sign in sign up
<<
Home , Mircea Eliade

Volume 11 Number 3 Article 9

Winter 2-15-1985

The Rags of Lordship: Science Fiction, Fantasy, and the Reenchantment of the World

Peter Lowentrout

Follow this and additional works at: https://dc.swosu.edu/mythlore

Part of the Children's and Young Adult Literature Commons

Recommended Citation Lowentrout, Peter (1985) "The Rags of Lordship: Science Fiction, Fantasy, and the Reenchantment of the World," Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature: Vol. 11 : No. 3 , Article 9. Available at: https://dc.swosu.edu/mythlore/vol11/iss3/9

This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Mythopoeic Society at SWOSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature by an authorized editor of SWOSU Digital Commons. An ADA compliant document is available upon request. For more information, please contact [email protected]. To join the Mythopoeic Society go to: http://www.mythsoc.org/join.htm Mythcon 51: A VIRTUAL “HALFLING” MYTHCON July 31 - August 1, 2021 (Saturday and Sunday) http://www.mythsoc.org/mythcon/mythcon-51.htm

Mythcon 52: The Mythic, the Fantastic, and the Alien Albuquerque, New Mexico; July 29 - August 1, 2022 http://www.mythsoc.org/mythcon/mythcon-52.htm

Abstract Sees a movement at the leading edges of our culture away from the desacralized world and back toward the mythic. Sees the genres of science fiction and fantasy providing aesthetic windows to the . Along with science and , they participate in a resynthesis of our culture’s assumptions, pointing toward individuality within fundamental unity and broader notions of causality.

Additional Keywords Fantasy—Moral and religious aspects; Fantasy and culture; Science fiction—Moral and religious aspects; Science fiction and culture

This article is available in Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature: https://dc.swosu.edu/mythlore/vol11/iss3/9 MYTHLORE 41: Winter-Spring 1985 Page 47 lho Rags of Lordship Science Tiction, Tantasy, and the 'Reenchantment of the World

