have it, as something one must NOT use, even in defence against other occultists.
22:03 When it is predicted that God sends a strong delusion, i e gives the devils special great permission to perpetrate it (send and work are different things - as is send and simply permit in the normal way too) it does not specify that glib accusations against fairy tale authors are the kind of truth man will not have wanted.
More like eternity of definition of marriage and of dignity of innocent human life is, against like, people wanting "gay marriage" and "reproductive rights".
22:55 "The ring has a message on it which is written in the witchcraft language of runes"
Runes are not involved on the ring and runes are not per se a witchcraft language, though, like other letters (including Hebrew letters) abused in witchcraft.
23:01 "Adolf Hitler was heavily into what they call these runes"
As into other things of Germanic Antiquities, and so was Tolkien. This does not mean Germanic Antiquities are per se witchcraft, even if some Nazis were very probably into that sort of thing. Witchcraft, not just Germanic Antiquities.
23:10 Runes were simply the letters of Germanic peoples before they were Christians and adopted, usually, the Latin alphabet.
Indeed, letters that were (like Hebrew letters) sometimes abused for magic, but still letters.
How hard is that to grasp?
23:26 "Whenever you hear that word [runes, I presume] it is always involved with high level occult typically"
Is it "always" or just "typically"? And are you not going to say more about this, simply because you have no exact knowledge on the subject?
ANOTHER game of guilt by assocaitation, as well as ANOTHER inaccuracy on the actual story, since the letters on the ring are NOT runes, neither Germanic runes (historic ones), nor Dwarf runes (made up by Tolkien), but Tengwar (also made up by Tolkien).
What is linguistically speaking involved with witchcraft on the ring is rather the use of the Black Language - one invented in story by Morgoth (Satan) or Sauron (Abaddon). And also invented for story (but not much developed beyond ring verses) by Tolkien.
And of course, Tolkien did NOT pick it up from real witchcraft.
Around 23:00 He (our not infallible, but infallibly suspicious guide to JRRT) believes Runes have to do with Nordic Icelandic Mythology and one sees a lot about them on occult shows.
Well, duh!
Runes were, as said, letters. They avoided horizontal and bent lines, for ease of use in carving on wood. The rune for B/P looked basically like a B - with only straight edges, triangles instead of semicircles. The rune for I looked like an I. The rune for a T looked like if the line on top had been replaced by a roof sloping down on both sides. The rune for L looked like an L upside down with some slope to the "horizontal" line.
And yes, there were myths about Odin inventing runes, just as Hermes and Thot are supposed to have invented letters. Now, do you shun Greek letters because of Hermes? Are hieroglyphs totally occult and diabolical because of the Thot connexion? No.
Writing is an act which is per se licit. It remains licit even if you thank a false god for the fact you have letters - as long as you are not trying to throw lots with the letters (as was occasionally done with runes and a similar thing was done with early Chinese letters) for divination, and as long as you are not dedicating your writings to a false god. Even in this latter case, like Homer dedicating his two epics to a "Muse" (false goddess of poetry), the writing may be mostly licit.
And of course, since Tolkien was an expert on Germanic (including Old Icelandic and Anglo-Saxon) antiquities, he would not be basing his attitude on runes on what TV shows on the occult (did he even watch TV at all?) were presenting.
Give someone, please, some credit for knowing his own subjects better than you do!
23:33 "These runes are actually real and they are used in the occult."
ONCE again, ring inscription was NOT in runes, the one real set of runes Tolkien used (on map of Elrond in The Hobbit) were Anglo-Saxon runes, the recorded uses of which are all CHristian.
Even the Nordic 16-letter row of runes has been used on Christian rune stones in Sweden. "So and so, son of so and so, went East and died - pray for his soul." There is also a Hail Mary in runes.
AND I still don't see you shunning all Hebrew letters just because kabbalists use them!
23:36 "occult LANGUAGE"?
Total nonsense. Writing system and language are distinct. Henochian which is really an occult language (and which I do not know, and which JRRT did not base his languages on) can be written in Latin letters. English can be written in runes (historical such) or in Tolkien's Dwarf runes or in Tolkien's Tengwar, or in Greek Alphabet or in Cyrillic alphabet, and it is still English - a non-occult language.
I wonder if Tolkien's confessing priest may have had some fear Tolkien's language inventions might be occult, he documented otherwise by translating Our Father, Hail Mary and Glory Be to Quenya and to Sindarin.
23:42 Hitler was obsessed with and was to a large extent able to decipher [runes]
Being able to decipher runes is anywhere from Iceland to Denmark tought in elementary school. It is not in any way occult knowledge - though it may have been treated as such back when it was used by Pagans. Like Egyptians did with their writing skills.
23:55 Noted that Mabel Tolkien was, as a widow, in Birmingham, close to its Oratory, converted to Roman Catholicism.
In the book of the speaker of this video, this might be bad, in the book of this Roman Catholic convert, it is good.
