Arthurian Magic: A Practical Guide to the Wisdom of Camelot

Ritual

Acknowledgments

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

[contents]

Foreword

It was a truly awesome and splendid thing that we did…" wrote Caitlín Matthews on a May morning thirty-five years ago, after the Whitsun weekend of 1981, when, in the presence of a few dozen kindred souls at Hawkwood College, we had evoked, almost to visible appearance, some of the archetypal figures of Arthurian legend.

As far as I was concerned, this magical lightning strike on a Pentecostal Sunday came in a completely unexpected manner. After two days of lectures on the roles of Arthur, Guinevere, Lancelot, Gawain, and Mordred in the breakup of the Round Table Fellowship, I had thought a fairly cultured marrying up of literature with occultism might be an appropriate and genteel way of winding down the weekend.

I aimed simply to read a piece of narrative poetry in the form of a directed visualization in an attempt to reproduce the effects of a minstrel upon an assemblage of people—which in medieval times would have been the means of passing on or even creating these living legends. And a bit of Victorian poetry seemed innocuous enough; to wit, a section of Tennyson’s Morte d’Arthur read by candlelight to an assembled company sitting in a circular formation, being perceptively present when Arthur and the sole surviving Round Table knight, Bedivere, arrive at the lake after the last battle.

The king is mortally wounded and commands Bedivere to cast his sword, Excalibur, into the lake. After twice failing to do so for plausible but specious reasons, Bedivere finally does so. An arm rises up and takes the sword, and as if this were a signal, a barque with three mourning queens arrives to take the wounded king to the Isle of Avalon. The sequence ends at the point where Bedivere, as sole remaining knight, holds within himself the whole Round Table. The last words of the king are to ask that Bedivere should pray for him.

As soon as I said this, it became plain to me what I should do. I asked all present to identify themselves with this last remaining representative of the Round Table and also to pray for the king.

At this point I took a hunting horn and blew three long blasts on it. Don’t ask me why I did it or even what I was doing with a hunting horn on my person or what I expected to happen. It was entirely intuitive. But what happened, happened all right!

To the eyes of vision, great doors opened in the west, together with a waft of sea air and even spray. The mighty figure of the king came through the doors, crowned, with short golden beard, robed, and with the great hilt of the sword Excalibur very prominent, impressive with its jeweled work and in its mighty runed scabbard. With the king came Queen Guinevere, Lancelot, Gawain, Tristan, and all the knights and ladies. Larger than life, they took up their positions about the Table Round. In the center rose a column of incense smoke with astral rainbow colors manifesting the powers of the Grail, the Cauldron, Merlin, and Nimue.

As soon as they did so, I became aware that a great Round Table had formed on the imaginative level within the hall, or possibly even the etheric, for it seemed almost palpable and extended out to the very seats of all present. The power within the room was intensely strong, so much so that the small table altar with the two candles and thurible upon it seemed to be wavering up and down as in a heat haze.

As Caitlín went on to remark in her report:

The power which we invoked was both visible and perceptible to every sense; the candles on the altar shimmering with a radiance greater than their own. None of us wanted to leave; we were gripped, not by fear, but by longing to remain. One by one the company dispersed to bear into the world the substance of what we had experienced, and to continue the work of the Round Table within our own sphere of life.

Never mind intellectual theories about possibilities of mass vision or hallucination or whatever. This final remark about continuing the work is significant. It would be possible to follow through with an account of what happened in this respect in the lives of a number of those who were present, for a number have made their presence known as writers and teachers. It would make up to a very long book indeed! The present tome covers only two!

The point is that the whole Arthurian tradition is intensely fertile. You hardly have to go searching for archetypes or ideas—they will come out searching for you! Which is rather after the fashion of the ladies associated with the Table Round, who can be every bit as important as the knights. Time and again we find it is a maiden who lures a knight out onto a quest, guiding him on the way, overseeing his various tests and being quite sharp tongued about it too on occasion. They can be awakeners, initiators, testers, guides, and faery companions.

Nor is the scholarly side of Arthurian legend a sealed and definitive book. I was recently invited to attempt a new translation of the so-called Elucidation of Chrétien de Troyes’s romance Conte du Graal, a thirteenth-century French poem that has lain virtually forgotten since its discovery in the mid-nineteenth century and that contains some of the most powerful and revealing clues to the nature of the Grail. Within the seven branches of the story, we learn the cause of the Wasteland, of how the maidens of the wells were violated by the anti-Grail King, Amangons, and the attempt to restore them by the quests of King Arthur’s knights through the seven guardians of the story.

To go with my efforts, Caitlín and John Matthews, under the title of The Lost Book of the Grail: Restoring the Voices of the Wells, have provided the first full-length study of the Elucidation to appear in any language, in fulfillment of the text’s own words that the good that the Grail served will openly be taught to all people.

And so the work goes ever on, as is plainly apparent from the contents of the book before you. All you have to do is to plunge into the magic lake of enchantment that the Matthews’s have conjured before you.

And you really are spoiled for choice—enchantments of the land, enchantments of the otherworld, enchantments of love, the mysteries of the Grail—the ways laid out by a transformative set of signposts that lead ever more deeply into the heart of the myths, all of which embody the theme of the quest, of the desire to break out from the ordinary and to enter a world of wonder.

Welcome to Avalon.

Gareth Knight

author of The Secret Tradition in Arthurian Legend,

Merlin and the Grail Tradition, and The Faery Gates of Avalon, among others

[contents]

Introduction

Journeying With Arthur

The initiate is one who can perceive this parallel world,

more real than our own, where stones are sapphires and sand is gold dust, but which lives invisibly for the profane, swallowed up in matter. Only the initiate can say

"Et in Arcadia ego—I live in Arcadia."