Peter Lowentrout

The steady denythologization of our culture over countless hearts in its inevitable dislocations of the past centuries has been both enriching and culture and . Such a loss of innocence is a impoverishing — a necessary precursor to greater painful thing, and has it not been with pain-dimmed insight and yet all too often psychically and eyes that we have for long been examining the spiritually debilitating. As the powerful assumptions possibilities for that remain to us? In losing which have underlain the main currents of scientific one , we have for a lost them all. From our and humanistic thought have penetrated into even the ancient prehistory to our present, we have lived a farthest recesses of our culture, we have been brought great enantiodromia. Swinging from one extreme to up short time and again, discovering to our dismay but another, we have moved from a simple faith in our also our delight that our old beliefs and our old ways relation to and importance for cosmic process to a have been too narrow, too naive. lack of faith in all but a radical which at its worst enervates, and which denies us reasonable This epochal process of demythologization has led access to the sacred. Look beyond the feverish many of us into grave difficulties; it has led to that concerns of our day and you will find a world most haunting experience of demythologized humanity — painfully wrenched free of the that once the experience of a world emptied of its meaning. Our sustained it and bound it up in common cause with all universe has become vast, cold and objective. Our creation, a world filled too. full with weightless and values and moral precepts have fragmented; sure and frightened people. effective action are undercut by a seemingly inevitable relativism. Too often, we reduce ourselves But if history is any guide, our culture will not to objects, subjectivity becomes suspect and the zest for long remain viable without a faith, a , an for living ebbs. experience of the sacred. Nor is it too likely that it will need to do so. Whatever the ultimate Is this too stark an evocation of our modern metaphysical status of the sacred, at least twanty "spiritual crisis?" Sadly, it is not. Certainly, thousand generations of humans bear witness to its people have been throwing off their culture's reality. Religion is among the most persistent embodiments of the sacred for as far back into history elements of human culture and experience, and it is as we can see. Most often, however, this was done to likely that our current disillusionment, however deep, move on to other, seemingly more adequate myths. If must finally open up as many and perhaps even more the rare person did indeed choose to stand alone, sacred possibilities than it has closed off. Indeed, agnostic on the nature of his or her connections to many today seem to-be shaking off the numbing effects the cosmos, it was at the least a personal choice. of the past centuries' loss of faith, the "melancholy, Today, hundreds of millions of us seemingly have long, withdrawing roar" of Matthew Arnold, and are little choice; never in history have our inherited perhaps catching the first movements of a faith that myths of the sacred seemed so out of joint with our has at once the vigor and spontaniety of youth and the accepted (i.e.— scientific) understandings of the balanced penetration of a deeper maturity. world. Mircea Eliade, the great and And just as religion has waned, so, too, have phenomenologist of religion, has noted this gathering those systems of thought and belief that for a time movement toward new religious possibilities, and served as its surrogates. Freud's ego psychology, writes of the "" of modem people for "real Marx's dialectic, Hegel's History — how (i.e.— mythic) experience".2 This nostalgia, he many among us remain convinced by these? Those forces , is seen in a deepening of nythic themes in which have weakened our hold upon the sacred have at our fantasies and arts as well as in the striking the last done the same for all our , however amount of attention we give them. dilute and secularized a shadow of the old they may be. In a desacralized world such as ours, the W.B. Yeats put a name to these "forces" in one of "sacred" is present and active chiefly in the most quoted poems of the twentieth century, his the imaginary universes. But imaginary "The Second Coming"; experiences are part of the total human being, no less important than his Turning and turning in the widening gyre diurnal experiences. The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Our modem attempt at the "denystification" of the Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, cosmos is, Eliade believes, destructive of the human The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere spirit and ultimately futile — the deep patterned The ceremony of innocence is drowned; flows of the psyche can be debased, but never The best lack all conviction, while the worst destroyed. Our sacred myths are more than simple Are full of passionate intensity.1 fictions facilely invented by our ignorant ancestors to explain natural phenomena. Rather, they are deeply The ceremony of innocence is drowned? Indeed, just true, fundamental expressions of our psyches, here is our problem — a loss of innocence on a grand transrational structures around which we organize scale, stretching out over the centuries and consuming ourselves. Without nyth, we have no hope of access to MYTHLORE 41: Winter-Spring 1985 the subliminal center of our being, no hope of like certain rare dreams, sensations we anything but to live out disjointed of true never had before, and enlarge our life. conception of the range of possible experience. Hence the difficulty of In our deepening nostalgia for the real, the . discussing them at all with those who mythic, Eliade discerns a "demystification in refuse to be taken out of what they call reverse"4 in progress in the arts, the sciences, 'real life' — which means, perhaps, the religion and philosophy that he hopes will lead to a groove through some far wider area of revalorization of our cosmos. possible experience to which our senses and our biological, social, or economic Two of the great fantasists of our century, C.S. interests usually confihe us. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien, shared Eliade's belief in humanity's need for a healthy mythos, as well as his With Eliade and Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien believed belief in the efficacy of our imaginary universes in that our imaginary universes could evoke in us a real evoking in us a true experience of myth and the experience of myth and the sacred. In poetic response sacred. to a critic who had described the creation of myth and fairy-story as "breathing a lie through silver," "It is not difficult to see," Lewis wrote once Tolkien wnrote: of science fiction, Dear Sir, Although now long estranged, why those who wish to visit strange Man is not wholly lost nor wholly changed, regions in search of such beauty, awe or Dis-graced he may be, yet is not de-throned, terror as the actual world does not and keeps the rags of lordship once he owned: supply have been increasingly driven to Man, Sub-creator, the refracted Light other planets or other stars...the less through whom is splintered from a single White known- the real world is, the more plausibly to many hues, and endlessly combined your marvels can be located near at hand. in living shapes that move from mind to mind. As the area of knowledge spreads, you need Though all the crannies of the wrorld we filled to go further afield: like a man moving his viith Elves and Goblins, though vie dared to build house further and further into the country and their houses out of dark and light, as the new building estates catch him up. and sowed the seed of dragons — 'tvras our right (used or misused). That right has not decayed: Thus, observes Lewis, the fairy tales of truly ancient vie make still b y the law in w hich wre're made. could take place a mere half hour's walk from home, but with Homer we travel for days "We make still by the law in which we're made": the to meet the Cyclops. Swift takes us to the remotest surface of an imaginary world may not be factual, but of seas and Rider Haggard to unexplored Africa and Tolkien is convinced that the deeper processes which Tibet. "It might have been predicted," Lewis inform that world are the same as inform our own. observed, "that stories of this kind would have to Writing of the "eucatastrophic tale,"10 the tale that leave Telius altogether."6 suddenly ends in good, Tolkien asserts that:

But of those stories that do cut loose the bonds It is the mark of a good fairy-story, of Telius, either by moving out into the stars as in of the higher or more complete kind, science fiction or into the other worlds of fantasy, that however wild its events, however the best are, Lewis asserted, not at all bound by the fantastic or terrible the adventures, it gadgets that are sometimes lugged along on the voyage. can give to child or man that hears it, when the 'turn' comes, a catch of the The pseudo-scientific apparatus is to be breath, a beat and lifting of the heart, taken simply as a 'machine' in the sense near to (or indeed accompanied by) tears, which that word bore for the Neo-Classical as keen as that given by any form of critics. The most superficial appearance of literary art, and having a peculiar plausibility — the merest sop to our quality. The peculiar quality of 'joy' in critical intellect — will do. I am successful Fantasy can...be explained as a inclined to think that frankly sudden^cjlimpse of the underlying reality or methods are best. I took a hero once to Mars in a space-ship, but when I knew better I had angels convey him to Venus. The myth and symbol wd.th which fantasy and science Nor need the strange worlds, when we get fiction work is not untrue, Tolkien believes, but a there, be at all strictly tied to reflection in consciousness of deeper, subliminal scientific probabilities. It is their movements in our psyches and in our world. While wonder, or beauty, or suggestiveness that fantasy can move us into an enchanted "Secondary matter.' World," zit can also, by moving us more perfectly into our own, help us to reenchant, to breathe life again into a cosmos that has for too long been slowly dying. Thus, Lewis implies, the most effective science fiction and fantasy is that which quits Eliade's Vital myth a psychological necessity? A "desacralized world" altogether; the best of the genre "demystification-in-reverse?" What are vie to make of is not that which relies upon the "scientific these claims of Levris, Tolkien and Eliade? Indeed, if probabilities" of this world, but that which suggests vie look around us today, is there any evidence vie can the wonder and beauty of another, and which in doing adduce to support them? Are these men not simply so strikes most deeply into the heart of our own. dreamers, dreamers unwilling to loose a dying past? "Good stories of this sort," Lewis observes, Our earlier evocation of the modem feeling of weightlessness seems well justified. Certainly, more are actual additions to life; they give, people than ever before wobble about the world burying MYTHLORE 41: Winter-Spring 1985

