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m a r g i n a l i a u p o n M a r k u s D a v i d s e n ' s " T h e S p i r i t u a l T o l k i e n M i l i e u "
Page citations are what is actually printed in the top corner. Increment by one to get the PDF page #.
Introduction
p. 17
Other examples of fiction‐based religion are the Otherkin who believe to be ‘other‐than‐humans’, for instance Elves, Dragons, or Angels (Kirby 2009a; 2009b; 2012; 2013; Laycock 2012a), and the related Vampire community (Keyworth 2002; Hume 2006; Laycock 2009; 2012b).
Neither of these is really a religion, of course. Rather, either could possibly be called a spiritual belief, at least where the individual in question appeals to ideas about their soul/spirit for their non-human identity, and there are may be spiritual practices one considers related or based on their otherness. Some groups of vampires come closer to being "religions", I think (e.g. Strigoii Vii, House Kheperu), but very few, if any, otherkin really fit the bill. Things like the Tribunal of the Sidhe and Tie Eldalieva qualify as religions, or at least spiritual paths ("Tolkien spirituality"), sure, but I would rather say these are religions that may be attractive to Otherkin (because of freedom to express otherness) rather than "otherkin is a fiction-based religion."
Cf. the definition of religion he has adopted for this paper, though (p. 31): I shall therefore define religion as beliefs, practices, experiences, and discourses which assume the existence of supernatural agents, worlds, and/or processes and then the discussion in chapter 1.2.2 (p. 53) of "post-traditional [or trans-traditional] individual religion" = "spirituality".
p. 20
...it remains to be seen whether Jackson’s three‐part movie adaptation of H (2012‐2014) will provide a new boost for this kind of Tolkien spirituality.
I would tend to a no, but it's true that only these movies came after Facebook's takeover of the internet, so maybe things are going on there that I'm not aware of. I wouldn't be surprised if there were several groups that got started right after, and then immediately fizzled out (as is often the repeated pattern no matter the platform, because people don't seek out and join a pre-existing group!). Perhaps they partly inspired a few of the Elven groups I keep getting notifications about, for instance, although pretty sure not in the case of the Silver Elves' various groups.
p. 30
I need a definition of
religion which is above all a useful analytical instrument. It is therefore clear, that I cannot use a colloquial or “social constructionist” (Beckford 2003, ch. 1) ‘definition’ which takes religion to be simply those practices which participants themselves identify as “religious”. Such an approach would fail to capture much, for most religionists prefer to identify sub‐institutional religion as spirituality, magic, gnosis, or even science.
This doesn't sit well with me. "It's religion if I say it is, even if you, the practitioner, do not"? I don't have an objection to (p. 31) I shall therefore define religion as beliefs, practices, experiences, and discourses which assume the existence of supernatural agents, worlds, and/or processes, but a phrase like (p. 31) when parading as non‐religion is rather supercilious, I ween.
cf. p. 120, I use the term ‘religious belief’ more broadly to refer to any piece of discursive knowledge that assumes the existence of supernatural agents, worlds, and processes in the actual world.
p. 31-32
I should furthermore make clear that when I refer to the entities which religion revolves around as “supernatural” that is to say that their postulated existence and causal power cannot be verified from the perspective of science and that the study of religion must therefore assume them to be purely the construction of the human imagination. In other words, my approach is not one of methodological agnosticism, but of methodological naturalism or non‐supernaturalism.
(footnote 40) For Berger, this approach is atheist because it analyses and theorises religion on the assumption that no supernatural agents with causal power actually exist and intervene in human affairs, and methodological because it does not rule out the existence of such agents for good, but only states that the fundamental epistemological principles of science precludes scholars from assuming their existence.
...Uh? Must assume? I'm fine with the first part of the first sentence, but wow. Sure, you cannot assume the actual existence of such agents; but "therefore, I must assume they do not exist" does not follow. It's not the only other option. Agnosticism would have been better; and indeed he admits later in the footnote it's a "strong strand" in the field. To be atheist/naturalist here is to have contempt for your subject before you even begin - "all of this is false, obviously..."
cf. footnote 102 on page 81: To be more precise, as methodological naturalists (cf. section 0.3.3 above), we assume religious narratives to be sincere but inaccurate accounts of the states of affairs in the AW [Actual World]. In other word they are errors.
p. 43
The awakened Elves identify with the Elves of legend and fantasy fiction because these beings are near‐immortal magicians
"Because"? *citation needed*! Where do you get off asserting that?
Ch. 1. Individual Religion and the Post-traditional Religious Field
p. 62
Usually, the term movement refers to a group of people sharing an aim and working towards its realisation, whether this aim is political (as in the case of social or political movements) or salvific (in the case of religious movements).
Interesting/odd that he refers to "the Elven movement" then, since I don't think you could state this about elves or otherkin in general. (Maybe, once upon a time; certainly not lately.) I wonder what he thinks its shared aim is, or if he just didn't think clearly about calling it a movement.
p. 67
Certainly, some individual religion is self‐sacralising, also within the spiritual Tolkien milieu (footnote 81) As we shall see in part II, experience and gnosis play an important role for Tolkien religionists, and especially the self‐identified Elves are clearly engaged in self‐sacralising expressive religion.
1. Um, define that? If you mean "taking oneself as a god", then, no. 2. If you mean "regarding the self as a sacred thing", then what exactly is the problem?
Ch. 2. Fiction-based Religion
p. 69-70
Taking the Theosophical Society as an example, I demonstrate, however, that the first fiction‐inspired religions are much older. Concretely, I show how Helena Blavatsky was inspired by Edward Bulwer‐Lytton’s fiction, quoted his characters, and related key concepts from his novels to her own ideas in Isis Unveiled (1877) and in The Secret Doctrine (1888).