…

Gerard de Sade, Le Secret des Cathars (trans. CM)

Answering the Call of Arthur

I first fell in love with Arthurian mythology when I read T. H. White’s incomparable Once and Future King (1952) at age fifteen. When I finished the book, I went straight to my local library and discovered they had a whole section devoted to Arthur. I read everything they had in stock and then ordered the books that called to me from the bibliographies within those. But as my knowledge and understanding of the material grew, I began to see that there was something more than history or myth at the heart of these stories. In that same year I began what became a second lifetime study into the esoteric and occult. I joined a secretive group who traced their origins to the Middle Ages and beyond, who taught me how to see with my inner eyes, and I began to read everything from Robert Graves’s White Goddess to A. E. Waite’s books about magic. And everywhere I looked, I found Arthur and the Grail.

It took a few more years of reading and study before I finally understood. I was being called to serve Arthur just as the Knights of the Round Table had done. Like them, I would go on a quest—seeking knowledge and wisdom and, of course, the Grail—discovering that the stories were much older than the elaborate and colorful tales of the medieval storytellers. I found that Arthur was older than many of the gods who had arrived with each successive wave of incomers into the land of Britain, and that his story was written in the stars as well as on the earth. The myths that surrounded him were ancient too. They were dark and powerful, and they spoke of love and honor and death—but above all they spoke of the land. Arthur, as I knew by this time, was one of the oldest guardians of the land—a Sleeping Lord (as he came to be called) who dreamed away the centuries, hidden within the earth, holding the energies of another time until called upon (as the legends said) to return in time of need.

Over the years I began to teach these mysteries, cautiously at first, then with increasing delight in the knowledge that others shared this path. I met my future wife, Caitlín, and discovered that she too had heard the call of Arthur, and that her knowledge of the older stories, those of the Celts, was equal or surpassing to mine in the medieval strand. Together we began to study the myths in even greater depth, collaborating on The Arthurian Tarot in 1990, developing this further in Hallowquest (1990, revised in 1997 and again in 2015). Together we studied with Gareth Knight (himself a student of Dion Fortune, whose work on the Arthurian mysteries was and is unsurpassed) and Dolores Ashcroft-Nowicki, within the aegis of the School of Light mystery school. In America we began to work with David Spangler, one of the most important visionary teachers of our time, and discovered that he, too, loved all things Arthurian.

It is part of the power of the Arthuriad that, being founded upon esoteric principles, it is unusually apposite for magical work. An example of this to which we were witness took place during a weekend workshop in 1982. In this, a tremendous pool of energy was built up, using the group consciousness of the fifty to sixty people present. When this energy had been allowed to create its own vortex of power, the magus leading the group proceeded to call the energies of Arthur, Guinevere, Merlin, and Morgan from the inner realms. The immediacy and power of the response was total. The Arthurian archetypes were immediately present among the group and remained so for some time after. In a certain sense the Sleeping Lord was recalled from Avalon and sent forth again into the world to work for the restoration of the kingdom. Later, in further magical rites carried out by the same group and its affiliates, this work was continued and strengthened, both at actual sites with Arthurian associations, at further group meetings, and by individuals working alone. As Gareth mentioned in his foreword, Caitlín’s firsthand account adds further details:

The prophecy of the return of Arthur was fulfilled that night at the Camelot we had built; after a reading of Tennyson’s Morte d’Arthur we invited back into our company the archetypes of the Round Table. We sat silently, for what seemed an age, invoking the personages with whom we had become so familiar throughout the weekend, sending them forth to intercede with the troubled world of our own times and inviting in those of our friends and family who might wish to share in our fellowship. It was truly an awesome and splendid thing that we did. The power that we invoked was both visible and perceptible in every sense: the candles on the altar shimmering with radiance greater than their own. None of us wanted to leave: we were gripped, not by fear, but by a longing to remain. Then one by one the company dispersed to bear into the world the substance of what we had experienced, to continue the work of the Round Table within our own sphere of life.

This work culminated in a large-scale ritual in 1987 intended to bring about the Restoration of the Courts of Joy, the deeply magical place in which the four hallows of the Grail myth—Cup, Spear, Stone, and Sword—were set once more at power points in the body of Logres, there to work actively for the healing of the land and those who dwell upon it (see chapter 17).

We have returned to Arthurian themes again and again, both in books and courses, especially our yearly showcase gathering around Christmas at Hawkwood College in Stroud, Gloucestershire. Here we have explored the Arthurian world in what has become an open mystery school, which brought a legion of talented people together. They have taught us as much as we have taught them, and over the years (more than forty now) we have been asked again and again if we would ever gather all the work we had produced in one place. We have, and this is it.

Twelve years ago, in 2004, we were invited to the USA to attend the first of an extraordinary gathering of writers and practitioners who walked the path of myth from every land. This was the first of the now-legendary Mythic Journeys events held in Atlanta. Here we found ourselves sharing breakfast with Robert Bly, lunch with Michael Mead, and dinner with Brian and Wendy Froud, Peter Beagle, and Ari Berk—all of whom shared our love of the myths and the mysteries. Among the younger people attending the event was Virginia Chandler, and we knew within five minutes of meeting her that we had met someone else who had heard the call of Arthur. We became, and have remained, good friends.

Virginia is herself a founding member of a magical guild, founded in 2008. The Fellowship of the Round Table is an Arthurian mysteries guild; through fellowship, meditation, ritual, and oracular study, they seek the enlightenment of the Grail.

