Hello, and welcome to Mythic Mind, where we pursue wisdom in the past between primary and secondary worlds. I'm your host, angrew Sneyder, and I am always grateful for your company. Now, first of all, I want to remind you that all the content from the Fiction and Philosophy of CS Lewis Course is currently available for Tier two patrons and higher
ten dollars a month for about twenty six lessons. That covers nearly all of Lewis's main works of fiction, including the Ransom series, Screwtape until we Have Faces, Great Divorce, Narnia, and more. And so head over to patreon dot com slash Mythic Mind and sign up for that Tier two level or higher to get access to all of that content right away. And if we get ten new patron to that level during the month of November, then I'll continue that going with the content from the Life, Death
and Meeting with Beowulf and Boethia's course. At the time that I'm recording this, we are seven patrons away from that goal, and you can play your part by going over to patreon dot com slash Mythic Mind. And because I'm recording this a couple weeks before it's public posting.
We're hopefully even closer to that goal by now, But for now, I want to go ahead and jump right into our conversation today, in which I am joined by the Middle Earth Mixer, who runs a fairly high engagement account on x that is perhaps best known for ratioing large accounts. With the help of the Young Captain of Gondor, we recently had a general just a fun chat about Tolkien ideology and generally what makes Tolkien great and I hope that you enjoy. All Right, So today I'm talking
with the Middle Earth Mixer. I know a lot of people who are listening are probably already kind of familiar with your content. I mean, obviously you're I would consider fairly high profile on Twitter. Definitely a lot of engagement, and you know, I love to talk about a little bit regarding what you think you're tapping into, what you
think you're offering into the Tolkien community and beyond. But I mean, before we do that, I mean, just like it's going to introduce yourself a little bit, tell us a little bit about who you are, and as much as you want to share about that and what got you connected with Tolkien to begin with.
Sure, Yeah, I mean I grew up loving The Lord of the Rings. It was something that definitely captivated my young Christian childhood.
I wasn't allowed to watch Harry Potter, you know, my mom got the gout.
The memo like a lot of the other moms did that that was out of the question.
So Lord of the Rings was kind of my fantasy.
And I also really liked Start Wars as well, but definitely Lord of the Rings kind of captivated my childhood heart in a way that.
A lot of things just don't.
And I'm not like a big fantasy person either, if you I've said this before on podcasts and on my Twitter before.
I love Tolkien, I love C. S.
Lewis, I love good literature, but I don't I'm not going to read The Witcher just to check it out, or you know, I don't care about other stuff. I really like what is the philosophical underpinnings of good stories, and I like to explore those, But other as far as fantasy for fans saying fantasy for fanities the sake, I don't care.
You know, it's not my thing.
And then as I got older, I kind of let go of that a little bit. I started to started to be this projection of what I thought was a cool person, you know. And I spent a lot of my younger years being or trying to be this person that I thought was cool but that I was supposed to be.
And then I got married. And then when you get married, you kind.
Of I feel like, when you are constantly having an interaction with another person at all times twenty four to seven, it.
Actually breaks down a lot of that.
Like those disingenuous parts of yourself, and you actually kind of get back in touch with the things a part of like the parts of you that are real. So I really paired with that, paired with getting married, starting.
To really think about what I believe in.
Why getting back into my faith in a different way than I wasn't before, it helped me fall in love, fall back in love with a lot of these things that I love as a child, you know. So I got really back in the Lord of the Rings, and I really loved how Lord of the Rings and getting
back into it was walking alongside my faith journey. And Tolkien talks a lot about that and on fairy stories and how good fantasy done well can aid the religious person, and I felt that actually happening in my life and it was something that I wanted to share with the world. I was very active on Twitter a prior to me doing this whole Lord of the Rings podcast thing because
I worked. I worked in political PR, so it was very active on as you can well imagine with it's you get that with me, you know, that's that's never going to be something that I don't bring to the table because it's it's my thing. But I worked in political PR and I had this active Twitter page and I remember I was on a hype with one of my friends one time. It was this place kind of on DC. It's a good hyping spot, and I was just talking about the Nascolt and the origins and how they came into.
Being right and as one does on a hike, right, Yeah.
As one does.
And my friends, he's he's great. He's always like, very encouraging with people's dreams and stuff, and he goes, you know, man, I would uh, I would totally listen to hours of you doing this, And I mean he was he was streight, he had no choice, right, And we were on a hike roub on a mount and.
He can't escape me. So I'm just I'm just talking about Lord of the Ring stuff, but I can tell he meant it. And I was like, man, you know what if I did what if I did start something?
And that's what kind of got the ball rolling. I started doing threads and then a couple of my threads kind.
Of blew up.
And yeah, and then it encouraged me to buy this any mic and get started.
Yeah. It really is a liberating experience when you just recognize that I can just do stuff that I want to do.
Yeah, it was.
There's actually a great meaning that's like people and using it for Trump and running for president president lately.
But it didn't start with that.
It's just you can just do things and then it'll be a picture of somebody doing something crazy. I'm like, yeah, yeah, that's true. You can just get up in the morning and just do things you start.
Yeah.
Yeah, it was really just kind of liberating. And that was that idea that really launched a lot of my independent stuff. You know, like I just want to teach what I want to teach. So I started making some independent classes and now I've got a new career.
It's it's amable it's incredible.