We shall see, I suppose, but how can he claim to know the source of her inspiration? I.e., is it not possible that in these novels she saw reflection of things she herself had already been thinking about, and said "oh, I should write that down"?
p. 72
We can distinguish between an epistemological and an ontological level of Baudrillard’s argument. On the epistemological level, Baudrillard points to the modern period as one of increased doubt within Christianity itself concerning its ontological grounding. This epistemological change brought Christian theologians to realise an ontological constant, a “truth” (Baudrillard 1994, 4), namely the simulacric nature of the God concept as such. In other words, God is a simulacrum no matter whether the worshipper considers him to be a simulacrum or not, by the very virtue of being a concept claimed to refer to an objective reality, but being in fact void of reference to any reality whatsoever. This has important implications, for if God is a simulacrum, then all other notions referring to supernatural agents, worlds, or processes are also simulacra and all religions are by definition systems of simulacra.
All very interesting, I'm sure, but what is the relation of this to the whole Tolkien business? Is it that modern people in general seem less concerned with ontological reality of their religious beliefs, happy to worship fictions without any real referents?
It makes sense to single out fiction‐based religion as a special type of religion because religions in general base themselves on narratives that fall under the rubric of history. That is so, because the narratives which form the textual basis of most religious traditions (think, for instance, of the Christian gospels, the Buddha legend, and the Babylonian creation story) claim to refer to events that have taken place in the actual world. 101
(footnote 101) Please note that also religious narratives that are staged in the mythical past must be considered historical according to my definition of history as narratives with reference ambition. This does not rule out, however, that one can and must distinguish between religious narratives set in the far past (myths) and religious narratives set in the recent past (religious legends). Still, myths and legends can together be contrasted to fiction because they are both presented as historically true.
This has some bearing on discussions of whether there is a fundamental difference in the source material for mythfolk and fictionkin. (I think also the fact of a single source vs. no single identifiable origin is also pertinent.)
p. 87
The Church of All Worlds and the Church of Satan, by contrast, can be considered fiction‐integrating religions. Both have integrated fictional elements into their rituals – from Robert Heinlein’s Stranger in a Strange Land and H.P. Lovecraft’s novellas respectively.
Not really relevant to the otherkin dimension, but I'm puzzled by his assertions (this isn't the only one) that La Vey's Church of Satan is somehow based on the Mythos. Did the Mythos-flavor version of the Necronomicon exist in the 60s?
p.88
(but not the only reference to this idea)
I'm chafing at the idea that Neo-Pagan religion in general is "fiction-inspired", i.e., inspired and supported by fiction with which it shares concerns and ideas. Not that there is never any such material, of course, but this paper tends to give the impression that is its only basis, that it would not exist if not for certain works of fiction even though the connection is not as direct as with Jediism (fiction-based = takes fictional texts as its very foundation) or the lesser strength category of Church of All Worlds (fiction-integrating = integrating belief elements from fiction, re-enacting fictional rituals, and/or adapting identities from fiction).
p. 90
Gardner himself said that he had been forced to mask his teachings as fiction because the British Witchcraft Act was still in force in 1949, prohibiting the practice of witchcraft (e.g. 1959, 3). Some Pagan scholars believe this (e.g. Pearson 2006, 830), but since the act was no actual threat in the 1940s, James Lewis has argued that Gardner used it merely as an excuse for not revealing his sources (2007a, 482).
I suppose loosely so; but more likely was the oath he had taken, yes? Fear of the Witchcraft Act is pretty much notwithstanding here.
p. 92
the notion of a separable mental body, the scin lecca
"shine lich", i.e., shining body.
Chapter 3. The Religious Affordances of Fictional Narratives
p. 98
On the other hand, I am particularly interested in the formal reasons why Tolkien’s narratives produce a variant response (the religionising reading) in a certain group of readers who are typically already active in the cultic milieu...
Yanno, does he actually arrive at any kind of "why" people do this? He thoroughly explores "how they could" come forth with a religionising reading, but I'm not sure "why" people respond in this way is really anywhere in the following, oh, four hundred pages...
Chapter 4. Religious Blending in Fiction‐based Religion
p. 110
In the field of fiction‐based religion we can speak of assimilation [the absorption of elements from one religious tradition into another] when originally fiction‐based beliefs and practices are absorbed into religious traditions that consequently deny their fictional origins. We see this in the Elven movement and the Vampire community [... contrasted to synthesis:] the Tribunal of the Sidhe (ch. 10) ... readily acknowledge that they draw on Tolkien’s literary mythology (i.e. no disguising assimilation)...
(emphasis original)
... >:/ I could really do without this condescending attitude. (But then I suppose he did say he's operating from the perspective that all religious traditions must be wrong...)
p. 110-111
I further contrasted fiction‐integrating religion to fiction‐based religion sensu stricto, i.e. ‘religion that takes fictional texts as its very foundation’. ... I therefore prefer to borrow Ivan Marcus’ term inward acculturation to characterise the syncretic process taking place in fiction‐based religion sensu stricto. ... inward acculturation is a twin to assimilation, for both processes involve an exchange of religious elements between two traditions that are unequal in power and prestige. What makes the two processes different is the agent. We can speak of assimilation when the larger or stronger tradition swallows the small one. ... In inward acculturation, by contrast, the small tradition consciously and selectively borrows form the host culture.
So what "larger or stronger tradition swallow[ing] the small one" is he alluding to with "the Elven movement" in the previous quote? I'm having trouble following this.
p. 112
Domestication in pure synonymisation is weak, but often synonymisation goes one or two domesticating steps further. This is so, because people usually pick one tradition (their own) as the yardstick against which the others are measured, arguing, for instance, that prana is just another label for the real thing, say, animal magnetism. Labels from other traditions are thus used, but the meaning ascribed to them comes from one’s own tradition and can thus be radically different from the meaning which the concepts carry in their own traditional contexts. Sometimes synonymisers take a trans‐traditional perspective and assert that, for example, chi, prana, and animal magnetism are names which different traditions have attached to the same real thing.
