Tolkien Prediction #1. ‘Linguistic Alchemy’.

A small number of the ‘predictions’ should be filed under ‘validations’ rather than predictions. They are coloured blue in the table on the Predictions page. A validation is really a prediction that something is the case, but I have not specified where to look for it (I don’t know where to look for it) and have not made a specific search to verify it, but it has been verified later in my research.

When I first began developing my theory on the development of his languages fifteen years ago, I coined the phrase ‘linguistic alchemy’. Knowing as little as I did about Tolkien back then I wasn’t comfortable with it at all but I was sure I was on the right track. I didn’t think that Tolkien would be remotely interested in alchemy. An Edwardian, pipe-smoking Oxford Don and alchemy? Surely not! Perhaps a year or so later I stumbled upon the following passage in Tolkien’s essay ‘On Fairy-Stories’.

Of course, I do not deny, for I feel strongly, the fascination of the desire to unravel the intricately knotted and ramified history of the branches on the Tree of Tales. It is closely connected with the philologists’ study of the tangled skein of Language, of which I know some small pieces. But even with regard to language it seems to me that the essential quality and aptitudes of a given language in a living monument is both more important to seize and far more difficult to make explicit than its linear history. So with regard to fairy stories, I feel that it is more interesting, and also in its way more difficult, to consider what they are, what they have become for us, and what values the long alchemic processes of time have produced in them.

That was a little eureka moment right there! It encouraged me (I certainly needed it as everything seemed so outlandish!) to consider that I might also be right about other things: Bombadil and Goldberry was one of them. I learned a lot more about Tolkien later and discovered some very surprising things, through research, his letters and Verlyn Flieger’s excellent book A Question of Time. For one thing his interest in time travel and popular science fiction of his time. I then spotted a book on the net called ‘Alchemy in Middle-Earth’ by Mahmoud Shelton. I bought it for obvious reasons. He came from an Islamic perspective. He did not go into the language at all but he points out lots of, what he argues are, references in Tolkien to alchemy. I accept his observations because I know it’s going on.
However, Tolkien was incorporating it from a western perspective. The hermetic tradition has traditions in both the West and the East. It’s origin is mostly accredited to Egypt. I coined the expression ‘linguistic alchemy’ not because I needed a word for some kind of change, I coined it because the nature of the changes evoke a strong sense of alchemy. I’ve since encountered the word in another Tolkien essay, and I have been informed by Jason Fisher that C.S Lewis also had an interest in it, or at least mentions it.
I am still in the early stages of developing this particular part of my ideas. I should probably change it to ‘alchemical language’. I have recently developed an understanding of the actual mechanics of change at the diphthong level and have, over the course of last year, decoded the Floral Alphabet, what I believe to be his cipher for his narrative and the Elven languages. The floral alphabet can be found in J.R.R Tolkien Artist & Illustrator. A symbolic metalanguage is the best phrase I can find to describe it at the moment. That presents an analysis of his invented languages at the grapheme level, and contributes to an understanding of his works.

The following facts were discovered years after I coined the phrase ‘linguistic alchemy’. I found this at a much later date from the same essay ‘On Fairy Stories’:

The incarnate mind, the tongue, and the tale are in our world coeval. The human mind, endowed with the powers of generalization and abstraction, sees not only green-grass, discriminating it from other things (and finding it fair to look upon), but sees that it is green as well as being grass. But how powerful, how stimulating to the very faculty that produced it, was the invention of the adjective: no spell or incantation in Faerie is more potent. And that is not surprising: such incantations might indeed be said to be only another view of adjectives, a part of speech in a mythical grammar. The mind that thought of light, heavy, grey, yellow, still, swift, also conceived of magic that would make heavy things light and able to fly, turn grey lead into yellow gold, and the still rock into a swift water. If it could do the one, it could do the other; it inevitably did both. When we can take green from grass, blue from heaven, and red from blood, we have already an enchanter’s power—upon one plane; and the desire to wield that power in the world external to our minds awakes. It does not follow that we shall use that power well upon any plane.

