1

THE CURSE OF MERLIN

The Curse of Merlin

Act IThe Awakening of Self

MOGG MORGAN

2

3

THE CURSE OF MERLIN

The Curse of Merlin

MOGG MORGAN

4

Copyright © Mandrake of Oxford, 08First edition

All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced orutilized in any form by any means electronic or mechanical,including xerography, photocopying, microfilm, and recording, or byany information storage system without permission in writingfrom the author.

Published by

Mandrake of Oxford

PO Box 250

OXFORD

OX1 1AP (UK)

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from theBritish Library and the US Library of Congress.

5

THE CURSE OF MERLIN

ContentsThe Curse of Merlin I ........................................................................ 7The Curse of Merlin II ..................................................................... 15The Curse of Merlin III ...................................................................17The Curse of Merlin IV - Long slow magical journey ................ 20The Curse of Merlin V -Long slow magical journey (continued) ........................................ 27The Curse of Merlin VI - Conventionalism ................................. 31The Curse of Merlin VII .................................................................. 36The Curse of Merlin VIII - 1st Degree ......................................... 40The Curse of Merlin IX- 1st Degree (continued) ....................... 45The Curse of Merlin X - ‘I’m a potato’ ......................................... 50The Curse of Merlin XI - ‘Cunning little fox’ .............................. 56The Curse of Merlin XII :'A stone to trouble the living stream’ ............................................ 60The Curse of Merlin XIII ................................................................ 62The Curse of Merlin XIV ................................................................ 66The Curse of Merlin XV ................................................................. 74The Curse of Merlin XVI ................................................................ 78The Curse of Merlin XVII: ............................................................. 82The Curse of Merlin XVIII ............................................................. 87The Curse of Merlin XIX ................................................................ 94The Curse of Merlin XX ................................................................. 99The Curse of Merlin XXI ............................................................. 103

MOGG MORGAN

6

7

THE CURSE OF MERLIN

The Curse of Merlin ILife is a struggle against the curse of Merlin. The poet PeterRedgrove first hit me with that one. I’d been to one of hisreadings at the Royal Festival Hall and sharing a lift on the waydown to the bar, invited him for a drink. Drinking with Petercould be an expensive pastime as he quaffs large glasses of redwine in a manner us lesser mortals might fruit juice. Peter wasin the mood to celebrate the appearance of the Penguin collec-tion of his poems. Peter later agreed to contribute a smallpreface to my own first modest attempt to write on the topic ofsexual magick. Although hardly a household name, I’d known ofthe work of Peter and his partner Penelope Shuttle’s for sometime. I’d ploughed my way through their seminal Wise Wound.Whenever I see that book it always reminds me of Anne, a goodfriend from my teenage years which were spent in Newport,South Wales. It was she who first turned me onto feminism.Alas she died ten years back, one of the first female victims inthis country of the AIDS pandemic, but that’s another story.

’The Curse of Merlin’ said Peter Redgrove, ‘lies on all publish-ers. Publish poetry, no matter how commercially unsuccessfullyit might be, or you will never thrive.’ Peter had been laying thistrip on publishers thoughout his entire writing career, henceour celebration. Cheers, Peter Redgrove, and well donein convincing the increasingly market orientated Penguin to doyour not so slim volume of esoteric poetry.

But the curse of Merlin means something more to me. I readsomewhere that Merlin was born old and moved closer to hisbirth as the years rolled by. From this splendid fact I surmisedthat Merlin was some kind of shape-shifter, the heir to themodern day shifter of gender. And it was in this connection – asa mover between genders, that I personally relate to the curse ofMerlin. As I begin to write this in year four (2004 to lessermortals) sexuality seems to be in a bit of a dry patch. Sexualityis just another thing to consume, its all about numbers. When I

MOGG MORGAN

8

began this journey things were more interesting.

At home we always read the Daily Mirror. The Sunday editionwas serialising the biography of April Ashley, perhaps the firstof the new wave of shape shifters, a male to female transsexual.It was a deliciously wicked article for a young boy to be readingbut I never forgot it. It made me wonder whether I too mightnot be a woman trapped in a man’s or more properly a boy’sbody. It’s thirty five years since I first read that, my journey hastaken me to the interzone between male and female. I look atthe old photographs of myself – such a misfit.

I’m eleven years old (the number of magick!). A pivotal point inmy mind – everything before is pretty indistinct – everything tocome will be different. I’ve already lived in a couple of differentplaces but this is probably the one most rooted in my conscious-ness. It’s a landscape that still lives in my head and occasionallybecomes the theatre for lucid dreams. Inner city Newport, SouthWales. The Corporation road is a long road that drives its wayall the way from the centre of town, over the Victorian riverbridge, the one decorated with cherubs who have my face whensomeone hasn’t pushed a cigarette butt between their bronzelips. The road keeps on, getting ever seedier, through Clarenceplace, past the old Gaumont Cinema and art deco Odeon, pastposh 1930s semis, past the bus depot, first one shop, then asmall parade, then a whole ribbon of shops, fading out. Keepgoing, past my old red brick school, St Andrews, then the tinyCarnegie library, to where the bus stops outside Lysaght’s sportsfields, social club and steel works. Not many buses go past thispoint into the docklands, and factory compounds protected byhigh chain-link fences and ditches of neatly trimmed grassflowing with dirty water. From here you need to walk to westerndocks for ocean going ships, the Transporter bridge ‘Eiffeltower’ multiplied by two whose moving carriage hangs from ahigh overhead rail. This surreal contraption ’flies’ the trafficacross the mighty river Usk to the Eastern docks. This is Pill,Pwllgwenny I suppose.

9

THE CURSE OF MERLIN

On this side of the river there’s a road parallel to CorporationRoad called Commercial Street. I can retrace my steps backtowards the centre of town to that bridge with the cherubswhere I set out. Later Newport would get a second road bridgeflattening the next street where I can cross its 1960s box-girders and be home in minutes. I live so close that I was thefirst person to ever walk across it, before the workmen, beforethe mayor. When the last section was lowered into the gap, Iwas watching and waiting and in an instant, I walked across. .

Eleven years old and that’s my macrocosm The microcosmwould be the Coverack road that runs upwards at a right-angleto Corporation road until it fades out on the river’s cinder floodbarrier. On the right side a continuous row of 1930s councilhouses, on the left the backs of the shops, a corner shop, thenthe Edwardian terrace of Witham street, then a few more 1930shouses, then our shop on the corner of Feering street, then more1930s houses, then a lane leading to the electrical substation,the powerman’s detached cottage, then the haunted shell of anold factory. The road crests over a railway line, where severaltimes a day a bright green steam engine drags trucks of coalacross the road to the power station. Next door is a wagonworks for the railway. When the siren sounds at 1pm and 5pm,men and women spill out in a great crowd making for home,some in cars but mainly walking or heading for the bus stop onthe corner of Coverack and Corporation rd. On the right,opposite the wagon works is another small factory made frombolted tin sheets. Behind a sliding door is a putty mill where agreat chrome wheel moves endlessly through a trough of chalkand linseed oil until ‘Joey’, thinks it right to stop the machineand scoop out the pale putty, melding it into blocks the size ofsandbags. Joey lays it with the others until he has a great wall ofputty lining the walls on all sides. Mostly Joey keeps the doorslid shut. But if it’s hot and the door is open I ask him for someto play with. We all do that, all the kids in the street. Joey is ablack guy, one of the first I ever met. He was over six foot tall,or so it seemed, with enormously powerful yet beautiful hands.

MOGG MORGAN

10

Every day he came into our corner shop for his sandwiches,which my mother, Joan, made for him from that day’s fresh rollsand enormous slabs of mature cheddar.

* * *

One of the unexpected things about being fifty is that yousuddenly start to learn lots of things about what happened justbefore you were born. That’s PR I suppose – a handy anniver-sary to celebrate – hence Roger Bannister and the four minutemile, another 50 years since the Book of the Law, the nucleartests and the floods of 1953. They say it was the UK’s forgottendisaster. I must have heard people talking about the floods andwhen I think about it this road on which I spent so much of myyouth rose upwards to a great river dyke rebuilt after that flood.I was in the womb through most of it but someone once sug-gested I could still have sustained some brain damage as aresult; hence some of of my minor learning difficulties andabsence of a sense of smell.

* * *

The River. Never underestimate the effect of living next to oneof the most powerful rivers in the world. I know every inch ofthe Usk, Celtic for river, from its estuary of shifting treacheroussands, to the point at which the tidal and riverine waters meld.It’s a sacred spot the so-so country pub at Newbridge-on-Usk.Being underage I sat in the garden with the parakeets watchingthe waters rise until all was still and the basin could hold nomore water. The grey sludgy tidal water mixing like cream in theclear coffee of the non tidal stream. There’s an almost audiblesilence, and then the moment as if miles away someone haspulled the plug and the water begins to drop out of the basin ina mad rush.

The mighty Usk cannot be said to meander its way to the sea –‘hairpins’ it way might be better. It rushes through Caerleonwhere my parents still live, and which I knew intimately, longbefore I moved there. The river slices through Cryndau, wherethere was once a precipitous park now just another road. This

11

THE CURSE OF MERLIN

is a stonethrow from the home of my dour grandfather where weall lived for a while. Then the Newport hinterlands where theruins of a Norman Castle gives the town its welsh name. Theriver relaxs, widening out to flow under those bridges, pastwhere I lived as a child. I swam in you, walked by you, dis-carded so much in you. The black and white sign that deterssubmarine captains with a warning of ‘cables’. From its top Iwatched the dredgers make ‘handbreak’ turns on the mud.The power station that once fed those cables is now nothingmore than a concrete platform. Here comes the wagon workswith its strategic promontory, a grey shell of an old gun em-placement but to me always a ruined hermit’s hut. I used toclimb its crumbling masonry overlooking the estuary and buf-feted by winds, act out a scene from a film where Kirk Douglascalls out to Odin.

Just across the river rotting warships lie berthed on desertedjetties. The river surges beneath the Transporter bridge built toallow headroom for the ship’s masts. The surreal hulk of an-other larger power station looms solitary over the longsevernside wetlands reclaimed by monks. Goldcliff is justaround the corner. Goldcliff holds a secret key to the characterof the locals. The Celtic tribe in this part of the word was theSilurians. They made a deal - recorded on a golden plaque foundnearby - the Romans got to keep the coast, but everythinginland was theirs. Even now you can divine a lot there aboutthe relationship between the local Welsh and the English fromthat ancient deal. From Goldcliff my gaze can sweep across toa final beacon for my childhood world, to a squat lighthousebeside a tiny dangerous beach. That’s where I took my first everswim in the waters of the Usk like a turtle on my father’s back..

* * *

Things sound better on paper but having no sense of smellprobably makes the whole thing more bearable. At the bottomof my street was a small park, shelter, chain link fence, slide

MOGG MORGAN

12

and swings, football pitch. Next to this is a plant where con-demned carcasses from the nearby abattoir were boiled andrendered down into glue. The smell was apparently very bad butI was missing this sense and never noticed.

* * *

I was born a pagan. As soon as I popped out (at 2.45pm gmt on4 March 1954) the nurse took one look at me and said ‘there’ssomething funny about this one’. Actually I can remember thesituation one hour before this, at ‘dinner time’ (where I wasbrought up we don’t have much use for lunch). I rememberfloating under water pretending I was a submarine. The highpitched whine in my ears sounded like the ping of the sonar.

It didn’t last. I felt hunted. In the distance I distinctly felt adepth charge exploding, sending shock waves through the warmamnionic fluid that surrounded me and held me up. The shockwaves bounced back and forth and eventually subsided. Therewas a lull, then another explosion ripped through the water. Istruggled to regain my equipoise, the wonderful calmness of thefluid world. The shocks came at regular intervals cutting intomy calm meditation until all is confusion. A climax was imma-nent. Then I was born.

* * *

I always liked people, even girls. Maybe I was four or five goingto my ‘sweetheart’s’ birthday party. I drank all the orange juiceas a joke. Her mother sent me home in disgrace, orange juicewas expensive, my parents moved house and I never saw heragain. It was six years before I had another go. I went out withAngie from my school. She had long hair and a sweet face. Webought some cigarettes and I took her to my secret landscape.Everyone should have a secret and sacred landscape. Thestretch of wasteground beside the river. I lived beside a bridgenext to the power station. Where my street rose up over theflood defences of the river, I followed the rail lines to the coalstorage. It was a real wilderness, closed off on all sides by

13

THE CURSE OF MERLIN

deserted factories. The earth was black but wild roses grewthere. I took Angie to the tiny lake to see newts and stickle-backs. We smoked cigarettes until our mouths were dry. Angielay back awkwardly on the grass, her cheap sheepskin coatbulging out. We tried kissing but it made us feel funny. Angiesaid she didn’t like the smell from the ‘chem’ but I couldn’tsmell anything. I felt nausea.

I wonder where she is now? Angie’s mother could knit and madea sweater for my mother. It was lopsided and didn’t fit. Hermother was very jealous of Angie’s long sleek hair. She wantedher to cut it but Angie wouldn’t do that. Her mother chased her,jambing her hair in the door and cutting it all off. After thatAngie got all fat. I have pictures of her from the school play -she played Mary and I was the archangel Gabriel (She’s the onemarked out by a circle of biro). I have another picture, me asthe Pied Piper, she as one of the fat burgers of Hamlin.