the Angst resulting from this panicky feeling of it be otherwise? For as Delany himself asserts, "the weightlessness in one or another haIf-thought-out best science fiction explores the attack."14 Science creed, doctrine or illegality. But if a stark fiction explores the attack when it presents us with evocation of our modem spiritual crisis is justified, ways to think, feel and organize in the context of new it is, as well, quite misleading. For while this technology. And more than this, both science fiction feeling of weightlessness is real enough for many and fantasy can help us achieve a fuller articulation people, more and more it seems that the weightlessness of our social ethic. Only two hundred years ago, itself is not. For many of us, talk of "Angst," Western culture was brutal and callous in ways we have "emptiness," and moral relativity will simply not ring now forgotten. New technology, better communications, true; it will not at all reflect our lived experience. new patterns of social theory and organization have And w e will account for our being o u t of step wi t h our greatly heightened our awareness of others' suffering, demythologized times in different ways. We will say and we have moved slowly to alleviate it. that we are too well aware of the "discontinuities" of Extrapolating these social and moral trends into the modern physics, micro and macro, to believe in a future is not simply good entertainment; it is a valid mechanistic universe. Or perhaps we will liberally moral exercise, as well. But the most gallant attack supplement our religious orthodoxy with the insight of mounted by science fiction and fantasy is that which such religious fantasists as George MacDonald, C.S. they have made on the meaninglessness that for long Lewis, and J.R.R. Tolkien. will speak of threatened to ring us in. And in the particulars of post-critical epistemologies and the new metaphysical their pervasive mystical content, we shall see them possibility, psychologists and religious scholars of sharing with some recent religious and scientific the seeming need for deeply-lived myth for right inquiry a deep resynthesis of our culture's dominant relationship and true psychological health. scientism.

But whatever the rational articulation, there is Care must be taken to note first, however, the a core of shared assumptions in all these positions different contexts in which religious and literary that, while leading to no hard and fast metaphysic, production take place; the aesthetic must not be nonetheless does provide increasing numbers of people confused with the religious. Making a stylistic point access once again to the mythic. Along the leading about science fiction and fantasy, Delany notes that edges of our culture there is emerging now an "the only thing we will trust enough to let it axiomatic "shifting of gears" which is likely to have generate in us any real sense of the mystical is a much to do with meeting the spiritual crises of recent resonant aesthetic form."15 Indeed, if the vehicle is centuries. And when the lineaments of this "shift" in too gravely flawed, we go nowhere. But a "resonant axiom are traced out, science fiction and fantasy can aesthetic form" is not alone enough to evoke the be seen participating deeply in it. "mystical;" fantasy and science fiction do that only to the extent that they ably tap the deep flows of myth that have been articulated by human cultures through the millenia to give us access to the sacred. What is it about the best science fiction and Further, myth can never be held to in its fullness in fantasy that is so satisfying? Certainly, it is fun an aesthetic context. Only the devout, and never to be center-stage where the great events of the aesthetes as aesthetes, can make that commitment which imaginary day are happening. But more than this, we is necessary if myth is to so deeply inform a life are moved because for a short time we are catapulted that it expands into the holy. The aesthetic into a world where people and cosmos are once again playfulness of science fiction and fantasy make them a intimately linked, a world where moral choice is again window onto the sacred, and not a door. They may, meaningful. Good and evil in the best fantasy and indeed, help us to, in Lewis' words, "steal past [the] science fiction are more than just white hats and watchful dragons:" black — both are embedded in the deepest processes of the imaginary universe itself. I thought I saw how [fairy stories] could steal past a certain inhibition Sam Delany observes that "virtually all the which had paralysed much of my classics of speculative fiction are mystical."11 own religion in childhood. Why did one And, indeed, this is so. Tolkien's Lord of the find it so hard to feel as one was told one Rings, Lewis' space trilogy, Robert Heinlein’s ought to feel about or about the Stranger in a a Strange Land, Frank Herbert's Dune, sufferings of Christ? I thought that the George Lucas' Star Wars epic — in all these, people chief reason was that one was told one are portrayed as having intimate and immediate access ought to. An obligation to feel can freeze to the "sacred," variously expressed. In the almost feelings. And reverence itself did harm. Teilhardian vision of Arthur Clark's Childhood's End, The whole subject was associated with humankind at the end of its earthly evolutionary arc lowered voices; almost as if it were ascends into the Pleroma. And the classics of something medical. But supposing that by children's fantasy and science fiction show this casting all these things into an imaginary passion for the mystical, as well, and more so today world, stripping them of their stained- than yesterday. The children's fantasy of George glass and Sunday school associations, one MacDonald, Tolkien's The Hobbit, Lewis' Narnia could make them for the first time appear Chronicles, James H. Schmitz's The Witches of Karres, in their real potency? Could one not thus the recent multivolume fantasies of Lloyd Alexander, steal past those watchful dragons? I Iucy Boston, Susan Cooper, and Madeleine L'Engle — in thought one could.16 these, too, access to the sacred is intimate and irmediate. Lewis' psychology cannot be faulted here; he is clearly correct. It is especially interesting, Such examples are legion, by far the rule rather though, that he intends to steal past the watchful than the exception. In fact, we do move with the dragons of his religion for the sake of that same classics of science fiction and fantasy into an religion. Clearly, where science fiction and fantasy experience of the "mystic," the sacred. And how could successfully help us to reenchant our world, they do MYTHLORE 41: Winter-Spring 1985 Page 50