When the universe arranged for this book to be commissioned, through a set of circumstances that can only happen when you are as deeply into the mysteries of Arthur as ourselves, it was clear that not only Caitlín (who has worked at my side all of this time and produced a formidable body of work that continues to fill me with awe) must contribute to this work, but also Virginia, who had been quietly assembling her own magical workbook, should be part of this enterprise.

So here it is, our book of Arthurian magic, a kind of grimoire in the medieval sense of a book of magical recipes and rituals. It is not exactly a system, in the way that the magical work of the Golden Dawn can be said to be, but it is intended to gather together as much of our inner work on the Arthurian myths as possible. The first part contains knowledge papers, gathered over the years and now woven into the mythos of the Arthuriad. These deal with the nuts and bolts of the mysteries—the who and how and why. The second part assembles a selection of rituals, meditations, and other types of work to create a course of study and practice and to bring alive the mysteries for us at every level. Finally, the third part, the Library, collects the names and qualities of people, places, and things that fill the vast landscape of the Arthuriad and adds information to aid seekers in finding their way through the Lands Adventurous. This name, given to the lands through which Arthur and his knights roved, is as good today as it was in the Middle Ages, and the lands themselves are as open to us as they were to Arthur’s knights.

But before we start, let’s take a brief look at the subject matter of this book: the extraordinary body of work (totaling thousands of pages and hundreds of books dating mostly from the period between the eleventh and fifteenth centuries) known as the Arthurian legends.

The Arthuriad

The Matter of Britain, as it has long been called (to distinguish it from the Matter of France, the legends of Charlemagne) has been recognized by many students of the mysteries as the basis of a set of teachings every bit as powerful as those of Egypt or the classical worlds of Greece and Rome. There is no obvious pattern, no precise formula to the texts, so that for many they remain no more than mere stories, however inspiring; but for those trained in the magical arts of the Western Mystery Tradition, they are much more: their secrets can be revealed, their codes unlocked, and their revelations enjoyed.

The history of the Arthurian legends is a long one, and this is not the place to go into this topic in depth; those wishing to know more are referred to the extensive lists of further reading at the back of this book. In the context of this exploration of the mystery teachings and the call of Arthur we shall, of course, draw extensively on the medieval literature, as well as older traditions stretching back hundreds of years earlier. It is our belief that these writings and the oral traditions that gave them birth were designed to contain a set of secret teachings, here referred to throughout as the Arthuriad. We have collectively and individually given a considerable part of our lives to the untangling of these mysteries. We have also, from the start, been privileged in being able to celebrate these mysteries in many ways, as individuals and with groups of like-minded people. Much of what you will find within these pages has grown out of that celebration, and we are indebted to all who came with us on this voyage of discovery, as well as to our own teachers, both inner and outer, who shared their wisdom and understanding of the Arthurian traditions with us.

Schools of Arthurian Magic

The Arthurian and Grail mysteries have played a part in the inner life of the West for a long time. From the moment that Robert De Boron wrote how Christ spoke to Joseph of Arimathea holy words that are sweet and precious, gracious and full of pity, and rightly are they called secrets of the Grail,¹ he assured that seekers would desire to know these secrets. In many ways the idea behind the present book deals exactly with this idea: those who hear the call of Arthur also hear the call of the Grail, and this has been the way of the journey since the great romances of the Middle Ages were written.

At the time, when Grail fever was at its height and more and more texts dealing with the subject were being written, there came to be, perhaps inevitably, the idea of a secret hidden body of initiates who knew the inner mysteries of the Grail. The idea of the saintly pure men of the Albigensian Heresy possessing a physical object is unlikely to be true, but that the Cathars at least knew something of the inner truths expressed by the Grail is far more likely. The Templars, also widely believed to have possessed the Grail, may have guarded for a time the object known as the Mandylion, which many have associated with the famous Shroud of Turin or the Vernicle of Veronica. It has been noted that the description of the folded shroud, protected by a frame that shows only the face, is consistent with descriptions of the head in the dish found within the stories of the Grail.² Whether the Templars actually possessed any secret knowledge is less easy to prove since so much calumny was directed at them at the time of their existence and actual documents relating to them are few and far between. However, modern Templar orders exist that claim the wisdom of Arthur and the Grail as part of their heritage:

It is a fundamental belief of the Templar tradition, a belief backed by long experience, that if the seeker after truth begins to work seriously on himself, he will start to radiate light on the inner levels…Every man and woman who is stirred by stories, legends or films of noble heroes is merely reacting to the promptings of the True Knight who sleeps within the heart…The task of awakening the True Knight within us is not an easy one. We will need first of all to look honestly at ourselves and then take the first steps with courage and determination. The spiritual impulses…will then certainly respond to the light of our aspiration and reveal to us that True Will which will guide us inevitably to the Grail.³

The truth of this statement chimes perfectly with the ideas of Arthurian chivalry that we shall explore in chapter 8, and it is to the awakening of the True Knight (man or woman) that much of the work outlined in this book is dedicated.

