The White Council

Re: Magic-The Power of Names (was: Song)

Tolkien and Inklings Discussion

: : The resonance theory could also explain the reticence of : : Gandalf and others in naming Sauron or reading out loud the : : ring inscription - as the rhythm of the words might resonate : : with Sauron and draw his attention. Just a minor observation.

: I'm convinced that you're right about this.

: There is always the rational explanation that Gandalf, Aragorn, et al might just want caution with such names to become second nature to the hobbits, since you can never tell when there might be a craban in the bushes, and you never know who might be a spy of Mordor. (The same sense, perhaps, as there was about Nazi spies in Tolkien's wartime Britain when the motto was "Walls have ears.")

: You are labelling the concept 'Resonance' -- as in Sheldrake's 'morphic resonance'? not that I really know much about it -- but I think it is covered by the concepts of Sympathetic Magic. The principles associated with a person's name, or especially their True Name, are reasonably well established. A person's name has a certain mystical connection with them in the same way as a lock of their hair, a drop of their blood or a paring of their fingernail.

: The magical power by gaining the knowledge of a spirit's or demon's true name is a well established concept, and I remember reading something about True Names and the magic in them in Ursula K. LeGuin's Wizard of Earthsea trilogy, but that was close to twenty years ago… I think certain tribal peoples would refuse to give their name to a stranger for this reason, and one can just about sense the echo of a similar folklore in the etiquette of introductions we still have today.

: Speaking the Ring Inscription out loud might (other than in places shielded by the subtleties of an Elven Ring) would be one of the things Sauron would be straining his metaphysical ears for at the time of the WR. It might, as a song or invocation of the Ring's power, draw the attention of the Lidless Eye in a similar way to Gandalf's kindling flame on the flanks of Caradhras. I can even conceive that uttering it (or to a lesser extent anything in his Black Speech!?) would have a sympathetic resonance with Sauron as a product of his own creative efforts of goetia.

You have followed the line of my original thoughts very closely. I had the LeGuin Earthsea concept of "Words of Making" in my mind when I made the resonance suggestion. As you say this concept of the power of the true name has a long history in human thought - the ancient Greeks were quite fond of it; they called the Furies the Euminides (?) "The appeased ones" rather than use their real name Erinnyes (?) in the hope that the softer meaning would make them less vengeful. The same thing occurs in British Folklore with the Devil having many by-names such as Old Nick or when in the form of a huge black hound - Owd Shuck.

Morphic Resonance would fit well enough with what I meant - though I was really thinking of resonance in standard physics - the wind causing the Tacoma Narrows Bridge to destroy itself by setting up vibrations at its resonant frequency for example.