And later still I found the following three statements in his essay ‘BEOWULF: THE MONSTERS AND THE CRITICS’ referring to the use of alchemy in literature and writing.

we should perhaps pause to consider whether his poetic handling had not had some effect upon the trivial theme; what alchemy had been performed upon the base metal; whether indeed it remained base or trivial when he had finished with it. The high tone, the sense of dignity, alone is evidence in Beowulf of the presence of a mind lofty and thoughtful. … But in England this imagination was brought into touch with Christendom, and with the Scriptures. The process of ‘conversion’ was a long one, but some of its effects were doubtless immediate: an alchemy of change (producing ultimately the mediaeval) was at once at work. One does not have to wait until all the native traditions of the older world have been replaced or forgotten; for the minds which still retain them are changed, and the memories viewed in a different perspective: at once they become more ancient and remote, and in a sense darker. It is through such a blending that there was available to a poet who set out to write a poem – and in the case of Beowulf we may probably use this very word … The struggle becomes intense to a degree which a merely realistic story of how a pious knight resisted a temptation to adultery (when a guest) could hardly attain. 8 It is one of the properties of Fairy Story thus to enlarge the scene and the actors; or rather it is one of the properties that are distilled by literary alchemy when old deep-rooted stories are rehandled by a real poet with an imagination of his own.

In 2020 I discovered the following facts.

Tolkien played Hermes in a play at King Edwards in 1911. Alchemy is known as the Hermetic tradition after the god Hermes.

The summer term of 1911 was his last at King Edward’s. It ended as was usual with the performance of a Greek play with the choruses set to music-hall tunes. This time the choice was Aristophanes’ The Peace, in which Tolkien took the part of Hermes. Afterwards (another King Edward’s custom) the National Anthem was sung in Greek, and then the curtain dropped on his school career. ‘The school-porter was sent by waiting relatives to find me,’ he recalled years later. ‘He reported that my appearance might be delayed. “Just now,” he said, “he’s the life and soul of the party.” Tactful. In fact, having just taken part in a Greek play, I was clad in a himation and sandals, and was giving what I thought a fair imitation of a frenzied Bacchic dance.’ [Carpenter, Humphrey. J. R. R. Tolkien: A Biography]

If you look into the world of the Inklings you can begin to get a flavour of what the subjects of their interests and conversations included.

C.S Lewis.

Regarding C.S. Lewis. Lewis refers to alchemy and the Hermetic in his response to a Mr Rogers.

Dear Mr (?) Rogers I am not a good enough Grailologist (to coin a dreadful word) for your purpose, for though I am very interested in the Arthurian romances as extant works of art, I have never been much concerned with what we may call the ‘pre-history’ of their various ingredients. I am therefore unable to tell you whether you have been anticipated in the Hermetic and alchemical hypothesis to which Jung has led you. If not–and someone like Loomis will be able to tell you–I think your theory is well worth putting forward. [Lewis, C. S.. Collected Letters Volume Three: Narnia, Cambridge and Joy 1950–1963]

The ‘Collected Works’ of Jung, is Jung’s study of the analogies between alchemy, Christian dogma, and psychological symbolism. Alchemy is central to Jung’s hypothesis of the collective unconscious.

Lewis alludes to alchemy and mysticism which featured in Charles Williams work in his letter to his brother:

Forgot to say that on Tuesday evening I went to the J.C.R. 164 of St Hugh’s to hear Williams read a paper— or rather not ‘read’ but ‘spout’— i.e. deliver without a single note a perfectly coherent and impassioned meditation, variegated with quotations in his incantatory manner. A most wonderful performance and impressed his audience, specially the young women, very much. And it really is remarkable how that ugly, almost simian, face, becomes transfigured. It was at this function, oddly enough, that I got rid of my cold: sitting for three hours in a densely crowded and hermetically blacked out room with an atmosphere like the black hole of Calcutta did the trick [Lewis, C. S.. Collected Letters Volume Two: Books, Broadcasts and War, 1931–1949 (Kindle Locations 5785-5787). HarperCollins Publishers. Kindle Edition. ]

Lewis in his discussion with Alistair Fowler about evolution and change thanks Fowler for some information from the Hermética.