Cultural appropriation, hm?
p. 117
Most Tolkien religionists believe that Tolkien’s Elves (the Quendi) and the fairies of Celtic folklore (or the fairies from the theosophical take on Celtic folklore) in some direct or indirect way refer to the same beings. ... Figure 4.3 illustrates how even the Elf‐belief of merely Tolkien‐inspired individuals actually tends to reflect Tolkien’s noble and humanised Quendi rather than the dangerous Celtic sorcerer spirits.
*Marge Simpson noise* Only if you think Elves and Sidhe and Faeries/Fairies are all the same thing... I mean, you kind of say it yourself right there in the following sentence: the Quendi and "the dangerous Celtic sorcerer spirits" aren't the same people!
Also, he keeps saying "merely". Eh?
p. 118
This idea of projecting only certain qualities from two different spaces into a single blended space is kinda interesting; but in terms of spiritual 'kin with past-life memories of other places, I would sort of want to read it backwards: Some of the characteristics of the actual ("blended") thing seem to map onto only some characteristics of (potentially) multiple "sources", that is, things that can potentially be compared to. cf. the "Sort of like that, but not exactly" pointing to fictions such as Strands of Starlight, Elric, Deverry, ElfQuest, etc. (including, of course, Tolkien).
Chapter 5. Dynamics of Belief in Religious Traditions
p. 120
I use the term ‘religious belief’ more broadly to refer to any piece of discursive knowledge that assumes the existence of supernatural agents, worlds, and processes in the actual world.
Yes, well, this might have been useful to state earlier...
p. 121
Furthermore, I distinguish between two main types of justification of belief, namely legitimisation which aims at objectivising religious claims, and relativisation which protects the plausibility of religious claims by de‐objectivising them.
Just noted for later.
p. 140
A common mytho‐cosmological reading of Tolkien’s literary mythology affirms the existence of the Valar and the Blessed Realm (inventory), but considers the narrated events in LR and S (history) to be entirely fictional. Implicitly, readers who adopt the mytho‐cosmological mode classify the text as ‘an imaginary story about real supernatural entities’. Or they approach the text as a hybrid, i.e. as a fictional text embedding passages about the supernatural fit for a referential reading.
Is it me, or is he struggling with the idea of "true in some sense, false in some sense, true and false in some sense..." being all simultaneously the case for mythic tales?
p. 141
In the case of Tolkien spirituality, Tolkien’s literary mythology can be considered a rewriting of mythology, especially Celtic mythology, which Tolkien used as a source of inspiration.
..."especially"? Present, but I think he rather drew more on the Germanic and Norse legends... but this sort of complaint is probably outwith the scope of Otherkin-related marginalia.
p. 146
It is interesting to test the metaphorical turn thesis on my material, however, because one would expect a de‐historicising and metaphorical turn, if it is taking place in cultic religion in general, to be even more pronounced in fiction‐based religion. That is to say, if Tolkien‐based religion turns out to be cosmological and metaphorical, that is simply what could be expected and changes nothing. But if rationalisations in Tolkien‐based religion turn out to be literal‐affirmative and if Tolkien religionists seek to objectivise rather than to de‐objectivise their claims, then that would be a serious blow to the thesis that a metaphorical turn is taking place in the cultic milieu and in contemporary religion in general.
Calling this an axe to grind is probably too strong, but...
Chapter 6. Method: Data Collection and Analytical Strategy
p. 149
All eight online groups that I found and studied for this project were to some extent interconnected and formed one large online network of Tolkien spirituality. A larger number of tiny, marginal, or short‐lived groups were connected to the Tolkien network as well, as were several individual homepages. The existence of a (major) English‐using Tolkien‐spiritual online group outside this network must be considered highly unlikely.
Hmmm... *bit of side-eye*
Let's see if I can construct his list:
"Four clusters":
1. Middle-earth Paganism
2. Legendarium Reconstructionism
"the Tolkien-inspired movement of self-identified Elves"
3. "the Tolkien-affirming Elves"
4. "the non-Tolkienesque majority of the Elven movement lies on the margin of the spiritual Tolkien milieu"
online:
Okay um, that's not eight?
on p. 152 he says he interviewed members of
Ilsalunte Valion
Tie eldalieva
Tribunal of the Sidhe
Silver Elves
Indigo Elves
Fifth Way
Middle Earth Pagans
Morcelu Atreides
so um... I wouldn't say that's "eight online groups". See your own chart that classifies some of these as offline, and doesn't mention Morcelu Atreides at all.
p. 151:
p. 150
When the Elven movement emerged in the 1970s, the self‐identified Elves all agreed that Tolkien’s literary mythology was a main source of inspiration, but also agreed to approach
it metaphorically.
"All" agreed? Sounds like he might be taking just the EQD/Silver Elves as an "all", or may possibly be thinking of either group as bigger than it actually was. After all, we don't know a lot about what the people who subscribed to their letters thought; there are some letters from other Elves who sent them in for distribution, but not a lot (at least, not that are published in the SE's books of their letters).
p. 153
Chart reads:
Elven Realities (ER), founded 1999, Tolkien text (S), movies
By putting S(imarillion) in parentheses, I suppose he means it's only some kind of secondary inspiration, but I fail to understand how a group which was founded two years before even the first of the Jackson LotR movies came out could take them as a foundational "text".
Chapter 7. The Religious Affordances of The Lord of the Rings
p. 163
But in contrast to LR [The Lord of the Rings], which is clearly written for an adult audience, H [The Hobbit] is a children’s book [which] cannot work as a source for religious inspiration on its own.
I dunno, why not? If you mean "there's not enough information in it to go on", then say so; but the claim here seems to be solely on the basis of it being originally written for children. I submit that people can and will base religious or spiritual activity on just about anything. (Nobody tell him about soulbonding or pop culture paganism, okay? In fact, 1. Middle-Earth Paganism really is pop culture paganism, and 2. since he acknowledges in this paper that some people state their rituals commune with the Elves or Valar, why can he not suppose the same technique could be applied to other source material?)
p. 164-165
The Elves (or Quendi) come in two main kinds, the so‐called High Elves (including Elrond) and Grey‐elves (including Legolas) who respectively have or have not lived with the Valar in the Blessed Realm in the past (cf. section 7.1.2 below). ... Because the High Elves in a sense live simultaneously in the Blessed Realm and in Middle‐earth, they possess special powers against the Undead and can take on the shining form which they have in the Blessed Realm (LR 214, 222‐223).
