Becca Tarnas is the author of Journey To The Imaginal Realm: A Reader's Guide To J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. As a PHD scholar of philosophy and religion, Becca guides us through the deep symbolic archive and wisdom of Tolkien's great works. In this episode we explore the source of human imagination, the Atlantis mystery in Middle-Earth, the parallels between Carl Jung and Tolkien, and the mechanism by which great stories are able to immerse us in an enchanted other-world.
In the Plus+ Extension, we look at Tolkien's use of Venusian symbolism, the archetype of the syzygy (union of sun and moon), Tolkien's critique of industrialization, the enigmatic character of Tom Bombadil, and much more.
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Journey To The Imaginal Realm (Book) - https://revelore.press/product/journey-to-the-imaginal-realm/
WE TALKED ABOUT…
How Becca got swept up into the world of Middle-Earth
Numerology symbolism in The Lord of the Rings tale
The Matrix and the esoteric meaning of the One Ring
Tolkien's dream-visions of Atlantis and how it appears in his fiction
"The Inklings" Tolkien's club with other authors of his time
Unfinished stories like The Lost Road, The Notion Club Papers
How Tolkien predicted England's Great Flood of 1987
Ancestral memory and inherited trauma
Synchronistic parallels between Carl Jung and JRR Tolkien
The Music of the Ainur, a cosmogony of Middle-Earth (Creation Myth)
Samuel Coleridge, Idealism, the primary imagination and sub-creation, the mechanism used by artists
Enchantment - being immersed in a believable world of fantasy
Witnessing to co-create with the divine imagination instead of trying to be the God of creation
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The etymological roots of "invention"
Discovering one's sense of awe and wonder
Alchemical as above so below mysteries of stars, water, and language
The story of Eärendil the Mariner, the first and most prevalent character in Tolkien's saga
Frodo's star-glass and Venusian archetypal symbolism
A Jungian perspective on the archetype of the syzygy, uniting solar and lunar qualities to individuate as the Higher Self
Understanding the difference between gender and polarity and seeking the balance between
Mordor and Saruman as symbols of the consequences of industrialization and scientific reductionism
The tree-people known as Ents and Tolkien's perspective on nature as a conscious entity
Solving our problematic effects on the environment with personal responsibility and community
Tom Bombadil, the most anomalous character in Lord of the Rings, and the self-realized individual in relation to nature
The curious incident in the barrow downs and consciousness time-travel
That awesome moment where the Lady Eowyn shanks the Witch King of the Nazgul
MUSIC IN THIS EPISODE
Intro: "Foggy Dreams" by Wisdom Traders - https://soundcloud.com/gotups43/foggy-dreams-1
Outro: "Incandescent EP" by MioWnize - https://soundcloud.com/miownize/sets/incandescent-1