# WAL and IV: Two Paths Through Tolkien’s Mythic Soil

 
 
This document clarifies the distinct orientations of two Tolkien-centered communities:
→ [**Ilsaluntë Valion (IV)**](https://westofwest.org/)
→ [**Way of Arda’s Lore (WAL)**](https://linktr.ee/elvenspiritualpath)

It is sometimes assumed that IV emerged from WAL—as a splinter group, spiritual successor, or ideological offshoot. **That assumption is incorrect.**

Though my own thinking helped shape both, they are not branches of the same tree. WAL was formed around one vision; IV, though born of the same hand, grew from a different philosophical root—with different questions, methods, and aims. There is no organizational lineage between them now, nor any kinship in spirit or structure.

A more accurate metaphor: *two trees rising from the same soil*—the rich mythic earth of Tolkien’s Legendarium—yet shaped by different winds, nourished by different rains, reaching toward distinct lights.

Both arose from deep love for Tolkien’s work and engage seriously with myth, meaning, and symbolic depth. Their difference lies not in sincerity or value—but in *what each space optimizes for*.

Understanding this matters. Confusion arises when distinct modes of engagement are mistaken for interchangeable ones.

## Way of Arda’s Lore (WAL)

WAL is oriented toward **participatory mythic engagement**. It prioritizes personal resonance, symbolic meaning, and experiential interpretation.

Within WAL, myth functions as a living spiritual and imaginative environment. Engagement often takes expressive or exploratory forms—drawing on emotion, symbolism, and individual meaning-making. This fosters openness, accessibility, and a diversity of interpretive voices. In practice, few members are deeply familiar with the full breadth of the Legendarium.

Within its own context, this approach is coherent and meaningful. WAL offers a space to enter Tolkien’s world as a lived symbolic landscape, where personal experience is honored as a legitimate source of insight. Its structure supports community, continuity, and emotional connection—all appropriate to its goals.

## Ilsaluntë Valion (IV)

IV was founded with a different focus: **sustained, corpus-grounded engagement with the Legendarium itself.**

Rather than treating Tolkien’s mythos primarily as a personal spiritual habitat, IV approaches it as a **coherent mythic system**—one that can be studied, discussed, and worked with over extended temporal horizons. Here, myth is not something to be remixed for affective resonance (“I feel elven”), but something to be understood structurally—in continuity with its internal logic and development.

Historically, IV emphasized:

- Close familiarity with Tolkien’s texts
- Depth over breadth
- Continuity of discussion over episodic participation
- Direct, explicit dialogue—even amid disagreement
- Rituals emerging organically from the Legendarium’s underlying structure, designed for [neurotheological](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuroscience_of_religion) resonance

Its central axiom is:

> **There is no canon. There is only data. The signal arises from the data.**

In practice, this means meaning must emerge from the internal structure, constraints, and relationships within the Legendarium—not imposed from outside via appeals to authority, authorial intent, or communal consensus. If coherence must be enforced externally, it is not intrinsic—it is decorative.

Thus, within IV, the [appeal to authority fallacy](https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/logicalfallacies/Appeal-to-Authority) ("but, Tolkien said...") holds no weight. Tolkien’s writings—published works, drafts, letters—are treated as *evidence*, not hierarchical decrees. Interpretations stand or fall on their structural fidelity, predictive power, and consistency across the corpus—not on canonical pedigree.

Personal identity, expression, and symbolism were never central organizing principles in IV. They were secondary to function: the shared work of engaging Tolkien’s mythos with seriousness and discipline. Most members *are* deeply conversant with the Legendarium’s deeper layers.

Over time—as life circumstances shifted and participation waned—this focus gradually faded. Not due to failure, but drift: a common fate for long-lived voluntary groups.

Today, IV is re-centering on its original principles: sustained engagement with the lore, clear epistemic boundaries, and practices that privilege depth over breadth. This is not reinvention—it is return.

## Mythic Engineering

Mythic Engineering emerges from IV’s orientation—but it is not a belief system, spirituality, or identity.

It is an **analytic and structural approach to myth**: a method for examining how mythic systems cohere, evolve, and generate meaning over time. It treats the Legendarium as a structured symbolic corpus—whose internal logic, constraints, and resonances can be explored rigorously *and* expressed artistically.

This approach does not seek to replace personal meaning or experiential engagement. It operates at a different layer—one concerned with *form*, *structure*, and *systemic behavior*. Language, symbolism, and narrative are treated as carriers of structure, not ends in themselves.

As such, Mythic Engineering is compatible with many personal worldviews—but irreducible to any single one.

## Difference Without Opposition

WAL and IV are not competing for legitimacy. They answer different questions:

- **WAL asks**: *How does Tolkien’s myth live within us?*
- **IV asks**: *How does Tolkien’s myth hold together as a system? How does it [relate to consensus reality](https://hackmd.io/@EriolElwin/Bk2X8t1nlx)—structurally, symbolically and topologically—not literally?*

Confusion arises only when these questions are collapsed into one another.

Both paths can—and should—coexist. But they cannot serve the same function. Clarity about orientation is not exclusionary; it is intellectual honesty.

This document is not an argument for the superiority of either view—but an articulation of difference. It exists so that:

→ Those seeking a **participatory mythic commons** can recognize WAL as such.
→ Those seeking a **focused, research-oriented space** can recognize IV for what it is—again.

## Identity and Epistemic Care: Why Distinctions Matter

Tolkien’s work is deep enough to sustain multiple modes of engagement. Not every space needs to do everything.

**WAL’s aim** is experiential and communal: to cultivate a shared mythic space where Tolkien’s work is approached through personal meaning, symbolic identification, and relational engagement—with inclusion and resonance prioritized over formal discipline or continuity of inquiry.

**IV’s aim** is modest but demanding: to provide a place where the Legendarium can be approached with continuity, discipline, and seriousness—where sustained inquiry matters more than ambient affiliation.

That has always been its nature.