Yeah. Uh so uh we'll come back around to some of the like the Tolkien and politics and you know that whole deal. But you said that when you were younger, Lord of the Rings really captured your imagination. So were you a reader? Was this movies?
Like?
What did that look like?
It's well, it started off with just the movies, I think again, it was like that thing that movie came out that I was allowed to watch, and it was interesting because I think I was it was nine or ten, and I was up late.
My family was all in bed, and I was watching TV and I.
The Fellowship of the Rings on FX and I was just watching it and I remember I was like, oh, kids are talking about this at school. I think it's like a Harry Potter movie or something. And I turned it on and I was immediately just gripped. It was like it was like there was an empty socket that plugged into my brain. And I remember when they got to Ribbondal in the movie, I thought the movie was over and I.
Was sad the background that's happening right now. I thought that was the end of the movie, and I was like, man, that's a bummer.
It's about to be over and little did I know, it's just a whole new adventure just kind of kicked off. So that's what That's what started it. And then I became hooked and I started consuming everything, and then I would I would sit and make my family, you know, sit down and listen to me talk about the lore, and bought all the video games.
So I really got into it. And then.
When I got more, when I went to college again, that's when I started getting back into reading, but not still not being quite as into it as I am now. Yes, but yeah, it's been a it's been a long journey to get to this point.
See that's fantastic, and I'm always kind of envious when I talk to people who had who were really captivated by Polking everything he represents early on in life. It's not really something I discovered until actually like a few years ago. Really, I just wasn't kid well. I mean I saw the movies and I enjoyed them, and you know, I played some of the games here and there, but like it just it didn't hook me up on a deep life altering kind of level. It was still in
the level like entertainment. Not like this is true, this is who I am now.
Uh, you know what it was too, It was it wasn't to me.
It wasn't just a movie because I remember it was spiritual.
Like I grew up Christian, still Christian and.
Very much a church going mother, and I would make all of my family sit down, and when we get to Gandalf and the Power Rog, I would stand up and I would pause it, and I'd be.
Like, Okay, this is like spiritual warfare. He's taking authority over like the demon, you know.
And I'm sitting there and I'm explaining this to like my grandfather or my dad who's like doesn't doesn't.
Care and doesn't understand, you know.
But even then I would stand up and kind of do these grandios, this is the most important movie ever made, you know, Like.
That's that's how I was as a kid. So it definitely captured my imagination.
Yeah, that's great. Yeah, it really wasn't even until I was in the midst of my doctoral dissertation when I finally discovered the literature for the first time. Really, and
it really did start with Tolkien. And yeah, saying that, it really wasn't until I was in the midst of my doctoral dissertation, like a few years ago, when suddenly I like finally discovered literature for the first time and recognize that, yeah, because I mean, growing up, I would just kind of felt like, Okay, if I'm going to read a book, you know, I want to learn something, and so that means nonfiction, right, And so it's like
I didn't really even understand. I guess I was so inundated with sort of this modern understanding of what constitutes truth that I kind of miss the real value of literature until finally just the right influences came at me in the right way, you know, dealing with some personal losses philosophically, I'm starting to, you know, get in touch with people like you know, Jordan Peterson, who does a lot with fairy tales and literature and so like, things
just starting to open up for me. Finally drawn in by largely talking Twitter that community, I finally pick up The Fellowship, and just from the first chapter, the whole trajectory of my life really changed from that point forward.
Yeah. Now, if you if you read it right and if you read it with like.
The right mindset, you know, Lord of the Rings were really make you into a different person.
And obviously it's not that might sound silly.
It's obviously it's not the Gospel, but I really do feel like God has blessed Lord of the Rings, the books.
And the movies.
It's the themes in it really walk alongside your faith. And that's really what gets me so excited about it, because I think it actually truly does help people get in touch with the simple and the beautiful, but not simple, and you know, in a haughty way, like a like a high and haughty person might call something simple, just the simple things that are right in front of your face that we kind of take for granted as simple.
Right. I find myself looking.
At trees now and I was never a nature or a plant person, and now I totally am like, all, look in my wife and be like, with this flower, isn't that amazing? And She's like, yeah, I.
Guess, yeah, yeah, I've had many experiences like that. But yeah, I mean, like you're saying, it's simple in the sense that you know, when I'm reading Lord of the Rings, it's not like I'm like learning something new theologically or philosophically that I didn't know before, but I'm encountering it in almost more of an incarnate kind of way, more of a concrete way, a way that provides not just you know, intellectual edification, but it's something like existential consolation,
which is exactly what Polki talks about, right that escape and recovery.
And I think that there's something what's so great about it is that there is something new that you see almost every time you read it.
There's treasure on every page.
And this is kind of the debate that I like to have with with people know about other stories. I use Game of Thrones just because I kind of like to troll people a little bit. It's it's fun. Camrons is fun, you know. But Tolkien really is about less about the destruction of the Ring, less about the you know, the embarking of the foulship.
It's all those are all facets of.
It that make it a great story. But the real treasures are these small sentences that you see randomly, just sprinkled throughout where it hits you, like a grain of transcendent and transit transcendent, transcendent wisdom.
You know.
That you just go wow, Yeah, absolutely. I mean, my Lord of the Rings books are all marked up and underlined, and you know it's me. It's it's as profound as any any classic work of philosophy or theology. Maybe not any,
but it's definitely up there. There's just so much wisdom that comes out, and I think that, Well, let me just ask you, why do you think that Tolkien was able to make such art where so many Christians just come out, you know, writing something so shallow, you know, your your pure flix whatever, Like, why do you think Tolkien was able to communicate such wisdom so poignantly and so authentically.
