In all this we have not considered the Great Pattern, or the Major Patterns: to which we refer when we speak of kinds, or families, or descent. Men often liken these things to Trees with branches; the Eldar liken them rather to Rivers, proceeding from a spring to their outflow into the Sea.
Now some hold that as the matters of Eä proceed from a single erma (if this indeed be true), so the life of living things comes from one beginning or Ermenië
The text ends here, about ¾ down the page. For the continuation of this last line of thought, see chap. II, “The Primal Impulse” in part three of this book.
TEXT 1B
This typescript text of two sides is briefly referred to by Christopher Tolkien at X:361 as an abandoned “second, more ample version of the ‘Converse’”. It doubtless is closely contemporary with text 1A.
Beginning of a revised & expanded version of “The Converse”
Manwë spoke to Eru, saying: “Behold an evil appears in Arda that we did not look for: thy first-born children, whom thou madest immortal, suffer now severance of spirit and body, and many of the fëar of the Elves are houseless. These we summon to Aman, to keep them from the Darkness, and here they abide in waiting, all who obey our voice. What further is to be done? Is there no means by which their life may be renewed and follow the courses that thou hast designed? For the fëa that is naked is maimed and can accomplish no new thing according to the desire of its nature. And what of the bereaved that live still but mourn those that have gone?”
Eru answered: “Let the houseless be re-housed!”
And Manwë asked: “Is it thy will that we should attempt this? For we fear to meddle with thy children”.
And Eru said: “Verily ye shall not coerce their wills, nor daunt their minds with wonder or with dread. But ye may instruct them in truth according to your knowledge; and in Arda Marred ye may hinder them from evil, and restrain them from what is hurtful to their kind.
“And have I not given to the Valar the rule of Arda, and power over all the substance thereof, to shape it at their will under my will?
“This then ye may do. The Dead that hear your summons and come to you ye shall judge. The innocent shall be given the choice to return into the lands of the Living. If they choose this freely, ye shall send them back. In two ways this may be done. The former body, as it was before the injury that caused death, may be restored. Or the fëa may be re-born according to kind.
“Have ye not seen that each fëa retaineth in itself the imprint and memory of its former house (even if it be not itself fully aware of this)? Behold! the fëa in its nakedness may be wholly perceived by you. Therefore after this imprint ye shall make again for it such a house in all particulars as it had ere evil befell it. Thus ye may send it back to the lands of the Living.
“Let this be done soon, for the innocent that desire it; soonest for those who suffer death as children; for they will have need of their parents, and their parents of them. Yet of times the choice is committed to the Valar, according to the needs of each case and the chances of Arda. Great evils and sorrows will come to pass there; and it may not always be expedient to send those who have been slain, by wounds or by grief, too swiftly back into the perils that overcame them.
“As for the wrong-doers, who will increase in Middle-earth, ye shall be their judges, be their ill deeds great or small. Surely your judgement of the naked fëa shall not go astray. Those who submit to you ye shall correct and instruct, if they will hear your words; and when ye deem that they have been healed and brought back to good will, they too may return in like manner, if they wish. But the obdurate ye shall retain until the End. The time and place of each return ye shall choose.
“As for re-birth according to kind: those who choose this must know fully what this meaneth; and the time of return shall be in my will, which they must await. For understand that, as hath been said, each fëa retaineth the imprint of its former body and of all that it hath experienced therethrough. That imprint cannot be erased, but it may be veiled, though not for ever. Even as each fëa must of nature remember Me (from whom it came), yet that memory is veiled, being overlaid by the impress of things new and strange that it perceives through the body. So it shall be that for a fëa re-born all its past, both in life and in waiting, will be veiled and overlaid by the strangeness of the new house in which it will awake again. For the re-born shall be true children, awaking anew to the wonder of Arda.
“In this the Dead who are re-born shall find recompense for their injuries. But let those who desire re-birth be assured of this: memory of the past will return. Slowly, maybe, and fitfully, as by strange hints and monitions or by knowing things unlearned, the re-born will become aware of their state, until even as they become full-grown and the fëa cometh to its mastery they will recall their former life.
“This may bring them sorrow, for they will not be able to take up their former life, but must continue in the state and under the name that they now bear. Yet this sorrow will be redressed, by greater wisdom (for the fëa of the re-born will be twice nourished by parents); and it will be strong to endure, and patient and prudent.
“Nonetheless, because of this danger in returning memory, I counsel you that not to all the houseless shall ye offer this choice of re-birth. In the first place those who are to be re-born ye should judge to be wise. Also it were best that they should be the young in death, who have not had long life nor formed binding ties of love or duty with others. In no case shall they be those who were wedded.
“For the re-born could not return to their former spouse; neither could they take another. Marriage is both of the body and of the spirit. Therefore those who have a different body cannot resume a union made in another body. But since they are the same person as before, who was wedded, they cannot take a new spouse: for identity of person resideth in the fëa, and in its memory. This unnatural state shall not be permitted.
“If there are any who having heard these things still desire re-birth, say to them: ‘It lieth with Ilúvatar. We will present your prayers to Him. If He denies you, ye shall speedily know, and ye must be content with other choice. If He assents, He will call you in due time, but until then you must abide in patience’.”