I kept going back to my sacred landscape, sometimes withfriends, mostly alone. I liked the remains of an old fort there. Itprotects the ancient city of Casnewedd, and further upstreamthe even older Caerleon (City of the Legions). My fort toweredhigh above the river. I was braver then and climbed the narrowconnecting wall until I could stand in the wind blasting from theestuary. I wanted to shout something into the wind. I’d just seenTony Curtis in The Vikings and shouted ‘Odin’, over and overagain, it was the only holy name I knew. I’ve been close to Odinevery since.

* * *

Like the character in the Yeats poem, I seem to have alwaysliked ‘strange thought’. On saturday my mother always wentinto town to change her library books. I went with her. Icouldn’t believe you could actually borrow these wonderfulthings. My mammy liked novels, but I didn’t. She took me to thephilosophy section and left me there. I picked out books onpsychoanalysis, dreams and hypnotism and met her at the

MOGG MORGAN

14

issuing desk. The librarian looked straight over my head andasked my mammy whether I really wanted these? Oh, she said,taking a quick look herself, they look interesting, let him havethem if he wants them. Now when I hung out with my gang Isometimes suggested that I try to hypnotise them, sticking pinsin their arms to see if it had worked. Sometimes we’d go off onquests looking for haunted houses or old women living alone,convinced they might be witches.

15

THE CURSE OF MERLIN

The Curse of Merlin II

I like to walk. I always liked that, usually alone, sometimes witha friend. One of my favourite places when I was a teenager wasBelview Park. It must once have been part of the estate of theruined house of Tredegar or is it Morgan. Tredegar park, passedinto the ownership of the local council many years ago whenthe last scion of the Tredegar family died childless. They werean interesting bunch, gone mad over the years, more genteelthan their merchantile origins would justify. They had nameslike ‘Octavius Morgan the antiquarian’, but that’s another story.I’m still in Belview park, another of their bequests to Newport.It seems so much smaller now but so much has happened. Lastyear my mother gasped her last agonising breath in a hospitalward overlooking that same park, overlooking the very spotwhere I sat so many years before, locked in and wondered howto get out.

The entrance to the park passes through wrought iron ornamen-tal gates, painted green and emblazoned now with Casnewedd’sgrand crest - the one that has my face. The vegetation is soluxuriant, almost tropical, covering the sides of the steep valleythrough which gushes a vigorous stream. I love the fencedwalkways that snake the way over bridges until I am depositedjust below the huge Victorian plant house, tea rooms and toilet.I love the view across the docklands to the Peterstone flatlandsbeyond. It was her I once looked over the balustrade and saw inthe seedy bushes my companion losing her virginity to the localpervert.

Time to move on, to the west end of the park. The feeling I hadthat first time I found the megalithic stone circle, right there inthe park. The beautiful, hungry stones of local old red sand-stone, blackened by the Casnewedd air, encrusted with lichen

MOGG MORGAN

16

and moss. The secluded grove of ancient oaks lent it a synisterfeel that spoke of sabbatic rites to a god unknown. At its centrea single step led to a stone platform of appearance. Was this aplace of sacrifice? The atmosphere darkens, the picnickers inthe nearby meadow fade from view. Once I sat and quite spon-taneously began to meditate - although back then I did notknow that’s what I was doing. A shiver ran through me anyway.Was this a magical place?

It was a while before I told anyone about my secret place. WhenI did I learnt that although it looked old it had been put there inthe early part of the twentieth century as part of the celebra-tions for the eistedfod! The circle was ‘false’ but also real? Butthere again was it really false? Now Paul tells me all these‘bardic’ circles are modelled on one very special instance fromBoscawen in West Cornwall. I’ve still never quite been there.How can you not quite be anywhere? That’s very Welsh isn’t it?Simple - I got to within a few yards but had to turn back. Paultells me Boscawen is the most perfect example of all the mega-lithic circles - that’s why it was chosen as a form. I have aphotograph of that day in 1910 when the vast crowd, now allghosts, but then dressed in their sunday best, as they swirlaround their priests. So maybe afterall I really did get a messagefrom the past, that day in Belview park amongst the wind lashedtrees?

17

THE CURSE OF MERLIN

The Curse of Merlin III

There’s nothing quite like a trip to North Wales to make youthink about who you are. Am I getting out of touch with myhomeland? I was born in Pill (Pillgwenlly), still Newport’s mostdeprived (and depraved) borough. It’s a long time since I leftWales to become a ‘quizling’. We used to called the Welshspeakers the viet-taff (or is it Taffi-ban?) - so the tension be-tween the different regions of Wales is still as strong now as itwas then.

Wales’ south-eastern industrial population may not have all thetrappings of other regions but is it any less the Welsh for that - Idon’t think so? We refuse to learn Welsh because we don’t wantto lose our Welsh identity - English is our mother tongue -English is a language of Wales - is it not?

Then there is the question of Nationalism. During my teenageyears I was an paid up member of the ultra-left - it goes with theterritory afterall. I think it was Kate Roberts who wrote thatWales is under the ‘triple net’ - language, religion and politics.So for me politics has always been a stronger force than theothers - which is hardly surprisingly given my roots.

Whatever the problems that beset the people of Wales, are theyreally deep down about nationality? I think lifestyle and socialclass are as valid a candidate for the core or base of society -from which so many structures and problems grow. Isn’t italways the way of the demagogue to play the nationalist card onany and every issue?

Back in Newport in the 1970s I was a young radical - not evenout of school and bunking off to be on the picket-line withstriking building workers. It brought me into contact with Irish

MOGG MORGAN

18

labourers, amongst whom were fugitives from Ireland’s‘troubles’. Into this melting pot - welsh nationalists were drawn.It was a bit of a dilemma for the neo-marxists, who had butrecently inherited the mantle of the moribund communist partyof Wales.

’Rebel in the soul’How did it all start this political thing? Being a rebel was theonly way to survive at school after age eleven. Either that or avictim be. Casting my mind back to my first overt act of politi-cal rebellion - it was always intimately connected with thewhole nationalist thing - but never straight forwardly so. It wasthe tour of the Springbok rugby team - a racially segregated sidefrom South Africa and therefore very controversial. I lived astone’s throw from the rugby ground - but had no naturalaffinity for the players - I was too much of a wimp for that. Thenewly formed anti-apartheid thing was in the news but washardly expected at a redneck place like Newport. There was tobe a picket of the match - I can’t remember from whom I learntit - but it seemed like such a good idea. I’m not sure I reallyunderstood the issues but the idea of standing outside theground with placards sounded perfect to me. It was my firstmeeting with my own kind. I remember being particularlyshocked then impressed by the presence there of the schoolReligious Studies teacher - I forget her name. I guess she had memarked down as just another oik but that day she made a pointof saying hello.

But whoa - did it cause a row at home. I never did manage toget my placard out of the house. It can’t have been too longafter that my older brother Roy, who had actually joined theCommunist Party, was asked to leave. I was grounded. Whysuch a strong reaction, my father had afterall been brought up inMoscow - the Maesglas suburb of Newport that had consis-tently elected communist town councillors? Maybe that was it -familiarity breeds contempt? Stories of the 1926 General Strikestill did the rounds of Maesglas - lots of railwaymen lived there.

19

THE CURSE OF MERLIN

When my grandfather - a former stoker - cold-shoulderedsomeone in the street - my father asked why - ‘because’, camethe reply, ‘he went over the wall during the strike. Such was thebitterness following the defeat of the strike that nobody spoketo that man again - nobody went to his funeral. Politics was aserious business - the kind of thing that could ruin your wholelife if you weren’t discerning. And in the 1960s, apart from theoccasional Labour interlude, most people were happy with theconservative consensus. The communists were seen as a mori-bund fifth column.

I asked my economics teacher what he thought of the commu-nist newspaper the Morning Star. He told me it was the worst ofthe gutter press. I never could bring myself to read a copy afterthat even though I guessed that was not a balanced view - but itmaybe gives an idea of the zeitgeist. The Communist Party wasa spent force, a pale reflection of its glory days. A new ghostwas haunting Europe - Leon Trotsky. Legend has it that mybrother went to one of those monster Anti-Vietnam war demosin London - maybe he was even there on that fateful day outsidethe American embassy in Grosvenor Square. There was asplendid riot. He met one of the new Trotskyities called PatJordan and invited him to come speak to the communists ofNewport. After the meeting the whole branch upped and joineda little organisation, headed by the likes of Tariq Ali andJonathan Guinness which went by the soubriquet of the Inter-national Marxist Group. I being still a minor was earmarked forits youth section - the Spartacus League. My first ever politicalouting, was to London for the unification conference of bothorganisations.

MOGG MORGAN

20

The Curse of Merlin IV -Long slow magicaljourney

I never did find out why it was that Newport’s Reference &Lending Library acquired so many magical books. I spent such alot of my time in that library it was just a matter of time beforeI read them all. Best of all was Aleister Crowley’s masterpiece -Liber ABA - Magick in Theory and Practice. The reference librarymust have bought a copy almost as soon as it was published inan edition edited by John Symonds and Kenneth Grant in 1973.It’s a lovely book with the most evocative of covers. It was keptin a special cupboard, along with the Kinsey Report and Masters& Johnson. If you wanted to read it, you had to ask and I didask.

21

THE CURSE OF MERLIN

I can’t remember reading very much of Crowley’s book at thetime. Just looking at that cover illustration by Kenneth’s artist-wife Steffi was probably enough. It’s so spookey, so evocative.The entire power of magick was all there in the image, theprinciples of which were really brought to a high point in thecelebrated Victorian sodality - The Hermetic Order of theGolden Dawn. This is ‘visual magick’, the ‘simpliest’ form ofwhich is the so-called ‘flashing’ colours such as the red and thegreen. ‘red and green should never be seen, accept in the realmof the fairy queen’ or so goes the old printer’s saw. The artist issome form of natural magician equiped with a mandala or‘colour wheel’. It’s a mystery everywhere to be seen once youknow how to look. It is especially clear if you looked by candleor lamplight. The red/green contrary is our most primal coding.It is the opposition between Osiris and Seth - or Mars, the‘planet of green men’ that appears red in our sky.

I was just eighteen and had crashed out of school. The Head-master told me not to come back. He was classically educatedand said I was something like a spermologos. It’s what the Greekphilosophers called Paul of Tarsus. It means a ‘seedpicker’, aperson who like a bird randomly gathered scraps of informationand terminology. It all started to go wrong when someone told

MOGG MORGAN

22

me that you didn’t have to wear school uniform in the sixth-form so I turned up in drag! Well not really but I might as wellhave done. I was expelled for the week with a stipulation that Ihad to get my haircut before returning. So you can see I was abit of a handfull. After all that I never really settled at school. Ishould say it was a fairly ‘bog standard’ State comprehensive -although a grammar school for my first year. It’s the sort ofschool that’s best left off your resume. I made the mistake ofnaming it in an interview for a poxy student job in the Bodleianlibrary. One of the interviewers did his best to stop his lipcurling as he informed the other that it was ‘a state school.’ Thejob went to a ‘grey moth in a cupboard’ - just like them.

When I left school my mother found me a job in the civil ser-vice where I stayed for the next five years. During that time Ilived several parallel but discrete existences - trade union leader,radical political activist, sexual rights compaigner, student ofoccultism.

But let’s stick with the last of these for now. It was occultismthat really exposed the gaps in my education. There I was backin the reference library daydreaming over a bit of Crowley andtrying to make sense of Blavatsky; unsure whether to believesome of the outragious claims in Morning of the Magicians.Perhaps they were all just crap books that change your life.Somehow I just knew I needed to go to college. The TradeUnion movement had been good to me - sending me on courses,paying for night classes. I wrote the obligatory essay for entry toRuskin College but was asked to defer entry for a year as theyfelt I wasn’t quite ready. Perhaps they sensed I only reallywanted to go there to be with ‘my close personal friend’ whoalready had a place. But then suddenly I had three offers ofplaces from mainstream Universities - Nottingham, Reading andSussex.

During my remaining time in the Civil Service I often travelledto London to represent the Staffside, the public sector equiva-

23

THE CURSE OF MERLIN

lent of Trade Unions. Between meetings I scoured thebookshops. Somehow I’d heard that Jimmy Page had a littlebookshop in Kensington called ‘The Equinox’. When I got thereI was the only customer. The tiny little shop had windowsetched with an image of Baphomet. No one spoke to me - whyshould they, but people new to the occult almost expect some-one, an ‘adept’ or someone senior to say something - to callthem out. But occultism isn’t really like that - you have to ask.Later in the famous Atlantis bookshop I bought a Thoth tarotdeck and a contemporary occult fanzine called ‘Sothis’. Theletter I wrote to the American address in the Tarot deck wasnever answered (the American OTO never really got going untilthe 1980s). But eventually I did receive a reply from Sothis andit wasn’t too long before I was a probationer of the OTO. So itwas the little fanzine that proved the most useful, which per-haps tells you something. . .