As well as contemporary Templar orders, modern Cathar movements have also made an appearance in recent times and have shown themselves to be founded very firmly in Grail spirituality. In particular, the Lectorium Rosicrucianum, founded by J. van Rijckenborgh and Catharose da Petri in 1952, has continued to disseminate ideas that reflect those of Arthurian chivalry and the Grail. A full account of this is to be found in The Treasure of Montségur by Walter Birks and R. A. Gilbert.⁴ A guiding light in its early days was Antonin Gadal, who later changed his name to Galaad after the greatest of the Grail knights and founded a center in the Pyrenees (also called Galaad) devoted to the restoration of Cathar ideals and (possibly) to the discovery of the Grail itself. His book Sur le Chemin du Saint-Graal makes fascinating reading and is full of insights into the inner meaning of the Grail mysteries.⁵

One of the Gadal’s associates for a time was an Irish writer on esotericism, Francis Rolt-Wheeler, who later made his own contribution to Grail literature in his book Mystic Gleams from the Holy Grail, in which he gave an account of the stories from a purely esoteric viewpoint, including some improvable connections and links with the past that nevertheless have a ring of truth about them.

The legend of the Holy Grail glows…with an inner light of esoterism (sic). Few, indeed, be those who have sought to follow the silver thread of Spiritual Initiation in this strange and mysterious cycle of miracle, of faerie, of chivalry, and of a super-sacrament. Consequently, in this mystical legend, there is a glimpse of the unknown; the reader may lose his way in a thicket of visions…This Way will lead us into the astral world and into the kingdoms of Faerie, where Merlin, the enchanter, serves as guide. Those who know how to read the book of nature will find the links of Celtic initiation in these sagas, and may even hear the tread of the Lordly Ones.⁶

Despite Rolt-Wheeler’s colorful style there is much in his book that reinforces the fascination with the inner mysteries of the Grail among modern esotericists.

Another source of inspiration into the Arthurian and Grail mysteries is the Rosicrucian movement, beginning in the seventeenth century from roots in the Renaissance and continuing into the present. More than one writer has seen the Rosicrucians as the inheritors of Grail material. In particular, Manly Palmer Hall, who founded the Philosophical Research Society in the United States in 1936, linked the mysterious group with the Grail, stating that

it is evident that the story of…the symbolic genealogy of the Grail Kings relate(s) to the descent of Schools or Orders of initiates. Titurel, (the Grail King), represents the ancient wisdom, and, like the mysterious Father C(hristian) R(ose) C(ross) is the personification of the Mystery Schools which serve the Shrine of Eternal Truth.⁷

The gathering of the Rosicrucians certainly resonates with the Pentecost meeting of the Round Table.

The prestigious Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn was working with Arthurian archetypes as long ago as 1896, its founders recognizing the potential power of the legends and working with them extensively both as individuals and within their own temple traditions. After them, several offshoots, including the Stella Matutina, Dion Fortune’s Society of the Inner Light, and the Servants of the Light (see below), have all utilized the deeply mystical elements within the stories to form working magical systems.

A. E. Waite, himself one of the founding members of the Golden Dawn, first wrote of a Secret School of the Grail in his 1933 volume The Holy Grail: Its Legends and Symbolism.⁸ There he finds the presence of a mystical body of thought, almost without form but threading its way throughout the literature of the Arthuriad as in some way a Grail behind the Grail.

This he sees as emerging from the lost Celtic church, which he believed preserved a more ancient liturgy and belief system after the church of Rome had set its own theology in stone.

The presence of this…Secret Church is like that of angels unawares. In the outer courts there are those who are prepared for Regeneration and in the adyta there are those who have attained it: these are the holy assembly. It is the place of those who, after the birth of flesh, which is the birth of the will of man, have come to be born of God…It is the place of the Waters of Life, with the power to take freely. It is like the still, small voice: it is heard only in the midst of the heart’s silence, and there is no written word to tell us how its Rite is celebrated; but it is like a priesthood within the priesthood…There are no admissions—at least of the ceremonial kind—to the Holy Assembly: it is as if in the last resource a Candidate inducts himself. There is no Sodality, no Institution, no Order which throughout the Christian centuries has worked in silence…it is not a revelation but inherence…it does not come down: more correctly it draws up; but it also inheres.⁹

Echoing Waite’s words, other groups and individuals have continued to work along lines that assume the existence of such a mystery school. The Anthroposophical movement, founded by Rudolf Steiner and others as a breakaway from Theosophy in 1914, has had the Grail and Arthur at its heart from the beginning. Steiner himself wrote a considerable amount on the subject, which repays study, including this prophetic passage from his Outline of Occult Science:

The hidden knowledge flows, although quite unnoticed at the beginning, into the mode of thinking of the men of this period (i.e. the Middle Ages)…The hidden knowledge which from this side takes hold of mankind now and will take hold of it more and more in the future, may be called symbolically the wisdom of the Grail… The modern initiates may, therefore, also be called initiates of the Grail…The way into the supersensible worlds…leads to the science of the Grail. (Thus) the concealed knowledge of the Grail will be revealed; as an inner force it will permeate more and more the manifestations of human life…We see that the highest imaginable ideal of human revolution results from the knowledge of the Grail: the spiritualization that man acquires through his own efforts.¹⁰

During the 1930s and 1940s Christine Hartley and Charles Seymour worked together under the aegis of the Stella Matutina lodge of the Golden Dawn, forming a Merlin Temple and pursuing their studies of Arthurian archetypes and the Grail. A partial account of their work is to be found in two books: Dancers to the Gods by Alan Richardson¹¹ and Ancient Magics for a New Age by Richardson and Geoff Hughes.¹² The latter also includes a fascinating account of Hughes’s own contemporary work in the tradition of the Merlin Temple.

Other groups who have continued to work with the Grail and the Arthurian mysteries are Aurum Solis, or the Order of the Sacred Word, originally founded by Charles Kingold and George Stanton in 1897, and more recently continued by Melita Denning and Osborne Phillips, who have released some of the order’s papers in the form of a series of books published under the general title of The Magical Philosophy.¹³ For those wishing to understand the magical work upon which so much modern esotericism is based, these are essential reading.