A better parenthetical example for High Elves would have been Galadriel, or of course Glorfindel, whom he goes on to refer to at the end of what I have quoted here (at least I suppose that he who is meant, without actively checking the page numbers; not that I have the same edition anyway). Elrond is descended from High Elves, among other ancestry, but certainly never previously lived in Aman! I doubt that he "in a sense live[s] simultaneously in the Blessed Realm and in Middle‐earth", at least not in the same way that Glorfindel does. (An interesting question about all the Half-Elven, I suppose, although Glorfindel having died once before may be in a different state to Galadriel, as well.)
p. 167
Some of the Elves (including Arwen) have begun to fade and will die if they do not leave Middle‐earth.
Um... I don't think you're quite understanding what's going on with Arwen.
p. 167
Other magical items [include] ... Boromir’s horn which his brother Faramir can hear hundreds of miles away (LR 666).
Hm. Is it magical? It doesn't seem likely to have been made by Elves (or Elves and Dwarves), which are all his other examples; but then Faramir is able to provide Frodo and Sam with walking sticks that had "a virtue set on them", and I think the horn that Eowyn gives Merry has something about it, so perhaps some Men are able to do something. But as for Boromir's horn, I always interpreted that more as a kind of psychism on Faramir's part (similar to how the Numenorians can exhibit foresight) than that the horn could literally be heard that far.
p. 173
Galadriel thinks that there might come a new “Spring” (capitalised in original) where “the lands that lie under the wave [Númenor] are lifted up again” and when she and Treebeard will meet again (LR 981).
I think rather she means Beleriand, most of which is also "under wave", since she says that "there," i.e. the place she has just referred to, "in the willow-meads of Tasarinan we may meet in the Spring". Tasarinan was a place in Beleriand.
p. 174
Arwen’s short hymn to Elbereth goes:
A Elbereth Gilthoniel,
silivren penna miriel
[...]
LR includes no translation of the Sindarin text into English...
??? Surely it does, even if only in the appendix??
And I don't recall this being Arwen saying this. wth?
p. 175
In appendix D on calendars, it is explained that the elves in Rivendell observed a week of six days concluded by a holiday which was named after the Valar and reserved “for ritual rather than practical purposes” (LR 1107).
Uh... no... it says that they observed a week (enquië) of six days "for ritual rather than practical purposes", that is, that for their practical purposes they did not use this period of reckoning, but others (longer, especially in Aman as opposed to Middle-earth). It's possible, even likely that Valanya/Orbelain had its proper rituals, but I don't think we should assume that it differed in this respect from the other days. (See http://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Category:Eldarin_week)
p. 183-184
The scattered bits of information about the Valar and about the Elven and Gondorian Valar religion are found primarily in the appendices...
Gondorian...? Did you mean Numenorean?
Chapter 8. An Unexpected Success: Hippies, Neo‐Pagans, and The Lord of the Rings
p. 191
To take another example, Buck Young from the Earth First! movement explains that he uses characters such as Aragorn as role models in his environmentalist writings
This is the same Buck Young (aka Mat Jacobsen) as the one who wrote "An Historical Overview". (The entry for Earth First! and the Earth Liberation Front in the Encyclopedia of Religion and Nature ed. Bron Taylor (2008) takes it to be "an innovative account of the emergence of radical environmental activism"!) The citation is: Young, Buck. "Three Creation Myths: An Historical Overview of the Where-Abouts of Gnomes and Elves, Fauns and Faeries, Goblins, Ogres, Trolls and Bogies, Nymphs, Sprites, and Dryads, Past and Present." FireHeart 6 (1991), 8-10. See http://www.earthspirit.com/historical-overview-whereabounts-gnomes-elves-fauns-faeries-goblins-ogres-trolls-bogies-nymphs-sprites-dryads-past-present. I don't know where "Three Creation Myths" is coming from, as that is not part of the title in FireHeart and I don't find hits for it if I Google.
p. 192
Initially, Neo-Paganism was inspired by LR and other fiction. Only later, the movement gained a more solid and non-fictional foundation in pre-Christian mythology, indigenous wisdom, and western esotericism.
So if Davidsen thinks this (although I do not agree), then why not that, similarly, Elves could be not directly taking from Tolkien, but from the same myths as he was inspired by; or indeed that it could be unique "invented" lore? (so he would probably term it, because he would not take it as truth that it was genuine past/other life memories)
p. 195
The two immediate roots of the Pagan movement, English Wicca and American self-identified Neo-Pagan nature religion, greatly influenced each other in the 1970s, almost up to the point of convergence.
If true, this sheds some light on why the EQD were conflating being Wicca (I think they said that, and not "Wiccans"?) and being Elves all over the place.
p. 211
The only reference to Elven religion falls en‐passant when we hear that Morgoth attacks the city of Gondolin during the Gates of Summer festival (S 291).
Doesn't Ungoliant attack the Trees during "a time of festival", which is why no one was there?
p. 217
In the Elven chapter, I look at the practices and social structures which support the ‘conversion’ to Elvenhood and I analyse how an identity as Elf, once acquired, can subsequently be rationalised and justified.
Did it not occur to him that some people "convert" (i.e. Awaken) as children? Surely in his "online ethnography" he encountered some people describing this in their personal stories?
p. 219
This spiritual identification with the kin folk* does not rule out a parallel belief in Changeling descent: When changeling parents procreate, their offspring will also be Changelings.
* p. 218: Members of the Tribunal believe that their astral home is populated by various forms of spiritual beings, including the Elvyn and the Sidhe, and refer to these beings collectively as the “kin folk”.