So with the help of my little library of occult books I began tothink about actually doing some magick. I copied the LesserBanishing Ritual of the Pentagram on a card and like almostevery other newbie began reciting that upstairs in my bedroom.The words came easy but it was years before I learnt how toreally do it and that knowledge came via other magicians I metthrough the Golden Dawn Occult Society. Our method can beseen on a short DVD (viewable on request). I used that as myicebreaker then settled down to practice some of themeditational exercised from the first part of Crowley’s Magick.These are in fact based on Vivekananda’s classic Raja Yoga. Iwas very struck by the Crowley poems that prefaces book one:

There are seven keys to the great gate,Being eight in one and one in eight.First, let the body of thee be still,Bound by the cerements of will,Corpse-rigid ; thus thou mayst abortThe fidget-babes that tease the thought.Next, let the breath-rhythm be low,Easy, regular, and slow ;

MOGG MORGAN

24

So that thy being be in tuneWith the great sea’s Pacific swoon.Third, let thy life be pure and calmSwayed softly as a windless palm.Fourth, let the will-to-live be boundTo the one love of the Profound.Fifth, let the thought, divinely freeFrom sense, observe its entity.Watch every thought that springs ; enhanceHour after hour thy vigilance!Intense and keen, turned inward, missNo atom of analysis!Sixth, on one thought securely pinnedStill every whisper of the wind!So like a flame straight and unstirredBurn up thy being in one word!Next, still that ecstasy, prolongThy meditation steep and strong,Slaying even God, should He distractThy attention from the chosen act!Last, all these things in one o’erpowered!Time that the midnight blossom flowered!The oneness is. Yet even in this,My son, thou shalt not do amissIf thou restrain the expression, shootThy glance to rapture’s darkling root,Discarding name, form, sight, and stressEven of this high consciousness ;Pierce to the heart! I leave thee here :Thou art the Master. I revereThy radiance that rolls afar,O Brother of the Silver Star!

Looking back maybe it is a bit overblown but it worked for meat the time. And indeed the first thing I noticed was how stiffmy whole body was. I spent quite a long time just mastering agood posture (details of what I have in mind are given in greater

25

THE CURSE OF MERLIN

detail in my little book Tantra Sadhana). But after a few weeksmy body began to yield its secrets and I experienced one of myfirst real magical break-throughs. It wasn’t my first mysticalexperience. In some ways like Crowley that came in a prayermeeting. Ours wasn’t really a religious family. You had to go outfor that, out deep in darkest Pill where there was a toweringgospel hall all lit up with neon. I’d gone with friends from schoolto a special teenager’s event. There was a big buildup for theappearance of the ‘pastor’s’ wife who, so we were told, was anoted songstress. It’s difficult to recall whether that was true,but her manner and the fruitiness of her voice was screaminglyfunny. But then having got that out of our system we all settleddown and listened. It wasn’t the first time I’d felt the call. Itsounds corny I know, but it happened. I still value the experi-ence as being beyond the words that my conscious mind’s‘bullshit filter’ would never have let in. I still remember theoverpowering physical nature of the experience. It was sointoxicating. But after that nothing. Repeating the experiencewas positively discouraged. There was no real tradition withthat church of working with mystical or altered states. Mymentors told me that I was only allowed one hit.

Years later and alone in my room I again experienced the calland this time it was a terrifying experience. I went through myroutine, the banishing, the sitting quietly and trying to achieve‘one-pointedness’. I wasn’t thinking about anything in particularwhen suddenly what I call the ‘vishuddha cakra’ burst into life.I’m not sure if that’s the right term to use. Looking back I guessit’s all about dissolution, the fear the ego has that the mind’sfamiliar structures are about to be blown away. It’s a bit of ashock to discover that just thinking in a certain way can shakeup mind and body, triggering the most bizarre, unfamiliarsensation perhaps even hallucinations. And on the otherhandthe sensations were powerfully ecstatic, part of me wantedthem to continue until the natural resolution but the other partwas seriously afraid of what that might mean. Perhaps this is

MOGG MORGAN

26

why mystics speak of good and bad angels contending over thesoul’s fate.

The other feature of this experience was that is was so easy tolose it. Think about it too much and it starts to recede. Thepoint of equipoise is finely balanced and easy to forget. Tradi-tion says that this cakra is situated in the throat - so it’s an oddplace to start feeling waves of ecstasy. Perhaps that’s why it wasso alarming. The well known experience of a ‘lump in thethroat’ is a reminder of the strong emotions that have their rootthere. The experience went on for several minutes - sometimesradiating from my throat sometimes just above my heart. After awhile it just ended and I was sitting there wondering what it wasall about. It was years later before I learnt that the Tantrik deityArdanisvara ‘resides’ in this cakra - which is strangely appropri-ate somehow. (see notes on Ardanisvara).

Vivekanda was the most useful guide to all this. It was as if he’dthought of all the angles. Nod off in a meditation - it would bethere as one of the signs of progress - it shows the Ego isgetting worried enough about what you’re doing to try to putyou to sleep. In a western idiom these might be likened to‘demons’ - tormentors ultimately sent by the Ego to deflect youfrom the path. Why one part of mind would want to stymie theefforts of another is one of those little paradoxes of magick. Mylittle experience of ‘enstasy’ was over. All I had left was someexcruciating sensations of ‘pins and needles’ caused by sittingstill for thirty minutes or so. The positive thing was thatVivekanda wrote that meditation was a special kind of remem-bering. This had several senses - the most immediate being thatthe experience I had just ‘enjoyed’ could be called to mind atany future time - and doing this would repeat its effects and alsocause it to grow. Meditation, like magick, was something thatcould grow, even if painfully slowly, the more I practiced. . .

27

THE CURSE OF MERLIN

The Curse of Merlin V -Long slow magicaljourney (continued)

Like most newbies it took a while for me to really get going. Iwas a probationer with the OTO headed up by Kenneth Grant.Back then there were no real clouds on the horizon but since allsorts of disputes had arizen on which I am unlike to be the finalword I will just say how it was for me. It would be several yearsbefore I even met anyone from any other claimants to Crowley’ssword. Although obviously unbeknownst to me, a sleepingdragon had been awoken.

Crowley encouraged conflict amongst magicians. Perhaps heknew that the ancient Egyptians also thought that withoutconflict there could be no progress. The modern stop / goprogress of Thelema is in part made more comprehensible byreading the fascinating history of its first days. Crowley had lotsof conflicts with a whole string of magical brothers and sisters.In the case of his OTO frater superior Theodor Reuss, Crowleyupped and gave his boss the sack, proclaiming himself head ofthe order (Starr 2004: 112).

One of the best and most readable studies of the OTO’s recenthistory: is The Unknown God: W. T. Smith And TheThelemites, (Martin Starr 2004). Starr tells the story of WilfredSmith and I suppose what one might call the second generationof Thelemites, who set about to promulgate the Crowleyanteachings in 1930s Hollywood.

In Crowley’s own contendings with his contemporaries he wasoften to fall back on the words of John Bunyan: ‘my sword to

MOGG MORGAN

28

him that can take it’. And indeed, according to Martin Starr, ifCrowley could only have proved his right to the OTO crownand therefore its successor organisations, he might have suc-ceeded in his desires to impose his control over the Theosophi-cal Society and AMORC - and then how differently the magicalworld of the 1980s might have looked. Can you imagine whatthe Theosophical Society, would look if Crowley had succeededBesant? Would Gloucester Place be rocking to the sound ofAC/DC?

Crowley would also have done well to remember that in ancientEgypt, the king must die. When he (or she) can no longer cut itor as in Crowley’s case has gone gaga and starts unpicking thething he has made – it’s time for a little experiment. Crowley’sgeriatric obsession with trying to micro-manage the OTOeventually led to its self-destruction – a blight from which it didnot recover until in the 1970s when several of the old guarddecided to have another go. Whatever anyone may say, none ofthe current OTO twigs had much more than a paper existenceuntil the 1970s revival.

It was the 1970s when I myself was first drawn into the OTOnet. I met a member of a recently reformed American branch ofthe Order who up till that point had been a bit of a sleeper butwas happy to be re-activated. Kenneth Grant’s UK based‘Typhonian’ OTO was a visible presence but was, for many, anunattractive prospect. And that’s despite KGs high profile asconsultant to groundbreaking part work Man Myth & Magic,and the first of nine seminal books of modern occultism. Whilstmany found these books an inspiration, I’d say no other occultwriter in any other Thelemic organisation has managed anythinglike their sweep of vision and font of magical ideas. The bestthe rest of us have done is maybe a few footnotes to Crowley.Despite this, as a magical leader KG obviously left a lot to bedesired – the possibilities for empire building were just toolimited.

My Caliphate friend and I edited a magazine called Nuit Isis,

29

THE CURSE OF MERLIN

which aimed to focus on the common ground betweenThelemites. But just as in the Contending of Horus & Seth, thefirst of an interminable sequence of court cases was just begin-ning (in the original contendings the trial went on for 80 years!)– and the peaceful coexistence of the first days of the 1970smagical revival did not last. The ‘sword’ those days was seenswinging in the Inns of Court. As in the ancient narrative,people seemed to switch sides, allowing the so-called judge torule that such and such had no supporters. Some say those‘traitors’ get their reward, although not everyone can be king,and often the hand that wields the knife does not wear thecrown.

There is one paragraph in Martin Starr’s book that really oughtto be engraved in the second courtyard of the ideal temple –you know the one that elucidates the relationship betweenearthy power and the journey onwards to liberation. OK, notthe place of the highest mysteries but important none the less.Over the last few years the erstwhile modern day followers ofthe kingly Horus have become ever bolder in bellowing theircries of ‘bastard’! So here shall be carved the more consideredjudgment:

For those perhaps less familiar with some of the followingnames let me tell you that they are all the main players in thesubsequent history of Thelema - here laid low by the mindgames of Crowley and his caretaker Germer. Everyone hasheard of Kenneth Grant’s ‘expulsion’ but did you know it wasfor blasphemy? How does a Thelemite blaspheme? ‘You boy!how dare you make up some hare-brained scheme about a trans-plutonian planet, and then have the audacity to identify it withour beloved star goddess Nuit – take six hundred and sixty sixlines – ‘every man and every woman is a STAR’!!!! Wipe thatsmile off your face . . . I’m sending you home.’ Well he wasn’tthe only one sent down that week:

‘With Germer expired the last chance for Thelema to take rootin the United States, and the prospects internationally were no

MOGG MORGAN

30

more bright. Or so one might have thought. Germer had suc-cessfully accused Mellinger of being an FBI agent and kickedhim out of the house, expelled Grant for blasphemy, dismissedMcMurtry as a slave to his wife and ceased corresponding withMetzger over differences in the Crowley translations in Germanthe latter had published. Motta had fled the United States forhis native Brazil after having been arrested in Baton Rouge,Louisiana, in February 1961 on suspicion of drug trafficking;while in jail he confessed that the source of the drugs found inhis compartment was none other than his OTO Brother, LouisT. Culling. In the following year Germer refrained from givingMotta a charter to open the OTO in Brazil, mindful of the factthat Motta, in his experience only “switched temporarily backinto sanity.” Yet on his deathbed what faith Germer had in afuture for Thelema he chose to vest in Motta, telling Sasha toinform Frater Adjuvo! that he was “The Follower.” What thismay have meant was the subject of speculation that was neversatisfactorily resolved. The issue of Germer’s heir to theheadship of the OTO remained an open question to the fewwho knew or cared about it.’ (Starr 2004:

So the moving finger in the sky pointed at Motta. But the HairyPothead school for wizards could be a hard place for the aspir-ing young sorcerer – best advice is – if you want to get on –keep your head down – or you’ll end up like Crowley’s co-superior in the OTO Frater Achad (expelled and mad), JackParsons (expelled then blown to bits) and the Martin Starr’s heroWilfred Smith – lost on a wild goose chase for a god unknown.

Luckily I didn’t know too much when like a fool I joined theOTO. . .

31

THE CURSE OF MERLIN

The Curse of Merlin VI -Conventionalism

‘1977 and the world is going mad’. They say when you take upmagick the life changes can be bewildering. For me it meantleaving the safety of my parent’s home where I’d found tempo-rary sanctuary after a failed relationship. It meant leaving asecure job with interesting prospects. It meant leaving the townin which I’d grown up. It was the right thing to do. Traditionallythe magical journey is more than an internal pilgrimage. As Iwrite I occasionally receive letters from beginners in obscurebackwoods towns wanting to study magick. I know that if theyare serious they are probably going to have to move. Those whoseek magick must travel. If when you weigh up all the optionsyou find you aren’t really up for that then the magical lifeprobably isn’t for you. It’s a first test, how attached are you toyour roots? I was leaving friends and lovers behind. I was alsoleaving Wales - and for me that was no bad thing.

First stop Brighton on England’s south coast to one of the UKsnewish redbrick universities. Months earlier I’d walked up fromthe little railway station at Falmer and straight into a studentpicket line. For me that was a good sign - it felt like home. Oneof the pickets challenged me, ‘Where are you going’ he said,‘can’t you see this is a picket line.’ ‘But I ‘ve got an interview’ Ireplied meekly. ‘Oh, well that’s alright then.’ and he let me passwith calls of ‘He’s OK he’s got an interview.’

