Just a quick note. David Cain called me this morning and told me that last night he became the second person in the recorded history of juggling to flash 8 club like objects in a show! CONGRATS DAVID!!!

Here's something interesting I wrote a week or two ago to a friend. Thought you might (or might not) enjoy it.

Alright, I don't know how long this will be, or how much sense I will make, but please bear with me. BTW, this stuff is not the result of a hastily thought up theory: I've studied Tolkien's works extensively with an eye towards this very topic. And allow me to state right up front: I have yet to find a single good guy who uses magic. None. Zip. Zero. Nada.
Ok, so we know that the Bible condemns witchcraft very strongly. Ex. 22:18 says "Suffer not a witch to live." And there's a lot of other verses like that, but since you've already done some study in that area I won't bother to look them up. The fact is that Bible believing Christians should not be reading and studying about magic (unless God has called them to and given them the grace to do it).
Now, from our talk about Spiderman and the role a villain should play, you know that I don't see anything wrong with having a bad "bad guy". So, how are the bad guy magicians shown in Tolkien? Here's an interesting bit taken from "The Return of the King" Book 5, chapter 10, "The Black Gate Opens".
"And thereupon the middle door of the Black Gate was thrown open with a great clang, and out of it there came an embassy from the Dark Tower.
"At it's head there rode a tall and evil shape, mounted upon a black horse, if horse it was; for it was huge and hideous, and its face was a frightful mask, more like a skull than a living head, and in the sockets of its eyes and in its nostrils there burned a flame. The rider was robed all in black, and black was his lofty helm; yet this was no Ringwraith but a living man. The Lieutenant of the Tower of Barad-dur he was, and his name is remembered in no tale; for he himself had forgotten it, and he said: "I am the Mouth of Sauron." But it is told that he was a renegade, who came of the race of those that are named the Black Numenoreans; for they established their dwellings in Middle-earth during the years of Sauron's domination, and they worshipped him, being enamored of evil knowledge. And he entered the service of the Dark Tower when it first rose again, and because of his cunning he grew ever higher in the Lord's favor; and he learned great sorcery, and knew much of the mind of Sauron: and he was more cruel than any orc."
Not exactly a pretty picture. Being more cruel any orc is saying a lot. The Mouth of Sauron is one of the two magicians that we get to see in any detail: the other is the Witch-King. He was a great sorcerer and very powerful. He established the Witch Kingdom of Agmar and was given one of the nine rings by Sauron himself. A sample of the way he talks: "Come not between the Nazgul and his prey! Or he will not slay thee in thy turn. He will bear thee away to the houses of lamentation, beyond all darkness, where they flesh shall be devoured and they shriveled mind be left naked to the Lidless Eye." (Return of the King, book 5, chapter 6, "The Battle of the Pelennor Fields")
That is magic in Tolkien. Cruel, hard, horrible. There are no perks, nothing desirable about it. Magic is evil, pure and unaltered.
But what about the magic that the good guys use? Doesn't Gandalf use a "closing spell" on a door? Doesn't Aragorn make use of a green stone in healing the wounded in Minas Tirith? Doesn't Galadriel have a magic bowl of water? Don't the Dwarves in Dale create magic toys? And isn't Revindell protected by a magic ring worn by Elrond? How do these make sense? Certainly Gandalf, Aragorn and Galadriel are not bad guys. How then can they use magic?
The answer is extremely simple: they don't! Allow me to go through each of the mentioned bits of "magic" and explain them. Please keep in mind that these are not the only examples of "magic" in Tolkien, but I have chosen each because it represents each kind of "magic" that you will come across. Let's start with Gandalf.
Were you to travel back in time, and yet have access to all the stuff of the 21st century, you could very easily convince people you were a magician. In fact, you might have trouble convincing them that you weren't!
The case is somewhat the same with Gandalf. But he is not a human from the future. In fact, he is not even human! He is a Maiar (that's probably spelled wrong!): an angle basically. He comes from Valinor, a place were the Valor live (the Valor are NOT gods, as some people mistakenly think.) He was sent to Middle-earth to oppose Sauron, and yet not openly. He was not to make a big display of his power, but rather to encourage the people of Middle-earth in their fight against Sauron.