Hmm, do you mean they will necessarily be Changelings, as opposed to might be?
p. 225-226
According to Fortune, the “psychic vortex” created by a human sexual union normally draws forth a human soul “from the astral plane” that “is ripe for incarnation”. But sometimes it goes wrong and the vortex may
be deflected, as it were, out of the normal line of human evolution, so that it opens and extends into the sphere of evolution of another type of life. Under such circumstances it is theoretically possible for a being of parallel evolution to be drawn into incarnation in a human body (Fortune 1974, 79‐80).
Fortune differentiates between the unfortunate calling forth of a non‐human soul (in which case the individual will not feel at home among humans) (1974, 80‐81) and the more dangerous incarnation of a positively evil elemental spirit.
Fortune 1974 = Psychic Self Defence.
p. 228
The Tribunal of the Sidhe further legitimises its use of Tolkien’s mythology by granting Tolkien himself supernatural power, wisdom, and purpose. Says Danu,
With magickal research we found that [...] JRR Tolkien was a Bard of the Kin Folk [...]. Tolkien was/is a changeling himself. [...] He is known to the people [=the Tuatha; the Changelings] as Tymmedyn Green, a Lord of the elemental North (290909).
I think I'll just leave that there. Well, one additional note - Danu also speculates about Robert Graves and Marion Zimmer Bradley.
p. 238
It is relevant to include this movement in a book on Tolkien‐based religion, because the identity of the ‘awakened Elves’ is inspired by Tolkien’s Quendi.
Wwweelllll. Sometimes.
p. 239
They ["self-identified Elves"] will therefore typically stress that while Tolkien’s fiction helped them realise their own Elven nature, they do not identify as Quendi, but as those ‘real’ álfar or fairies who inspired Tolkien’s tales. They will say so even if their notion about what Elves/álfar are is evidently inspired by Tolkien. We can thus say that there is a tendency within the Elven movement to assimilate ideas from Tolkien’s literary mythology, i.e. to adopt ideas from Tolkien, but deny the fictional origins of these ideas.
See above cite from p. 192. I mean, I know he's got specific research questions to address here, but clearly he understands that this could be the case, but ... then forgets about it?
p. 239
I argue that the adoption of an Elven identity can best be considered a process of interpretive and epistemic drift. I identify four stages of the epistemic drift (fascination with Elves; identification with Elves; hunch of being an Elf; certainty of being an Elf) and identify the practices which propel the drift (e.g. role‐playing and activity in online groups).
Mm. I don't much like the implication of "they started with something small and blew it out of proportion" (vs. re-evaluating information to come to a different honest conclusion). Darn this "naturalist" perspective.
p. 241
According to the Silver Elves, the Elf Queen’s Daughters sang (and still sing) hymns to Elbereth Gilthoniel (151209). [...] The Elf Queen’s Daughters thus did not only adopt an Elven identity from LR, but also took over the Elves’ veneration for Elbereth, hence modelling a part of their own religious practice on narrative religion from LR. Despite all of this, Tolkien’s literary mythology remained more an add‐on to the spirituality of the Elf Queen’s Daughters rather than its core. Fundamentally, the Elf Queen’s Daughters were Wiccans (Love 2005, 32) with a strong Graves‐inspired emphasis on the Goddess.
I'd say this is pretty accurate from having read the Elf Magic Mail books; as an additional note, they use the name Varda to mean basically "Gaia", "Mother Earth", rather than the "Star Goddess" type of being you might expect (see below).
p. 242
Both the Elf Queen’s Daughters and the Silver Elves owed their Elven identity to Tolkien’s writings. The Silver Elves even told me that “if Tolkien’s works hadn’t been published, it is likely that we would not have called ours’elves Elves”
Mmm. That first sentence is a bit strong. Maybe they owe referring to what they are as Elves to Tolkien. I don't think "none of this would have happened at all" necessarily follows.
p. 244
Tolkien’s authority as a creative visionary and as a scholar of mythology allows his narratives to be used as a source of legitimisa‐ tion, even though the Silver Elves clearly do not consider them to constitute a work of factual history.
Though the Elf Queen’s Daughters and the Silver Elves differed somewhat in their use of Tolkien’s narratives, both groups considered Tolkien’s literary mythology to con‐ stitute a legitimate and central source of inspiration, albeit a non‐referential one that must be read in the binocular mode. As the letter quote on the previous page illustrates, the Silver Elves ascribed much authority to Tolkien’s texts, but at the same time they maintained that the general truth which these texts communicate, namely that an elder race exists and that humans and Elves used to live together in harmony, is presented within an entirely fictional frame. They told me that for them Tolkien’s novels constitute “an inspiring, even sacred mythology, but were never taken as the literal truth” (SE 191209).
The explicit references to Tolkien’s works grow rare in later letters. The Silver Elves told me that this was because they had not attempted to re‐enact Tolkien’s mythology, but had used his books “as emotive guidelines for creating [their] own Elven Culture” (191209).
Against the idea that the EQD or Silver Elves are/were "Tolkien fictionkin".
p. 245-246
The first step towards establishing an online Elven community was taken in 1990 by R’yankar Korra’ti, then a student at the University of Kentucky. R’yankar, who identified as an Elf himself, had been in contact with the Silver Elves and had run a small offline group of Elves in the late 1980s (Sandstorm 2012, 25). In 1990, he launched the Elfinkind Digest, the first electronic mailing list for Elves (Sandstorm 2012, 25).
The timing presented here seems off, given the evidence in the actual Digest, where R'ykandar doesn't mention the Silver Elves until #49 (and is less than impressed). So it's not that he (she) started it because of having contacted them.
"R’yankar" *facepalm* He surely encountered this name multiple times if he read the Timeline. You oughta get people's names right in a doctoral thesis, bub. Try copy and paste if you can't remember.
p. 245, footnote 297
Lupa cites one elf, sade, who had awakened in response to an article (perhaps a letter) by the Silver Elves in Circle Network News around 1985 and who was still active in the Elven community twenty years later (Lupa 2007, 167).