Somewhere in Crowley I’d read there is no such as thing aswasted knowledge. The intellectual component of magick issomething that can come as something of a surprise. I was atSussex to study for a degree in philosophy. It gave me thematerial I needed to develop my very own personal theory of

MOGG MORGAN

32

knowledge - something with the rather grand title of epistemol-ogy. Ultimately magick is the pursuit of knowledge or to use themagicians preferred term - Gnosis. So anything that illuminatedthe nature of the quest was going to be useful - nothing wouldbe wasted.

From the charismatic ‘catholic’ radical Ivan Illich I learnt a loveof the dialectical method long before I discovered the paganroots of the technique. Illich was guest lecturer on campus,filling its largest lecture theatre to bursting point. The mostcontroversial of Illich’s theories was his liberal critique ofmedicine. He proposed that we should contemplate some sortof limit to medicine (and indeed science) which was now anenterprise counter productive even hubristic. Whatever therights and wrongs of all that - Illich always began his lectures byasking the audience what they thought and what would they liketo discuss.

The next big influence was the philosophy of conventionalism -something that began in the nineteenth century with the physi-cist Pierre Duhem, and flows through the work of Willard VanOrman Quine. Despite the big name - conventionalism is not sodifficult to understand. It’s a philosophy that seems particularlyfriendly towards mysticism and leaves (or clears) some space foralternative views of reality.

Karl Popper summarised it thus:

The source of the Conventionalist philosophy would seem to bewonder at the austerely beautiful simplicity of the world asrevealed in the laws of physics. Conventionalists seem to feelthat this simplicity would be incomprehensible and indeedmiraculous, if we were bound to believe, with the Realists, thatthe laws of nature reveal to us an inner, structural simplicity ofour world beneath its outer appearance of lavish variety...for theConventionalist, theoretical natural science is not a picture ofnature but merely a logical construction

33

THE CURSE OF MERLIN

Conventionalism seems to be making a strong comeback espe-cially in the study of psycho-physiology where it goes under thename of naive parallelism. This is a method of studying themind without worrying too much about the insoluble linkbetween function and structure. It makes use of coordinateddata such as the study of a physiological signs such as theElectro-encephalogram and observed behaviour.(3)

The seminal twentieth-century statement of the Conventionalistposition is to be found in Pierre Duhem’s La Théory Physique. SonObject et Sa Structure. Written in 1906 and therefore just beforethe conceptual revolution in scientific thought instigated byAlbert Einstein and his colleagues. The new physics confirmedmany of Duhem’s views although he was not really part of thenew wave and died in 1916 without really assimilating anylessons from it.

Duhem attempted to produce a simple logical analysis of themethod by which physical science makes progress.(5) In hisview a physical theory is an abstract system whose aim is tosummarize and classify logically a group of experimental lawswithout claiming to explain these laws By explain he means anyattempt to theorize about the reality behind sensible appear-ances, any attempt to, as he put it, lift the veil of reality. Herejects this type of explanation because of its close affinity withmetaphysical speculation. Not that he was totally opposed tometaphysics, merely that he wanted to draw a clear line betweenmetaphysics and natural science. He acknowledged that in thepast metaphysical speculation has played a crucial role in theconstruction of theories; nevertheless it is clear that there is nonecessary connection between a theory’s explanatory and itspurely descriptive content. Duhem may not be interested inmetaphysics but in my opinion his theory gives it some space -which to me is no bad thing.

Johannes Kepler (1571-1630) is an important figure in thehistory of mathematical astronomy. Few people know that

MOGG MORGAN

34

Platonic and Pythagorean components in his conception ofcelestial harmony, however mystical in origin, helped him todevelop the three principles of planetary motion now known byhis name

In its narrowest sense a theory can be viewed as a mnemonicdevice. A mnemonic device is best when it has a formal orlogical structure such as a classificatory table which imposessome order on a lavish body of data. Theories tend to be basedupon a natural classification i.e. a formal system, especially inBotany or Zoology will be based upon natural characteristics ofits participants. Duhem contends that the sole justification of ascientific theory is that it agrees with experimental data. Thetheory must ‘save the phenomena’ rather than flying completelyin its face. Belief in a theory implies no commitment to all oreven any of the entities or variables postulated in the theory, forthere are numerous theories that will meet the above criterion.This is what is meant when it is said that a theory is under-determined by data.

Willard Van Orman Quine, who is a follower of Duhem’s, putsit in the following way:

“The totality of our so-called knowledge or beliefs, from themost casual matter of geography and history to the profoundestlaws of atomic physics or even of pure mathematics and logic,is a man-made fabric, which impinges on experience only alongthe edges. Or, to change the figure, total science is like a fieldof force whose boundary conditions are experience. A conflictwith experience at the periphery occasions readjustments in theinterior of the field. Truth values have to be redistributed oversome of our statements... But the total field is so under-deter-mined by its boundary conditions, experience, that there ismuch latitude of choice as to what statements to reevaluate inthe light of any single contrary experience.” (7)

Although this view of a ‘pragmatic’ philosophy of science wasnever really intended to make room for metaphysics or ‘alterna-

35

THE CURSE OF MERLIN

tives’ , for me that’s precisely what it did. This at the time washow I came to interpret Crowley’s maxim : ‘The aim of religion,the method of science’

Notes:

(1) Karl Popper 1983 :79

(2) Karl Popper (1983 :

(3) A Gale, Psycho-Physiology: a bridge between disciplines,inaugural LectureUniversity of Southampton 1979).

(4) Translated by P P Wiener, The Aim Structure of PhysicalTheory (Princeton, 1954).

(5) P Duhem, (1954 : 7)

(6) Encyclopedia Britannica, (5th Ed) “>’ 10.432...:

(7) W V O Quine, ‘Two Dogmas of Empiricism’ first publishedin: From A Logical Point Of View (Harvard University Press :1964. 2nd Ed) pp 42-43

MOGG MORGAN

36

The Curse of Merlin VIII didn’t have much time for magick during that first year atUniversity. Plans for a probationary ‘practice’ was confined to aregular correspondence with the mentor allocated to me by theshadowy figures in the OTO. My first mentor went by the nameof Fr(ater) Leviathan. His neatly typed letters were alwaysthought provoking and full of very useful information. But hewrote to me from an American military base in the Far East -his blue notepaper sometimes embossed with a map of theplace he was defending! Leviathan told me there wasn’t anawful lot going on where he was and his long nights watching aglowing console gave him plenty of time for correspondence.

Leviathan presented a bit of a challenge for a precocious anti-Vietnamwar campaigner; was I talking magick with ‘the enemy’. Not that thiswas something new - one of Crowley’s most trusted people was a MajorFuller, a specialist in tank warfare in the British Army - and incidentallyan honoured guest at Adolf Hitler’s fiftieth birthday party. It’s one thingreading that in a book when you can put it down to the ‘way it was then.’Finding yourself in an organisation that also includes a smattering ofpolicemen and military was a bit of a challenge. . . .

Later I got a UK mentor called Fr Custor (mundane name JC)from Derby where a small cell of Thelemites gathered aroundan occult fanzine called Phoenix Rising. Members of magicalorders tend to adopt a new name or motto. Perhaps its a hang-over from the time when they were secret societies. The Her-metic Order of the Golden Dawn refined this some, the namesbecoming an expression of the candidate’s inner philosophy oraim. ‘Custor’ always struct me as an odd name - the only CustorI knew was the guy who died at the battle of the Little BigHorn. Custor was part of a special group of magicians,devottees of the ancient Egyptian goddess Maat. Members ofthis particular ‘sub-cult’ within the Thelemic tradition often dohave by the magical standards, quite offbeat magical names. It’ssomething to do with the Maatian current, something self-

37

THE CURSE OF MERLIN

consciously contemporary, part of their world view wherebythey are more interested in their ‘future’ than ‘past’ self.

Sometime later Fr Custor also disappeared from my mailbox andI heard nothing more of him for more than a decade. The switchof mentor was never really explained, it was only later that Idiscovered that the Typhonian OTO was going through yetanother of its periodic purges. Frs. Leviathan, and Custor, alongwith Sor Tanith and many another by then familiar name had allgone. So letters started arriving from another unfamiliar name -Ani Asig, the only one left with the time (or ability) to corre-spond with a very lowly newbie. From my time in the CivilService came the uncomfortable recollection of how if you keptyour head down and waiting long enough your turn wouldcome.This process was called ‘bugging’s turn’.

* * *

None of the above seemed that important at the time as Isubmerged myself into the very pleasant life of a Universitystudent - remembering that I had a student grant, all my feespaid and I could even sign-on during the vacation. Those werethe days. I went back to Casnewedd for the Christmas vacationand again, probably for the last time for Easter. The weatherwas balmy and I did my best to maintain some of the relation-ship with the friends I’d left behind in Wales.

Allan was one of the strangest. Allan was an Anglican priestwho’d just returned to a Gwent parish from several years teach-ing in a Bengal theological college. We’d met at a meeting of thelocal Anti Rascist Committee and shared an interest in politics,India and theological speculation. I don’t suppose he ever reallyapproved of my growing pagan sensibility but he was alwaysvery fair minded. We had an unspoken pact that I listened tolectures from visiting theologians and he would came along tothe Christmas soiree at Cardiff ’s Theosophical Society. We satin the back row trying to be inconspicuous as we were regaledwith selected extracts from HPBs publishing masterpieces and

MOGG MORGAN

38

for light relief, a humorous monologue on Theosophical themes.Those Theosophists certainly knew how to throw a party - not.

In the Easter break Allan took me along to the smallholding/cottage of an old family friend. The sun was shining, it was anidyllic day and the old stone house was everything you couldwish for in the Gwent countryside - green rolling hills with astream running through. Turned out his friend was an astrologerand diviner of some skill. I wish I could remember her name butits so long ago now and all I can remember was the beamingface of her teenage daughter. There was something veryotherworldy about her, almost angelic.

Before I left I had my first hand-drawn horoscope - all neatlywritten in blue ink on lined paper and very incisive. I knew Iwas a Piscean but uptil then I had no real idea how much. Idon’t think there was a single earth sign to balance things out.Sun, Moon, Mercury and Venus in Pisces. So the final summa-tion was a bit of a warning - ‘This is either a saint or a terriblemess. The subject does not have one earth sign to plant his feeton the ground - [or provide] practical ability’!

As a finisher she suggested I cast coins for the I Ching oracle,another first for me although I’d read about its almost daily useby Aleister Crowley. I never told her the question but sheseemed to know the answer before I’d finished the casting. Thecoins fell six times on the same side which yield the firstHexagramme in the sequence. It’s taken me a while to fullyunderstand what it all meant but years later I would indeed joina magical order whose sacred emblem was the six unbrokenlines of the I Ching Hexgramme.

It was also from the I Ching that I divined my first magical name. . . Allan was on hand to translate my idea into Hebrew. De-spite his expertise, Allan didn’t really know too much about themagical implications - but it seemed to work out alright in theend. Perhaps that is as it should be - it takes a while to unrivalall of the ramifications of a magical name. ‘Katon Shual’ is a

39

THE CURSE OF MERLIN

fairly ‘one for one’ transcription of the I Ching’s ‘Little Fox’ - theone that is skating on thin ice but somehow manages to surviveby cunning and the judicious use of his (or her) tail. It’s alsodifficult to decide which way round the elements of the nameshould be viewed - but that also seems quite appropriate. Therewas loads more to discover - including the mysteries of thosecunning little fox spirits - the Kami.

MOGG MORGAN

40

The Curse of Merlin VIII- 1st Degree

I couldn’t really put it off any longer, the time had come toactually start. Occultists persistently call this a practice - per-haps in homage to the tantrik ‘sadhana’. The problem was thatwhen I joined the OTO knowledge of the basics of ritualmagick was fairly minimal. Those who had ritual skill either didnot want to share it or had, as I recounted in an earlier section,been driven from the Order. So guidance on actually what to dowas difficult to come by and this undoubtedly hindered myprogress.

I’m going to make a bit of a digression here to explain how thisstate of affairs had come about. Under Kenneth Grant’s leader-ship the OTO had pretty much abandoned the ritual grade workput together by Aleister Crowley. Grant felt this was hopelesslytainted by ideas from Freemasonry. Freemasonry was viewed asa belief system of the old aeon before the emergence of thenew ideas in Crowley’s channelled text Liber Al. Receivedwisdom was that in his twilight years Crowley had becomediscontented with the way the Order was working and wantedsome sort of new convenant or new Order. He’d even got so faras to give it a name - the Order of Thelema. More recentresearch shows that Crowley was in danger of throwing out thebaby with the bath water (see Martin Starr etc). Crowley wasrepeating the mistakes of many an occult leader - clinging to hisold life and trying to micromanage the work of his discipleswhen he should really have been letting them go. Old ‘gurus’ areoften surrounded by those who see an opportunty for some sortof advancement to be had from the new way. I’ve seen it somany times now.

