Magic by Melkor, No Returns Accepted - Page 5
© Michael Martinez
Some say that the Houseless desire bodies, though they are not willing to seek them lawfully by submission to the judgement of Mandos. The wicked among them will take bodies, if they can, unlawfully. The peril of communing with them is, therefore, not only the peril of being deluded by fantasies or lies: there is peril also of destruction. For one of the hungry Houseless, if it is admitted to the friendship of the Living, may seek to eject the fea from its body; and in the contest for mastery the body may be gravely injured, even if it be not wrested from its righful habitant. Or the Houseless may plead for shelter, and if it is admitted, then it will seek to enslave its host and use both his will and his body for its own purposes. It is said that Sauron did these things, and taught his followers how to achieve them.One must wonder what that last sentence means. Sauron was known as the Necromancer during the long years he dwelt on Dol Guldur. Did he work bodilessly to enslave others while he regained his strength? Did he at times forsake his body to work with sorcerors who thought they might enslave him? What would become of the slaves Sauron made this way, and who were his followers who could also practice such deceptions? Were the Nazgul taking possession of would-be sorcerors? Such perilous communions with Sauron might explain both how he was able to control so many leaders of men and why they would drawn to him in the first place. The shamans and kings and chieftains wouldn't know, until it was too late, that their predecessors who had become powerful were in fact little more than avatars for Sauron. That is not to say that all of Sauron's servants would be so directly manipulated. But the most powerful leaders among his servants and allies may indeed have been sorcerous puppets. Perhaps that also explains the heathen custom where kings would have themselves burned on a pyre. Denethor II chooses to die this way and Gandalf rebukes him for it, saying only the heathen kings are so treated. If Sauron decided he had no further use for one of these slaves it might be convenient to destroy all the evidence of his possession of it rather than let his followers learn the truth, or some portion of it. On the other hand, one might argue, if Sauron and the Nazgul could possess people, why didn't the Lord of the Nazgul use Earnur's body to gain control over Gondor? It may be that, if he made the attempt, the Lord of the Nazgul didn't possess the power necessary. Earnur would not have willingly communed with a Nazgul or even Sauron himself. His will might be broken but he would probably die, burned out by the struggle.
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