Not an elf, at least not by the time I met her in the late 90s. I suppose he did not contact sade directly, but (though this is without actually pulling out the Field Guide to check) I doubt Lupa would have misidentified her. I'm confused how he can realize there is "a broader Otherkin movement (of people identifying as various sorts of non‐human beings" and e.g. correctly refers to Orion Sandstorm as a Dragon, but then keep misidentifying people like this (myself included; see below).
p. 246
Since 1990, several generations of social community and networking sites have appeared, including Yahoo! Groups (launched 1998)
Unaware of the fact that Yahoo ate earlier services eGroups and Onelist, perhaps? Otherkin lists existed on these services predating Yahoo Groups. Also, there's no mention of TirNanOc, another list dating from earlier in the 90s than that (1995? 1996?), anywhere in the document.
p. 246-247
The Elves especially established themselves on Yahoo! Groups, a milestone being the founding of the group Elven Realities in 1999.
It was actually founded on eGroups. You can see the footer in early messages (https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/elven-realities/conversations/messages/1).
p. 247
During the 2000s, individual Elves also began to maintain their own homepages. Some examples include [...] the homepage of Arethinn (formerly Eshari) who is has [sic] organised the Otherkin gatherings known as MythiCalia and who moderates the Otherkin community on LiveJournal.
OH HAI. That way of citing my name makes me wonder if he read board postings because I ... don't think I use it on my site? *headscratch*
p. 248
A further indication of Internet‐facilitated growth is the majority of new members of the online Elven communities have not developed an identity as Elves on their own, but have only done so upon being exposed to the idea that you can be an Elf yourself by stumbling upon online sites maintained by self‐ identified Elves.
Okay, but like, this is the story you gave from the Silver Elves on down, basically (maybe not R'ykandar?) and quoted them about how making contact with Elves was helpful (if not necessary) for awakening.
p. 248
Since most Elves are also Pagans
Eeehh.... you might be making a mistake to actually bring that idea in to any collection of such. Certainly it's something I've been disappointed to be wrong about more than once.
p. 249
Elven Realities was the only Elven group on Yahoo! Groups to reach the growth stage, especially because it was the only group to ever gain critical mass. Even so, Elven Realities scored only moderately well on the other success factors. While attempts were made to organise offline gatherings, these initiatives were infrequent and the gatherings were poorly attended.
A doctoral candidate says what? Walking the Thresholds may not have been huge like an SF convention, but relative to the size of the list, it was very well attended for a while. 730 members in 2012 is a bloated figure (as he describes - people joining out of curiosity and never unsubscribing, etc) but the attendance in 2001, or whatever was the largest year, was nearly 10% of that. Surely at the time the membership was smaller so it might have been 20% or more. He also seems unaware of Crossing the Thresholds, Dancing the Endless Dream/Summer Gateways, FAE Retreat/Gathering Echo, Kinvention North, etc - all small by some standards (but then he notes the whole community is small; what does he want?) but annual or twice-annual. How is that "infrequent"? (I suppose there is less "paper trail" of monthly events that I know existed as well.)
p. 251
soon online newsgroups emerged, both for Otherkin in general and for various specific Otherkin groups besides Elves, including self‐identified Dragons and Werewolves.
I assume he's referring to alt.fan.dragons and alt.horror.werewolves here, although neither was founded for that purpose. I have no idea what he's got in mind as a "newsgroup ... for Otherkin in general", unless he's using "newsgroup" rather broadly and anachronistically (since just before this he was saying "Already in 1990 the words 'Otherkind' and 'Otherkin' were coined") to include later LJ communities and boards.
p. 251
Six of these are worth mentioning, namely Otherkin.net (founded 2000), the “Otherkin” community on LiveJournal (founded 2001), and the four ProBoard‐based sites, Embracing Mystery (founded 2001), Otherkin Alliance (founded 2005), Otherkin Phenomena (founded 2008), and Otherkin Community (founded 2009). Thanks to a critical mass of discussion participants and to good management and priva‐ cy protection, these six groups have successfully made the transition into the maturity stage in Iriberri and Leroy’s sense.
All of these are now (2018) defunct or moribund; indeed, in 2014 already I would say most of them were pretty inactive, so it's strange that he puts it this way.
p. 251-252
The Elves make up a considerable member contingent on the mature Otherkin sites. For instance, per 1 August 2013, the five largest groups of non‐Elven users on Otherkin.net were Therians (N=144), including especially Grey Wolf Therians; Dragons (N=124), mostly of the Western type; Vampires (N=70), including both Psychic and San‐ guinarian ones; Angelic beings (N=70), including archangels and fallen angels; and Demonic beings (N=47). By comparison, the site hosted 76 Elves. This figure is somewhat misleading, however, for while the Therian and Dragon categories include various sub‐ types, several kinds of Elves were granted their entirely own category. Besides the 76 Elves, some of whom were Dark Elves and Star Elves, Otherkin.net hosted an additional 51 Faeries, 21 Sidhe, 15 Tuatha Dé Dannan, and 2 Fae. More comparable with the Therian and Dragon totals is thus the figure of 165 Elves and Elf‐like beings (not counting self‐ identified Nymphs, Goblins, and other demi‐humans), making this group constitute the largest contingent of members.
He's apparently not aware that there had been at least one purge of inactive accounts, which would have affected the demographics of the remaining ones; but this also reflects the growing trend of "animalkin", people who are not "Otherkin in the narrow sense" registering themselves on Otherkin sites.
p. 252
In other words, the Internet and the Otherkin movement could help nurture an Elven identity that was already present.
Which... you... claimed above... that most people... didn't have?
p. 253
The most significant role‐playing games for the Elven and Otherkin movements were the World of Darkness series published by the game company White Wolf in the 1990s. ... Changeling: The Dreaming (Rein∙Hagen 1995). 310 White Wolf’s games nurtured an Otherkin identity more potently than earlier role‐playing games because they were the first games to take a non‐human perspective. [...] Rich Dansky, one of the designers of Changeling, told the journalist Nick Mamatas that he had come across the electronic mailing list darkfae‐l whose members wondered “how the folks at White Wolf had gotten so much of their existence right”
This is funny to read because there was at least one Otherkin on the Changeling writing group (who is still doing some work for Onyx Path). I remember hearing of the ha-ha-only-serious of "who blabbed?" (Or, what about the idea that it was a conscious magical act in the hopes of awakening and finding others?)
p.257
Second, the self‐identified Elves are inescapably influenced by Tolkien’s new vision of the Elves as tall and majestic human‐like magicians. This is so, no matter whether the self‐identified Elves have this image directly from Tolkien or via later Tolkienesque fantasy.