So if he's not a wizard, why is he called such? Well, the Lord of the Rings was written by Hobbits. This is much the same as if those people who you met while time traveling wrote about you. They would get a lot wrong, without a doubt. And if you were under orders not to tell them all about yourself, they would get even more wrong. The same thing happened in Lord of the Rings.
But Gandalf himself talks about casting "spells" and such. How do you explain this?
The language spoken in Valinor is not the same was the one spoken commonly in Middle-earth (often called the "Common Speech"). In fact, when Gandalf first got his body and came to Middle-earth he had to learn how to speak! And as he learned the languages he found that there weren't really any words to describe what he did. So he was forced to improvise. He did not cast "spells" but that was as close as he could come in the Common Speech.
Now let's talk about Elrond and Galadriel. Both of them are Elves: totally different creatures than Humans. And so they have some abilities which are super-human. The funny thing is, if Tolkien were science fiction, Elves would just be aliens with special abilities. But because it's fantasy, everyone assumes that it's magic. Have you ever heard anyone talk about the magic used by Spock in Star Trek? No. Why? Because he isn't a human! And the very same thing applies to the elves.
While we're on the subject of Galadriel, there's a very interesting quote on the subject of magic by her. Sam and Frodo are with Galadriel in Lorien. They are standing by a basin of water and Galadrial was just asking Frodo if he wanted to look into it.
"'And you?' she said, turning to Sam. 'For this is what your folk would call magic, I believe; though I do knot understand clearly what they mean; and they seem also to use the same word of the deceits of the Enemy. But this, if you will, is the magic of Galadriel." (The Fellowship of the Ring, book 2, chapter 7, "The Mirror of Galadriel")
Galadriel obviously didn't consider what she did magic, so why should we? And Galadriel certainly knew about this so called "magic"! She had studied under some of the wisest and most powerful Elves and Maiar, both in Middle-earth and Valinor. I think we can take her word for it.
The "magic" used by the dwarves has the same story. They are not at all human (their biology is such that they can't even interbreed) and their "magic" is nothing of the sort.
So, what of Aragorn and the green stone? Aragorn is certainly human, and yet he uses it. From the context of what we know about humans using magic (like the two magicians spoken of above) we know that it is certainly a bad thing.
Well, the fact is, Aragorn didn't actually use the stone. It was a gift from Galadriel and I'm not even certain he knew what it did. He was simply wearing it while doing his doctoring. And as we see when he heals Faramir, Eowyn and Merry, he doesn't mention it, touch it, look at it, or anything of the sort. It was simply the elvish power of the stone working on it's own and Aragorn had nothing to do with it.
Now, as to the nature of the Valor and God in Tolkiens world. The creation account found in the Sillmarillion cannot by any twisting of the imagination be made to sound anything like the account in the Bible. The world is ruled by the Valor (angles basically). This would seems almost like a pagan religion!
Allow me to explain Tolkien's (and mine) view on this. We, as humans, are created in the image of God. And God is a creator. And so instilled into each of us is the desire to create. Like a child wanting to act like his dad, we each want to make something. There is nothing wrong at all about this desire. It was given to us by God.
Tolkien called his world a "sub-creation". If we are created in the image of God, the creator, why is it wrong to want to imitate him and create our own worlds? This must of course be done with the realization that our would is fake: but that does not make it wrong.
Now you may have heard that Tolkien referred to the Gospel as a "myth". He did. But to have that quote outside of context is a highly deceitful thing to do. I have read the entire passage in which he called the Gospel a myth and it is one of the most beautiful statements about the wonderfulness of the Gospel that I have ever read.
You can find the quote in an essay entitled "On Fairy-Stories". In it, Tolkien discusses what he considers to be the criteria for calling a story a fairy story. At the very end, he notes that by the definition he has just laid out, the Gospel is in fact a fairy story. But, he quickly points out, the wonderful thing about it is that, as opposed to the other fairy stories, the Gospel is true! It really happened! Tolkien was not rejecting the divine authorship of the Bible: he was simply making an observation as to the classification of the Gospel story.

I'll try and post more about what's going on in my life latter. Maybe tomorrow.