Telepathy (Reading Material)

from Tolkien's note titled Melkor/Morgoth, later than 1959  

published in History of Middle Earth, volume 10, Morgoth's Ring, 

{By 'mind reading', he seems to mean 'knowing the complete contents of another's mind'.}

“No one, not even one of the Valar, can read the mind of other 'equal beings' [marginal note clarifying this to 'all rational minds/spirits deriving direct from Eru']: that is, one cannot 'see' them or comprehend them fully and directly by simple inspection....Neither is so-called 'thought-transference' a process of mind-reading: this is but the reception, and interpretation by the receiving mind, of the impact of a thought, or thought-pattern, emanating from another mind, which is no more the mind in full or in itself than is the distant sight of a man running the man himself. Minds can exhibit or reveal themselves to other minds by the action of their own wills.... It is thus a temptation to minds of greater power to govern or constraint the will of other, and weaker, minds, so as to induce or force them to reveal themselves. But to force such a revelation ... is absolutely forbidden. To do so is a crime, and the 'good' in the purposes of those who commit this crime swiftly becomes corrupted.

“Much could thus 'go on behind Manwë's back'....And with regard to the Enemy, Melkor, in particular, he could not penetrate by distant mind-sight his thought and purposes, since Melkor remained in a fixed and powerful will to withhold his mind.”