24:00 "I desired dragons with a profound desire"
And I desired Dracula and Spiderman and Tarzan with such a thing. Children do have quirks in literary taste. The quote goes on to say he did very much NOT desire to have the dragons anywhere close to his own body.
Nor is it recorded he desired them not to be killed by any dragon killers. Except perhaps later where Farmer Giles is content with parleying with the dragon and cutting off his tail. Not recalling if that dragon proved false and was later killed.
24:10 "Dragons are of all mythological creatures the most purest representation of evil."
Insofar as mythological. Insofar as representation.
Though Tolkien himself hated "confusions" between Dinos and dragons, there seem to have been some biological prototypes for dragons too. But perhaps these were rather pelycosaurs, like dimetrodon, than dinosaurs properly so called/
He desired pirates and red indians too, doesn't mean he approved of piracy or of skalping.
24:14 Satan himself is described as a Great Dragon.
As THE OLD dragon, actually.
Implying there might be younger and somewhat less evil dragons.
Don't worry, excepting perhaps Farmer Giles, the imaginary dragons in Tolkien ARE as evil as dragons should be. I e described as enemies.
Satan himself is described as a great dragon - yes, and he is named as an accuser and backbiter.
24:20 "so this man desired dragons with a profound desire"
We've already been through that, haven't we?
24:26 He soon became a prodigy and was speaking German, French, Latin ...
How spooky must that sound to some monoglot English-only speaker who never had this opportunity of learning languages?
In South Africa JRRT had grown up with at least two langs close by, English and Afrikaans. That does tend to spark off language prodigies!
Plus you are forgetting that JRRT soon lost his mother too, and that the priest who was made a guardian for him was already in himself a language "wiz".
Plus that mother before dying had been a stimulus for language acquisition. Plus that he went to exactly the right school for developing this, he is not the only language genius who went to St Edwards in Birmingham?
JRRT had all natural stimuli necessary to become a language prodigy. No need to bring on sour suspicions about any dragons "he had desired" (which really he hadn't, since he didn't desire to have them close by) helping him.
And of course he knew the priest since his mother's conversion, not just since after her death.
24:40 after some more languages (to which JRRT had study access by writing, it is NOT as if he had been taught languages by demons without studying them), "Tolkien even developed new languages".
"Now this is not from God!" (24:41)
Why not? Because God didn't give you the same talents? Or because your ma would have forbidden you to develop new languages?
25:11 "when we look into the backgrounds of these child prodigies, their parents are heavily involved in the occult"
Do you count Tolkien fandom as heavy involvement in the occult?
For JRRT's own case, do you count Catholicism as heavy involvement in the occult?
Otherwise, the phenomenon probably exists, but the talents used are still probably (mostly) natural. An occultist will learn for kabbalistic reasons say Hebrew - and his child will pick up some Hebrew. They will get to know herbal magic, and that will involve (which their children will pick up) knowledge of natural and God given properties of herbs too. And so on. How much of the occult the children will pick up along with it will depend on how much the parents think they need to be protected from it until they are older, but unlike JRRT, they will in this case NOT pick up a good Catholic grasp of the Catechism.
Nor certain Methodist puritanisms, since the mother's will was not totally respected (or his guardian could not himself accomodate JR and Hilary) and he lived part of time with Methodist relatives (which this guy in this video forgot to mention).
And for the record, once again, he went to a very great SCHOOL for linguists. St Edwards in Birmingham was ideal for him, as had been his homeschooling.
25:17 "and almost always, these people have psychic abilities"
If "psychic" means "of the soul" we all have. If it means divinatory, or magical ones, JRRT has not shown any.
25:23 "and they almost every single time believe in reincarnation"
Well, JRRT clearly didn't when it came to men. And even if in his books he attributed this to dwarves and elves, he would hardly consider people he met nor himself as such, so he would not believe in any cases of reincarnation. He would have said that was for some other kind of relation to nature than man, created in God's image but also fallen, had.
And also redeemed. Both fall and redemption having eternal consequences, neither of which is rebirth.
25:39 "I am not saying God can't gift a child"
In that case your case against JRRT is falling apart.
"But is the child then gifted in such a way that he is glorifying the Lord Jesus Christ?"
OK, you are saying when God gifts a child, it is always for sainthood? Wolfgang Mozart's gifts, were they from the devil (despite being cultivated by education by a pious father and thus belonging to obedience to parents)?
25:46 "Or is he being gifted in such a way where ultimately he is being used as a tool of Satan?"
These are not the only alternatives for giftedness overall. They may be the only alternatives, indeed I think they are, for any single act, but they are not for the overall scope of a talent.
There is such a thing as bearing 30-fold fruit even with great natural gifts.
And, yes, I think JRRT did think this over and did in some ways try to make sure he was ultimately glorifying Christ. He did not totally fail there.
