Tolkien Spirituality

This book offers a comprehensive analysis of Tolkien spirituality, a largely online-situated network of individuals and groups that draw on J.R.R. Tolkien's literary mythology for spiritual inspiration. It is the first academic treatment of Tolkien spirituality and the first monograph to develop a cogent theory of fiction-based religion. Adopting a semiotic approach to religion, the book investigates how belief and tradition are constructed in Tolkien spirituality, and fiction-based religion more generally, through processes of narrative persuasion, religious blending, and religious rationalisation and legitimisation. The core questions are: How can some readers come to believe that supernatural agents from fictional narratives are real? How do fiction-based religious traditions develop when their authoritative texts lack important religious building-blocks, such as descriptions of rituals? And how do adherents of fiction-based religions legitimise their beliefs, given the fact that their religion is based on fiction? With Tolkien spirituality as a case the book aims to uncover the semio¬tic structures and processes involved in the construction and maintenance of fiction-based religion, and the social structures that sup¬port the plausibility of such religion.