In America, the Sangreal Sodality, founded by the British occultist William G. Gray, until recently operated a correspondence course based upon Gray’s extensive writings. These included a study of the background to the Western Inner Traditions and a series of ceremonials and sacraments loosely based on the Grail mysteries.¹⁴

These were not, of course, the first to explore the legends in this way. In particular we should mention A. E. Waite (1857–1942), whose books remain among the most thoroughgoing explorations of the hidden mysteries to be found within the medieval texts. In the USA Manly Palmer Hall (1901–1990), founder of the Philosophical Research Society, located astonishing depths of meaning in the stories of Arthur and the Grail in books such as Orders of the Quest (1948), expanded in The Adepts in the Western Esoteric Tradition (1949), and inspired followers such as Corinne Heline (1882–1975), who in her book Mysteries of the Holy Grail (1977) rightly called the court of Arthur a Mystery School.¹⁵ In Germany Steiner taught extensively his own strand of mystical awareness of the Grail and Arthur, inspiring his fellow seeker Walter Johannes Stein to research and write a powerful book, The Ninth Century: World History in the Light of the Holy Grail (1923), of which I was instrumental in bringing out the English edition in 1991.¹⁶ In France notable esotericists such as Rene Guénon (1886–1951), Henry Corbin (1903–1978), and more recently Pierre Gallais¹⁷ have explored the Grail myths in particular, bringing their own intricate awareness of its place in the world. In Italy Julius Evola explored the initiatic aspects of the stories in his Mystery of the Grail.¹⁸

In Britain, where the Arthuriad finds its natural home, a succession of knowledgeable adepts have answered the call of Arthur—notably Dion Fortune (1890–1946), who founded the Fraternity of the Inner Light (later renamed the Society of the Inner Light) in 1927, a dedicated mystery school that continues to honor the Grail and Arthurian mysteries at the heart of its magical work and whose teachings empowered Gareth Knight, one of our own teachers, to follow the path of Arthurian enlightenment. Its sister organisation, the Servants of the Light (SOL)—founded by W. E. Butler in 1964, whose developing work began as the Helios Course by Gareth Knight and John Hall and today still flourishes under the watchful eye of Dolores Ashcroft-Nowicki (also one of our teachers)—places considerable emphasis on the same teachings.

The poet Charles Williams, a follower of Waite and himself a member of Stella Matutina, founded the Order of the Co-Inherence within an intimate circle of friends in 1917. This was something closer to Waite’s idea of a secret Christian order existing alongside the outer work of the church and was more of a mystical brotherhood than a proper magical order. It feels, indeed, not unlike what we have learned to call the Company of Hawkwood, with its variable membership who have followed where we led over the past thirty-one years.

At the end of his study of the Holy Spirit, The Descent of the Dove, Williams wrote words that still resonate with us, in terms that apply equally to the Arthurian mysteries:

The apprehension of this order, in nature and in grace, without and within Christendom, should be, now, one of our chief concerns; it might indeed be worth the foundation of an Order within the Christian Church (where) the pattern might be stressed, the image confirmed. The order of the Co-Inherence would exist only for that, to mediate and practice it…The Order would have no easy labour. But, more than can be imagined, it might find that, in this present world, its labour was never more needed, its concentration never more important, its profit never perhaps more great.¹⁹

This book is dedicated to all those who have shared our journey as students, scholars, fellow travellers, correspondents around the world—the friends of myth, as we like to think of them. And, of course, to all the many who will answer the call of Arthur—as well as of Guinevere, Merlin, Lancelot, Perceval, Argante, and the mighty throng of archetypal beings who walk at our sides and open the way to the vast and mighty realm of the otherworld that underpins everything we read and write and study. As you follow them, be prepared to find yourselves standing in front of many doors, entrances to the truly magical realm of Arthur. Prepare to share in the visions and the adventures that lead to the very heart of what has rightly been called the Western Mystery Tradition.

This is of its nature a retrospective work, and some of this material has appeared in a different format in other publications. It has generally been revised and rewritten for this book.

Note

To distinguish between the various contributors without unnecessarily interrupting the flow of the text, we have placed initials next to the subheading where one or other of the writers has made a major contribution: John Matthews (JM), Caitlín Matthews (CM), Virginia Chandler (VC).

[contents]

1. de Boron, R. Joseph of Arimathea, Merlin and Perceval, trans. N. Bryant as Merlin & the Grail (D. S. Brewer, 2001).

2. Currer-Briggs, N. The Shroud and the Grail (Weidenfeld & Nicholson, 1987).

3. Deleforge, G. The Templar Tradition in the Age of Aquarius (Threshold Books, 1987).

4. Birks, Walter and R. A. Gilbert. The Treasure of Montségur: Study of the Cathar Heresy and the Nature of the Cathar Secret (Aquarian Press, 1987).

5. Gadal, A. Sur le Chemin du Saint-Graal (Harlaam, Rosencruis-Pers, 1979).

6. Rolt-Wheeler, F. Mystic Gleams from the Holy Grail (Rider, 1948).

7. Hall, M. P. Orders of the Quest: The Holy Grail (Los Angeles: The Philosophical Research Society, 1976).

8. Waite, A. E. The Holy Grail: Its Legends and Symbolism (Rider, 1933).

9. Ibid.

10. Steiner, R. Occult Science: An Outline (Rudolf Steiner Publications, 1979).

11. Richardson, A. Dancers to the Gods (Thorsons, 1985).

12. Richardson A, and G. Hughes. Ancient Magics for a New Age (Llewellyn, 1989).

13. Phillips, O. and M. Denning. The Magical Philosophy; The Philosophy of the Magical Art; the Ethics of Western Occultism (5 volumes; Llewellyn, 1975).