41

THE CURSE OF MERLIN

So with hindsight I think it was a mistake to abandon all of theOrder’s rituals, especially the Gnostic Mass. But at the time Ididn’t really understand the issues. And indeed when I look nowat the Gnostic Mass I can see now how it could do with a goodrewrite and a few years back I did indeed construct a morestreamlined version. The Mass is of course the prototype for theGrand Rite of Wicca. The ritual is designed for a congregationto witness, in part or whole, the enactment of the ‘ThelemicSecret’. If you don’t have a congregation then it probably makessense to dispense with that part of the rite. But at its core is theessential act of ‘eucharist’ magick that should still be treasured.It’s taken me a while to fully understand the meaning and originof the Thelemic secret. As my understanding grew I offeredvarious insights into this in my published works, most recentlyThe Bull of Ombos.

Kenneth Grant’s premature abandonment of the Gnostic Masswas probably one of the factors that led to the reformation inthe early 1980s of the American OTO under Grady MacMurtry.The is the group widely known as the Caliphate - and if any-thing their problem is that the Gnostic Mass is all they have. AsI write this I thinking of a recent magical retreat were the onlywork on offer was a workshop on the Gnostic Mass, followedby a performance - this entire programme to be repeated oneach of the three days of the retreat. The Gnostic Mass is good,but not that good.

It was always made clear to me that the OTO I was joining didnot encourage contact between members. It’s magicalprogramme was in fact more akin to the grade structure ofanother Crowley creation - the AA - an acronymn of uncertainmeaning - perhaps Argentinum Astrum - Order of the SilverStar. The Typhonian OTO was framed around a curriculum ofindividual magical study and attainment. All this was interestingbut hardly rocket science. The ace up the sleeve for theTyphonian was the Kenneth Grant’s own extention of theThelemic mythos through a series of books and articles thatform the Typhonian trilogies.

MOGG MORGAN

42

When in the 1940s Kenneth Grant began his own career chan-neling messages from ‘another world’ it was regarded byCrowley’s successor Karl Germer as an insult to the great man’smemory and as tantamount to blasphemy. Grant was receivingmessages from a trans-plutonian planet, which he identifiedwith the star goddess Nuit. Rumour has it that this was viewedas a contradiction of the one of Thelema’s holiest texts where itsays ‘every man and every woman is a STAR’.

But Grant had captured the mood of his times better than anyof his contemporary magicians ever could or would. Grant wasobsessed with the idea that something out there is trying to tellus something using a whole variety of mediums and modes ofcommunication. Crowley, he tells us, ‘with prophetic acumen [ ]presaged the massive interest in alien phenomena which eruptedsoon after his death and which was caused by Kenneth Arnold’s‘flying saucer’ sighting [in 1947]. Whatever one’s attitude tosuch phenomena – positive, negative or indifferent – there is nojust denial of the fact that the wave initiated an era of psycho-mythology unparalleled since man conceived the idea of the‘gods’…. unless, therefore, we are to write off the entire ‘myth’as an unprecedented mass delusion, we have to accept the factthat something approaching a seemingly new and inexplicablenature began slowly and insidiously to disturb the world in theyear 1947.’. (The Ninth Arch p xix)

Acting on the assumptions that ‘many a true word spoken injest’; ‘the ‘ritualists of Grant’s ‘renegade’ Nu Isis Lodge utilizednovels and stories as other magicians might use paintings ormusical compositions to effect perichoresis and astral encoun-ters’ xxxvi Apart from the usually occult litany, H P Lovecraft,Algernon Blackwood et al Grant primary source is RichardMarsh’s novel The Beetle which contains the only publishedaccount known [to Grant] of the Children of Isis who emerge inthe channelled text in rather startling form. Kenneth Grant’snumerology was suspect, his historical sources unreliable, buthis poetical intuition was for many strangely prescient.

43

THE CURSE OF MERLIN

Without getting too far ahead of myself - I ‘ve never been thatinto the UFO hypothesis although I appreciate how it canfunction as an important metaphor that can provoke the imagi-nation, especially of artistic types. In the words of the historianMichael Wood, UFOs are false but also real, or Umberto Eco’slies that are more powerful than truth. I had more empathy forthe ideas stemming from an important sub-cult within Thelema,that of the Maatians. Their unease at the prospect of the new‘Aeon of Horus’ prophesised in Crowley’s Liber Al led them tolook forward to a future Aeon, which they hoped would beruled over by more balanced forces such as Maat, the ancientEgyptian personification of Justice. The voices that speak tothe Maatians are not from some other race - but our own per-fected future selves. Kenneth Grant had initially recorded andrejected this philosophy but had over time changed his mind.The prime source here would be his book Outside the Circles ofTime, which I was lucky enough to obtain from one ofBrighton’s remainder shops. The chapter ‘Andahadna and theMystique of Maat’ is particularly interesting. Andahadna or‘Nema’ was / is an merican priestess. As I read it her story Ifocussed on her mystical journey and skipped over Grant’sattempts to analyze the esoteric subtext which didn’t mean a lotto me at the time and I confess still don’t do a lot for me.

* * *

Well so much for theory but what do you do with it. I wasn’treally getting too much in the way of practical guidance frommy OTO mentors but there were plenty of ideas from my booksto mull over. I had gleaned that there was a particular aim forthis first degree practice - the vision of the holy guardian angel.So the practice was all about vision. There was also the ratherunusually stipulation that the work was to last nine months -which implied I was to give birth to something. Of the manybooks that guided me through this time two in particular weremost useful - the first was George Chavalier’s The Sacred Magi-cian: a ceremonial diary. The author has since comeout as new ageguru William Bloom. The second was Crowley’s own short diary

MOGG MORGAN

44

John St John. Thus primed I settled down for a fairly wearisomepractice of concentration as outlined in the first few chapters ofCrowley’s Liber ABA. Although I got there in the end, I nowknow that it could have been so much more direct.

45

THE CURSE OF MERLIN

The Curse of Merlin IX-1st Degree continued

No sooner had the ink dried on my magical oath than there wasa complication. I’d moved off campus to a room in a sharedhouse in Brighton’s ‘Kemptown’. A letter arrived from Jay, awoman with whom I’d struck up an ill fated relationship duringmy second term. She was majoring in French and spent a lot oftime studying abroad including Switzerland. When I first met JayI quickly learnt about her complex lifestyle au pairing in a Swissski resort. She’d been having an affair with the married owner ofa cafe / ski-school. The new term was about to begin and shewas returning but had no place to stay. She was desperate andinsisted that she would have to share my room for a while - wehad that kind of relationship. It was very tempting to abort mymagical practice. But then there were these words from Ken-neth Grant running through my head ‘there never is a good timefor magick.’ So not for the first time I told myself to just get onwith it. ‘Distractions’ like Jay were like the demons that rise upfrom the Id whose sole purpose is to make you change yourmind. Jay was far from demonic and in the end we came to anarrangement over the tiny living space - and I mean tiny.

It was probably all bullshit really. I guess she really just wantedto be with me but couldn’t bring herself to say that. She was myfirst real grown-up girlfriend and I suspect it was pretty muchthe same for her. We both had our hangups - conditioning thatneeded to be undone. Like many women of the time she wasfull of self doubt. And me, well yes, I had my own demons.Magick helped me cultivate a ‘devil may care attitude to life’, itmade me a risk taker, much more willing to experiment and atsame time not worry too much about the consequences. That’swhy we messed the whole thing up right from the start. Jay

MOGG MORGAN

46

played a big part in the way I developed during my first falteringsteps into the magical life. I guess we were both quite androgy-nous and though we didn’t know it at the time, our interactioncontributed towards the emergence of a new modern version ofthe older Kaula cult of Ardanari. Some of the fruits of this timefound their way in largely undigested form into my book SexualMagick. Something you wont read in Crowley is that when itcomes to relationships with women, kindness can get you a longway. Last time I saw Jay she was on the point of ordination as aBuddhist nun so I guess my influence wasn’t all bad. I’ve noidea what she’s doing now but I wish her and Buddhism well.Perhaps I have earned some merit from helping set her feet onthe Buddhist path. There’s more than a little bit of Jay in mygreat unread novel The English Mahatma and even more in Pan’sRoad.

The appearance of Jay in this narrative definately raised thepossibility of sexual magick. Even as a comparative novice Iwas already ready to express my views on the topic. There againif you wait until you can offer a considered opinion you’llprobably never do it. A typical me of the time went along to theJewish Society to listen to a debate on the topic of Gay rights inJudaism. The orthodox Rabbi had showed but his debatingpartner couldn’t make it. The organisers came out and asked ifanyone was willing to debate with the visiting Rabbi. I wasalways up for an argument whether or not I understood theissues. And these issues were becoming a bit of an obsession.

But what I keep thinking about now is a paragraph I read inDavid White’s monograph The Kiss of the Yogini, a study of‘Tantrik Sex’ in its south Asian context. A Yogini is a wildfemale animal spirit worshipped in the secret rites of theKaulas. The eucharist in these rites is sometimes referred to asandrogynous. Androgyny is sometimes seen as one of the goals ofmagick. One of the things I did learn during my interactionswith Jay was that androgyny or fusion of the sexes can bemanifest in any and every kind of relationship Hence amongstthe Kaulas some elixirs are androgynous and some gods such as

47

THE CURSE OF MERLIN

Ardhanari are androgynous. The goal of androgyny does notimply any particular sexual orientation. Perhaps this is why themagician often does switch genders or orientation.

* * *

I’m probably going to have to dig around in the loft to find myold magical record of that year. I just can’t remember too muchabout it. I did once show it to another of my magical partnersand she said it was one of the most boring things she’d everread. Oh well - maybe it was true that it only passed muster atthe OTO because they were desperate or as another initiatecalled Phil once confided to me - out of pity. So I did eventuallymeet other members of the OTO including scarey geordie Phil -bitch. Actually I quite liked Phil. I thought of him as a realmagician and indeed last time I heard from him he told meecstatically he had his angel.

During that first probationary year I enrolled into a yoga class. Itturned out to be one of my better decisions. My teacher Wendyhad trained with Iyenga at his Puna ashram, a place she saidresembled a medieval torture chamber. Although Iyenga yoga isvery famous there isn’t really a lot to recommend it apart fromthe fame of its celebrated teacher. Iyenga had grown fat andcynical with age and was probably quite bored with having toteach the same stuff every day of his life. Like every Indianguru he was grooming one of his over-induged children to takeover the family business. Wendy was full of amusing storiesabout the worst excesses of the Iyenga clan, like how whensupervising a class in headstands he would kick out with hisfoot anyone not in the required position. She still bore the scarsof his horny, necrotic toenails. And more seriously - strictIyenga types tend to make their students hold positions far toolong - which can lead to neck and joint injury.

Wendy was our guide and bullshit filter through all this. She’dmellowed her style, integrating material from western insightssuch as Alexander Technique. The way she combined different

MOGG MORGAN

48

body magick styles was way ahead of its time. She told us thatthose so-called gurus who refuse to teach menstruating womenare chauvinists who hide behind tradition. It was a very ‘tantrik’class. After each session we all went to the student union bar fora few beers, followed by dancing at the disco til the early hours.We were all so charged up and fit - it really was magic.

Most Thelemites think that they can learn all they need to knowabout yoga from reading Crowley; but how wrong that is. Swal-low your pride and you can learn so much more from a mumsyteacher at the local community centre. One thing Crowley wasright about was that yoga is one of the basic skills of magick.Another friend Mahindra had a good way of putting it - ‘yoga,(or was it magick?) is preparation for making love.’ WhatCrowley forgot was that you can’t relax and tense a muscle atthe same time. Magick still lacks its own bespoke yoga system.None of the available styles quite fits the bill - either too NewAge or too materialistic. In my opinion a good teacher of bodymagick could go a long way. Some sort of combination of yogaor Ti Chi with magical visioning techniques. Whatever way youlook at it magick requires a warm-up - which is maybe whatMahindra was getting up with his preparations. Some of themost intense gnostic states I’ve achieved have been in thatwarm afterglow following a good workout.

* * *

I caught the last train back to Brighton after a hard day slavingover a hot keyboard. My mind was straining to accomodate allthe new ideas. My body was stretched in the yoga class; I’ddrunk too much beer; smoked too many cigarettes, if I waslucky smoked a little dope, stayed on the dance floor until thelast waltz, then back to my bedsite. Many, many times my diaryreads, did the banishing, sat down to meditate in front of theshri yantra then passed out; crawling into bed with you knowwho. There were always so many dreams, I was good at thedreaming. Uninspiring as it was my meditations did providesome sort of back beat to the other comings and goings in my

49

THE CURSE OF MERLIN

life. But I knew it wouldn’t be quite enough - I needed some-thing else - I needed to go on retreat.

.

MOGG MORGAN

50

The Curse of Merlin X -‘I’m a potato’

Memories rise up like bubbles in a liquid. Something,perhaps the transcendental ego, sees it all. The trick is to justwitness, neither analysing nor suppressing. When the‘bubbles’ reach the top they evaporate and Mind becomesclearer. I read that somewhere, maybe in Vivekananda but itwas at odds with the stuff I was learning in my philosophicaltraining which often spoke of the fallacies of the ‘ghost in themachine’. The machine is our physical body, the ghost the spiritinside. But I couldn’t really see what was wrong with the idea ofa ghost in a machine. Crowley wrote how you are not aware ofcertain internal organs until they go wrong. So for example someamputees experience something called a phantom limb? Orpeople seeking gender reassignment speak of a disjunctionbetween their internal sense of themselves and the physicalshell?

