Here's a little historical context from Antiquity that I think illustrates and complements what Gandalf is talking about.

In Plato's Ion we have a dialogue between Socrates and a professional rhapsode (ἀοιδός, a singer) named Ion, who's specialized in reciting Homeric poetry. https://twitter.com/WargarW/status/1264598806953431047

Like specialist scholars, Ion knows every word from Homer's poetry, but very little about anything else. In fact he's a rather limited and somewhat ignorant individual, but claims to know a great deal about a lot of subjects, because those subjects are covered in Homer's poetry.

Homer talks a whole lot about war and divination in his poetry, for instance. Being well acquainted with Homer's poetry, Ion claims, thus, to be knowledgeable in military matters and divination.

And yet, as a rhapsode, his competence is limited to reciting poetry that touches those subjects, he can't really claim to have any real skill in any other areas.

Ion comes through as an awkward individual, presenting himself as a wise man when he's clearly not...

Socrates explains Ion's overall frailty by stating that, as a musician, he has no real skill or knowledge himself, he's simply acting as a medium, being possessed/frenzied by the divine, inspired by the Muses.

The issue is, back in Plato's time, in the 4th century BC, Athenian society had already succumbed to the corruption of civilization. In that context of decline, poets and rhapsodes no longer played the role they did in earlier times, ...

... of keeping the spark alive by memorializing the ancestral kléos and timé and channeling the voice of the city heroes, i.e. the common ancestors, making sure their spirit was reborn among the citizens.

In a broken collapsing civilized society, that had been razed in its recent past by years of war and plague, the rhapsodes were no longer playing the role of midwives of the spirit.

... With all the deracination that took place, musicians were reduced to entertainers, although still being held in high regards for their importance in the past (not unlike our film and music stars today).

Thus Ion is portrayed in Plato as an out of touch bufon with a very high image of himself. On the other end we have his interlocutor, Socrates, representing the philosopher whose mind has reached the primordial forms through anamnesis, by accessing the ancestral memories.

In the past the poet/rhapsode was like Socrates, but in Plato's time that was no longer the case. Not even the professional poet could make sense of the riddles, among other things because he had become a professional poet and, like modern scholars, lost touch with life itself.

That's why Plato calls Socrates, i.e. the philosopher, a new type of initiate (or better yet, a type of initiate like the old, archaic ones, like Tyrtaeus and Lycurgus), to take over the role of the midwife and save the city.

Note that Plato no longer bothers with the corrupted Athens of his time, he envisages a new beginning with a new city, the ideal city he describes in the Republic. Rebirth.

Sometimes we need some cleansing, a fresh start (as illustrated by the notion of "Socratic ignorance") to clean up the old and retrieve something even older, in the form of something new.

We can see the same pattern occur in the movement of the eternal spirit moving over time:

Sometimes one link in the chain is faulty, i.e. an ancestor falls pray to the corruption of the ring, but that link is left aside, the chain linkage skips it and follows strong with the return of the honourable ancestors, of Hermes/Óðinn.

The same principle applies to ideas. Our "new" and "revolutionary" take on paganism is in fact much older than all 19th and 20th century scholarly misconceptions and misguided notions. It's the same undying essence taking over a new form, like the honourable ancestor.

Dixi.