[Raynor]

Well, having a great capacity for learning doesn't necesarily mean you will learn the right things...so speaks one who wasted much of her youthful capacity for learning by having her nose stuck inside Tolkien books!

You know what they say: all is happy in the best world possible . Anyway, may I be permited to note a non sequitur in your statement? Your example is quite the opposite of what you were trying to prove .

Do you think his arrogance was responsible for this? That he believed he had control and so could outwit Sauron? Or was it something else? One mind cannot 'see' into another if they are using 'unwill', supposedly only Eru can do this. So did Sauron use language with Saruman? Or did he trick him?

I don't think he was that stupid - although Tolkien sort of equates (his) evil with stupidity:

Originally Posted by Notes on motives in the Silmarillion, ii, Myths Transformed, HoME X

But certainly [Saruman] had already become evil, and therefore stupid, enough to imagine that his different behaviour was due simply to weaker intelligence and lack of firm masterful purpose.

If he had the tiniest shred of memory left, he would remember that Sauron had already outwited and outstrenghtened (sp) him, and he did it with a palantir at that.

Originally Posted by Tale of Years, Appendices

c: 3000.
Saruman dares to use the palantir of Orthanc, but becomes ensnared by Sauron, who has the Ithil Stone.

I don't think Saruman used language either, I guess he was just scared out of his wits by the turnings of the events, which were arranging against his double crossings, that he wanted to have a second opininion through the palantir. I presume that the power Sauron wielded infused the palantir(s) - therefore when Saruman opened (?) his mind in order to direct the palantir to the locations he wanted, he may have unwillingly and unknowingly interacted with Sauron - who may even have directed what Saruman saw, as he did with Denethor.