I think one of the reasons you just said authentic.
Truly bearing one soul on a page and not being concerned about how it's received.
From what we know about.
Tolkien, right, he was very stubborn about what was included in there, and he had a lot of people trying to tell him to make edits that he didn't want to make, and try to take things out that they maybe felt was not entertaining or that would kind of make the book a little bit of a slog. But Tolkien was authentic and really truly felt the things that he was writing. And I'm not saying that you have to have a tragic life to really produce works of art, but.
It really.
It certainly helps, and he really went through a lot of pain in his in his life. It's there's that famous interview where the guy asks him, well, what is the Lord of the Rings about at the end of the day, and he says death, And I think that's it's less about death for death's sake, It's less about death as it is. When he says death, I think he means like the human experience. And when you you have your.
Mother die at such a young age you could put into a home.
Your father died when you were so young that you have pretty much no memory of him. It's and then you you get sent off to World War One and you're in the you're in the trenches of World War One.
It's It can really.
Give someone who has the mind for it the ability to write something so beautiful that we can all relate to because it's it's real. And I also do believe that it was I believe it was blessed. I do again, it's not scripture, but I do believe it was blessed. And I think that he was tapped into something. I think that he was tapped into the Holy Spirit.
I think the C. S.
Lewis was you know, I read those works and I moved in ways that other things just don't. So it's for a lot of different reasons that I would say it's successful, but definitely all the things that I just named.
Yeah, And I think that in the midst of that authenticity simply writing out of his soul, that he doesn't begin with, Okay, here's the ideology that I want to put out there, right, He just he writes a story, and the story is true because it's coming from somebody who's grounded in the truth. And so I think that's one thing that makes it so real. And then you talked about him writing out of sorrow, and that's really the theme that gripped me the most my first reading
of Tolkien. It probably still does, the way that he interweaves sorrow with hope and meaning and joy. You know that there's that great line from hall Deer about how you know, although you know love is now mingled with sorrow, you know, perhaps it grows even the greater because of it. Or one of my all time favorite lines from Tolkien comes from the Similarillion when he says, you know, if joy full is the fountain that rises in the sun, it's wells are in sorrow unfathomed or the foundations of
the earth or something like that. It's this idea that, like life, joy and sorrow are not opposing realities, but that, especially in the Christian framework, they necessarily go together. Right. I mean, the center of our faith is the crucified Messiah. And so I think that that ongoing theme, the fact that all joy is rooted in sorrow, but also all sorrow is transmuted into joy. It's just such a beautiful pig.
Sure of I think that the way that things are of Christian theology, but it's so authentic in the way that it comes out from his pen.
And another thing, another thing about it too, is that it's like you said, he never he doesn't start it with here's what I believe.
It was just something that he started writing because he had he had these characters, he had he had languages, he had frameworks for stories that he wanted to write over a long period of time, and he just started writing the story and the things that he believed were despite anything placed into them.
Not but not not shoehorn. They're never shoehorn. It was just these are the transcendent, these are the truths that govern my universe. These are the truths that governed the story that I'm writing now I'm gonna start writing, you know, And it wasn't like it was never something that had to be said, because you read it and it's just reflected to you in subtle ways.
Yeah. I saw a clip going around. You may have seen it as well. When you know, interviewers asking him you you had worked out this whole world long before writing the Hobbit, you know why. The response was mm hmm, just.
What I did incredible, like the giga Chad had.
Just why not? I mean, it's just I think it really just speaks to Tolkien's I mean the fact that he can't be replicated in that, you know, his whole world was born out of a desire to make sense have this language that he created, which you know you usually fantasy after him is going to go the other way around, where okay, well, shoehorn some languages in here. But no, it's I have this little just obsession something
that interests me. I'm going to pursue it, and then out of that we get the whole world.
Yeah. Yeah, it's it's beautiful. It's a beautiful thing, and it's not.
It's as you said, it can't be replicated because it's just not People aren't like that typically.
You know, that's what makes him so incredible.
It's like this was his this was his side, hobby, his side hustle, and he already was such an amazing talented person. And then to just start this and then have that either thing that you're known for instead of all the work that you were doing at Oxford is just truly incredible. But there's people who don't even know he's a professor.
Oh, I know, I know, it's crazy. And you know C. S. Lewis kind of talks about this that when you're like hyper engage, then fantasy, like writing fantasy even kind of becomes a way of escape, and that now you can sort of play around with the things that you take really seriously during the day. And I think that one thing that we tend to forget is that, you know, a lot of people who want to go out and write their fantasy novel, you know, they end up essentially
becoming knockoffs, right, chief imitations. Because in order to write something like Tolkien did, to write something even like Lewis did, like you have to be engaged in the lagoss that makes for good stories, right, you have to be doing that hard work. You know that if they weren't busy reading like the great works of Northern literature or whatever like,
we would never get these products. And so you know, on one hand, you know, they're both geniuses in their own rights in that they were able to spin out these different stories different worlds, but also there were geniuses that were plugged into like the lagosts that goes beneath all great stories, the kind of the spirit of truth, I guess, and that's something that you can't really just skip.