14. Gray, W. G. The San Grail Sacrament (Weiser, 1986).

15. Heline, C. Mysteries of the Holy Grail (New Age Press, 1977).

16. Stein, W. J. The Ninth Century and the Holy Grail (Temple Lodge Press, 1989).

17. Gallais, P. Perceval et l’initiation. Essais sur le dernier roman, de Chrétien de Troyes, ses correspondances orientales et se signification anthropologique (Paradigme Publications Universitaires, 1998).

18. Evola, J. The Mystery of the Grail (Inner Traditions, 1994).

19. Williams, C. The Descent of the Dove (Faber and Faber, 1939).

how to work with this book

There are many ways to celebrate the Arthurian mysteries, and no two individuals or groups will be the same. Each and every one who hears the call of Arthur and the Grail and decides to follow this path will find their own way of working. The instructions in PART TWO of this book are not set in stone; they are there to help you discover your preferences and encourage you to read, study, and devise your own variations to the teachings outlined below. It is not necessary to have studied esoteric methods of working; however, some basic knowledge of visualization is certainly helpful and will help deepen the truths that emerge from working though this book. Instructions in 9 will show you how to create a sacred space in your home or outside that can become a focus for all your work with this material.

The knowledge papers contained in PART ONE are intended to provide background information for everyone who answers the call of Arthur. Along with the information and reading lists contained in Part Three, you should find everything you need to get started. If you are already a practitioner of the sacred arts or belong to a group or order, we hope you will find new and inspiring details in the book to further your practice. It is hoped you will follow your own course of reading (as many will already have done) and find yet more in the seemingly inexhaustible depths of the Arthuriad. The practical exercises in PART TWO, while they are arranged around the four seasons and grouped by theme, can in fact be worked in any order. You will also notice that they follow, broadly, the order of the knowledge papers in PART ONE. Again, these are not intended to be followed in strict rotation and can be adapted to suit each practitioner. Although this part of the book, A Year in Camelot, is intended to enable a twelve-month period of study, this may be extended to any period you wish; all studies of this kind should be taken at their own pace and certainly not rushed.

When we began our own writing and teaching programs over forty years ago, it was necessary to offer a considerable amount of explanation on such matters as how to meditate, how to behave in a ritual, etc. None of this is necessary now due to the greatly increased experience of practitioners and the vast number of books that cover these details. The notes that follow are offered as guidelines only and can be skipped by those whose training is advanced enough.

The Art of Meditation

The most important instruction for meditation is to make sure you are not going to be disturbed. Turn off your mobile phone, put away your tablet, hang up your house phone, and make sure that no one with whom you share your home will disturb you for as long as you need.

Next, be sure you are comfortable. An upright chair is always better than a couch or a bed as you might find yourself drifting off to sleep. Relax and take some deep breaths, clearing your mind of the background noise that accompanies us everywhere.

It is a good idea to read the texts first, either aloud or to yourself. If you have a recording device you might wish to read them into it so that you can play them back and allow the images to rise naturally, rather than having to see them while you are reading or immediately after.

Whichever method you adopt, the important thing is to be there, within the scenes described, as totally as possible. Remember that you are a part of these scenes and that you should be experiencing them yourself, not watching them happen on an inner TV screen.

The more you invest the scenes you are seeing with a sense of awareness—seeing the stones of the castle wall, feeling the breeze from the sea on your face or the grass beneath your feet, hearing the words that are addressed to you—the more you will gain from the experience. Your senses will enable you to build the scenes described in your imagination over time and take on a life of their own, often developing and leading you further in.

You will see that pauses (ellipses) are noted within each visualization to enable you to receive your own impressions. With a little practice you should be able to construct the scenes described in such a way that they possess tactile reality. Once this is achieved you can move easily from one reality to another. Remember that you can repeat any of the visualizations as often as you need if you do not receive any insights on the first occasion. Repetition is not just for beginners but for all practitioners—it allows our practice to be supported and to endure. If you should find yourself disturbed by anything you see, you can always return to your own place and time by simply blanking out the images and reasserting the solidity of your normal surroundings.

Finally, always write down your impressions or realizations immediately after your inner journey. Sometimes these may not seem very relevant at the time, but often later you may find yourself looking back on these records and discovering things you missed at the time. Indeed, keeping a magical diary, in which you can record the experiences you have when working with the Arthurian mysteries, is an important adjunct to your progress and insures you do not lose touch with your ongoing work.

Mediation and Ritual

The difference between meditation and mediation is something that is not often discussed and less often understood. Meditation, as discussed above, is a means of experiencing the other side of reality within the consciousness through the power of the imagination. In meditation we perceive with our interior senses the scenes and scenarios in which we partake. Several kinds of meditation exist, of course: passive, active, and mystical. In the passive kind, we merely receive impressions or come into a state of stillness; stillness brings us into a state of oneness and is a natural quieting of our being that should precede other forms of meditation. In the active kind, we move at will within the scenario that we are meditating upon, interacting and understanding; this may include elements of stillness and elements of mystical union. In mystical meditation, we draw closer to or merge with the sacred in its different forms, just as oil and water in a bottle can be shaken together; many spiritual traditions use this form to experience divine communion with their spiritual source.