Is it lawful for one of the Dead to summon another from the Living (such as a beloved spouse) to Mandos? Unlawful, were it possible. For the Dead, if innocent, may return to those whom they love. If guilty, they may not meddle again with the Living, not at least until they are cleansed. But they cannot summon any of the Living unless through the Valar; and this the Valar must refuse to do.
Is it lawful for two wedded persons (or others that are bound by love) both (or all of them) to remain in Mandos together, if death shall have brought them thither together? It is lawful. They may not be compelled to return. But if they have duties to the Living (as parents to children, maybe), then ye may dissuade them from abiding with just argument.
TEXT 2
This text, which Christopher Tolkien paraphrased and excerpted at X:363–4 and dates there by implication to c. 1959 (cf. X:304) is written in increasingly hasty black nib-pen on five sides of six torn half-sheets, and on three of the four half-sides of a folded (but not torn) sheet, and on one side of an additional torn half-sheet. Complicating the dating of this text is the note on the additional half-sheet, which bears the date: “June 1966” (given here as an extensive footnote on the sentence: “Could possibly the ‘houseless’ fëa, in proper case, be allowed to/instructed how to rebuild its own ‘house’ from memory?”) However, as a commentary on the primary text, it may well have been written at some remove from the primary text.
Reincarnation of Elves
Dilemma: It seems an essential element in the tales. But:
How accomplished? 1) Rebirth? 2) Or re-making of a counterfeit equivalent body (when original one destroyed)? Or both?
1) Most difficult in result; much easiest to arrange.
The most fatal objection is that it contradicts the fundamental notion that
fëa and hröa were each fitted to the other. Since hröar have a physical descent, the body of rebirth, having different parents, must be different, and should cause acute discomfort or pain to the reborn fëa.
There are many other objections: as
(a) unfairness to second parents to foist a child on them whose fëa already had experience and a character – unless they were consulted. How could they be?
(b) Problem of memory. Unless identity of personality, and conscious continuity of experience were preserved, re-birth would offer no consolation for death and bereavement. If memory were preserved and (eventually) regained by the re-born, this would produce difficulties. Not so much psychological as practical. (The idea in previous considerations of double joy, and memory of two youths or springs as a recompense for “death” is good enough psychologically.)
(c) But if memory and continuity of personality is preserved (as it must be) then we must suppose (as has been supposed in previous treatments) that the reborn fëa would assimilate its new body to its memory of the former, and would when “full grown” become visibly as interiorly the same person again.
What then of its relations to former kin and friends, and especially to a former spouse? It could only re-marry the former spouse: in fact it must do so – but then there would be a discrepancy of age, and rebirth must be at least swift. No time for Mandos to consider how long he should keep them “houseless”!
(d) How could re-marriage be arranged for, or opportunity of re-meeting?
2) Difficulties are here “mechanical”. How could the Valar re-make an exactly equivalent body – which of them would do this (or all)? It could only be done in Aman (certainly under such conditions as prevailed during Exile of Ñoldor). How would the rehoused fëa then be sent back? The only solution seems to be this:
There was no provision for re-incarnation in the Music known to the Valar. Elves were not supposed to die. The Valar soon found many houseless spirits gathered in Mandos. E.g. some “deaths” probable even on Great March. (There need only be few.)[11]
They did nothing until the case of Míriel[fn2] made the matter immediate. Because they did not “understand” the Children, and were not competent or permitted to meddle. Manwë then directly appealed to Eru for counsel.
Eru accepts and ratifies the position – though clearly he thinks the Valar should have contested Melkor’s domination of Middle-earth earlier, and made it “safe for the Elves” – they had not enough estel [‘trust’] that in a legitimate war Eru would not have allowed Melkor to so damage Arda that the Children could not come, or live in it. The fëar of the Dead all go to Mandos in Aman: or rather they are now summoned thither by the authority given by Eru. A place is made for them. (They may refuse the summons, because they must remain free wills.)
The Valar have power in Aman to re-build bodies for the Elves. The naked fëa is open to their inspection – or at least if it desires reincarnation it will co-operate and reveal its memory. The memory is so detailed that a houseless fëa can induce in another fëa a picture of it (if it tries: hence notion of “phantoms” – which are indeed mental appearances).[12] The new body will be made of identical materials to a precise pattern. Here there will come discussion of nature of “identity-equivalence” in material constructions.
The rehoused fëa will normally remain in Aman. Only in very exceptional cases as Beren and Lúthien will they be transported back to Middle-earth. (How perhaps need not be made any clearer than the mode by which the Valar in physical form could go from Aman to Middle-earth.) Hence death in Middle-earth had much of same sort of sorrow and sunderance for Elves and Men. But as Andreth saw the certainty of living again and doing things in incarnate form – if desired – made a vast difference in death as a personal terror. After removal of/? destruction of Aman as physical part of Arda – there could be no return. Only way of reunion of bereaved was by death of both parties – though after end of Beleriand and Battle which destroyed Morgoth the bereaved could voyage to Aman. They usually did! After destruction of Númenor, only the Elves could normally do this.