And we'll also and this is where actually we're Tolkien to Lewis intersect with my part of part of a candle be obsession is my.
Love for history too.
And I love that the both of them loved history and in order to Token particularly set out to write a myth, right. He wanted to write a great myth, a myth that could sort of have been something that was, you know, pre authority in England, you know, like that that's what he was going for. And he was able to write a great myth because.
He loved it so much.
If you don't love myth, you can't really write one, you know, you can't write your own.
But it's because that It's because him and Lewis both had.
This respect for, you know, not seeing pre Christian myth as sort of this thing to not pay attention to and not appreciate some of the good some of the virtues that you can derive from those stories, because they chose to open their minds up to, like, what good can I receive from this story that is inherently flawed because it's not the truth.
It's just a reflection the ultimate truth.
The virtues that are good are just reflections of the ultimate truth.
But it's okay for me to appreciate the good parts of them.
And because they were open to that, which is the same kind of person I am, you know, I just I think that that really contributed to both of their abilities to like well and tell good stories.
Yeah. I often reference this line from Lewis's Perlandrum when he says that, you know, he finally discovered what mythology was. It was gleamed of celestial strength, falling on a jungle of perversion and imbecility, and it was like, there's good stuff there, even if you know it's all mixed up in some things that we need to kind of expricate it from and you know, bring it back into its proper contexts.
Which yes, I see, I see you post a lot about the Space Trilogy. I love I love the Space Trilogy.
Yeah, yeah, I mean that's another thing I just like, a couple of years ago, I discovered it for the first time, and that's another thing that became part of who I am moving forward. I can never look up at the stars the same way. Again, Well, it's really funny to.
Tell people about it because they're like C. S.
Lewis wrote a Space trilogy kind of like yeah, but it's also kind of a fantasy.
And you can read the third one as its own book.
You don't even need to read the first two, but you should read the first two.
Right, and then I mean you try to rise the plot and it's just absolutely insane, but it works.
Yeah, And I think that there's.
Like it's funny because there's a hard dividing line between people who really really like that hideous strength and people who really don't like it and just do not connect or understand it at all whatsoever.
And I think one of the reasons why it resonated with me so much is because.
You know, I worked in PR, so I one, I worked in PR, so I have this kind of resentment for the drawbacks of journalism and propaganda. And we know, like Mark gets used as a propagandist on behalf.
Of the nice.
But I also you know, I saw a lot of so I was in DC for a while, and I saw a lot of the worst parts of myself in Mark's character. It's just deep flawed desire to be seen as as smart and l liked by the end crowd of people that you think are important. So that book was a crazy journey for me. But anyway, it went off, it went off too too long.
No, no, Yeah, I will say that that hideous strength did instantly click with me, and that you know, it begins with sort of you know, he's boring college meetings and progressive clicks that eventually you find are rooted in the depths of hell, which I mean that's my d day life. Yeah, you're right in a you know, humanities department, So I definitely know how all that goes. But so,
so back to to Tolkien. Uh, you know, we we've talked a lot about how what makes him so great is the fact that he's grinded it grounded in these eternal, transcendent realities. Now that being said, it seems pretty obvious that he has like a definitely a conservative grounding. And I don't just mean like modern American politics, but I mean that in the sense that he is latched onto enduring realities that are worth conserving with worth holding onto, or rather we need to let them hold onto us.
I guess.
So, why do you think that mainstream talkien community tends to be very left leaning? I mean talking society or wherever. What do you think is is?
Yeah, I mean I think I can tell you exactly why. I think that that's a phenomenon that we see a lot of. I think a lot of these people start off really kind of in the same name that we're in.
I really don't know how you can't, like you don't start off that way.
Not everyone, but most of them, most of these people who I won't call them sellouts.
But.
Really just kind of fall on the left side of interpreting Tolkien, I think they start off in a lane of probably a religious person, someone who comes from a religious background, someone.
Who you know, really fell in love with Lord of the Rings growing up and then.
They find themselves in the academic taking the academic route, particularly the people who self identify as Tolkien scholars. You know, they are in humanities you know, yeah, I don't have to tell you. They're in humanity circles, which are which skew far left across the board, no offense, because they want to be accepted in these circles, and they you know, they want they want funding for whatever they're doing, they want recognition, they want good jobs.
I mean, Tolkien.
Professor, who I don't I don't know Ory. I know it's done great work. So like, I'm not going to get on here and bash him. But you know, if I spent the amount of time in my life doing the stuff that Corey was doing, and now finally I'm I have, you know, a major corporation that is putting me in front of a camera and telling me to do interviews and make videos for them and paying me
to show up at amazing events. You know, I understand why you would start kind of bending and breaking your views to kind of fit whatever they would want you to say.
So again, I'm.
Sure he's a great guy, and I'm not trying to bash him. I understand the desire. But I think that that's kind of the path that a lot of these people walk, is they really just want to be accepted in the intellectual circles that they're in. They want to be taken seriously. Now all of a sudden, you know, the rings of powers coming out, they're being taken very seriously.
Because I think a lot of.
People who don't really know about fantasy think their fantasy.
So they've spent a lot of their life, you know, feeling like people don't think something is really cool. Now of a sudden, it's really cool.
So I think it's pretty simple, pretty pretty simple human interaction.
And I don't hate them, but I definitely I go a little bit hard on them on Twitter.
But at the end of the day, you know, it's it's just people being people.
