Q: Are There any Cults in Middle-earth?
ANSWER: Although J.R.R. Tolkien described a “Morgoth cult” that Sauron introduced into Numenor (in “Akallabeth”) you may sometimes come across references to other cults in Middle-earth. Some readers ask if these cults were derived from Tolkien or come from other sources.
In terms of Tolkien’s own use of the word “cult”, he was very careful to limit himself. In Letter No. 42, which he wrote to Father Robert Murray in December 1953, Tolkien said:
…The Lord of the Rings is of course a fundamentally religious and Catholic work; unconsciously so at first, but consciously in the revision. That is why I have not put in, or have cut out, practically all references to anything like ‘religion’, to cults or practices, in the imaginary world. For the religious element is absorbed into the story and the symbolism…
However, in Letter No. 211, which he wrote to Rhona Beare in October 1958, Tolkien said:
Question 3. I have not named the colours [of the remaining two wizards], because I do not know them. I doubt if they had distinctive colours. Distinction was only required in the case of the three who remained in the relatively small area of the North-west. (On the names see Q[uestion]5.) I really do not know anything clearly about the other two — since they do not concern the history of the N.W. I think they went as emissaries to distant regions, East and South, far out of Númenórean range: missionaries to ‘enemy-occupied’ lands, as it were. What success they had I do not know; but I fear that they failed, as Saruman did, though doubtless in different ways; and I suspect they were founders or beginners of secret cults and ‘magic’ traditions that outlasted the fall of Sauron.
In June 1972 Tolkien wrote in a letter (this excerpt is numbered 338) to Father Douglas Carter:
…have written nothing beyond the first few years of the Fourth Age. (Except the beginning of a tale supposed to refer to the end of the reign of Eldaron about 100 years after the death of Aragorn. Then I of course discovered that the King’s Peace would contain no tales worth recounting; and his wars would have little interest after the overthrow of Sauron; but that almost certainly a restlessness would appear about then, owing to the (it seems) inevitable boredom of Men with the good: there would be secret societies practising dark cults, and ‘orc-cults’ among adolescents.)…
Of course he was referring to the text his son Christopher published in The Peoples of Middle-earth, the abandoned sequel that had a working title of “The New Shadow”.
Cults are a matter for much debate and speculation, but people are fascinated with them. For example, a friend of mine has published an article on the 10 most famous cults in US history and it just receives an insane amount of traffic. People like to debate and argue about what is and is not a cult, but I think the most scientific definitions hold that cults are defined by beliefs and practices that depart from the mainstream of society. In theory a cult could transform into a major religion, and it has been said that all major religions began as cults.
In Middle-earth, however, Tolkien deliberately omitted the trappings of religion (a “fault” some find with his fiction, but I think they miss the point entirely) except in a very few special cases. Despite its uses of clocks, gunpowder, and chainmail Middle-earth is really supposed to represent a much more primitive time in Earth’s history, at least in terms of human society’s sophistication. The sophistication was still largely in the hands of the Elves and Dwarves, who had not yet been fully supplanted by Men.
Hence, there is not much room for mainstream religious exposition in The Lord of the Rings (or Middle-earth) simply because religion as we know it had not yet (in Tolkien’s conception) become a full part of the human experience. The most cult-like scene in The Lord of the Rings may be the Barrow-wights attempt to sacrifice (or murder) Frodo and his companions.
I chose a picture of actor Tom Hiddleston dressed as Loki from Comic Con-San Diego in 2013 for this article because when he walked out in front of an audience of thousands of fans the crowd went wild. Tom hammed it up and demanded that the audience say his name. They cried out “Loki” several times, growing louder each time. This type of charismatic behavior is often associated with cults, which can be built up around dictators, religious “prophets”, or leaders who propound any sort of ideology or lifestyle. Sauron might not have taught his followers to say his name, but may very well have (in Tolkien’s imagination) used a charismatic style of addressing the troops.
In “The Two Towers” movie Peter Jackson evoked a similar image of charismatic devotion when he had Saruman address his assembled army in Isengard. However, both Sauron and Saruman were relying on their native abilities to influence or dominate the wills of weaker creatures. A true charismatic cult leader will use ritual, pomp, ceremony, and endless repetition of doctrine to get the message across. We really see very little of this type of behavior in Middle-earth, but apparently Tolkien allowed for the possibility of its emergence.
See also:
- Is Tolkien Fandom a Cult?
- Is There Religion in Middle-earth?
- Did the Éothéod Worship the Valar or Have a Religion?
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Have you read our other Tolkien and Middle-earth Questions and Answers articles?
You don’t count Sauron in Numenor when they were doing human sacrifices as a cult?
That was the “Morgoth cult” I mentioned in the first paragraph. But I think the question originally was more about obscure references to cults (or “obscure cults”).
Actually, now that I think about it, Tolkien mentioned that the people who killed Baldor in Rohan were part of a cult. I intended to include that in the article but I was interrupted while working on it. I will have to find time to update the article.
I always wondere about that fragment:
“The special horror of the closed door before which the skeleton of Baldor was found was probably due to the fact that the door was the entrance to an evil temple hall to which Baldor had come, probably without opposition up to that point. But the door was shut in his face, and enemies that had followed him silently came up and broke his legs and left him to die in the darkness, unable to find any way out.”
For a time I even thought that it was the Dead of Dunharrow who broke his legs, which would be proof that their spirits could in some limited way interact with physical world hehe, though I’m not so sure anymore (well it was rather ambiguous as even Legolas says he did not know whether their swords still could bite 🙂 and there is reference to ”phantoms of terror” in Dorthonion that could ”strangle, or pursue to madness” anyone who ventured there).
“The Men of Darkness built temples, some of great size, usually surrounded by dark trees, often in caverns (natural or delved) in secret valleys of mountain-regions; such as the dreadful halls and passages under the Haunted Mountain beyond the Dark Door (Gate of the Dead) in Dunharrow.” This passage certainly shows that that evil cults in religious sense arose in this instance they certainly had worship of Sauron in mind :).
Existance of ‘dark cults’ is certain :). Dark Lord demanded divine honor from their subjects, many of those ensaved by them would worship them, and they would have their temples and maybe priests as high ranking servants religious leaders, and rituals to perform. But I wonder whether the possibility of other less malevolent but simply misguided and maybe a bit more primitive people setting up Valar as their gods, not fully understanding their nature?
“The Great among these spirits the Elves name the Valar, the Powers of Arda, and Men have often called them gods.”