How could Sauron gain power?

It's obvious that from the First Age to the 3rd Age Sauron's power increased. So how can a maia icrease in might?

Did Sauron tap in to the remnant of Morgoth's power which is in the earth?

Sauron's wisdom has lengthened with the years.

I think the main thing, though, is that his enemies in the Third Age are weaker and fewer than they were in the Second.

He did increase in power though. It is said somewhere that Sauron at the height of his power with the Ring was greater than Morgoth was in his dominion of Angband. Easygreen is right, but specifically I think the One Ring was the chief reason.

Where does it say that Sauron with the ring was mightier than Morgoth while he was at Angband?

I still don't see how the One ring can increase his power.

Care to explain?

The Sauron/Morgoth passage is in one of the later HoME books I think, either War of the Jewels or Morgoth's Ring. Probably Morgoth's Ring.

At the moment my memory is not working too well, about the Ring stuff. But Sauron was more powerful after he made it and kept it than before he did. With it he could utilize his power, spirit and will. It was an extra weapon that could be used for domination, and an ultimate device if you want thralls. It also increased his Necromatic abilities, as long as it existed he could literally return from the dead.

I thought the purpose of the One ring was to place the majority of Sauron's spirit in it so that he could return from the dead.

I'm sure that the ring made him more powerful but not so powerful that he surpassed a weak Morgoth. A ring made by Elf smiths no where near Feanor's calibre surely can't increase the power of a Maia three-fold or more, otherwise the Noldorin Elf Lords in the first age could have wiped the floor with Balrogs e.t.c.

The only thing I can think of is that he could utilise Morgoth's power undisturbed by any rivals.

It should be:

'A ring made by Elf smiths who were no where near Feanor's calibre'

Sauron made the One Ring, not the elven smiths.

Sorry, I meant that he made the One Ring using the ring lore of the Elf smiths.

You can't create power out of nothing.

Well it does say in one of those HoME books that Sauron at the height of his power was greater than Morgoth when he was in Angband with his spirit dispersed.

I don't know that Sauron's power would have to be increased three fold or more in order to surpass Morgoth. In the Valaquenta or the Ainulindale it says the Valar had Maiar, 'some well nigh as great as themselves', I believe the quote is. Sauron was the greatest of the Maiar, and it says he was only less evil than his master because he served another in the beginning.

The Noldorin Elf Lords in the First Age had not learned how to, nor verily make Great Rings. Only by the teachings of Sauron did the grandson of Feanor perfect the craft anyway. Even if they had I don't see what it proves with Balrogs, but I won't (am trying not to) go there.

Sorry, I meant that he made the One Ring using the ring lore of the Elf smiths.

I think you've got that backwards. Sauron taught the Elven smiths. The greatest student of Aule and Melkor did not need instruction from the Gwaith-i-Mirdain!

I think there is hinted somewhere that the Elves used magic that was partly their own subcreative talents, and partly the Morgoth-magic (taught by Sauron) dispersed in Arda-matter to make the Power Rings.

Likely Sauron himself started harnessing the Morgoth-magic on massive scale to make the One Ring, something he never did before.

Perhaps he had to imbue a lot of his own Maiaric powers into the One Ring to wield such great amounts of Morgoth-magic. Worthwhile trade-off, using up his native strength to gain Morgoth-powers focussed in the One Ring.

The Morgoth-element common in the Elf-rings and the One Ring would mean their powers are linked. Or so I think. Yes?

I'm starting to sound like Verin Aes Sedai.

The Elven smith's couldn't have made rings of power without Sauron's instruction, but my sense is that Sauron may in turn have profitted from the genius of Celebrimbor. Teachers often find themselves learning a great deal from their students - or that was my experience back in my teaching days. There's a passasge in the Silmarillion that says precisely this:

"..the Noldor were beloved by Aule, and his people came often among them. Great became their knowledge and their skill; yet even greater was their thirst for more knowledge, and in many things they soon surpassed their teachers." (63)

Sauron shared his knowledge with the elves so that they would make their rings and be enslaved, but I can well imagine the grandson of Feanor refining and even improving upon Sauron's initial blueprint for rings of power. I can also imagine Sauron incorporating these elven improvements in his own Ring, thereby turning the genius of the elves against them.