Mediation is a form of reconciling heaven and earth, the spiritual and the physical, gods and humans. It is the breathing in and breathing out of the universe that we acknowledge so that all within the cosmos partakes. It is an essential circuit of the gift of life. (See also chapter 4 on the foundation of temple work with regard to this.) Mediation is one of the first requirements of any priest or priestess since they are not there for their own gratification but are rather in service. Mediation is their primary work, bringing needs before the Divine and mediating divine help or wisdom to earth. If any magical practitioner is unaware of this factor, then any ritual becomes just a sacred play script in which there is no dynamic interaction of heaven and earth.

For example, in a ritual a framework is created to make a container for sacred powers to be mediated: sometimes to the sacred powers from the earth, sometimes from the sacred powers to earth, often both. In a ritual that has been created to honor ancestors, the mediation of the ritual is towards the ancestors; in a ritual that has been made to accept a neophyte into a society, then the mediation is between the sacred powers of that society and the neophyte who is becoming an initiate of the society.

The concept and power of a ritual does not originate with its writer but comes from the otherworld and the powers, allies, and contacts with whom we work magically. We both receive and send forth the power of the ritual, getting ourselves out of the way. In this way, we share what has been received with the whole world. Thus, even if you do not actively participate in a ritual but read it as you might the rituals included in this book, you are still mediating the power that underpins the written word.

Mediation is an ongoing prayer with our contacts, allies, guides, and spiritual sources. Unless it is present in magical work, there is no circuit of power in a state of exchange: any magical work becomes a one-way street. Mediation is the factor that is missing from sorcery or dark magic, which are manipulative, coercive, and selfish in intent. Mediation is done while standing on the threshold between earth and sky and in the presence of the abiding otherworld, where manifestation meets the unmanifest between time and eternity. It is where we acknowledge the gifts we are given and return thanks from whence they came.

For most beginners, mediation is something that has to be learned: giving thanks, coming into stillness to experience divine powers, setting aside the self to perform the ritual or to receive the current of the meditation that they are doing. Any good mediation that has come from a contacted source will, after a while, take on its own life and begin to operate the mediator! This is where a sense of mediation is beginning to happen: communication and reciprocation take place. This doesn’t mean becoming an open channel for all and sundry to march through, but rather creating a path between the mediator and the guides and allies who enable the meditation. A dialogue begins that becomes natural, sustaining the soul and often shaping and guiding our actions.

For experienced practitioners, mediation becomes the predominant part of the work that they do. Whether you notice older people in church praying quietly every day in the same way or mature magicians who rarely speak but when they do, it is from a considered place, you are meeting the mediators. Those who practice mediation carry a truthfulness and integrity in them that is more aware of community than of self. They are listening more deeply.

[contents]

PART ONE

Visions:

The Knowledge Papers

1

the king and the mage

Whoever can read aright the myth of Merlin will understand the hidden place four-square in the Island of the Strong Door.

…

Manly P. Hall, Orders of the Quest

The Oldest Arthur

The Arthurian legends are far older than many suppose. This is not the place to go into the historicity or otherwise of the man called Arthur—who may have lived in the second century AD or the fifth—but rather we shall be looking at the mythical and archetypal figure that is for all time. Nor will we deal overmuch with the literary history of Arthur, whose extended life begins in the eleventh century and is still very much with us today. This book will deal with another Arthur, one far older and deeper than the medieval king and his knights, yet whose outline can still be glimpsed in the pages of Geoffrey of Monmouth, who wrote the first connected history to have survived in his History of the Kings of Britain,²⁰ or in the vast, lush, and powerful medieval novel Le Morte d’Arthur by Sir Thomas Malory,²¹ who magnificently delineated not only the mythic history of his hero but also gave us the best picture of Arthurian chivalry based on the reality of the fifteenth-century world but with a dash of something more. In fact, both of these Arthurs, along with many more—a multiple set of personalities existing side by side and within each other like nesting boxes—have been subsumed into the shadowy presence of a far older figure, who actually might have been a god.

We know very little about this first proto-Arthur, or, as he was probably known, Artos (which can mean bear). It is possible, though not provable, that a very ancient deity, a spirit of the land who ruled alongside his consort Artio, may lie at the root of all the rest, and that the other later Arthurs²² took the name in the full knowledge that they were assuming the mantle of an archetype that would both strengthen them and resonate with their followers. This might be the Roman Arthur of the second century AD who led a band of warriors from far-off Sarmatia (who brought their own Arthur-type myths with them) or the later fifth-century hero who brought together the feuding Celtic tribes and welded them into a force strong enough to keep out successive waves of invaders from Germany, Friesland, and Jutland for some forty years, stamping his personality and deeds so utterly on the land that he has never been forgotten.²³

But again, it is not these historic Arthurs whose call we answer, though we may do more than nod to them across the centuries. The Arthur we seek is a far loftier figure, one who walks across the infinite reaches of space or lies sleeping under the green earth awaiting his own call to rise up and restore the fortunes of his native land.

Despite the cosmic nature of this figure, he is not so far removed from us as we might think. He can and does reach out across the vastness of time and space to touch our hearts, and he may choose to walk with us on our journeys. He is a figure as much for the present as the past—a shining exemplar, a passionate teacher, and a wise and noble companion.

The Greatest Mage

As do all great men and women, Arthur had a teacher: Merlin, a name almost as resonant as his own. Just as we will not trace the historical reality (or otherwise) of Arthur, so we shall not delay ourselves with speculations regarding the possible identity of Merlin. There is indeed a figure who bore the name Myrddin and who was a bard, a warrior, and a visionary, and who may have lived in the sixth or seventh centuries, but very little of this figure remains in the record of the time, and the reality of the Merlin we shall introduce in these pages is, again, a far older and more cosmic figure than the wizard of medieval and contemporary storytellers. Behind him stands an even more ancient being named Blaise, who was, according to some accounts, Merlin’s own teacher. He is a figure so distant that only through the journey of meditation can we access his teachings, and even then he may seem as distant as a star.

