Is it possible to go into a different dimension? Why do people travel? We travel to see new places, to discover and experience unfamiliar worlds where everything is different from what we know.
Most movies about space exploration are about people searching for new worlds and civilizations by journeying through physical space. The assumption is that if we travel far enough, we will eventually find entirely new places and forms of life. We all long for new worlds where everything is different than on Earth.
C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien offer a radically different view of physical space. Is physical space a vast expanse separating heavenly bodies or a spiritual symbol?
The Inklings intuited that physical space itself is not what it used to be before the Fall. It is warped — bent into the shape of a Ring in the wake of some moral catastrophe. Both Lewis and Tolkien suggested that no amount of travel through physical space could bring us any closer to discovering truly new worlds.
In The Magician’s Nephew, when Uncle Andrew explains to Digory and Polly where the magical dust came from — the dust he used to make the magic rings — he echoes, knowingly or not, the story of the Fall of Númenor in The Silmarillion.
“…I looked at that dust… and thought that every grain had once been in another world — I don’t mean another planet, you know; they’re part of our world and you could get to them if you went far enough — but a really other world — another Nature… somewhere you would never reach even if you travelled through the space of this universe for ever and ever…”
The magical dust came from another world — one that could not be reached by any amount of space travel. Uncle Andrew knew that reaching an entirely new world required something more than space travel. It required magic.
Tolkien develops a parallel idea in his account of the Fall of Númenor. After the Númenóreans invaded the Undying Lands in an attempt to force the Valar to grant them immortality, the very shape of the Earth was changed: the world, once flat, became round.
Before the Fall of Númenor, travelers could reach the Undying Lands of Valinor, where the Valar dwelt, simply by sailing westward across the Sea. The journey was a matter of physical distance. After the Fall, that was no longer possible. The world was made round — a Ring, in a sense, a thing closed in on itself.
Before the Fall of Númenor, everyone knew that there was a place on the face of the earth where one could travel to catch a glimpse of eternity — a place where you could be refreshed, renewed, and healed. It was truly Another World.
The Fall changed everything. Seduced by Sauron, the Númenóreans craved immortality and set out to conquer Valinor by force. The result was a cataclysm: Arda was made round. Space itself was warped into a closed, endless Ring — a powerful symbol of life’s never-ending rat race.
How do we break free from the vicious circle? How do we find the way to Another World?
Tolkien writes:
“The Doom (or the Gift) of Men is mortality, freedom from the circles of the world.”
When we try to seize immortality through some form of magic — symbolically, through the power of the Ring — we condemn ourselves to the endless circles of this world. We become prisoners of the Ring, forever going in circles, never truly reaching the Other World.
We venture into space in vain, hoping that it will deliver us from the weariness of the Earth.
“And those [mariners] that sailed far came only to the new lands, and found them like to the old lands, and subject to death. And those that sailed furthest set but a girdle about the Earth and returned weary at last to the place of their beginning; and they said: ‘All roads are now bent.’” — The Silmarillion
All roads are now bent. They lead us back to the same old lands, where everything is subject to death. We have traveled far and wide, only to return, weary and disillusioned, to the very place where we began.
To escape the Ring-shaped world, we must drop the Ring of Power — whatever form of magic or technology we use in an attempt to seize immortality by force. The Ring may prolong our weary existence indefinitely, but it will never bring us to Another World.
We can escape the endless circles of this world only by embracing Ilúvatar’s strange gift: the gift of letting go.
Symbolically, Digory “drops the Ring” when he renounces the temptation to seize immortality and healing for his mother. He refuses to force his way into Another World through the power of the magic apple. And, paradoxically, he receives it back as a gift.
Eventually, the apple seeds are planted and grow into a tree. The tree, in turn, becomes a wardrobe — a doorway into Another World. When we let go of immortality, it is given to us as a gift. Surrender is the only way to inherit all worlds.