so as adjuncts to a faith already held or newly religious belief, there are between them some very developing. important points of contact. The deepest of these has been skillfully evoked in George R. R. Martin's recent It is not surprising, then, to see an aesthetic , The Way of Cross and Dragon. Father play with the sacred characterizing the Church of All Damien Har Veris, Knight Inquisitor of the One True Worlds, established in 1961 by social psychologist Tim Intersteller Catholic Church and empty priest, is Zell. With Nests in several cities and a membership ordered to the planet Arion to put down a peculiarly of seven hundred in the mid-seventies, the group draws dynamic heresy. Father Demien makes planetfall in his on Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land for its starship, the Truth of Christ, and soon Lukyan mythic . But science fiction is not Judasson, leader of the heretical Order of St. Judas revelation, and the creedal confession of the group Iscariot, reveals himself to Demien as a Liar. The sounds like a litany of pop psychology: Liars are an ancient and secret brotherhood dedicated to spinning beautiful lies for the rest of us to stave I hereby dedicate myself to a way of off our realization that the universe is in fact life which is non-destructive, peaceful, doomed, transient, and uncaring. With the assistance creative, joyous, alive, non-violent, of a telepath, Judasson skillfully maneuvers the loving, life-affirming, free, responsible, Father into a crisis of faith as the Liars try to ecstatic, aware, nonhypocritical, gentle, recruit him. But in his deepest moment of doubt. courageous, honest, tolerant, humanistic, Father Demien finds one thing in which he believes and nonauthoritarian, benevolent, moral, is lost to the Liars. growth-oriented, and ecologically sane.16 I hesitated, looking deep into These are laudable goals, and people who strive to myself, wondering what it was I did realize them should be heartily commended. What they believe. I searched for my faith — the are not, however, is religion, for true myth cannot be fire that had once sustained me, the generated out of an aesthetic context as long as that certainty in the teachings of the Church, context is perceived to remain simply aesthetic. the presence of Christ within me. I found Scientology, the cult and creation of L. Ron Hubbard, none of it, none. I was empty inside, moves beyond the playfulness of literary mythic burned out, full of questions and pain. production precisely because it is believed to be true But as I was about to answer the smiling by its adherents, and because its ground in truth is Lukyan Judasson, I found something else, Hubbard's claim of revelation received during a near­ something I did believe in, had always death experience in the nineteen-fifties. believed in. Truth. This mythic and "mystic" playfulness of science I believed in truth even when it hurt. fiction and fantasy is a healthy and necessary development in our culture, and it can serve us well. The best science fiction and fantasy and the most As we have lost our hold on tradition and our great incisive religious inquiry share in corrron a quest for mythic orthodoxies have withdrawn, we have overcome truth. Any such quest assumes a belief in the goal, the stifling sense of existential and moral and where a belief in truth is strong, there, too, is confinement they at the last imposed upon us. But we hope. have lost their benefits, as well. We have lost their stabilizing influence on the mythic imagination. In the context of this quest for truth, fantasy Parents who bemoan their children's intense absorbtion and science fiction constitute one literature with in the satisfying mythic patterns of Dungeons and dual balance points, one in science and the other in Dragons, Star Wars, or science fiction and fantasy Faerie. Together, they constitute a speculative generally, should look again and count their literature of our inner and outer frontiers •— and blessings. For the mythic is rising once more, all always it has been impossible to subdue the mythic ashimmer with the , and God can be horrible as imagination on our frontiers. Going out to go in, well as good. After Jonestown, no one will dispute going in to eventually go back out, science fiction Eliade's assertion that: and fantasy move us toward the decisions we must make in the decades ahead and they shape us as we move. There is no heresy so monstrous or orgy so infernal, no religious cruelty, folly, What is it, then, toward which we move? If our absurdity, or religious so insane, decisions are already being shaped, what are their that it may not be 'justified' in its contours? If, as is so often the case, our answers very principle by some false — because lie implicit in our inquiry, what are the answers that partial and incomplete -- interpretation lie in the questions we today put to the future? of a grandiose symbolism.17 Where science fiction and fantasy, religious and scientific inquiry explore the attack, they can All too often, our children have no exposure to vital together be seen to participate in a broad and deep myth. Where this is so, they have, as well, little resynthesis of our dominant culture's assumptions. immunity to the excesses of religion, excesses that The irreducible elements of this resynthesis seem to make perfect sense within their own charmed, tight, be three. and vicious little circles. The mythic playfulness of science fiction and fantasy can help our children in Both science fiction and fantasy and much recent their initial articulation of the deep flows of myth, religious inquiry assume a qualified , asserting can help innoculate them against religious excess by a unity of the world in the context of which helping to develop in them some common sense about the personalities remain uniquely themselves. Father sacred. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, palaeontologist and Jesuit mystic, has observed that "a fundamental dualism" is Besides the obvious differences between the "at once impossible and antiscientific."19 And, predominantly aesthetic and philosophically playful indeed, the movement of science and in the genre of science fiction and fantasy and devoutly held West has for long been toward a vision of the MYTHLORE 41: Winter-Spring 1985

