Who besides Tom could see in the Wraith World or Unseen?

Q: Who besides Tom could see in the Wraith World or Unseen?

ANSWER: In this question the Unseen is understood to be the wraith world.  I had to slightly reformat the question to accommodate the requirements of this Website.

This is one of those questions that begs for details we don’t really have.  The question directly addresses the spiritual aspects of Middle-earth, which Tolkien himself struggled to explain in concise, informative detail.  Everyone tends to intuitively understand what he is referring to but we all have slightly different views on what he meant.

On the one hand most people probably assume that Tolkien’s world of unseen things is informed by his Catholicism.  On the other hand, there is not a great deal of information in the Bible itself about anything that would match Tolkien’s unseen.  I am not educated in Catholic traditions and don’t know what church philosophers or doctrine teach about such things but I’m going to go out on a limb and guess there isn’t much detail.  So any assumption that Middle-earth’s spiritual world is informed by Tolkien’s Catholicism is both safe and unrevealing. (ON UPDATE: See Héctor’s comment below, providing an informed Catholic explanation.)

There is so little detail in the narratives about what is happening that we must make careful inferences, and I know from long experience that people just do not agree on these matters.  For example, did the One Ring really speak to Gollum?  Despite very clear narrative structure that rules out Frodo’s voice, many people insist it was Frodo advising Gollum that if he ever touch “it” (Frodo in their views, not the Ring) again that he (Gollum) would be cast into the fire.  Tolkien provided numerous details that dispute this point of view, such as Sam’s seeing with “other vision” on two occasions.

And that is why I mention the much-debated Ring / Frodo / Sam / Gollum controversy.  Regardless of how you interpret the passage, Sam sees Frodo, Gollum, and the Ring with “other vision”.  And that “other vision” bears directly upon the question at hand: who is able to see these wraith aspects of Middle-earth?

But before we attempt to answer that question let us attempt to define what a “wraith” is.  This is another area that has sparked some disagreement among readers so I can hardly provide you with a definitive, authoritative explanation.  J.R.R. Tolkien never defined the limits of this “wraith world” or how, exactly, it interacts with the physical world that all living creatures share.

Let Us Say There was Ever Only One ‘World’ in Tolkien’s View

I think this would be consistent with what he had in mind.  It is consistent with what he wrote.  Instead of separate worlds, one biological and one non-biological, I prefer to think of Middle-earth as a single, coherent, whole world that is viewed in different ways.  Just as there is a broad electro-magnetic spectrum that includes infrared light, ultraviolet light, and what we call “visible light”, inhabitants of Middle-earth may be able to see into an additional spectrum that works like the electromagnetic spectrum.

We can only describe this additional spectrum via metaphor. A metaphor stands in place of something else.  In this case all metaphors stand in place of the details we don’t have.  So the metaphor I propose is that “other vision” sees into an extension of the natural spectrum that we associated with (in)visible light.  Sam and Frodo and Bombadil (and apparently Gollum) see these invisible things with their physical eyes; hence, the eyes must be capable of detecting something that acts like light so that the brain can interpret these signals as “vision”.

This metaphor allows me to say that “other vision” must somehow be activated, but that it could be inherently accessible in some way to all living creatures with souls.  Who gets a soul?  I don’t know.  Tolkien doesn’t provide a definitive list of what he called “rational incarnates”.  He struggled to justify including Orcs in the category of “rational incarnates”.  He concluded, or felt strongly, that they must have souls but he could not easily explain, even in his own private musings, why they are so well-disposed toward doing evil.  The best he could contrive was that Melkor and Sauron suppressed their wills and made them behave in evil ways.

The problem of Orc souls touches on another issue: do all living beasts in Middle-earth have souls?  What about the thinking fox that notes the passing of Frodo, Sam, and Pippin during the night?  Is this only a narrative pause meant to make the story more interesting or should we literally take it as a representation of what Middle-earth meant to Tolkien?  Animals do, actually, think but scientists have only confirmed this in the decades since Tolkien wrote The Lord of the Rings.  A thinking animal is not inconsistent with traditional Judeo-Christian ideas, of course.  Balaam’s ass (or donkey) refused to cross the path of the angel that God sent to stop him; the donkey was even briefly given the power of speech.

Tolkien’s thinking fox and other “intelligent” and articulate animals in the stories are thus not inconsistent with Christian teachings.  But does that mean animals have souls?  As I understand it, Catholic principles do hold that plants and animals have souls, although they are not quite like human souls.  This may come as news to non-Catholics but it’s quite an old point of view.  As best I can explain it, the soul is what makes a thing living.  Humans are rational, whereas (so far as we know) plants are not.  And this agrees with Tolkien’s narrative points about rational incarnates.

But the human spirit or soul fell through Adam’s rejection of God’s command not to eat from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.  Protestant teachings say that man became spiritually dead at that moment, unable to directly commune with God or to perceive God’s spiritual power (and by extension his spiritual messengers).  It is through Christ’s sacrifice and our faith in that sacrifice as redemption for our sins that we are made spiritually alive again.