There’s a funny little story running round in my head concerningmy first encounter with Sufis. There quite a strong undercurrentof Sufism flowing through the works of Aleister Crowley andthe Golden Dawn starting with the mantra ‘ARARITA’. Mostmagicians encounter this mantra very early on as it forms asignificant part of the Hexagramme ritual, although it might notbe immediate obvious from whence it originates. The beginnerin magick is recommended to read Liber O which I presume tobe based on one of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn’s‘flying rolls’.

These days, my brother, the Sufi adept and Thelemite PayamNarbarz, has made this part of his daily prayers. For the fullexplanation of the mantra you have to read a slightly lesser

51

THE CURSE OF MERLIN

known ‘Holy book’ - ‘LIBER DCCCXIII VEL ARARITA SUBFIGURA DLXX’. It is significant that this text actually beginswith and amplifies the meaning of the mantra, here restored toits Arabic original:

Payam tells me that “The Mantra is one of the surahs in theQuran

(surah 112- IHKLAAS- The Unity) :

1- QUL HU-WALLAAHU ‘AHAD2- ‘ALLAAHUS-SAMAD3- LAM YALIO, WA LAM YUULAD;4- WALAM YAKUL-LA-HUUKUFUWAN ‘AHAD

translation:1- He is Allah, the One!2- Allah the eternally besought of all!3- He begetteth not nor was begotten.4- And there is none comparable unto him.”

* * *

Back in 1979 my yoga teacher Wendy must have gotten wind ofmy occult interests and took me along to a meeting in whatturned out to be a very cold loft in Lewes. About a dozen of usstruggled up the ladder to sit at the feet of Rashid, a visitingSufi sheikh. I suppose I was expecting something more exoticthat a western convert but he seemed nice enough. He was a bigoverweight man with a manner that in a previous life I mighthave called ‘camp’. A great many gay men and women aredrawn to the spiritual life in all its styles.

I wasn’t the first to climb that ladder and soon the loft was quitecrowded when without warning the meditation began.

Rashid’s fine voice boomed out -

MOGG MORGAN

52

Allaaaaah,

Illaaaaaah

Allaaaaaah

As usual my first reaction was shock expressing itself as thedesire to laugh. It was the first time I’d ever heard someonevibrating ‘zikker’ or dhikr’ (mantra, literally ‘aremembrance’). I suppressed the desire to laugh as the master’schanting continued for an interminable 100 repetitions. We wereobviously meant to join in but this was less successful. I wasn’tthe only beginner in the room. After what seemed like an agethe chanting stopped. Silence decended on the room and withour minds spinning, we continued meditating as best wecould in private silence punctuated by the odd shuffle andcough.

The strangest of images popped into my head. Later, when themeditation was done Rashid asked each of us to share what wehad experienced - what you might call the bread and butter ofgroup meditation. When it came to me turn I blurted out:

‘I felt like a potato’

Wry smiles went round the room. Rashid seemed a bit lost fromwords and eventually responded with an anodyne ‘just persevereand you’ll get there in the end.’

It takes a while to find the correct words to express these kindsof experience. I had changed during the chanting, feeling some-times very large, sometimes extremely tiny. I did feel like avegetable - a tuber incubating in the dark earth. It was a pro-gression of sorts - the vegetative mind state can be viewed ayogic trance - although to be fair the normal metaphor would bea tree or plant. In Hatha yoga there are various vegetative posescalled Tree.

We sat in referential silence sipping tea and eating brownies. No

53

THE CURSE OF MERLIN

one really wanted to initiate conversation. Those further up thepecking order did their best to keep the conversation going. Oneof them asked after Rashid’s future plans.

‘Oh’ he said, ‘I’ve just bought some property in New YorkState. I’m going to open a guest house. I think I will call itthe Sufi Shores Hotel.’

When middle class New Age types start talking about theirmortgages you know the meditation is defininely over. We wereback to normal mode - from the sublime to the ridiculous.

But something had still changed for me. University campus wasvery beautiful, great care having been taken to build it in har-mony with undullating hills. Many of the trees were very oldand had not been uprooted during the constructionprocess. Now when I walk across the campus there was some-thing different about those trees. I can’t quite explain it - some-thing alive and because it was winter, something deep down inthe cold earth just waiting to burst forth. I hadn’t felt that wayfor a long time.

- - -

Note

For more of Payam’s stuff see:

http://www.geocities.com/nabarz110/theseethingcauldron1

http://www.agoron.com/~clavis/midsum.html

eg: In ‘Great Satan Eblis’ by Dr.J.Nurbakhsh the view of manySufi masters on Eblis as a noble figure is beautifully discussed.The path Eblis is taken to reach Divine union with ‘Allah’ andcan be seen by orthodox Muslims as left-hand path. In Sufism

MOGG MORGAN

54

Eblis is not seen as the God’s arch adversary, Eblis because ofhis love for God would not prostrate before Adam, he is ajealous lover who rather be punished by God than share himwith those of clay. Such radical ideas were taken up by westernoccultist; In 1910 the book entitled ‘The scented Garden ofAbdullah the Satirist of Shiraz’ (Persian: Bagh-I-Muattar HajAbdullah Shirazi) was published. The author behind this wasA.Crowley, who was fascinated by the Persian language andrevelled in the ideas of Sufis travelled widely in Middle East aswell as India. Haj-Abdullah Shirazi is a character created byA.Crowley after his learning of the modern Persian language toconvey his ideas based on Sufi symbols. One traditional Sufi sdescribed his book “someone splattering his ego in the garden,simply pornography, which lacked anything of any depth”. Iguess being able to annoy local mystics and playing the devilsadvocate is perhaps the main consistency in his life. Thescented garden of Abdullah consists of 42 ghazzals (Persianpoetic verses) and short stories, some of which refer to his malelover back in Cambridge. Even a century after their first publi-cation, due to their highly erotic nature orthodox Muslims cansee them as obscene and blasphemous. However A.Crowley wasnot the first westerner who invented his own Sufi poet. SirFrancis Burton published in 1880 Sufi couplets of Haji AbduEl-Yezdi: The Kasidah of Haji Abdu El-Yezdi: ‘A lay of higherorder’.

. . .

In Germany in 1902 the Ordo Templi Orients (Order of theOriental Templars) was founded by Karl Kellner who during hisextensive travel in the East was initiated by the Arab FakirSoliman Ben Aifha, and the Indian Yogis Bhima Sen Pratap andSri Mahatma Agamya Guru Paramahamsa. The fusion of Sufismand Tantra within OTO kept on developing. Soon after thepublication of ‘Scented Garden of Abdulah’ A.Crowley wascontacted by OTO and travelled to Germany, he was initiatedinto OTO in 1912.

55

THE CURSE OF MERLIN

The left hand path (LHP) philosophy within the OTO kept ongrowing and found an even wider audience when GeraldGardner the British founder of Wicca was initiated into 9thgrade of OTO. Gardner himself had travelled greatly in theEast and was a Sufi initiate according to ‘Witches-anencyclopædia of paganism and magic’ by Michael Jordan.Gardner was also a friend of Idris Shah, the most prominentSufi writer in the west. Idris Shah wrote Gardner’s biography‘Witch’ under the alias Jack Bracelin, who was another mutualfriend. It could be suggested that Shah didn’t use his own nameas he probably didn’t want to be associated publicly with Wicca,while Jack Bracelin was already doing a great deal to catch theeye of the media. Shah’s Octagon press published the biographyin 1960. Idris Shah’s proposal in his classic book ‘Sufis’ (1964)of the influence of Sufism on medieval Witch cults in Europevia Spain, was probably inspired by his workings with Gardner.Shah’s proposed number of potential Sufi influences in themedieval period magical lore, to name a few: Moorish (orMorris, which is disputed) dance, witch’s athame (blood letter),Rosicrucians, the Knight Templars and Baphomet.

It is fascinating that several of the central figures in the revivalof neo-paganism were Sufi initiates. The influence of Sufism onpaganism is still continued as seen in the work of AndrewChumbly and his branch of ‘Sabbatical Witchcraft’. Chumbly’sbook ‘Qutub’ was published in 1995, and consists of 73 shortgazzals. Qutub is Sufi word for the magical Pole, or point ofspiritual orientation. The book contains many poems andcalligraphy based on Sufism.

Maybe I got the wrong end of the stick regarding the herstory ofneo-paganism, but then there are people who really think theNecronomicon is an ancient text, written by Arab mage, AbdualAlhazred!

MOGG MORGAN

56

Curse of Merlin XI -Cunning little fox

'It is god's nature to be without a nature. Humanitybeing made in the divine image, affords a clue to themystery of god. To get at the core of God at his or hergreatest, one must first get into the core of oneself atthe least, for noone can know god who has not firstknown themself.'

Meister EckhartEvery morning I took the Eastbourne train from Brightonstation for the fifteen minute ride to the University stop atFalmer. I often meditated before setting out as I'd read some-where that the mind is clearer at the beginning of the day. It'sjust very difficult to keep awake. The ancient Egyptians, if theyever did meditate, did so in the small hours just before dawn.This twilight zone is the heliacal rising they called the Duat.

On the busy little toast-rack train I rarely saw anyone I knew formore than a few days in succession. Mostly the early morningcommuters were wrapped up in their own worlds, readingmorning papers or a swanky new novel or magazine. The shriekof the guard's whistle sent the ubiquitous seagulls screechinginto the air; doors were slammed shut and the train drifted awayfrom the platform. The seven hills of the city soon give way torolling downland. Perched up on the highest of those hills wasthe grandstand of Brighton race course. I loved to see it hover-ing there at the most unlikely of angles, before allowing the restof Brighton's townscape to slide by unobserved. Time to readmy book. This day I had with me Richard Wilhelm's translationof the I Ching. I'd only read a few lines when a women said'Now you amaze me that you'd be reading that.'

57

THE CURSE OF MERLIN

I looked up and recognised a pretty girl called Leah from myphilosophy seminar.

'Really,' I said, 'how so?'

'Well you are always so rationalist in the seminars, I wouldn'thave said you had any interest at all in metaphysics. I've obvi-ously got you wrong.'

I shrugged, wondering if there really was such a contradictionbetween rationalism and mysticism. Perhaps all thelemitesdisplay that kind of tension between the 'aims of religion andthe methods of science.'

'What do you think of that?' she said, indicating my book.

'Oh I don't know, I haven't really had time to read it yet.' I saidpointedly

Which you think might have detered her from saying more butno way. She sat beside me. 'That's OK,' she said, 'I know allabout it. Let's do a reading. You're supposed to use yarrowstalks but coins do just as well.'

'Yarrow stalks for the agricultural age, coins for the industrial,maybe dice for the new one.'

'What?' she said

'Oh nothing,' I said, 'just thinking out loud. Do go on.'

'You're taking the piss.'

'No I'm not.'

She took three coins from her purse and invited me to castthem. I threw them onto seat opposite, still warm from whereshe'd been. They fell: 3 heads, 2 heads & a tail, 2 heads and atail, 3 tails, 3 heads, 3 tails.

MOGG MORGAN

58

'Whew,' she said, 'loads to read. "Nine in the third place meansthe well is cleared, but noone drinks from it. But you could ifthe king were clear-minded". That's tricky - but wells are goodthings "whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him willnever thirst; the water that I shall give him will become in him aspring of water welling up to eternal life.etc etc" that kind ofthing.'

She quickly scanned a little more from the book. 'Ah!' she said.

'What?'

'The reason you arn't drinking is because the well is beingprepared . . . cleaned and lined if you like. But in the well is acold clear spring from which you could drink if you wanted.'

I wasn't sure about the way this conversation was going. Wasshe making some sort of innuendo? The train trundled alonginto Stanmer, the next stop would be Falmer for the university. Iwondered if the other passengers were earwigging our conversa-tion.

'Shall I go on?' she said

'Yes, but be quick, we're almost there.'

'You could draw from the well without hindrance. It is depend-able and would do you good.'

'I'll have to think about that one.'

'Don't leave it too long, sit on the fence too long and you endup with. . . '

'Iron in the soul.' I completed the little philosopher's joke.

'Oh hang on', she said, 'I forgot, there's more.'

'There's isn't time. We're almost there.'

59

THE CURSE OF MERLIN

'Yes there is, Just quickly - 'There's a little fox - it could be you.He's almost there - crossing over a river or something, walkingon thin ice - using his tail to test things. If you want to get allthe way - to succeed - you must be a cunning little fox. . . here'she said, closing the book with a snap and thrusting it into myhand. 'Must dash. I've a nine oclock tutorial.'

Indeed the train had come to a stop and almost everyone surgedthrough the doors. Leah was already several yards ahead, shetook one last look back over her shoulder and called 'see youlater.'