fundamental unity of the world, and both are emerging fully articulated notions of a qualified monism and now on the other side of the dualism that has in the mind assumed to be a real thing. There are occasional past so deeply informed our culture. The dynamic of exceptions to this prevailing low visibility of a science is implicitly monistic as it seeks out the one formal principle in science fiction and fantasy. simplest unity with which to account for the processes Explicit consideration of an acausal patterning of of the world. Mystics have long sought unity with the events is central in a few works of note — the Cue, and it is, in fact, mystic experience that lies fantasy of Charles Williams, Samuel Delany's Nova. at the heart of all religion. In the past, even the But where prophecy is a part of the storyline in most orthodox Christian mystics wrote often in terms science fiction and fantasy, there is an implicit that shaded the monistic and bordered on heresy in the patterning of the imaginary history that must be seen sight of many of their contemporaries. In most modem as the in-forming action of diety, variously religious thought deeply influenced by our developing expressed. Events in Middle Earth are ultimately sciences, from the popular expressions of constituted in the harmonies of the Great Music of "metaphysical" and UFO cults to the high syntheses of Eru. Obi-wan, Luke, Yoda, Vader, and the Emperor feel Teilhard, Jung and the process theologians proper, deeply the patterning of the great events of which monism holds the high ground. This accelerating they are a part because of the Force, in the context movement of the sciences and religion is reflected in of which all time and space and action cohere. the explicitly monistic themes that lace science fiction and fantasy, and it implicitly lies at the Of the sciences, physics seems nearest to a heart of the merging of indivduals and cultures so tentative articulation of an empirically verified often effected in the genre by the lavish inclusion of notion of form. Writing of the significance of the parapsychological pyrotechnics. recent disconfirmation of the Bell Inequality for the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen Paradox, Rudy Rucker concludes Still, in the face of this monism, the purposeful that "the world we live in is filled with harmonies articulation of "personality" that has been the and coincidences th^t have no explanation in terms of peculiar achievement of the West is preserved. In cause and effect."20 In religious inquiry, fact, mystics and religious thinkers claim that it is there is some explicit consideration of a formal the movement into unity with God that is paradoxically principle — 's notion of "synchronicity," the final perfection of individuality. Humanistic for instance, and the similar notions of those who depth psychology reflects this principle, as do have taken their cue from Jung. Almost always, though, science fiction and fantasy. Further, in science the action of a formal principle is buried in myth — fiction and fantasy the audience's appreciation of in , for instance, in the action of God, "personality" seems no less acute than its taste for Christ and on history. In the context of monism, and the requirements of satisfying character myth, however, the apprehension of a formal principle development seem sufficient guarantee that the Hero underlying the causal flows of our world is universal will be no less fully developed an individual than the and found in the popular affirmation of providence of individuals who read about him or her. That this is God, Allah, or Buddha. And parapsychological so is seen in the dirth of pantheistic and animistic phenomena, which have always played a role in our themes in the genre. and which now so pervade fantasy and science fiction, are most often portrayed as effectively Secondly, both fantasy and science fiction and independent of time and space. Thus removed from the religious inquiry assume that mind is not causal process, they are probably best seen as formal epiphenomenal, that mind is imtimately linked with phenomena. deep processes in nature. Mind is a real thing knowing real things, a position which implies the When I was a boy, I watched the flashing epistemology of a critical realism and opens for us destruction of Sputnik I as it sank into the wintry again the possibility of a metaphysic. That these are northern Virginia skies. An avid reader of Torn Swift the operating assumptions of science fiction and and Tom Corbett, the early space race fueled my fantasy and all religious inquiry is not likely to be imagination. I yearned to slide like the Toms between disputed. Religion would hardly be religion if it the war Ids. Imagine my joy if someone had been able professed mind to be the epiphenomenal result of a to tell me that just ten years and a few months later, deterministic evolution. And in the parapsychological humans would do just that and return to tell the tale. phenomena so much a part of science fiction and But while my joy would have been deep, my surprise fantasy, mind makes for exciting and convincing would not have been; the Toms, after all, had beat fiction by arcing out past its presently perceived Neil Armstrong hands down. Science fact has passed up limits into deep union with other minds and with such early space now, and science fiction has nature. It is not only the inherent wish-fulfillment moved off with fantasy to work other, more promising, that makes so deeply satisfying religion and science fields. But once again, my joy will be deep, but not fiction that take mind seriously. More than this, my surprise, if these fields prove before too long to they satisfy because they strike directly into be every bit as fertile as the old. humanity's central myths of itself, myths which are the expressions in consciousness of the structures which undergird our psyches. Ultimately, mind seen as NOTES a real thing is consonant with our deepest intitions about ourselves. 1 Williams, Oscar, ed., Master Poems of the , Simon & Schuster, New York, New Finally, fantasy and science fiction, religious York, 1967, p. 887. inquiry and some recent scientific inquiry assume the 2 Beane, Wendell, C., and Doty, William, G., inadequacy of a strict determinism, and in widening eds., Myths, Rites, Symbols; A Mircea Eliade our notions of causality, often imply an Reader, Vol. 1, Harper Colophon Books, Harper & ontologically-based notion of form. Almost always, Row, New York, New York, 1975, p. 126. the functioning of a formal principle is implicit, a ^ Ibid., p. 126. more fundamental assumption buried below the more Ibidw p. 126. Continued on page 57 MYTHLORE 41: Winter-Spring 1985