I don't think it's a big mystery.
Yeah, I mean I guess that, uh, that whole trajector usually out brings us right back to that hideous strength. I suppoose that's the smart study. Let's take it to the nice now with the telphones.
Sorry, I was just gonna say society. They're like, I don't know how you know, whether they're getting their funding.
From or what the what the donations thing looks like. But they're definitely all literature academics who are.
Trying to.
Kind of not just not offend anybody. And I actually can't even look at their stuff anymore because they.
Have me blocked.
Yeah, I've never really paid that much attention to them, but every once in a while I'll see like the lineup of the titles for their conferences, and it's just I mean, it's just insane.
Yeah, it's really it really is. Right.
These people claim to be experts on Tolkien and the kinds of things that they come up with. And I think that this austog just speaks to academic culture in general, that if you're going to be if you're going to have a place in academic society, then you're push to constantly publish. In order to publish, you have to be innovative, right, you have to say something that hasn't been said before, And so there's this push of I have to always
be original. But the putting originality at the forefront of your academic drive is not a good way to land a good academic. It's not a way to pursue truth, right, It's a way to market yourself, which leads to all kinds of just absurdities. This obviously isn't relegated just to the Tolkien spheres. It's the problem that I have with academia in general is that it just pushes you to always be original, which is not the same thing as pushing you to be wise or to help other people be wise.
Exactly exactly I was I was thinking about that. It's like the nobody wants to hear we already know what Lord of the Rings is about, right, we know where Tolkien stood.
They don't lie and say that, oh, he would have
been progressive on this, now he wouldn't know. We know what Lord of the Rings is, and we know that it's pushing these sort of you know, Christian Western virtue, these Christian Western virtues, that's what that's what Lord of the Rings is really propping up at the end of the day, And no one really wants to hear about that anywhere, not in the actually circles want to discuss this because to them, even if they're not openly hostile towards it, it's like we've heard this.
Before, right, It's always that desire of I want something new. It reminds me that line from Mythopeia where he talks about, you know, progressing into the void that you know, we're just constantly moving, but into nothingness because you know, a lot of times you see the same people who don't believe there is such a thing as you know, transcending eternal truth. And so at that point, like, what can you even progress toward if you don't have an endpoint
in mind? There's nothing concrete, you know. It's like Lewis says that if you're trying to see through everything, then eventually you just don't see anything. That the purpose of a window to see something concrete on the other side. But if you don't think there is anything concrete, then what have you been doing?
Yeah?
Or how you know Gandof's line about it being foolish to break something just so you can understand it better, you know, that's what they're That's what they're doing with Tolkien every day, a lot of them, not all of them, but you know they're they're doing this dissection of things that shouldn't be looked at through through the lens that they're trying to see.
It right, right, And so again Alf says he likes White more right because it's this unifying reality. It's pointing us upwards, you know, on the other side of the prism to what actually is. I mean, you know there's that one letter where he says explicitly that the Lord of the Rings is not about freedom, it's about God's soul right to divine honor. Yes, he says, like that's what it's about.
Yeah, and then people like will log on and say that it's not it has nothing to do with religion, and like.
Right, there is. But I guess that's when you have to follow in like the death of the author idea. You know, he doesn't have authority over his own words or I don't know, it gets silly.
No one's allowed to do that to Lord of the Rings. I can do it to other people's stuff, but no one can do it to the Lord of the Rings.
That's right now, I guess in line with politics ideology, And now I'm sure that one of the big criticis that you get is mixing Tolkien with politics right all the time. Dude, what's your response to that, whether you give it out loud or in your own head, Like, how do you respond to that?
Well? I think it's.
There are people who would tell you to read Lord of the Rings, read the Summarilien, read The Children of Hoorn, you know, read every read all of Tolkien's letters them, know them, memorize them.
But don't you dare. Don't you dare.
Learn anything about how he felt about the world he was living in, and about maybe how the themes that he reflects in Lord of the Rings might make you feel about things that are happening in our world today.
Absolutely not, don't do that. That's a no no now. I think it's.
To me, it's absolutely ridiculous to take something as substantial as Lord of the Rings, where constant themes are being reflected at you on every page, beautiful things. I mean, I'm just thinking now. One of my favorite lines from Tolkien is where he talks about digging up the evil out of the fields that you know, so that those
who come after can have clean earth to pill. Like even that statement in and of itself was like, it's differentiating between good and evil and telling you that you don't have to go out and do anything crazy, go out into your community and uproot evil in the fields that you know. That in and of itself is a problematic statement if you just have sort of this subjective approach towards morality in general. So I don't underst stand
people because I'm just not that person. I don't understand people who can consume content and not analyze the morality and the themes that are being reflected back at you.
I can know that something is not good.
I can know that something doesn't necessarily have a good message, and I can turn that part of my brain off and still take something in and enjoy it.
But I still know.
I still know what values are being projected at me, and when I read Go to the Rings, I'm not turning that switch off. I know what values are being projected at me. I love those values, and I want to share them with others because that's the type of personality that I am. And if you want to be inauthentic,
that's fine, that's up to you. But you need to admit that you are actually turning a part of your brain off when you choose to read things in that way, and that's just not the sunthin person I am.
The Mythic Mind Fellowship presents a new study led by doctor Andrew Snyder, the Wisdom of Middle Earth, the Lord of the Rings. This will be the first study in the Wisdom of Middle Earth series, which seeks to bring an array of companions together with a common desire of growing in wisdom while enjoying the heartening tales of the great tale weaver J. R. R.
