The Secondary World | Cassandra Voices

The Secondary World

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Christopher Tolkien, referring to his father, defined what J.R.R. called his ‘secondary world.’ He said ‘it is a world that cannot be seen, it cannot be found, it exists only in the mind.’[i] He goes on to say for many people when they first realise the existence of this place, this secondary world, they find the experience to be a very delightful thing.

This desire for a secondary world, if not perhaps intrinsic to every individual, is intrinsic to humankind. That is to say this relationship with the secondary world goes back to ornate prehistoric burial sites. It is ghosts and banshees; it is gods and elves. It is found in the art of Blake and the science of dreams. The Hellenic culture, among the most advanced societies of the ancient world, created a secondary world on top of an actual mountain, which they then honoured and worshipped. The volcanoes, the rivers, the sky, the sea, the wine, each aspect of the tangible world endowed with its own God, its own secondary being. Consequently, belief in this secondary world manufactured the temples. This poses the question: what would the world be like if no one ever had conceived of a secondary world? We can say if this were the case there never would have been the burning of a witch, and certainly no heavens and hells beyond. Is our world, our universe even, not sufficient at times for our complicated brains? Newton was an alchemist, and Einstein sourced many of his breakthroughs from his imagination, which suggests a scientist of pure reason can also be subject to fantasy.

Did the secondary world begin with the people who sat around the first fires? Jung thought so, but in reality we can’t know – we would have to ask them, or at least study their behaviour to know for certain. As with all history where there is no evidence at all, there is only the sound of the wind. Where there is scant evidence, we are obliged to speculate and theorise. In this spirit of conjecture, I would suggest the secondary world is a form of reality. It would be useful to make a distinction at this point between what can be solely attributed to the imagination, and neurological shifts that can occur under the influence of drugs and hallucinogens in particular. The world of the imagination, where William Blake should be interpreted, does not in of itself need intoxicants. It is its own entity. This leads to another question: is what is imagined in the mind real, or is it unverifiable? When does the imaginary become reality? If I imagine a story and then write it down, I have worked to bring the imaginary into the world of reality. But what if I just keep it in my mind? Does this mean it wouldn’t be real? What is real in one person’s mind that cannot be detected by others, is of course often interpreted as madness.

To William Blake, the secondary world could be thought of as the real first world, that is the world perceived through the senses, because he perceived the secondary world with his senses. When he was a boy, he witnessed the spirit of his brother Robert rise out of his dead body at their house in Soho and stated categorically the apparition was clapping for joy. He watched angels illuminating the boughs at Peckham Rye. Did Blake have a condition akin to synaesthesia? What modern medical prognosis can we make? Perhaps the most scientific explanation would be that to some people the secondary world is reality itself. We can however say with absolute certainty that Blake would have dismissed any scientific analysis of the imagination. Reason cannot bound the imagination.

Is there a relationship between the unconscious and the imagination in association with the secondary world? According to the basics of psychoanalysis, the unconscious mind is always unconscious, but it can be perceived through dreams. Is there a connection between Freud and Jung through Blake’s oeuvre? Not conspicuously. Blake, or indeed any artist, should not be attempted to be understood through the lens of science. It would be like turning Beethoven’s 5th Piano Concerto into a formula. It strikes me that no one has ever even attempted to turn the source of art into an equation for good reason.

Tolkien’s secondary world lives within our imagination. Perhaps his greatest gift was the extraordinary way he was able to make this secondary world so believable for so many. Remember, there is moon and starlight, as well as cheese and salted pork and tobacco and pipes, in the imaginary world he invented. In this instance the primary world has been superimposed on the secondary world, or the other way around.

In medieval England there was the ‘land of Cockaigne’ an imaginary land of plenty. According to one source ‘Cockaigne was a ‘medieval peasant’s dream, offering relief from backbreaking labour and the daily struggle for meagre food.’[ii] This may provide an insight into the function of the secondary world. Necessary escapism. Or as Tolkien put it, escapism in it’s true meaning, ‘as of a man getting out of prison.’ This also may provide an answer as to why the desire for the secondary world is not universal, simply because there are many among us who do not wish to escape the primary world. They are more than happy where they are, but this is not to say those who seek the secondary world are somehow inherently unhappy. It can be invoked simply for the joy of the thing, like a magic trick. Think of Alice in Wonderland, or A Midsummer Night’s Dream. This brings up the subject of our agency through our imaginations and the effect this has upon the world itself and ourselves. Scrying, palm reading, divination, horoscopes and so on. These are attempts to impose our own agency into the supernatural world that evidentially doesn’t exist. The secondary world is distinct from hocus pocus and bogus truth claims, but its claim to existence does, however, hinge on the power of the imagination.

William Burroughs, Timothy Leary, Richard Alpert, Terence McKenna and memorably Aldous Huxley experimented with Ayahuasca, all giving vivid accounts of a world that hides behind a veil. This other plain, or higher state of consciousness is not what Tolkien meant by the secondary world. The secondary world is not drug-induced. It is a state that can be accessed by all people. It is the sober world of the imagination, of fantasy, that being the secondary world in our senses, in the reality we have evolved.

It is a mistake to compartmentalise the secondary world solely into the world of fantasy but that the secondary world is a function of fiction is valid. In other words, if it is based on real events, it is biographical. As mentioned, Einstein’s major breakthroughs in science were sourced from his imagination and this is also partly true of Newton. But when Einstein imagined the movements of space time as he looked at the church clock from the window of a tram, had he entered the secondary world, or was he simply using his imagination? Perhaps we can deem the secondary world as a desire for fiction and escapism rather than fact and truth, but fiction is perhaps the best way we have to understand truth. And here lies the riddle.

Arguably, the imagination has an evolutionary function. To imagine a possible attack by wolves or bears out in the forest was likely extremely useful. It may in fact be the reason we dominate the animal kingdom. Our imaginations work in tandem wit reason in the battle for survival. It is the duality and relationship between imagination and reason which must be explored when trying to understand the secondary world, which, once discovered, remains a very delightful thing.

Featured Image: ‘Beatrice’ by William Blake from Illustrations to Dante – The Divine Comedy (1824).

[i] JRR Tolkien – A study of the maker of Middle Earth

[ii] “New York Public Library: Utopia”. Utopia.nypl.org. Archived from the original on 2012-07-16. Retrieved 2012-10-02.

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About Author

Dominic is a writer concentrating mainly on prose and particularly short stories but has also produced essays and poems. He currently lives in London. Dominic is currently excepting submissions for short stories and can be contacted at [email protected].

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