Gordon Strong - Merlin: Master of Magick

About the Author

Gordon Strong has been involved in magick for more than forty years. He is a writer, a teacher, a musician, and a scholar of English literature, Arthurian legend, magick, and the Tarot. He gives talks and conducts workshops on many subjects, including magick and the Tarot. Gordon lives in Somerset, England, where he was bornwithin sight of the Glastonbury Torand grew up.

Please visit his website at www.gordonstrong.co.uk.

Llewellyn Publications

Woodbury, Minnesota

Merlin: Master of Magick 2010 by Gordon Strong.

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First e-book edition 2010

E-book ISBN: 9780738723020

Cover illustration 2009 by Nenad Jakesevic

Cover design by Kevin R. Brown

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Llewellyn Publications

Llewellyn Worldwide Ltd.

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Woodbury, MN 55125

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Manufactured in the United States of America

Merlin, who knew the range of all their arts,

Had built the King his havens, ships and halls,

Was also Bard, and he knew the starry Heavens;

The people called him wizard.

TENNYSON

I... am also of the race of the Starry Heavens, a spark of that Mighty Flame, and within me also is that Power... I aspire toward that radiant Source of all Power. O thou, the Eternal, Whose spark dwells within me, I strive to realise Thee within myself.

W.E. BUTLER

Do not meddle in the affairs of wizards,
for they are subtle and quick to anger.

J.R.R. TOLKIEN

Contents

First of all I want to thank Alan Richardson for introducing me to my publishers, Llewellyn Worldwide. Alan and I have the kind of friendship which endures because we dont see each other that much. Next, I am deeply grateful to Caterina Fusca, my acquisitions editor at Llewellyn. Through the alchemy of her e-mails, Caterina was always encouraging during the time I was writing this book.

I also owe a debt to that wonderful coterie of writers on magick whose insights have encouraged me over the years. Dion Fortune, W. E. Butler, W. G. Gray, Israel Regardie, Col. Seymour, and Aleister Crowley are, alas, no more and we shall not see their like again. Fortunately, Gareth Knight, Dolores Ashcroft-Nowicki, and R. J. Stewart are still around, and their knowledge was just as valuable to my research.

Finally, I want to thank my beloved partner, Shama, for just being there. Her presence enhances everything in my life.

Merlinas magnificent in myth as in realitywas 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 bestjust 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 mysterypart 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 centuryByron, Shelley, and Keatshe 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.