Tolkien.
The Lord of the Rings is a profound tale that has literally changed lives, as it has for mine. And what is it that makes this story so powerful and so compelling? It is because Tolkien's stories are fundamentally true, and those who engage with it know exactly what I mean. They speak to the way that things are. As Peter Crest said in The Philosophy of Tolkien, the Lord of the Rings is infused with the same light that illumined
the man who wrote it. And that light is true, for it reveals the reality of the world and life. So join us on this adventure. Let us grow and wisdom together through immersion in this tale, not through cheap algorizing, but by getting a better understanding of the ideas and the movements of the heart that bring a tale such as this to life. This twelve week study will begin with Tolkien's creation account, the Iwindulay, and then move to
the beginning of the Fellowship of the Ring. Each week will include assigned reading from The Lord of the Rings, a short side lesson in the beginning of the week that addresses a relevant theme, background story, or secondary text, and then once you've had some time to do the reading, there will be a longer video that serves as a
guide in these forests of wisdom. Also, we will have additional recommended readings, an active discord channel, and weekly live meetings which will be recorded in case you cannot attend. Whether you are reading The Lord of the Rings for the first time or the eleveny first time, I invite you to join our company. Prices are currently as low as they ever have been, and they are as low as they ever will be, So go ahead and join today at Andrew Schnyder dot padia dot com, and I
hope to see you on this road that goes ever on. Yeah, And the reality is that anybody, whether they have high profile or not, anybody who's commenting on Tolkien or anything, really they're projecting some ideology at play here.
Right.
The question is, you know, is it actually befitting of the subject that they're dealing with. But there's no way to escape it, and so all of these claims of like radical subjectivity or you know, you can't take anything from anything and apply to something else, Like it's always such an inconsistent critique. You know. It's like at you know, my university classes. You know, pretty much all my students will tell me there's no such thing as truth, there's
no such thing as morality. Everything just opinions, all made up. And then I ask them, you know, how many of you are intending to vote in the next election, and most of them raise their hand. It's like, do you not see any inconsistency here that you're going to go from? Literally like the same day, you can tell me that the worst thing you can do is to impose values on somebody else, and then you need to go vote on which values you can impose in your neighbors, Like
do you not see the inconsistency there? Or you know, even the fact that you're arguing for anything whatsoever, even that there is no truth or you know, everything subjective you're trying to apply a truth claim to me in that very statement, And so pretty much all these critiques just sort of fall apart into absurdity.
Yeah, And.
I mean I do understand some of the criticism, right, because I get very upset when people try to deconstruct Tolkien or say that he would have had views that he wouldn't have had, or say that.
You know this this you're doing.
I mean, just just an example, like the people who do queer readings of The Lord of the Rings.
I mean, like.
They do that and then they write about it, and then they make these arguments for you know what this means, and what that means, and what Tolpien really like may have meant, you know, about a specific interaction between two characters, and it's like that drives me nuts. So if someone has sort of a leftist point of view and they see me extracting and speaking on behalf of Tolpien in ways that they don't think that he would have agreed with.
I do understand some level of outrage there.
The difference is, however, is that I'm right now, I'm just kidding. I mean, I am, but like I'm not, I'm just kidding now. I understand why people would would kind of get upset about.
That, But I just.
Really, I mean, we know Tolkien, and we know what is posicians were, and we know not on policy, but we know where he stood, so you can extract some level of confidence on how he might have felt on certain issues today.
But you know that's not the point.
It is like when I say, when I say something political on Twitter, that's coming from me. You know, I'm not saying Tolkien would have agreed with this. It's just because again that was that was my first love politics. You know, that's what I used to work in. I don't work in it anymore because it's it's not I don't recommend anyone work in politics, but that's what you're going to get because that's just reflected and who I am. And I think you know, you talk about my page
resonating with people. I appreciate you saying that. I think that my page does resonate with people because people are looking for more authenticity in their lives. And I'm not saying I'm the most authentic person in the world. But if you look at a lot of the Tolkien accounts or Tolkien channels, a lot of them make great stuff.
I mean, Nerd of the Rings, he's amazing. So I'm not attacking him or like Men of the West or anybody like that, but they keep it strictly Lord of the Rings, which is good because that's all they're trying to do. But sometimes people like to see a little bit of the self leak in, you know, and see see where you stand on stuff and how you feel about things.
And people like that because everything.
Now is so man we live in the social media age where everything is so manufactured. People have ai that are making posts for them now, you know, on a regular basis. So when you get someone who is really just being kind of vulnerable every day, people like that.
Yeah. I think that's a good point. That people want to connect with people and not just platforms exactly right, and people obviously engage in the world into Yeah, I think that is something that you definitely bring to the table as well as you know, ratioing President of the United States or whoever else, which is all good fun. We had a good time, Yeah, Yeah, it's and I think that speaks to something that it's good just to kind of have fun even when you're dealing with serious things.
I think that speaks a lot of people as well. So other than Lord of the Rings, I mean, what is your favorite Tolkien story, my favorite token story.
You know, it's difficult because it kind of changes all the time.
My background favorite, you know that kind of transcends all the other favorites, is obviously gand Offs.
Just the entire exchange between and Off and the Bow Rock.
