This book has been forty years in the making, and the number of people to whom I owe thanks would fill pages. Those not named here know who you are and have my thanks forever. My deepest debt is, as always, to my wife, Caitlín, whose partnership has accompanied me through years of studying and working with the Arthuriad. Her kindness in allowing me to include so much of the writing and rituals we have shared over the years has made this an infinitely better book. Profound thanks also to Virginia Chandler, a friend of more recent times, for so generously allowing me to pillage her work, which fits so seamlessly into our own.
Others to whom I owe a great debt are our teachers: Gareth Knight, with whom we observed so many of the mysteries and who generously wrote the foreword to the book, and Dolores Ashcroft-Nowicki, whose star shines as undimmed today as it did when we first met almost forty years ago. I would also like to thank R. J. Stewart, with whom we shared many powerful encounters with the infinite and whose written work has brought a vast inner landscape into all our lives. Also to our students, who over the past thirty years have journeyed with us in our regular mystery school teachings at Hawkwood College of Stroud, Gloucestershire, England,
(to the staff of which so many thanks are also due) and who shared much of the material included in this book.
I also wish to pay homage and acknowledge the deep and lasting debt to my spiritual brother David Spangler for many years of discussion and exploration of all things Arthurian; his wisdom is a constant source of awe to me. Thanks also to David Elkington for reading an early draft and making many valuable comments—there are few who could follow the circumlocutions of my thinking so well and still find more to say—and to Grevel Lindop, who kindly read the entire manuscript and whose finely tuned sensibilities noticed a number of errors. To Kresimir Vukovic for the many empowering talks on the true meaning of myth and for the suppers at Merton and Oriel. Nor can I forget the memory of those who lit the way into the depths of the Arthurian forest, including, as well as those already mentioned, A. E. Waite, Walter Stein, Manly P. Hall, and Charles Williams.
Thanks also to my editor at Llewellyn, Bill Krause; my sterling copyeditor, Rebecca Zins; and the wonderful James Clarke for the addition of artwork and diagrams that make the book shine.
John Matthews
oxford, 2016