The real world of Tolkien

Dr Brian Bates has previously collaborated with comedian John Cleese on a book and TV series about the human face.

Now he has come up with something completely different, a book exploring how spirits, demons, dragons and wizards were ardently believed in by our ancestors.

Dr Bates, who teaches psychology at the University of Brighton and the University of Sussex, spent two years writing The Real Middle Earth.

His research into how people lived 1,000 years ago found what we term "fantasy" was deeply-rooted in everyday life back then.

Shamans, wizards and witches were feared and revered as authentic other-worldly individuals with magical powers.

Dragons, elves and dwarves were believed to be living and lurking in close proximity to our Anglo-Saxon forebears.

Dr Bates, from Lewes, found emotions such as hope, fear and love were expressed then in vivid imagery, represented by such fantasy emblems as dragons, unicorns and demons.

His research into ancient spiritual traditions and where they survive today has taken him across the world to Native American Indian reservations and Polynesian tribal strong-holds.

He believes his interest is being paralleled by the hordes of people flocking to bookshops and cinemas to get their fantasy fixes from Tolkien's epics or Harry Potter's adventures.

For Dr Bates, this surge of interest in fantasy fiction reveals people are getting back in touch with primeval yearnings to escape into their imaginations.

Dr Bates, who has been researching and writing about Anglo-Saxon life for 25 years, said: "I think it's great people are enjoying Tolkien but what it says to me is we used to have this at the heart of our lives but let it slip away. Now people are feeling their lives are a bit hollow."

Dr Bates began researching the subject after becoming interested in how people were rejecting organised religions but exploring the paranormal and altered states of consciousness.

He discovered in the British Museum library two ancient vellum tracts containing ancient spells and methods of British sorcerers from 1,000 years ago.

Sorcerers claimed they could make people telepathic, tackle mental illness with hallucinogenic drugs and cure colds with herbal substances.

He sees echoes of this in modern-day approaches to health such as herbalism and homeopathy.

While he recognises the benefits of orthodox modern medicine, he believes more could still be done to rediscover and exploit more imaginative, spiritual methods.

Dr Bates has been travelling the world researching for The Ford Foundation in America, which is investigating still-surviving tribal traditions.

He said: "If you look at the landscapes where tribal cultures are still based, they look pretty ordinary but the tribal people see things in more fantastic ways.

"I've spent time with shamans and brought some over to this country too. They see the world using their imagination much more vividly than we do."

These modern shamans resemble ancient wizards, similar to the Gandalf character portrayed in the films by Sir Ian McKellen, who were providers of mental strength and reassurance.

Dr Bates said seeing things from a shaman's heightened sense of perception involved attaining a certain state of mind, unblocking the imagination and the senses.

Dr Bates believes companies can improve their productivity by encouraging and allowing employees to be much more creative.

He also wants schools to restore subjects such as art, dance, drama and music to more prominent positions in the curriculum so children's imaginations flourish more.

He has used his methods of psychology and imagination-exploring to help actors at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts.

Among his young students were performers who have gone on to win international acclaim, such as Kenneth Branagh, Ralph Fiennes, Timothy Spall and Jane Horrocks.

He directed plays and also wrote a manual, The Way Of The Actor, and met Cleese at a launch party for the book in the early Eighties.

Dr Bates said: "We became friends and have worked on several things together."

Two years ago their collaboration, The Human Face, was presented as a book and a BBC One series.

The project explored the history, including perceptions of different facial expressions, what is seen as attractive, changes in facial fashion and reactions to famous faces.

The pair have also recently given a series of seminars in Los Angeles to companies about how they and their employees can be more creative in the workplace.

Their collaboration has mostly involved Cleese dominating publicity and acting out skits to accompany Dr Bates' theories and academically-minded text.

Yet Dr Bates believes with his new book he will be reaching beyond academia.

He said: "This book is for everybody - that's probably why it took me longer than normal to write because it's harder to get ideas across in a simpler, livelier way for people to understand.

"This seems a good time to publish. I thought maybe some of the people reading Tolkien now might be interested to know Middle Earth really did exist."

The Real Middle Earth, by Dr Brian Bates, is published by Pan Macmillan on Saturday.