Continued from page 51 1985 Mythopoeic Conference 5 Lewis, C. ,S., "On Science Fiction," in Of Other Worlds, Harcourt,Brace, Jovanovich, New York, New By all means possible do all you can not to miss this year's Mythopoeic Conference. It promises to be York, 1975, p. 67-68. excellent. See the full page in this issue for details, ° Ibid., p. 68. 7 69 but note that room and meals can be paid in advance or at the door, if you register now. Don't wait until the Ibid., p. 70. last minute. It may be too late. Send your registration 9 Tolkien, J.R.R., "Of Fairy Stories," The Ttolkien Reader, Ballantine Books, New York, New now and ask for the detailed Progress Report. York, p. 54. Lewis, C.S., "On Science Fiction," p. 68. Tolkien, J.R.R., "Of Fairy Stories," p. 70-71. BACK ISSUES “ Ibid., p. 37. 13 Delany, Samuel, R., The Jewel-Hinged Jaw; M y thlo reu Essays on Science Fiction, Berkeley Windhover, New All back issues of Mythlore are available. Do you York, 1977, p. 34. have a complete set? If not, a great wealth of material 1= Ibid., p. 85. awaits you. Check the enclosed order form, or ask the UUU., 1^. JJ. Lewis, C.S., "Sometimes Fairy Stories May Say Orders Department for one, for a breakdown of prices. Best What's to be Said,"Of Other Worlds, Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, New York, New York, 1975,p. 37. 37 Beane and Doty, A Mircea Eliade Reader, p. 91. Tolkien Journal 18 Martin, George, R.R., Sandkings, Pocket Complete sets of Tolkien Journal. numbers 1-15 Books, N e w York, New York, 1981, p. 2§. (excluding #12, which is the same as Mythlore #5) are 19 Teilhard de Chardin, Pierre, The Phenomenon available for $23 (plus shipping). See the Order Form. of Man, Harper Torchbooks, New York, New York, 1965, 20 P ' 6 4 * Rucker, Rudy, "Powers of Coincidence," Science85, January/February, vol.6,no.l, p. 57.