The Inhabitants of Middle-earth are Spiritually Asleep

Although Tolkien does write about a “fall” for Men (and two falls for Elves), he carefully avoids any mention of Biblical characters or events.  But the fact that Elves and Men are fallen dovetails nicely with the idea that we are spiritually dead.  Except, that does not work for the Elves.  In their mythology the Elves were less spiritually aware in their early days than after they went to Valinor and communed directly with the Valar and Maiar (who were angels).  According to Gandalf (one of the angels), Glorfindel was spiritually active or awake because he had dwelt in the Blessed Realm (with the angels).

In other words, the innate ability of rational incarnates to be able to see with “other vision”, even to reveal their own native strengths in that spectrum of perception, requires some guidance or awakening.  We are born with the ability but it’s turned off, or asleep.

The Valar and Maiar awakened this ability for the Elves living in Valinor but not for the Elves living in Middle-earth.  Hence, after the First Age any Elves who remained in Middle-earth, who had not grown up in Valinor, were as blind to the “other side” as were Men (and Hobbits).  And that is why they needed to create Rings of Power: to help them see and commune with the spirits of dead Elves who had chosen not to pass over to Valinor.

Rather than explain why Elves and Men cannot automatically commune with the dead (and other unseen things), Tolkien simply has them resort to necromancy.  We learned some details about this in an essay Christopher Tolkien published in Morgoth’s Ring.  There was always an element of necromancy associated with Sauron’s character, even before Tolkien called him Sauron.  Through necromancy Middle-earth’s inhabitants can artificially awaken their abilities to operate in the “other vision” spectrum.

Of course, that is unnatural and therefore sinful.  That is in part why the making of the Rings of Power constituted a second “fall” for the Elves.  They wanted that “other vision” by whatever means possible.

Sam’s Other Vision Was Not Born of Necromancy

Frodo’s earlier dalliances with “other vision” and the “other side” (as Gandalf described it) were clearly attributed either to his putting on the Ring or the Morgul-wound the Nazgûl inflicted on him.  He was not spiritually awakened in any way; he was using or the victim of necromancy.  Even when Frodo sat on the High Seat at Amon Hen, where the vision of Middle-earth unfolded before him, he was seeing things with the “other sight” that the Ring bestowed upon him.  Aragorn later sat on the same seat and though his vision was somewhat enhanced by the Numenorean magic, he didn’t experience anything like Frodo’s vision.

But Sam was given the gift of “other sight” twice, and the first time this happened was before he had worn the One Ring.  Hence, he clearly could not be benefiting from necromantic magic.  His “other sight” had to come from somewhere else.  I believe Tolkien meant for it to be a gift from Ilúvatar, although it’s conceivable that Varda or Manwë could have been Sam’s unseen benefactor.  Regardless of who gave him a temporary ability to see things in that additional (metaphorical) spectrum, Sam’s perception was enhanced by something other than the Ring, something other than necromancy.  He was almost certainly in what Christians would call a “state of grace”.

And That Is Why I Say …

I think that all the rational incarnates of Middle-earth had the innate ability to see the “unseen” but that they were inhibited.  Above I said they were “spiritually asleep”.  That is as good a metaphor as any, I think.  It sidesteps the issue of whether Tolkien meant for there to be an Adamic Fall behind the spiritual blindness of Middle-earth’s inhabitants.  We don’t have to explain why they required help to see with “other vision”.  We only need to accept that they could not activate this ability on their own.

In terms of who among the named characters in the story would have been able to perceive the Unseen without external aid, I would say that Bombadil, Glorfindel, Gandalf, Radagast, Saruman, and Galadriel were the most likely candidates.  And Sauron, of course.  There were, presumably, other Noldor who — like Glorfindel and Galadriel — had lived in Valinor in their youth, but not all Noldor were born in Valinor.  Many were born in Middle-earth after the Rebellion of Fëanor.  Whether they were spiritually awake or otherwise as capable as their elders has been much debated.

Celebrimbor, Fëanor’s grandson, was apparently born in Middle-earth.  He was clearly among the most powerful of the Elves to live in Middle-earth.  And yet he seems to have been spiritually blind or asleep, too.  Some people argue that the Three Rings did not confer any abilities associated with the Unseen upon their wearers, and that is quite true.  But Celebrimbor made them last and Tolkien does not say that he had the ability to see or commune with Unseen things; nor does Tolkien say that Celebrimbor had nothing to do with the other Rings (whose hiding places he knew).  We can only be sure that Celebrimbor was one of the Mirdain who studied under Sauron.

If the Noldor could have awakened this ability in other Elves they would have had no need to imbue Rings of Power with it.  Hence, whether Celebrimbor was spiritually awake becomes a moot point.  He, like other Elves, needed the Rings of Power to confer that ability upon anyone else regardless of his own innate powers.  He was no Maia or Vala.

• See also:
• Did the Elves Fear Death at All?
• Did the Ring Speak to Gollum on Mount Doom?
• What Is J.R.R. Tolkien’s Necromancer?
• Trick or Treat?  Spooky Middle-earth
• What is the Literal Translation of Úlairi?
• Magic by Melkor, No Returns Accepted

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