Merlin—as magnificent in myth as in reality—was the father of magick and the equal of kings. For those involved in magick and those others who might just be curious about what makes up the magickal world, Merlin remains the archetypal magician. He is the first and the best—just as the Beatles have that stature in pop music. His magick has a particular ambiance, solid and earthy, yet at the same time oozing endless mystery—part of the world and yet not quite.
If he is chronicling the life of a man who constantly hovers between myth and reality, the writer must adopt an approach that best suits his subject. If that subject is also a magician, then any biographer must adopt a strategy akin to playing three-dimensional chess. A linear account of a character whose nature tends toward constantly hopping from one reality plane to another would not do justice to Merlin. More importantly, the reader would not be given the chance to fully embrace a wizard in all his wondrous diversity. Thus, in this narrative, shifts in time and space occur, and the writer feels this should be so. Any difficulties of interpretation that the reader might experience will be far outweighed by his gaining a deeper understanding of Merlin.
Not for Merlin the temple and the orchestrated ritual; that would be too close to the conventions of the court and the monastery to suit his temperament. Although he is well aware of the power of words, as his lyrical prophecies show, he is a man of inspiration. The spirit of the Bard is in him, and like the great English Romantic poets of the nineteenth century—Byron, Shelley, and Keats—he seeks freedom above everything else. For Merlin, true liberty can be found only in the wildest and most distant corners of this or any other world. Although he has a high profile in the Arthurian tales, he has too a love of solitude.
Merlin is a man of the forest and the mountain peaks. He is never happier than when surveying the distant horizon of a world that, in magickal terms, his own hand helped to form. The power that is deep within the earth sustains him, and he frequents sacred places where that energy, as the magician knows only too well, is at its strongest. Merlin would have understood the current predilection for visiting megalithic monuments and revering
ancient ways. He is a figure who would feel comfortable with the ideals of the New Age. This is not because he was ‘the first shaman’, a title which scarcely does him justice, but because he is man as a sentient being. We are surrounded in the twenty-first century by an arid and barren materialism. By sharing the vision of Merlin, we realise that the world is still a place of wonder, joy, and infinite potential.
My own childhood was lived in the moorlands of Somerset, a few miles from Glastonbury. I know that I always regarded the land as being imbued with magick. The sky above, the flowing waters, and every creature that had its home there was somehow sacred. I saw, as did Blake, ‘eternity in a grain of sand’. Then, I would not have been able to articulate such feelings, nor would I have felt the need to. But even as a child I was aware of the universal force that binds creation together. To me that power was not ‘God’—that would have been far too glib a view. That might was best seen in the towering waves, heard in the roar of the wind, and reflected in the countless stars. I was a wolf, alone in the wilds, as Merlin himself was for a time.
The story of Merlin is the story of magick, and the magician of every age imbibes some of his spirit. While writing of his life, I realised that every aspect of magick is in Merlin. His every moment was dedicated to his calling, and he was a pioneer, inventor, and virtuoso of the magickal art. The Western Magical Tradition would not exist without Merlin, and that in itself is enough for us to be grateful to the old wizard. More than that, he represents the mighty imagination and the magnificent universe. To me, he is a mentor and, I like to think, a friend. Not that we should ever take liberties with the ones we love, particularly men of magick—that would be asking for trouble.
Some of my readers may be puzzled by my spelling of the word magick. I use that form so as not to confuse the esoteric art with magic, which is conjuring or léger de main (sleight of hand). Aleister Crowley promoted this archaic form and also suggested a numerological explanation for it based on the value of the letter k, the thirteenth letter of the alphabet. The keen student is quite welcome to pursue the rest of Crowley’s thesis on this point, and with my blessing.
Gordon Strong
Portishead, England
November 2008