The One Ring was the larger part of Sauron's power haressed into the form of a ring. While using this power in the form of a ring, Sauron was able to dominate or influence those who also possessed rings, such as the Nazgul or the Dwarves. While the Dwarves could not be dominated, the evil influence of the Ring through the Dwarven rings led to their downfall.

The Ring didn't increase Sauron's power, it merely allowed him to use the greater portion of his innate power in more external activities. When Sauron overcame Finrod in Tol Sirion, he was physically present. With the Ring, and its power over the lesser rings, Sauron could dominate more beings without having to do so personally.

Well, Morgoth did disseminate his vast powers among his servants(Sauron, the Balrogs, Dragons), and throughout the stuff of Arda itself(especially in gold). That made Sauron more powerful than he originally was. Plus, he made the Ruling Ring which somehow increased his power when he wore it. Something like an angreal in Wheel of Time but different at the same time.

I think there is hinted somewhere that the Elves used magic that was partly their own subcreative talents, and partly the Morgoth-magic (taught by Sauron) dispersed in Arda-matter to make the Power Rings.

You seem to be referring to a draft for a letter Tolkien made. Here it is, I omit the last paragraph because Tolkien seems to have decided against it (he second guessed himself):

I am afraid I have been far too casual about 'magic' and especially the use of the word; though Galadriel and other show by the criticism of the 'mortal' use of the word, that the thought about it is not altogether casual. But it is a v. large question, and difficult; and a story which, as you so rightly say, is largely about motives (choice, temptations etc.) and the intentions for using whatever is found in the world, could hardly be burdened with a psuedo-philosophic disquisition! I do not intend to involve myself in any debate whether 'magic' in any sense is real or really possible in the world. But I suppose that, for the purposes of the tale, some would say that there is latent distinction such as once was called the distinction between magia and goeteia[1] Galadriel speaks of the 'deceits of the Enemy.' Well enough, but magia could be, was, held good (per se), and goeteia bad. Neither is, in this tale, good or bad (per se), but only by motive or purpose or use. Both sides use both, but with different motives. The supremely bad motive is (for this tale, since it is specially about it) domination of other 'free' wills. The Enemy's operations are by no means all goetic deceits, but 'magic' that produces real effects in the physical world. But his magia he uses to bulldoze both people and things, and his goeteia to terrify and subjugate. Their magia the Elves and Gandalf use (sparingly): a magia, producing real results (like fire in a wet faggot) for specific beneficent purposes. Their goetic effects are entirely artistic and not intended to deceive: they never deceive Elves (but may deceive or bewilder unaware Men) since the difference is to them as clear as the difference to us between fiction, painting, and sculpture, and 'life.'

Both sides live mainly by 'ordinary' means. The Enemy, or those who have become like him, go in for 'machinery' - with destructive and evil effects - because 'magicians,' who have become chiefly concerned to use magia) for their own power, would do so (do do so). The basic motive for _magia_ - quite apart from any philosophic consideration of how it would work - is immediacy: speed, reduction of labour, and reduction also to a minimum (or vanishing point) of the gap between the idea or desire and the result or effect. [Beorn was elsewhere stated to be a magician] But the magia may not be easy to come by, and at any rate if you have command of abundant slave-labour or machinery (often only the same thing concealed), it may be as quick or quick enough to push mountains over, wreck forests, or build pyramids by such means. Of course another factor then comes in, a moral or pathological: the tyrant lose sight of objects, become cruel, and like smashing, hurting, and defiling as such. It would no doubt be possible to defend poor Lotho's introduction of more efficient mills; but not of Sharkey and Sandyman's use of them.

Note 1: Greek [written in foreign script] yonreia (yons, sorcerer); the English form Goety is defined in the O.E.D. as 'witchcraft or magic performed by the invocation and employment of evil spirits; necromancy.'

&nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp

This draft was not in the event sent.

The Ring didn't increase Sauron's power, it merely allowed him to use the greater portion of his innate power in more external activities

That is not true.&nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp In Letter 131 Tolkien said:

But to achieve this he had been obliged to let a great part of his own inherent power (a frequent and very significant motive in myth and fairy-story) pass into the One Ring. While he wore it, his power on earth was actually enhanced.

There is more information about Sauron and his Ring in that passage, I could quote the rest if you like. [Reading the last post here I suppose this latter quote just serves to clarify the Admiral's words]