Thread by @Helenreflects

I am teaching on the numinous and religious experience tomorrow--so here is a brief thread on Galdalf and Saruman, and how they instantiate very different kinds of magic, which correspond to different ways of understanding magic and the supernatural 1/

Brandon Sanderson makes a distinction between two kinds of magic in fantasy: soft and hard magic systems.
Hard magic: follows rules (a bit like alternate-world rules of physics)
Soft magic: does not follow rules, preserves our sense of wonder 2/

brandonsanderson.com/sandersons-fir…

Sanderson argues that Tolkien uses different kinds of magic, from hard to soft. E.g., the rings are quite hard magic--they make you invisible, they make you powerful, and they slowly turn you into Gollum.
Similarly, rules apply for the palantiri

But there are some beings that are unaccounted for, e.g., Tom Bombadil, Beorn, and Gandalf. They are uncanny, unfathomable, you never know what they are capable of. Gandalf comes and goes, he remains a mysterious figure, invoking in us a tremendous sense of wonder 4/

Gandalf makes us wonder and marvel, much as the hobbits do (his fireworks are just one way to make it a bit more understandable for simple souls like ours/theirs). He is the perfect instantiation of soft magic, or wonder magic 5/

The Greek term for wonder is αυμάζειν, to thaumazein, and it is discussed by Plato and Aristotle as the origin of philosophy. Incidentally a synonym for magic, thaumaturgy, has the same root as wonder. 6/

There is an interesting connection between wonder and not only magic but also science in ancient Greek philosophy. See this quote by Aristotle (from the metaphysics) where this link is made explicit: 7/

The notion that wonder/soft magic is *non-utilitarian* but just marvelling at the world is key, I think, to help us understand how Tolkien contrasts Gandalf and Saruman. Saruman is an instantiation of "hard magic", or rule based magic 8/

(from Wikipedia), It is interesting to note that English "magic" is ultimately related to Proto-Indo-European for "power"- cf English "magic"/Latinised Greek magia, "the power of causing physical change in the real world", see also English "machine", this comes from 9/

The Greek mekhane or makhana "device", and both derive from the Old Persian maghush "sorcerer", which in turn comes from Proto-Indo-European *magh, "to have power" (still in e.g., the Dutch "macht", power or ability) 10/

Saruman's desire for power, and the way he industrializes Isengard thus stands for the sense of magic as power or ability, and Tolkien links this to modernity (which he dislikes). We get a better idea of Saruman's motivations and psychology (will to power) than of Gandalf's 11/

I think perhaps (?) Tolkien, having read Aristotle and other works must've been aware of this distinction between two kinds of magic: magic as power and magic as wondering, and he disapproves of the utilitarian way in which Saruman sees and uses magic 12/

Which led to Saruman's downfall. Anyway, when I'll talk to my students tomorrow about Otto's Mysterium tremendum et fascinans, I'll ask them to think about Gandalf, not Saruman to get a sense of what is meant /end