Everything that makes it so significant, all of the background information and lore that goes into that exchange, the words that get Off speaks, the way that the Bower Rock acts, the impending battle, the underground fights, the chase up to the peak, and Gandalf's you know, death and then coming
back like it's all. It's all such a significant sequence that I think really captures how deep Lord of the Rings is in one exchange, and it's really one of the pathways that I really like to use to engage with other people because everyone knows you shall not pass, you know. It's like it's the most iconic scene in Lord of the Rings, everyone references in pop culture.
So it's also a great catalyst for having these more deeper, like spiritual and philosophical discussions about Lord of the Rings.
Because you get to look at something and be like, hey, you know, that's a great scene, right, yeah, and Off kind of fighting this monster, right, that's cool.
But also, let me tell.
You about the spiritual significance about what's happening in this exchange, because when you know that, that makes it so much cooler.
So that's kind of like my background favorite story. However, right now, my favorite story is.
I really love oh I also love when Finn Golden fights Morgoth.
That's another story, but that's everybody loves that.
I really love when Sam is in Mordor with Frodo, when Frodo is passed out and they're at their lowest point of despair, and Sam looks up and he sees a star punching through and he has this kind of inner monologue where he thinks about how this this shadow is just a passing thing.
That's what, That's what.
One of the quotes that gets loaded into the Two Tower speech, there's light that is so far out of the bounds and governance of evil, so beyond it that it really just dwarfs it in comparison, like evil does not have the authority to even to even reach up and touch it.
I love that quote. I love that sequence.
I love that story, and I really like how it actually connects with I don't know if you've heard The.
Children of Horn, but oh yeah.
Horn has his exchange with more Goth where he kind of essentially says the same thing to him, like, after my after my soul exits the bounds of the world, you can't touch it, you can't touch me because there's goodness beyond that you have no authority or power over.
And it's a great exchangeau Morgth.
Essentially, it tries to lie and say that there's nothing out there, there's nothing for you to look forward to, and Horn rejects this, which is just I mean, only a spiritual exchange. I mean, there's we Those are the types of inner battles that we have on a regular basis. So I really I really like that one, and that's that's probably my current besides like the ones with real staying power that never go anywhere. That's that's my uh my favorite.
Yeah, those are definitely good ones.
Yeah.
The Children of Orren definitely is a lasting favorite of mine. It's just so so heroic but so tragic, and it's the kind of book where you get to the end and you just feel empty but also full. I don't know, it's he captures the northern tragic spirit so well. Yes, but yeah, but you know that's part of the bigger story that it is destined for you catastrophe and so it's tragedy amidst a story of ultimate hope and it's just something so powerful there.
Yes, I have a love hate relationship with it because I like, I like everything to the line up and have a good conclusion, right and the Children of Horn essentially though it is it's it's a standalone story. You know, Torren was going to eventually be redeemed in one of the versions of the Last Battle. However that's only one of the versions of the Last Battle and it was
never really thoroughly fleshed out. So it's like you get this, you read the Children of Hoorn and it's amazing, but then you kind of have this it feels like a loose end, you know, when you get done. So it's like I love it, and then I also it makes me so mad.
Yeah, it's it's pretty devastating.
Yeah, yeah, it really.
It really does capture that Northern spirit and that tragedy, that sort of classic.
Approach to to myth.
Yeah. Absolutely. And there's that great line between more Goth and Huron where Huron says, you know, you've wasted your strength and your own emptiness or something to that effect, and that just cuts really at the central idea to Tolkien that all the bad guys more goth Suran, Souramon, like all the villains of the story are these people who reach out for power, but in so doing they're grasped by power, and so they really just fall into this emptiness of self worship, and in so doing they
essentially become nothing. And this gets back to the fact that you know, basically the whole story is about God's soul right to divine honor. Those who recognize the good that stands above and beyond them, those who are able to see that star shining forth into the forsaken land. Right, those are the people who are able to lash onto real enduring meaning enjoy, regardless of their circumstance. And so it's all about you know, who are or what are you living for?
Yeah, but I love that. I love that about not talk endless.
I feel like the villains at the end of the day are rather pathetic, you know, when you you take all things in the consideration, they're.
Very ugly, and they.
Sometimes can wield the great power, but at the end of the day, they're really there. They've laid themselves low and become and they every every day they spend not not living in the way that they were originally set to live, they become weaker and weaker and weaker, and every every evil thing just continues to take them further and further away from their original purpose.
I love that about it.
Yeah. There's this line from Augustine that comes to mind in the City of God, when he says that the good man, though a slave, is free, whereas the wicked, though he may rule, is a slave. And what's worse is he's a slave to as many masters as he has vices. And so it's in this pursuit of our south are self referential good we just become enslaved to our passions, and we're no longer free.
Absolutely it.
Freedom requires laying down the ring.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's actually one of the things. And if you put this on Twitter, we'll stir the pot a little bit. One of the things that I actually liked about The Rings of Power was slime sorrow. I really enjoyed that, not because the book says that sarn is slime, but I enjoyed it because it really lined up with this theme of one two things. One is, at the end of the day, the enemies. The enemies
is actually pathetic, I mean truly pathetic. And like when you see the real true self when everything else is stripped away, there's really nothing there, you know. He's this sort of this slot and another thing I really liked about. And this is going off the spiritual topic a little bit, but the structure of power in Tolkien's world is different from the structure of power and other fantasy worlds, right, where people if you look at Harry Potter, they're.