Or, you know, an authentic native self-concept *eyeroll*
p.260
A particularly elaborate account of Elven ancestry was presented by Aeona Silversong in a series of articles in Green Egg in the mid‐1990s (1995; 1996a; 1996b; 1996c), in which she claimed that the Elves had originally come from the stars about 250,000 years ago, raised Atlantis, and built the pyramids. 316 This all happened in the harmonious time before the “Faerie wars” between humans and elves which forced the elves to retreat to the Otherworld (Silversong 1996c). 317 Before retreating, however, some of the intergalactic elves must have interbred with humans, for Silversong considers herself to be an Elf due to her “ancient Milesian blood” (1995), i.e. by genetic descent. 318
[footnote 316] With these articles, Aeona Silversong attempted to revive the Elf Queen’s Daughters. The first article was printed in the theme issue of Green Egg which also featured a review of Changeling: The Dreaming. The issue was dedicated to fairies and includes other articles by self‐identified Fey (Sandstorm 2012, 37).
This would be very interesting to get a hold of.
p. 263
[footnote 324] In the ‘folk evolutionism’ which predominates among genetic Elves, Elven genes are considered to be not only dominant, but also to be able to extinguish human genes altogether over generations. The offspring of two half‐elves (each with 50% Elvish genes) is considered to have more than 50% Elvish genes.
???
p. 273
In the 21 st century, the Elven movement has merged with and become a substantial part of the Otherkin movement. The self‐identified Elves now benefit from the Otherkin’s infrastructure, especially their well‐organised online communities and occasional offline gatherings.
This has got it backwards. Elves are at the bottom of it. What we now call "the Otherkin community" grew out of Elven spaces that attracted non-elves.
p. 274, footnote 337
Michelle Belanger’s book [Psychic Energy Codex] is so far the only work by an Otherkin intellectual which has been published with a commercial publisher rather than by means of self‐publishing.
Huh? Field Guide?
p. 288
Based on the fact that Tolkien was an expert on mythology, languages, and all ancient things, one can easily assume that if a secret bloodline exists, Tolkien must have known about it though he did not dare reveal the truth openly and risk his job and academic standing. Fortunately for Gardner and de Vere, Tolkien nowhere makes the alleged sub‐text explicit (because there never was one), and they are therefore free to construct claims about Tolkien’s esoteric message, claims that are conveniently unfalsifiable. Again, when trying to persuade those who are not already convinced, it is more attractive to claim that Tolkien’s narratives have a secret message than to cite non‐fictional and falsifiable claims such as Murray’s. Furthermore, Tolkien is dead and cannot object to the esoteric charisma which is ascribed to him.
Look, man, not that I disagree with the general point here, but this snideness permeates the whole essay. It's papered over somewhat when talking directly about "self-identified Elves", buuuut... yeah.
p. 290
The Valar ritual was developed in 1993 by a North Carolina group, the Fifth Way Mystery School
! I didn't know it was that old.
p. 295
Oh Queen of the Stars, the brilliant
Starlight
(is a) high shining being – a radiant star
shone
of heavenly glory – crystallized starlight
(nah‐chaered) far and wide the starlight
shines
on the tree woven world of this middle
land
(Fanuilos), let the holy beings sing
without my holiness, no one is holy!
Uh. This translation by Vincent Bridges is... very free, to say the least.
p. 305
It is clear that Donaldson considers Tolkien’s literary mythology to stand out among fantasy in general. In what amounts to an allographic preface, he asserts that it would be “missing the point” to read Tolkien’s works as “a fairy story” (Donaldson 1997b, 7).
Highly amusing considering Tolkien's own remarks on the topic of "fairy stories"!
p. 315-316
About the same time, two animated TV movies, The Hobbit (1977) and The Return of the King (1980), were produced by Jules Bass and Arthur Rankin, Jr. Tolkien fans liked these movies even less than Bakshi’s.
You what?! The Rankin & Bass RotK is way better than the Bakshi LotR! Fight me.
p. 325
Jackson has even added a magical potion, the “Ent draft”, which causes Merry and Pippin to grow taller (TT 19).
This is not an addition. Maybe not with immediate effect, but drinking water (or "ent-draughts") in Treebeard's home causes Merry and Pippin to grow in the books as well ("we don't see why we shouldn't try and beat the Bullroarer").
p. 335
Middle‐Earth Pagans were not successful as a group, but that does not mean that the phenomenon of Middle‐earth Paganism is insignificant. The group’s failure shows only the obvious: A group that urges its members to find their own way and lacks the ambition of building a collective identity and a shared tradition, is destined to collapse rapidly. Or, as Colin Campbell puts it, a cult which does not begin to transform into a sect by codifying its teachings and establishing formal membership and leadership institutions, will soon collapse into the cultic milieu from which it emerged (1972, 128).
Otherkin are not a "cult" in any sense, of course, but I find this salient. I think earlier on, up to around early 2000s, possibly a bit later, we had at least some of this ambition; and then either willingly abandoned it, or it failed (cf ideas about certain energies no longer being anchored?) and so collapsed, perhaps "back into the cultic milieu" although I think in this case there have also been some changes in that milieu itself.
p. 336
The first member to join the [Children of the Varda Yahoo] group, Usyrna Era’tarien, for example identified as a Wood Elven Were‐Panther.
This name is ringing a bell.
p. 340
The films kept its fantastic elements concerning race, magic, and intuition, but strongly reduced the otherworldly character of the Elven dwellings.