"in order to deceive people"
Well, in that case you had better start enumerating deceptions through LotR.
So far none, since your case about ring and its "runes" has fallen apart.
26:04 "is he being used by the devil or by the Lord Jesus Christ, that is all that really matters"
Having a talent and "being used" are two different things.
There is also such a thing as training one's talent while having fun with it, and that thing is not diabolical of itself. You have not eyt in anyway started proving it was with JRRT. Or, for that matter Mozart.
You might say that that doesn't matter much. But in that case, you are bending over sth which doesn't matter and treating it as if it mattered immensely. At least when it came to the parts and aspects of LotR that were simply invention, for the fun of it.
26:11 "they are predicting these indigo children or these star children"
Well, we have always had them, and it is easy to predict what we know from past experience will come. As long as tghere is an Ireland, you will always have rainy summer days on Ireland (barring only supernatural draughts by judgement of two witnesses, but perhaps Ireland will already have sunk into the sea by then).
26:14 "[predicting that] they are going to be the saviours of mankind"
If superstitious people think horseshoes bring salvation, it doesn't follow horses need no horseshoes. Or that horses should be killed to get rid of horseshoes that superstitious people can erroneously look to salvation for.
JRRT very clearly described the gifted hobbit - Frodo - nearly ruining everything, while the stout and and nearly loutish one, nearly ungifted except for gardening and ropes, helps the situation up quite a bit. But providence uses even a bad guy to make the day (though that one ruins himself in the process).
So, JRRT was NOT a believer in this superstition.
I do however think that hysterically averting eyes from all that talents do and instead clustering around hacks like the speaker here with his long accusation speech, might well ruin things and help bringing about Antichrist. Such might be the guys THROUGH whom persecution is provoked without necessity.
26:18 "I can't tell you how many supposed saviours of mankind I have just been seeing"
Well, JRRT didn't pretend to be one.
And St Paul also had to deal with Pagans giving him too much credit, except those guys did it face to face, so St Paul had a chance to correct them.
26:23 "between Barack Obama and Oprah"
Whom JRRT would hardly have liked very much either.
26:28 "then we got Lord Maitreya and the ascended masters"
Whom JRRT didn't believe in.
26:31 "We've got the grey aliens"
Sure these were even portrayed as saviours? Weren't these the bad ones, while good aliens looked nicer?
Anyway, I don't think JRRT would have approved of them (grey ones) any more than of ringwraiths.
26:35 "we've got the star children"
And you have started repeating yourself. Are you going to harp on that one because it makes for a closer case about JRRT than any of the more clearly diabolical and or heretical stuff?
26:39 "fiftythree flavours of supposed" [saviours?]
Well, what if one or two flavours of false messianity simple are innocent and never volunteered for that role?
Wonder how you will come to Puzzle in the Last Battle by CSL. A simpleton tricked into accepting, what he later rejects, namely false messianity. And what about people who get such roles tacked onto them behind the back?
26:43 "Satan is going to meet you at your need"
What if talented people are wanted for other things than saving the world, in this of course in senses they are not capacitated for? What if they are wanted for saving some minor things that should be saved?
What if, therefore, they are other things than just Satan's bait?
26:52 not just "one deception, but deceptions at every single level you can [imagine]"
Like false denunciations of a false deception? Like what you are doing, I hope without knowing it, with JRRT and CSL here?
Well, for some time yes, perhaps. But as long as they are chasing DIFFERENT false Messiahs, the worst has not yet come. The worst is there when they crystallise on one of them.
Or, when one of them gains very much more real power and makes very much greater claims on the rest of humanity than the others.
Your chase after people who in some cases are not even falsely honoured as Messiahs and in some are so against their will or behind their back, will not have mended things. It will have helped to give the impression that Christian adherence to one only - and that the one who deserves it, Our Lord Jesus Christ - with consequent rejection of all rivals is a cruel, spiteful and ultimately invidious thing.
26:59 "The Church is not being prepared and equipped to deal with what's coming"
You can say that again. Attacking CSL and JRRT is not preparing the Church. These two were doing so, but not quite enough.
LET ME MAKE ONE THING CLEAR.
The Holy Writte never ever says Antichrist will be an extremely brilliant thinker, or problem solver.
He will certainly have a talent directly for deception, like pretending to be calm when he's mad at someone, things like that. But he need not have the best solutions off his head. He can very well be a plagiariser and even destroyer of better men's solutions. He can very well be someone who harvests admiration once you guys have stripped every talent who remains Christian of the admiration that is normally due.
I can't afford a bet, not even I'll eat my hat, since my situation hardly allows me to peacefully use a cabbage as hat for a week and in this weather a cabbage hat would go bad and be bad to eat before the week was over (referring to a story by Chesterton). But I'd like you to show me exactly as much as ONE passage that says he will be intelligent. In useful senses. Or artistic ones, excepting direct and unmitigated self promotion.
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