MOGG MORGAN

60

Curse of Merlin XII :'A stone to trouble the livingstream . . '

Since that time I've wrestled with the issue of divination. Somemight say that divination reveals a certain fatalism about life.But I'm not so sure about that. I discovered that one of themost common methods of divination in the ancient world was adice oracle. The Mahabharata has one famous example of itsrole in an internecine struggle for supremacy. The heroYudhisthira had hitherto shown no interest in gambling until thepoint when he is compelled to participate in a deadly dicematch. But that is just one example of dice games that seem tocrop up all over the ancient world. My future-self eventuallypublished my research as the 'Tantrik Knuckle Bone oracle' in abook entitled Tantra Sadhana.

The point about dice and any other oracle is that you are puttingthe final decision into the lap of the gods. Although there arenotable examples of where that leads to disaster there are otherexamples where it seems to work out OK. It's probably handyto be able to allow a bit of chaos into the equation. Some mightobject that oracles of the past were manipulated by amachiavellian priesthood. Perhaps - although even controlfreaks get it wrong sometimes, thing fall apart, things just refuseto be controlled.

In the Mahabharata there is much talk of Dharma. This is adifficult word to define - some say Duty others that it is like theThelemic ‘True Will’. What ever way you look, all these con-cepts, Dharma etc have some connection with casting the dice?

61

THE CURSE OF MERLIN

Ancient dice were called talus or knucklebones. They usuallyhad four sides in which case they were elongated - hence thename knucklebone. Some dice oracles from Egypt have sixsides. I favour the four sided knucklebone that in the correctsequence yields sixty-four permutations. It's safe to assume thatmagical adepts of the past understood the meaning of eachpermutation much as modern day Ifa priests know the 120 oddpermutations of their oracle. The magicians of the past were inthe habit of internalising certain key pieces of occult knowl-edge. Nowadays we might be content to understand the under-lying principles and fall back on a handbook or crib, or as JanFries discussed in his Living Midnight develope an intuitiveapproach.

For those who would like to try to memorise the throws - hereare the first four permutions:

444: Mantra - (Auspicious)

333: The Nine - (Good)

222: The Turban - (Good and bad)

111: Kali - (Mostly bad).

MOGG MORGAN

62

The Curse of Merlin XIIINext day I looked out for Leah on the little train. I walkedthrough a couple of carriages but couldn't see her. Somewherein the back of my mind I had a recollection that there was a wayof locating lost people using magick - but for the moment Ididn't really know how to do that. When I did eventually sitdown the guy on the seat opposite looked up from his book asif to start a conversation.

'Not reading the I Ching this morning?' he said.

'No, not today.' I replied, although perhaps the puzzled look onmy face also said how I wondered how he knew so much aboutmy reading habits.

He apologized saying that he couldn't help but overhear mydiscussion of the previous day. He seemed a nice enough chapbut I couldn't help but wish that someone other than he hadcaught the same train twice. 'My name is Emlyn' he said, al-though he didn't attempt a handshake. Back in 1979 people hadgotten out of the habit of shaking hands.

'Are you serious about all that occult stuff ?' he said.

'Well yeah,' I said, rather lamely. Inside I'm wondering whetherhe was some sort of religious nut, which is funny, because that'swhat I was, some sort of religious nut. Or maybe Emlyn was anacademic from the University - but there again he looked tooyoung for that.

'So how serious are you?'

'Very serious.' I replied

'Would you like to join an occult order?' he said

I wasn't sure if that was an offer or just a straight question.

63

THE CURSE OF MERLIN

'Well as it happens, I'm already a member of an occult order, orrather,' I said, correcting myself, 'I'm a probationer for one.'

'Really,' he said, 'And which one is that?'

I wasn't really sure if it was a good idea to say but in the end Itold him. He smiled in a manner dangerously close to beingsupercilious.

'That's not a real occult order,' he said.

It was my stop so I got off. Emlyn kept his seat in the nowlargely deserted compartment as the train moved off in thedirection of Eastbourne. I slunk off for a coffee before a tenoclock lecture.

* * *

A week or so later and I was again on the train when Emlyn satdown opposite. He obviously had to knack of how to bumpinto people accidentally on purpose.

'Ah, he said, 'I'm so glad I bumped into you again. I enjoyed ourlittle chat about the mysteries although I wanted to apologise ifI was in anyway rude about your esteemed holy order.'

'That's OK,' I said, 'I wasn't that bothered.'

'Good,' he said, 'Please put it down to my own zealous nature.I've just joined the International Order of Kabbalists and wasbeing a bit proprietorial.'

'That's strange,' I said, 'I'm justing reading about them inCrowley's Magick without Tears.'

'Really, I can't believe it had anything to do with him!'

'Maybe I'm reading it wrong; confusing you with the Order ofthe Hidden Masters. He didn't have a good word to say for themeither.'

MOGG MORGAN

64

'Touché!'

'Well let's face it, Crowley hated everyone, anyone who was arival. And during the war there seem to have been a several rivaloccult orders, some of which are still around and some thatseem to have died a death. I only associate them because Ipicked up a prospectus for your International Order ofKabbalists at the Atlantis Bookshop. But come to think of it,during the war Michael Houghton, aka Michael Juste, was theowner and he ran a lodge of the Order of Hidden Masters untilJean Michaud, the head of the Order, ran off with his wife!'

'So you did consider joining the IOK?'

'I did but there was something in the prospectus that at the timeI found jarred. All that stuff about loyalty to King and country -it just wasn't me - just too conservative.'

Emlyn interupted 'Hah!' he said, 'Well there's an idea whosetime has come!'

'Yeah Yeah Yeah'

'Are you forgetting what happened just a few months ago on the4th May?' he said

'I've been doing my best to forget all that. Do you really think ithas any spiritual significance?'

'Perhaps that's going a bit too far but I've been trained to atleast consider the possibility that it might be some sort of shiftin the zeitgeist. Oh and before you say it, don't fall into the trapof those crazy types who start thinking they are somehow thecause - that's just ego gone mad. No, its more a case that peopleengaged in magick or other spiritual activities tend to becomesensitive to changes in the underlying spirit of an age.'

It was true - I hadn't really thought about it too much up untilEmlyn mentioned it. My probationary practice for the OTO did

65

THE CURSE OF MERLIN

indeed coincide with so many life changes - change of home,chance of occupation to name but two. Of course I was indenial and didn't want to acknowledge that the new governmentwould also bring big changes. The triumph in the May electionof the Thatcherite 'counter-revolution' was a decisive moment.And during that year one of the other secret movers of historywas taking root. It was the early days of a disease and moralpanic all rolled up in one - AIDS.

The train was stopping at the University. I gathered up mythings and made for the door.

'Shall we arrange to meet again?' Emlyn called.

'Follow the Tao.' I replied. Seeing him looking puzzled I added -'if we're meant to meet we will.'

It may seem odd to leave things so much to chance. I wasconvinced if Emyln wanted to find me he could. As it happenedI didn't see him again for quite a while.

MOGG MORGAN

66

Curse of Merlin XIV

I was beginning to wonder whether a pattern was emerging viathese unexpected encounters with strangers. Each of them hadpresented me a little bit of magical information, sometimesknowledge. Would magical gnosis fall into line with the domi-nant modality of our age - probability? Probability is knowledgearising from tiny, seemingly random unrelated pieces of infor-mation.

Back to the meditation – eyes half shut, my gaze gently fallingon the yantra that lies on the floor in front of me. Posture good,breathing good, very soon I will lose all awareness as to whethermy eyes are open or shut. The outer and inner worlds will beginto merge, and if I am very fortunate I will be distracted by apleasant inner vision.

It's only when you do this kind of thing that you realise justhow many distractions the physical world can contrive. It's justpeople moving about at their daily business; the tiny noises abuilding makes as it expands and settles throughout the courseof the day. I know by now that to become too fixated on these'distractions' is fatal to ones inner equilibrium. It's best to tryand get used to things – but to hold onto ones resolution re-quires a knack. 'Just let it flow over me. I will not try to control,control is fatal.' Any effort at imposing control has the veryopposite effect. It's almost as if other beings intuitively knowwhat's going on and make a beeline for the door. Soon 'they' willbe hammering away.

There's a movement in the corner of my eye; that is to say atthe periphery of my visual field. This has now happened somany times that I know the drill. It's just my mind playing tricks.The important thing is to maintain an attitude of 'awake aware-ness'. Which is not quite the same as ignoring whatever it might

67

THE CURSE OF MERLIN

be. Awake awareness means letting the sense data flow throughme and whatever else I do – I must not move my head to have agood look..

But the movement continues. Maybe it's the little musclesaround my eyes – if they are twitching again as they did before– that could give me the illusion of movement in the visualfield. I read somewhere how these are 'ideomorphic signals' andthat they can be viewed as communications from the 'DeepMind'. A while back I asked my mentor if he had any insightinto that. Adopted a reassuring air he told me not to worry.

I'm hoping things are going to calm down soon. But far from itas I hear more of the little scratching noises. It takes just aboutall the effort I can muster not to take a good look. Then theystop. I'm pleased with myself, not to have given in. My eyesopen slightly and there on the yantra is a tiny mouse. I guess itmust be a real mouse that has scuttled under my door and nowit's sitting on its haunches enjoying a grooming session no doubtbefore moving off again into the fluff and debris beneath mywardrobe

* * *

Pitch black was that room, illumined by a single shaft of light.In a corner a slow-burning wick faintly glowed. Vaughan took along slither of wood and lit from it the thick tallow candles. Aroom seldom cleaned but cosy from the constant heat of afurnace. A room lined on one side with large oak shelves thatsagged wildly, bowed under the weight of the books stuffedevery which way. A large table ordered with objects. A book layopen next to a large piece of slate, pottery bowls, bottles,knives and instruments for grinding. A chair stood near a largeburning glass upon a wooden frame.

That night he would bank the fire higher, remove the lid and sit'til dawn observing closely the subtle changes passing over theiridescent liquid within the crucible.

MOGG MORGAN

68

Vaughan pulled a book into the candle's light. 'Well' he said,again wrinkling his nose, 'smells like my fellow tenants havepissed over you. Are you still here? Thank you! Your piss is saidto be the best defence against the worm!'

He fell to reading the book, taking an occasional swig from ahalf-finished flagon of cider. He read on for a time beforedosing. In the stillness there came the scratching sound of asmall bird or rodent. Vaughan shifted slightly and set his eyesupon the tiny creature. The mouse, for that's what it was, didnot seem alarmed by Vaughan's presence. 'My friend' saidVaughan, 'I must thank you for the attention you lavish on myhumble library; you are more conscientious then any clerk. Theytell me that in the miraculous continent of India, the elephantgod of learning rides on a mouse. An elephant never forgets orso they also say. That same elephant uses a broken tusk as aquill. I have even heard said that there are churches there,devoted solely to the worship of your fellows, and that no-onedares even to shoo them away for fear of sacrilege. So I am inexalted company tonight.'

'Tell me mouse, whilst you were caring for my library, did youperchance read? I wondered if you might express an opinion onthe relative merits of some of these esteemed authors. What ofthis one, the blessed Avicenna, Liber Canonis De MedicinisCordialibus, a faithful translation or so I am told, from the Arabtongue into the Latin? This book is a great favourite, one of myoldest and most treasured. From this book I learnt the mysteriesof mercury. See, here, where I have marked the page in silverpoint, all those years ago. "What is mercury?" asks the sage, aquestion I have often asked myself and am still no wiser afterall my experiments.' "One kind" he says "is obtained by purify-ing its mineral; another is extracted from crystals by fire, just asgold and silver are obtained. When pure it has the colour ofcinnabar." Aye yes' Vaughan went on 'I have prepared thequicksilver myself with the aid of this glass and the summersun. Burning the mineral and brushing aside the metal with apigeon's feather. But I bore you, do please take the floor.'

69

THE CURSE OF MERLIN

The mouse was silent. Vaughan went on 'cat got your tongue,oh perhaps I should not mention that. Forgive my lapse inmanners. You must be a learned mouse, spending so much timepissing on my books. Here is one you haven't seen for sure.Abbot Synesius, a learned Greek, a poet so I hear, but this littletreasure is truly that. Wondrous stuff, if only I'd seen this tenyears ago.'

Again silence, apart from the sound of clogs clattering acrosscobbles in the yard outside. The rodent scurried away. Vaughan,now silent, set his eye to a tiny crack in the doorframe, throughwhich he peered out into the yard.

'Father Vaughan! Is that you I can hear in there? I've to take thedish back. Ma sends this pie for your supper, shall I leave it?'

'There's mercury,' Vaughan whispers to himself, his eye still atthe peephole. 'No wait Thomas if you would.'

In an instant Vaughan stands blinking in the late afternoon sun.

Peering over Vaughan's shoulder, the boy, says: 'Looks like nightin there father?'

Vaughan ignores him and makes for the kitchen, the boy follow-ing. 'You're limping bad today father.'

'Yes...the gouty humour has fallen into my leg.'

'At least you've a good appetite father!' he says, nodding in thedirection of the plate, 'licked clean by the cat I'd say.'

'I'd prefer a mouse.'

'What's that father?'

'Oh no matter, yes an appetite today.'

'Must be funny not having someone to do for you at your age.Do you never wish to marry?'

MOGG MORGAN

70

Vaughan's eyes filled with tears. Thomas remembered howVaughan's wife Rebecca was dead seven years of a fever.