TO ALASTAIR FOWLER (BERG): Magdalene College, Cambridge. 4 May 1961 Dear Fowler You talk of Evolution as if it were a substance (like individual organisms) and even a rational substance or person. I had thought it was an abstract noun. So far as I know it is not impossible that in addition to God and the individual organisms there might be a sort of daemon, or created spirit, in the evolutionary process. But that view must surely be argued to on its own merits? I mean, we mustn’t, unconsciously and without evidence, step into the habit of hypostatising a noun. (If there is such a daemon it wd., I suppose, be our old friend Genius). Thanks for the bit from the Hermética.117 Yours 117 The forty-two sacred books of wisdom allegedly written by Hermes Trismegistus or ‘thrice great Hermes’. The books combine the mythological wisdom and attributes attributed to the Egyptian god Thoth and the Greek god Hermes. [Lewis, C. S.. Collected Letters Volume Three: Narnia, Cambridge and Joy 1950–1963 (Kindle Locations 28089-28096). HarperCollins Publishers. Kindle Edition.]

As part of a serial letter to his brother on March 14th Lewis wrote about his first visit to W.B Yeats at his residence. There with Yeats was also a Father Martindale, a Catholic Priest. He says:

Then the talk began. It was all of magic and cabbalism and ‘the Hermetic knowledge’. The great man talked while the priest and Mrs Yeats fed him with judicious questions. [Lewis, C. S.. Collected Letters Volume One: Family Letters 1905–1931.]

In a letter to his childhood friend Arthur Greeves in 1921 Lewis gives us an impression of his psychological landscape and outlook, a place where religion and mysticism meet.

The subjects of his talk, of course, were the very reverse of Johnsonian: it was all of magic and apparitions. That room and that voice would make you believe anything. He talks very well and not unlike his own printed prose: one sentence came almost directly out of ‘Per Amica Silentia Lunae’.100 The priest was guardedly sceptical but allowed himself to be argued down. One gets the impression (as I have sometimes got it from others) of a tremendous amount of this sort of thing going on all round us. Yeats–‘learnt magic from Bergson’s sister’–‘for a long time I wondered what this dream meant till I came across some Hermetic students in London, who showed me a picture of the same thing I had seen’–‘ah yes–So-and-so: he went in for magic too, but his brain wasn’t strong enough and he went mad’–‘at that time I was going through what are known as Lunar meditations etc, etc’. You’ll think I’m inventing all this but it’s really dead, sober truth. The last two or three years have taught me that all the things we used to like as mere fantasy are held as facts at this moment by lots of people in Europe: perhaps, however, you have run across it in town. 100 W.B. Yeats, Per Arnica Silentia Lunae (1918). [Lewis, C. S.. Collected Letters Volume One: Family Letters 1905–1931.]

In addition there have been a number of critiques focusing on the hermetic and alchemy in C.S. Lewis’s work.

For example.

“The Wonder of Passage, The Making of Gold: Alchemy and Initiation in Out of the Silent Planet.” Mythlore Volume 11 Number 3 Article 3.

“Literary Alchemy in C.S. Lewis’ The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe” a talk presented by John Granger.

Charles Williams.

Regarding Charles Williams. I think we can say that Williams’s spiritual beliefs and writings were somewhat more overtly mystic than Tolkien’s or Lewis’s. A search through Grevel Lindop’s biography of Williams reveals no less than 22 references to alchemy and alchemic processes, 5 entries about Hermes and the Hermetic and a few others relating to alchemical processes involving the transmutation of gold.

Gavin Ashenden wrote a book about Charles Williams called ‘Alchemy and Integration.’

In the foreword to ‘Taliessin Through Logres and the Region of the Summer Stars’ Sorina Higgins writes:

A notable feature of Williams’s work is his characteristic syncretism. He is equally comfortable using druidic, astrological, alchemical, and Christian imagery. This is similar to his approach to history, in which he conflates events from various time periods and from legend to create his own myth. His approach is akin to Tolkien and Lewis’s idea of True Myth, in which all human mythologies point to the historical reality of Christ’s Incarnation and Passion, but it is more strange. [Williams, Charles. Taliessin Through Logres and the Region of the Summer Stars.]

So it appears that the Inklings would certainly have been talking about such things. Tolkien was exposed to Egyptian Hieroglyphics at King Edward’s. He later was to play Hermes in the school play. Hermes Trismegistus is associated with the Greek god Hermes and the Egyptian god Thoth. The young Tolkien would also have been exposed to Plato’s The Republic and the Timmaeus at King Edward’s. Plato describes the 4 elements and how they can change between each other in there. For more on the influence of Plato on Tolkien see homepage.