I Reading List | Mythlore frequently publishes articles that presuppose the reader is already with the works they discuss. This is natural, given the special nature of Mythlore. In order to assist some readers, the following is what might be considered a “core” mythopoeic reading list, containing the most well known and discussed works. Due to the many editions printed, only the title and original date of publication are given. Good reading! J.R.R. Tolkien The Hobbit (1937); “Leaf by Niggle” (1945); “On Fairy- Stories” (1945); The Lord o f the Rings: Vol. 1, The Fellowship o f the Ring (1954); Vol. II, The Two Towers (1954); Vol. M ythopoeic Celtic Stationery Ill, The Return o f the King (1955); The Silmarillion (1977); by Patrick Wynnes Unfinished Tales (1980). This new stationary is now available for $5 plus $1 in C.S. Lewis handling. It features four designs, all found in Mythlore 35: Out of the Silent Planet (1938); Perelandra (1943); That The Celtic circles portraying themes from J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Hideous Strength (1945); The Lion, the Witch and the Lewis, and Charles Williams (found on page 3 of Issue 35). Wardrobe (1950); Prince Caspian (1951); The Voyage o f the Each circle is at the top right of the page and is 3 5/8” in Dawn Treader (1952); The Silver Chair (1953); The Horse diameter, with a lined border around the page. The fourth and His Boy (1954); The Magician’s Nephew (1955); The Last design is of the four corners found on page 2 of this issue, but Battle (1956); Till W e Have Faces (1956). much larger in size. The set includes 4 sheets of each design, Charles Williams making 16 printed sheets, 12 blank second sheets, plus 16 en­ War in Heaven (1930); Many Dimensions (1931); The Place velopes. The paper is of a neutral but beautifully antique ap­ of the Lion (1931); The Greater Trumps (1932); Shadows of pearing parchment. This would make fine personal stationary Ecstacy (1933); Descent into Hell (1937); All Hallow’s Eve for both men and women, as well as for gifts. Send you order (1945); Taliessin through Logres ( 1038); and The Region of the to: Orders Department, 1008 N. Monterey St., Alhambra, C A Summer Stars (1944) (printed together in 1954). 91801.