Turning things into chocolate bars.
You know that are and they seemingly can do this a never ending amount of times, right, as long as they say the right words, something happens, Whereas in Tolkien's world, things are they require energy, and beings actually become exhausted, right because they are originally created as particularly the de Maya and the Valor, They're created as these thoughts and reflections of Elluvatar's ultimate power, right, and that's where all
of their power derives. So if you look at someone like Saram, he comes whatever power he has really is transitive from a Louvatar.
And each thing that he does, each evil thing that he does, really just further furthering a lessons that that original reflection of Alluviatar's thought that he's supposed to be.
So there's costs for all these things that he does. So I liked that that was that was a part I went on a tangent there. So well we'll kick this up you don't get some people mad and the replies. I actually liked that they had him go through this whole having to recreate a whole body thing because.
It takes work, right.
Uh. And that's that's where Tip baranciates Tolkien, Tolkien's legendarium and where the power comes from from other.
Yeah, and so my my promo for this episode is not going to be Mixer endorses Rings of Power.
By the way, please don't please don't. Uh you know that's a many that one wondring dot com.
That's my really.
Yeah, the boys, I love them. I love those guys over there.
John John Yeah, yeah, yeah.
He hit me. He roasted me pretty hard and made that the thumbnail of his.
That's great, it's good. Way get some clicks. I mean with Rings of Power. I mean, we don't need to spend a whole conversation on that now, but I mean generally speaking, I actually I don't like it as a Tolkienist. I like it relative to what is out there today, It's main competitors in the popular media in that I think that you know, even an echo of Tolkien or an echo of an echo of Tolkien is gonna be better than most of what's out there today regarding just basic morality.
Yeah.
So this is actually one of the points that I like to make is that when you see someone, when you see studios that are saying things, because again I care about philosophical underpinnings, right, I knew going into the show that they were gonna Book of the Lore. It was never it was never even a question in my mind or like I knew going in, I was like, this is not going to add up. So because I went in with that expectation, really what I cared about at the end of the day is are they going
to try and deconstruct Tolkien? Are they going to put things in here that shouldn't be in here? You know, a subjective approaches to morality? Like am I going to be seeing that? And I mean it hasn't been perfect, but I really I will say that, like I think when people make projects where you see actual good.
Philosophical messaging, good messaging on morality.
There's a couple of really good speeches in there that they particularly I really liked in I think it was the last episode or the second to the last episode of season two where Cala Marainbore is kind of giving the speech to Galadriel, like he admits his mistake.
There's gold in there.
And you watch it, you're like, Wow, no other show was saying anything like this, So I.
Would like to give them props for that.
And I think that when studios come out with stuff that actually has good messaging, you should clap for that because maybe they'll lean into it more. However, you know, Rings Power obviously has some serious more problems that are inexcusable, So there's there's a balancing act you have just too, like, clap for the philosophical messaging, but also Aron should not be kissing Galadrial.
At any point.
Yeah, they do some weird stuff for no good reason.
Yeah, and there's no way you can really spin that like you can't.
It was unnecessary to the point where it almost feels like you're trying to agitate me.
I do think it's kind of humorous that some of the same people who are trying to defend the show, saying that was entirely platonic for the same people that can argue that something's going on with Prodo and Sam. It's just like something doesn't add up here.
Yeah.
No, it's all just whatever, it's fitting whatever you want it to be to match up with your argument.
Right. But yeah, I think we're pent on the same page with that. Overall, it's pretty good relative to its competitors at the very least. Well, you know, we going a little over an hour. Is there anything else that you think that we should hit on or anything else that you want to bring up?
Probably not anything that we could really unpack. I could give a whole review of phrase of Power, but you know that would definitely.
Say that after their time sounds good. Trying to think any anything else, any other questions? No, I mean sometimes sometimes I go on.
Donald Trump has this right line where he talks about how he leaves. Sometimes occasionally I will leave. So I hope, I hope I gave you some good content.
No, it's a good good weaving, good weaving. I think we've weave together something something useful.
Perfect, sounds good? All right?
All right, Well, and you know to do this again sometime, maybe with some specific topic in mind, but yeah, sounds good. All right, well appreciate it. Everyone go follow Middle or Mixer if you don't already. Thank you, thanks again for listening, and thank you to all of my patrons who make
this show in my various other endeavors possible. And by name, I would like to thank all Tier two patrons and higher and so many thanks to Mark Cliff, Aaron D Paul William, Aaron s Andrew g Andrew M. Brandon and Christopher, emmy E and Jeremiah, Joscelyn, josh T, Joshua B. Matthew, Sarah and Steele. And again, I am recording this a couple of weeks before the public posting, and so if more of you have joined since then, then that's why you're left off this time. But you will make it
next time. I really do love doing this sort of thing. I would love to be able to consistently provide you with an episode a week in definitely moving forward, and
maybe even more often than that. But I can't do it without your support, and so if you appreciate what I do and you want more of it, then please go to Patreon dot com slash Mythic Mind and join the Fellowship, and you can find that link in the show notes, and especially at that second tier and higher that there's never been as much available Mythic Mind content as there is right now, and so go ahead and
make that happen. That's it for now, and I hope that you tune in next week for our next conversation, which will be available even sooner ad free for our patrons. But that's it for now, and so until next time, godspeed
And the