???????? I guess he means "made them seem more situated in the ordinary world of the characters than in an otherworld"?
This stuff in here about how the idea of "Indigo Adults" is weird ... is weird. I mean, they're basically "millennials", yeah? A lot of them were adults when you were writing this in 2013-2014.
p. 341
It is the construction of Middle‐earth as an independent, spiritual world – itself afforded by the movies
Uh. Because no one could possibly have said "lol, this framing device is obviously fiction, the whole thing is an otherworld" from the books?
p. 343
We need an analysis of the religious affordances of HoMe because Legendarium Reconstructionists consider this corpus more authoritative than S and LR.
??? "More authoritative", when much of HoMe is necessarily earlier than LR and at best contemporary with S? (Cf. p. 318 Instead, Legendarium Reconstructionists focus on Tolkien’s written works, including S and the appendices to the book version of LR.) There's certainly more stuff you could work with, but unless the argument is "Tolkien's first impressions were more likely to have been correct"...
cf. Introduction p. 20, One group of second wave ‘Tolkien religionists’ 14 , which might be referred to as Reconstructionists, look to HoMe for the earliest, purest, and most original version of Tolkien’s spiritual vision. I do wonder, though, if that's really their internal characterization of it, "This is better and more true"?
p. 364
First, the Valar in HoMe are represented as more suitable partners for ritual interaction than their counterparts in LR and S. In HoMe, the Valar are no mere angels, but are identified as gods.
I would submit that multiple traditions consider angels to be perfectly "suitable partners for ritual interaction"!
p. 423
Given the ontological, epistemological, and phenomenological duality of Elwin’s position, his mode of justification can be categorised as a form of compartmentalisation, i.e. ‘the position that religious beliefs constitute their own province of meaning and that their truth can therefore not be determined rationally, but only according to its own logic or language game’ (cf. section 5.1.4 above). It is the first time we encounter this sophisticated type of justification in the spiritual Tolkien milieu.
"First"? Seems to me you encountered this with otherkin; or if you didn't, you should have, because I've heard it used as justification -- not often with the specific term "religious", since most otherkin do not consider their beliefs about themselves religious in nature, but in arguments like "the existence of souls cannot be (or at least has not been) proved empirically, therefore claims like these have to be evaluated with different standards."
p. 423
For Gwineth, gnostic experiences are of a radically different kind pertaining to a world (ontologically speaking) or to a province of meaning (phenomenologically speaking) that transcends such rational distinctions as true/false and objective/subjective.
Sounds about right: mythic truth! (Something I imagine Tolkien would have been on board with.)
p.424
...gnosis is true in a way that transcends the distinction between the objective and the subjective: it is not factually true in the objective sense, but neither subjective in the crude sense of being made up. Gnosis is true in a way that cannot be described in terms of rational reasoning; one has to experience it and intuitively “get it”.
Same for otherkin.
p. 433
H, LR, and S were written as fiction and marketed as fiction. Especially in his preface to the second edition of LR, Tolkien unequivocally dismissed the notion that his stories should refer to states of affairs in the actual world, either directly or indirectly. Granting that the Middle‐earth universe is presented as our world’s ancient history, he emphasised that his history is “feigned”. Against those who would read his stories as allegories, either as Christian fiction (like C.S. Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia) or as a Cold War analogy (with the Ring representing the Atomic Bomb), Tolkien forcefully asserted that his story was no such thing and that he detested allegory in all its forms.
"No, this is not clever allegory about recent known history" is not the same as "there is no truth in it, mythic or otherwise". In other words, just because it doesn't refer to ordinary history doesn't have to mean it doesn't refer to ANY "affairs" in the "actual" world.
p. 437, Footnote 546
As noted in chapter 11, the Elf Queen’s Daughters constitute a case of apparent counter‐evidence, as this group adopted an Elven identity as well as the veneration of Elbereth/Valar prior to the publication of S. In fact, the Elven spirituality of the Elf Queen’s Daughters was ironic and their identification as Elves transitory
I suppose you could say "transitory" in that they gave up writing the Letters after a few years, although I don't agree this would mean they necessarily no longer identified as Elves right at that point, or maybe he means how they later called themselves hobbits; but "ironic"? You what?
p. 439-440
For this reason, Middle‐earth Paganism was never more than an add‐on to conventional Paganism. It never developed into a full‐fledged and independent tradition, and it could not possibly have done so, impaired as it was by the weak religious affordances of its main authoritative text. ... To sum up, fictional texts with fantastic elements but no narrative religion can provide significant religious inspiration (LR‐inspired Pagans) and even lead to the formation of fiction‐integrating religious practices (Middle‐Earth Pagans), but no long‐lived and distinct fiction‐based religious tradition can arise from such texts.
It didn't, true. It probably could not have, perhaps. "Couldn't possibly have done so"? And no such tradition ever can? How can you possibly state that with certainty? If nothing else, you're making an awfully broad generalization from your particular study of Tolkien to all fantastic fiction!
p. 440
More precisely, to be usable as the basis of a fiction‐based religion a fictional text must include divine beings who are subject to veneration within the narrative world. Both S and HoMe fit this criterion. Preferably, the text should also include descriptions of rituals, upon which real‐world rituals can be modelled, but this is no absolute requirement.
[Footnote 547] As pointed out in in chapter 4, the Church of all Worlds adopted a water‐sharing ritual and the greeting ‘Thou art God/dess’ from Robert Heinlein’s Stranger in a Strange Land.
Ummm... you just contradicted yourself there. Divine beings "must" be included... but then you cite something which affords only ritual (I think) as an example of something that can inspire a long-lived tradition (CAW)?
p. 455
Elven Realities
[Location] Online
[Main text] movies
[Success indicators] 700+ members;collapse after2‐3 years
I... what? I can only suppose he was not able to actually read group messages, or I don't see how he could have come to the conclusion that something that predates the films uses it as a primary text -- or indeed that there is any "main text" at all on ER! And what is this about "collapse"? It has by now, yes, but it was very lively in 2001-2002. I have no idea where he's getting that.
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