[Boromir88]

Going back to my first post I found the references to the different histories of the Blue wizards I mentioned.

In Letter 211 it seems like Tolkien thought they had a special mission to go east but failed (only in a different manner) like Saruman and Radagast.

"I really do not know anything clearly about the other two- since they do not concern the history of the N.W. I think they went as emissaries to distant regions., East and South, far out of Numenorean range: missionaries to ’enemy- occcupied lands, as it were. What success they had I do not know; but I fear that they failed , as Saruman did, though doubtless in different ways; and I suspect they were founders or beginners of secret cults and ’magic ’ tradiitons that outlasted the fall of Sauron."

This is where the idea that they started their own "cults." However, Tolkien was rather uncomfortable with the cult-practice part of religion in his stories. I think that's where we see a change, and in Home XII: Last Writings it's a completely different history. The Blue wizards actually arrive in the Second Age (when according to LOTR the Istari didn't come until the Third Age). Anyway, Alatar and Pallando were specially sent to the East in the Second Age and crucial in minimizing Sauron's swelling army.

"But the other two Istari were sent for a different purpose. Morinehtar and Romestamo. Darkness-slayer and East-helper. Their task was to circumvent Sauron: to bring help to the few tribes of Men that had rebelled from Melkor-worship, to stir -up rebellion...and after his first fall to search out his hiding (in which they failed) and to cause dissension and disarray among the dark East. They must have had very great influence on the history of the Second Age and Third Age in weakening and disarrayinbg the forces of the East...who would both in the Second and Third Age otherwise have outnumbered the West."