For most of us he is Merlin the Magician, Merlin the Enchanter. He lives backwards in a crystal cave, growing younger every day, though in fact both of these details stem only from the world of twentieth-century fiction, where Merlin is very much alive. There, he wears a pointed hat and starry cloak and carries a staff and may answer to the name of Gandalf, Dumbledore, or even Mr. Spock. But there is much more to him than this composite of medieval and modern imagery drawn from varying sources. Merlin’s roots go far deeper, and he is far older than any of these ideas of his history. Indeed, he has had many incarnations since he first arrived on the scene sometime in the fifth century AD as a prophet and shaman. From this shadowy beginning he has reappeared over the succeeding centuries as a medieval magician, an alchemist, a sage, and even as a lover. In our own time these elements have been combined into the figure we recognize from countless novels, films, plays, and even a couple of operas.

Yet despite the fact that he is one of the most well-known characters in myth, legend, and literature, Merlin remains one of the most enigmatic and subtle players in the vast tapestry of the Arthurian legends. He said of himself, in the medieval text known as the Didot Perceval, Because I am dark and always will be, my words shall be mysterious—a truth which remains eminently true to this day.

The oldest stories in which Merlin features derive from the great treasure trove of myth and legend belonging to the Celts. These sources, often forgotten or neglected, are important for a complete understanding of who he was, for while the Arthurian legends in which he plays such a leading part betray the influence of French and German storytellers, the myth of Merlin, in its purest form, draws upon traditions dating from far earlier than any of these. In fact, though we are more used to thinking of Merlin as a medieval magician who arranged the birth of Arthur, who created the Round Table, who set a magical sword into a stone, who performed great feats of magic before being shut under a stone or in a cave by the vengeful faery Nimue, there was another Merlin, an older Merlin whose life and deeds are very different from those of his medieval successor. This Merlin is not a magician but a seer and a prophet—or, as we might call him today, a shaman.²⁴

The first shamans fulfilled many of the roles later attributed to Merlin: they were lore keepers, healers, prophets, diviners, and ceremonialists, as well as ambassadors to, and interpreters of, the gods. Shamans were born, not made; they were literally walkers between the worlds whose attunement to both tribal consciousness and the spirits of the otherworld was so fine that they could slip between the hidden chambers of life and death and report on what they saw there. It is upon the shaman’s revelations and visions that much of our oldest known religious practices and beliefs are founded. While individual tribal members had only a vague notion of the threshold dividing the worlds, not only could the shamans divine future events through interaction with the spirits of nature and of elemental forces, but they were also supremely sensitive to the will of the ancestors, the first gods.

In each of these aspects of the shaman we can find something of the character and actions of Merlin. He too is a mover and a shaper, a seer who offers profound insights into the inner worlds of the spirit. Even in the later medieval figure of the magician, weaving his spells and shaping the destiny of Arthur and his people, we can catch a glimpse of the shaman, while in the earliest records in which the name Merlin appears it is central to his character.

These early records can be enigmatic, often not written down for several hundred years after they were first composed, held in oral memory in the form of poems meant to be spoken or sung by court bards in the halls of early Welsh chieftains; here we shall only touch upon them to demonstrate how ancient and powerful the archetype of Merlin really is.

The first recorded mention of the name Merlin (in its Old Welsh form Myrddin or Mirdyn) is in a ninth-century poem called Y Gododdin that references a warrior called Mirdyn, though nothing more is said of his character or role, and we have no means of knowing whether this character is in any way related to the more famous Merlin.²⁵

Another Welsh poem, the Armes Prydein (Prophecy of Britain) that dates from roughly the same period, is more helpful. It uses the phrase Dysgogan Myrdin (Merlin foretells) as the opening words to several of its stanzas. The poem foretells various events that are to come and establishes Merlin as a prophet.²⁶

These brief references suggest that the name Merlin was known as long ago as the eighth or ninth centuries—possibly earlier since these references had almost certainly been preserved in oral tradition for several hundred years before this. Again, whether this Merlin has or had anything to do with the later character, the references are intriguing enough to give us pause for thought.

Elsewhere, in a collection of poetic triplets used by the native British bards as a kind of aide-mémoire for storytellers and poets, we also find mention of Merlin, who is even given a pedigree of sorts. These enigmatic writings, known as Trioedd Ynys Prydein, or the Triads of Britain,²⁷ date in manuscript form from the thirteenth century, but their origins are once again much earlier, being traceable to sixth-century sources at least or even earlier if we refer them to oral tradition. Triad 87 lists Three Skillful Bards of Arthur’s Court: Myrddin son of Morfren, Myrddin Emrys, and Taliesin.²⁸

This reference is particularly important, as it is the first time that Merlin is associated with Arthur, as well as suggesting that there may have been more than one Merlin. We should also note that here Merlin is presented as a bard, a role which at this point in time was assumed to include not only the ability to write poetry and to sing, but also to possess prophetic insight.

In his next appearance in the early literature of Wales, Merlin is not only a poet but also a warrior. A few enigmatic references scattered through a collection of medieval poems, some of which are actually attributed to Merlin himself, tell us a little more and hint at a story that would not be fully retold until the eleventh century.

Merlin and the Dragons

Beyond these fragmentary references most of what we know about Merlin today derives from two written sources, both attributed to the medieval author Geoffrey of Monmouth (1100–1155). The first, his History of the Kings of