What was it all for?

[davem]

Originally Posted by narfforc

Why is there a desire to find such things in a story book, do these same people look for these things in Peter Pan or Tom and Jerry, I first and foremost read The Lord of the Rings because it followed on from The Hobbit, I never wished to see anything else but the story. I admit there are now things that invade my mind from other sources, but if I wanted to read the bible (which I have) it is already there, the same goes for any of the pagan mythologies, and if I really wanted to know about Pink Efelumps I would read Davems thread. I see no reason at all to go hunting for spiritual guidance or hidden meanings in anything else than the given scriptures of any religion when the original has all you need.

I'm not looking for a 'spiritual' explanation. Just attempting to understand why he did what he did. We can take the approach of looking backward & asking where it came from or forward to where he was trying to go with it. Its really a counter to the other thread which seemed to place all the emphasis on the former approach, arguing over sources, without asking what he did with those sources that he used & what he wanted to achieve - if anything: I haven't ruled out the possibility that he was a bit of an obsessive with a storyteller complex - though as Jung said about complexes - he found the existence of complexes in themselves banal & always wanted to know not where or how they originated, but what they were for.