Could possibly the “houseless” fëa, in proper case, be allowed to/instructed how to rebuild its own “house” from memory?[fn3] [13]
This solution seems to fit the tales well enough. In fact very well. But of course the exact nature of existence in Aman or Eressëa after its “removal” must be dubious and unexplained. Also how “mortals” could go there at all!
The latter not very difficult. Eru committed the Dead of mortals also to Mandos. (That had been done long before: Manwë knew they would be mortal.) They waited then a while in recollection before going to Eru. The sojourn of say Frodo in Eressëa – then on to Mandos? – was only an extended form of this. Frodo would eventually leave the world (desiring to do so). So that the sailing on ship was equivalent to death.
Memory by a fëa of experience is evidently powerful, vivid, and complete. So the underlying suggestion is that “matter” will be taken up into “spirit”, by becoming part of its knowledge – and so rendered timeless and under the spirit’s command. As the Elves remaining in Middle-earth slowly “consumed” their bodies – or made them into raiments of memory? The resurrection of the body therefore (at least as far as Elves were concerned) was in a sense incorporeal. But while it could pass physical barriers at will, it could at will oppose a barrier to matter. If you touched a resurrected body you felt it. Or if it willed it could simply elude you – disappear. Its position in space was at will.
TEXT 3
This text, located among the small collection of very late writings that Christopher Tolkien calls “Last Writings” (XII:377) and thus dating from 1972–3, is written in a clear hand in black nib-pen on two sides of a single sheet. Christopher Tolkien refers to this text at XII:382 and 390 n.17.
On ‘rebirth’, reincarnation by restoration,
among Elves. With a note on the Dwarves.[14]
Restoration of Elvish bodies. The whole matter of Elvish beliefs and theories concerning their “bodies” and the relations of these to their “spirits” – which for the purposes of this mythology are treated as “true” and derived by the Elvish lore-masters from the Valar – is set out in various places elsewhere. But it may here be noted that the Eldar held that an Elf’s spirit (fëa) had a complete knowledge of every detail of its body in general and in particulars peculiar to it as a unique thing. This knowledge it retained when spirit and body were divorced: in fact it then became clearer, for Elves in health seldom consciously thought about their bodies, unless they had a special interest in such “lore”; whereas a disembodied spirit yearned for its body as its natural and unique housing, and in the Halls of Waiting dwelt much in memory of its lost companion. Now the Valar, sub-creators under Eru, could make use of this memory; without any interrogation, since the mind of a disembodied spirit was open to them completely, and with far keener insight and knowledge than any possessed by the spirit itself. From this “inspection”, having among them as a whole a complete power over the physical substances of Middle-earth, they could reconstitute a body totally suitable to the deprived spirit.[fn4] [15]
The notion, which appears in some places in the Silmarillion, as yet unrevised, that Elvish reincarnation was achieved, or was sometimes achieved, by rebirth as a child among their own kindred, must be abandoned – or at least noted as a false notion.[fn5] For the Elves believed and asserted that they had learned this from the Valar, that Eru alone could create “spirits” with independent, though secondary, being; and that each of these spirits was individual and unique. Yet He had made the “spirits” of His Children (Elves and Men) of such a nature that they needed physical bodies and loved them, and would love and need the beauties and wonders of the physical world about them. But he delegated the procreation of bodies to the Children: that is, to be accomplished according to their wills, and choice of partners and of times and places, though otherwise the process was beyond their powers and skill. He, said the Elves, thus designed to
produce that strange and marvellous combination of unique being with a “housing” that had descent and kinship within the physical order, which was the peculiar character of His Children. Therefore since the creative power of Eru was infinite (both outside and within the confines of His great Design in which we have part) it would be absurd, indeed unthinkable, to imagine him showing, as it were, a niggardliness in using again an unfortunate houseless spirit to inhabit a new body. For even if this was produced by parents of close kinship, it would not be its own, nor fully acceptable to it. Moreover to do this would be wrong; since a spirit that had already been born preserved a full memory of its former incarnate life, and if this was in some way veiled so that it was not immediately accessible to its consciousness, it could not be obliterated, and this would contribute to its unease: it would be “maladjusted”,[fn6] a defective creature. Whereas if it consciously preserved its memory, as certainly those fëar did that the Valar restored, it would not be a true child, and would have a false relation to its second parents (whom it would know to be such), to their grief and to their deprivation of the great joy that Elves had in the early years of their children.
The matter of the Dwarves, whose traditions (so far as they became known to Elves or men) contained beliefs that appeared to allow for re-birth, may have contributed to the false notions above dealt with. But this is another matter which already has been noted in the Silmarillion. Here it may be said, however, that the reappearance, at long intervals, of the person of one of the Dwarf-fathers, in the lines of their Kings – e.g. especially Durin – is not when examined probably one of re-birth, but of the preservation of the body of a former King Durin (say) to which at intervals his spirit would return. But the relations of the Dwarves to the Valar, and especially to the Vala Aulë, are (as it seems) quite different from those of Elves and Men.
The Nature of Middle-earth Page 22