I hope I don’t get in trouble for copyright violation with these little snippets. Hopefully this site will get such little traffic that the message will get across to interested parties without causing problems!

I like this little passage from the forward of The History of Middle Earth part three, where Christopher is pointing out a period of pronounced creativity for his Father, followed by a satisfaction of a job well done having completed a part of his “task”. So what was the task? Why pour hours and weeks and years into such a rich and deep project? Surely there is something in the process that yields more than just a nice story to tell your kids? In the same way, why am I constantly pulled back to reading the majesty of the Valar and tragedy of the elves and mysteries of Men? So far, reading The History seems to give a little more insight into that process.

I am interested in Tolkien’s process and purpose of writing as much as the content of his stories. For me, finding the underlying meaning of the images and their effect and applicability in my life is really what it’s all about. Although I confess that reading Tolkien also provides a nice and entertaining break from other psychological reading while retaining plenty of fuel for intuitive analysis.

It takes a lot of extra energy to extract answers to those questions from the Tolkiens’ work while Jung and Campbell address them directly. But for some reason Tolkien senior seems to provide the best content for practicing the type of dissection and analysis that can be learned from people like Jung and Campbell.