Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-26210095-20160404001701/@comment-25344655-20160405010909

J.R.R. Tolkien discussed the operations and moral dimensions of magic in Letter 155 of The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien. This letter is actually an unsent part of a draft of Letter 154 which was dated September 25, 1954.

Magic in Middle-earth was explained as an innate ability set of the Ainur and the Firstborn, to the exclusion of other peoples. Regardless, The Silmarillion and The Lord of the Rings both contain descriptions of special items and weapons that are said to have been crafted by Men and Dwarves, such as the dagger wielded by Merry which stabbed the Witch-king and Angrist.[21] [17]

The area of discussion in the letter is the difference between magia and goeteia, with magia (physical magic) usually noted as good and goeteia (charm and conjuring magic) as bad. He wrote, "neither is, in this tale, good or bad (per se), but only by motive or purpose or use. Both sides use both, but with different motives."[1]  The evil motive was to use it to dominate free will. The Enemy used his magia to "bulldoze" both people and things and used his goeteia to terrify and subjugate. The Elves and Gandalf sparingly used magia for specific beneficial purposes (like burning pine cones to toss at the Wargs[22] ), and their goetic effects were "entirely artistic and not intended to deceive: they never deceive Elves (but may deceive or bewilder unaware Men)."[1] For Elves, the difference was as clear to them as the difference to us between art (fiction, painting, and sculpture) and life.[1]

At the end of the draft noted as Letter 155, he wrote "a difference between the use of 'magic' in this story [The Lord of the Rings] is that it is not to be come by by 'lore' or spells; but it is an inherent power not possessed or attainable by Men as such."[1]  While "Aragorn's 'healing' might be regarded as 'magical', or at least a blend of magic and pharmacy and 'hypnotic' processes . . . A. is not a pure 'Man', but at long remove one of the 'children of Lúthien'."[1]

The Númenórean Question: Since this 1954 letter draft was unsent, he seemed undecided on the total exclusion of Men from spellcasting. Since Men did not have the natural skill to weave their own spirit into things or ideas, they may have used spells. Alongside the final paragraph of Letter 155, which ended with the explanation that Aragorn was distantly of Lúthien's line, Tolkien wrote this question: "'But the Númenóreans used "spells" in making swords?'"[1] :Note 2

In a later work completed by 1959, the Athrabeth Finrod ah Andreth, there is an amended note which contains the Tale of Adanel in which the strongest and the cruellest of the fallen Men who worshipped Morgoth, during the dawn of Men in Middle-earth, were given "gifts" and "knowledge that they kept secret" which made them "powerful and proud," and with their new power, they enslaved the other Men.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-Athrabeth_23-0" style="font-size:9.33333px;line-height:0.4em;">[23] <sup class="references" style="font-size:9.33333px;line-height:0.4em;">:348  In this later text, Men could be given artefacts or taught lore, but magic remained a noninherent trait.