'Tis a wonder with all your cunning you could not save her, theysays...'

'Yes!' Vaughan broke in 'it was a pity, but I must get on.'

Thomas grabbed the plate, flushing to his hair line. 'I be offthen'.

As soon as the door is secured, Vaughan went up to his cot andslept until awoken by the sound of Thomas's voice: 'I got peatfor you, and mam left a jug of soup.'

Vaughan took a lamp, for it was dark outside, and held it upwhilst the farm-boy shouldered his way into the laboratory.

'It's warm in here' he said, setting down a sack.

Not long after the boy's departure, Vaughan himself went outand limped across the yard to the kitchen, taking up the breadand jug of soup left there. Back in the laboratory he lockshimself in for the night.

He sipped the cooling soup. His eyes were smiling as he tore agobbet of bread, dunking this before propelling it into hismouth. Vaughan scraped his chair closer to the book. Throughthe corner of his eye he saw the mouse on the table, nibblingcrumbs of bread.

'Ah! Forgive my manners, here take some of this.' he said,breaking off a few more crumbs for the visiting rodent. 'Youhave that look in your eyes Do I detect disapproval? Thoserules of yours...how many times have I prayed for forgivenessfor my errors of the past, especially with you know who. Whatof my wife you ask. Yes what of my wife…I still miss her…look here for yourself… on this note in the margin of my book:'I went to bed after prayers and hearty tears and had this dream

71

THE CURSE OF MERLIN

towards daybreak. I dreamed I was in some obscure, largehouse, where there were a tumultuous raging people, amongstwhom I knew not any but my brother Henry. My dear wife wasthere with me, but having conceived some discomfort at theirdisorder, I quitted the place, and went out, leaving my dear wifebehind me. As I went out I considered with myself, and calledto mind some small, at least seeming, unkindnesses I had usedtowards my dear wife in her lifetime, and the remembrance ofthem being odious to me I wondered with myself that I shouldleave her behind me and neglect her company, having now theopportunity to converse with her after death...'

'I must stop reading this or I shall bring down a melancholyhumour on myself and spoil my light mood this night. My headis quite swimming. Shall I be damned? ...You don't answer...I amadmonished by your silence…ha!'

The mouse scuttled off, startled by the sound of Vaughan'sexclamation. 'Yes now, I must not forget that.' Vaughan rosefrom his seat to replenish the fuel for the alchemical stove. Hetook two pieces of black peat from the sack. The slow burningfire banked, he drew the chair near and removed the lid fromthe crucible. As before his nose wrinkled slightly as a whiff ofgas escaped. But he was pleased to see a slight but tangiblechange. He settled himself for a few hours watching thescummy surface of the crucible's contents.

Time passed and it seemed to his sensitive eyes that the scumhad completely detached itself from the sides of the pot toform in the centre an island of black crystalline substance. Themass of the liquid was now white and the amorphous island ofcrystal a very dark black. 'If my eyes do not deceive me a crisisis imminent' he said out loud. Quite fascinated by what he saw,Vaughan made no effort to move. So fixed was his body that themuscles were frozen in their attitudes. The oil from the lampburnt low, his reading lamp grew faint and guttered. As he gazedintently on the surface, the whiteness of the liquid grew evermore pure and luminescent, the blackness ever darker. The

MOGG MORGAN

72

apparently random shapes of the black and the white had bysome trick of the light, began to resemble two mythologicalbeasts, each entwined within the other. The white was a lion,prostrated and wrapped around itself grasping its own tail, andsurrounded by this creature, a great winged eagle of purestblack crystal. Vaughan blinked involuntarily, causing the effectto fade but not disappear. The hours passed in the dimly litroom as the black crystalline eagle began a further transforma-tion, a red tinge steadily replacing the black until the entire bodyand wings of the eagle became red. Time passed and the red-ness deepened.

After several hours of intense watching Vaughan's concentra-tion began to waver. Pain shot up and down his back and neck.His feet were numb. He sat another hour, dazzled and fasci-nated by the unfolding mystery of the lion and the eagle, 'til histwisted stomach rumbled and his neck became unbearably stiff.

At last Vaughan replaced the lid on the crucible. Long momentsof agony before he was able to open the door to the laboratoryand step out into the evening air. The sky had cleared to revealgorgeous night. Vaughan was greedy for one last lungful of airbefore forcing himself back to the open ledger on his desk.'Write it up,' he told himself. His pen scratching across the paperfor at least an hour. At the end he stared intently at the page,thinking of that transcendent image of the white lion and redeagle, iridescent and glorious. His heart expanded within hischest, filled with natural compassion for all creatures. Then heremembered the fuel for the stove, stood up with a jerk andstrode over to the open sack to extract two further lumps ofblack peat. He stopped an instant weighing up in his mindwhether to finish the experiment now, to consolidate what hehad learnt, or to press on. Vaughan again drew his chair up tothe crucible.

* * *

'Yaaaaaooooooooll.' It was the neighbour's ginger tom yowling

73

THE CURSE OF MERLIN

outside my window. Maybe it knew there was a mouse in thehouse. It's calling had broken my train of thought. 'I wonderwhat that was?' I say out loud. I did not mean the cat. I meantthe long reverie into which I had been plunged by the appear-ance on a real mouse on my altar. Mousika was long gone –scared by the cat. 'But what was that,' I say again aloud. 'Was ita daydream or some sort of past life memory?

MOGG MORGAN

74

The Curse of Merlin XVOn the train rattling its way across the South Downs fromBrighton to the University station at Falmer. Several weeks hadrolled by since those strange meetings – but there again justwhen you begin to relax ones expectations something happens.Once again a woman's voice snapped me out of my morningrevelry 'Excuse me,' she said, 'aren't you Leah's friend?'

The voice belonged to a very pretty girl, who'd I say was aboutfifteen but was probably older. 'Could be.' I replied uncertainly,'Do you know her.'

'Of course I do stupid, why else would I be talking to you?'

'Have you seen her?'

'Yes, of course I've seen her,' she said, 'I see her almost every-day.'

'Well lucky you, I haven't seen her for weeks and to be frank,I'm not really sure who she is.'

'Yes that's Leah all right, very mysterious. She's away at themoment – but she asked my to say hello to you if I saw you.'

'Really,' I said, 'So how did you know who I was.'

'Oh I just knew, Leah described you, she said you were difficultto miss. Besides . . .'

'Besides what?'

'Oh besides nothing. She just asked me to say hello.'

The conversation stalled.

'So what's your name?'

75

THE CURSE OF MERLIN

'Kali, or at least that's my magical name, my 'real' name isSarah.'

'I guess from that you must be into magick?'

'Yes,' she said emphatically. 'And you too, so Leah says. Leahand me, we are members of the same group in London.'

I was thinking to myself that during this encounter I would tryto be more direct, to find out more about my interlocutors. 'Sowhat part of London?'

'Oh all over really but mainly Primrose Hill, do you know it?'

'Yes I've been there with my friend Chris, been to some studentparties round and about. So tell me more about your magicalgroup.'

'OK, but not too much – you know how it is – secret – but weare into the goddess Maat – have you ever heard of her, thevulture goddess.'

Maat is the ancient Egyptian personification of Justice – Iwasn't sure if she was a real flesh and blood goddess – sheseemed more like an abstraction of a philosophical principle –the kind of creation put together by priestly types. Maat is verylike the image of justice that stands over the High Courts ofJustice, blindfolding, balanced rather precariously, her swordswinging down, its point almost touching the earth.

'Like Balance in the Tarot?'

'You know the tarot?' she said then answering her own question'Of course you do. I'm just learning. What are your cards?'

'What do you mean?'

'Your personal significators, your birthsigns?'

'Oh that,' I replied, 'Well the moon I guess for the Piscean, and

MOGG MORGAN

76

Lust … and the Hermit.'

'Very feminine cards,' she said

'Really?'

'Don't pretend you don't know. The hermit is a feminine card –you look – you can't see her face – everyone assumes it's a malehermit but Leah said it's a woman. And come to think of itthat's a good way of telling you where Leah is, before you ask,she's on the Hermit's path.'

Kali had quickly reached the limits of my knowledge of thetarot. I needed to shift the ground. 'Tell me about Maat,' I said,not waiting for a reply, 'Why do you call her the Vulture god-dess.'

'Maat the goddess of the feather or Mwt the vulture goddess.'The look on Kali's face told me she was enjoying herself. Itmade me want to take her down a peg or two.

'Different feathers?'

'What?'

'Maat's feather is an ostrich not a vulture.'

'Ah,' she said triumphantly, 'Leah warned me about your argu-mentative nature. I trust Leah. At our rituals when she blessesthe water it changes, you'd say it was still just water but whenwe drink it, we know its not just water.'

That shut me up.

'So where is Leah now?'

'You'll see. You'll maybe meet again in the summer – shewanted me to tell ask where are going in the summer?'

I'm not too sure; I haven't really thought about it, ' I lied

77

THE CURSE OF MERLIN

'Well better think about it.'

'Suppose I'd better had.'

The train had arrived at Falmer station. 'Not stopping here.'

'Lewes.' she said

MOGG MORGAN

78

The Curse of MerlinXVIIt was the end of term and also near enough the end of mymagical practice. My plan now was to head off for a few weeksretreat in order to focus on the magical progress I'd made, suchas it was. I was drawn by the magical reputation of Glastonburyon the Somerset levels. Although as the crow flies, Glastonburyis not particularly remote, the journey by public transport issufficiently convoluted to give some sense of dislocation.Travelling mostly by train as far as Bath where, after a hour ortwo kicking my heels in the bus station, I was soon rattling myway through the Mendips to Wells, where a final mini buscarried me over the hill to Glastonbury.

The town is preceded by its reputation - a new age ghetto withthe promise that one might meet a genuine adept. That firstnight I ended up in rickety British guesthouse, typically over-priced. The door of my room slid shut leaving barely enoughfloor space in which to perform my circle rite. Tight as mybudget was I had to find something more salubrious for the nextfew weeks or any hope of some sort of magical breakthroughwas pretty futile.

The next morning I headed up the main drag, past the AssemblyRooms, the Gothic Image bookshop, the Rainbow's End Café,St Johns Church, on until the junction with Chilkwell St where Iturned right. I kept going until I was walking beside the highstonewall that marks the northern extremity of the Abbeygrounds. The uninterrupted grey of the wall was broken by ahigh arched gateway. There was a driveway leading to a largemansion of Victorian Gothic. A small billboard read 'retreathouse'. I strode across the gravel courtyard and tugged on thebell cord. A pleasant looking Anglican nun answered my call.

79

THE CURSE OF MERLIN

'Yes,' she said in a nondescript accent, 'can I help you?'

'I was hoping I could stay in the retreat house.' I replied

'For how long?'

'Not sure,' I said, 'maybe a week.'

'Should be all right, we've a party coming in next week todecorate and a small parish retreat but otherwise there is plentyof room. I'll show you your room.'

Was that easy - no questions asked?

Half an hour later I was sitting in my overstuffed armchairreading through a copy of George Chavalier's Sacred Magician.There was a knock at the door, sister Magdalena came in carry-ing a transistor radio.

'It's mine,' she said,' but you can borrow it.'

I wasn't sure if she could read the title of the book that lay inmy lap.

'We pretty much leave you alone here,' she said, 'unless yourequest guidance . . . there's a large library downstairs, on theside that overlooks the Abbey. There's a little parish retreatgroup meeting there at the moment. You might be able toinsinuate yourselves in with them if you get fed up of your owncompany. Apart from the library you have the use of the garden;it has its own gate into the Abbey grounds, so you can go thereanytime you like. At the moment a theatre group is staging theGlastonbury mysteries, why not go see?'

'Thank you,' I said, 'I might well do that.'

'Oh,' she said, 'you already have the meal times. Its petty basicstuff, fuel really, so if you want to eat out that's OK but I can'treally give you a key and we lock the front door at ten.'

MOGG MORGAN

80

I nodded. 'Basic food sounds fine to me.'

'OK,' she said, but if you join us the only rule is no small talk.You don't need to keep total silence - but apart from standardpleasantries, people generally prefer to keep their own thoughts.'

I nodded again.

'So we shall expect to see you at supper.'

She exited my room closing the door behind her.

Sister Magdalene wasn't kidding when she said the food wasbasic. I better illustrate that lest you think I exaggerate; theevening meal consisted of boiled potatoes and tinned frankfurt-ers. The nun's attitude to food was a good paradigm of howthey viewed the world - something to be denied. Pagans takefood very seriously for it lies at the heart of our philosophy.

Pagan and Christian, it's an ancient dialectic. Looking back Imight once have objected to the soubriquet 'pagan', wronglythinking it is just a negative label thrust on to us by theAbrahamic types - Jews, Muslims and Christians. Or that it's justa vague umbrella terms that glosses over the plurality ofmagicks. Now I know something of the truth I feel we shouldembrace the term.

The definition of pagan hinges around a remembered conflictbetween Israel & Egypt. What we get in the Biblical 'Tencommandments' is the manifesto of an anti-religion - that hadits roots in the fanaticism of Amenhotep IV - otherwise knownas Akhenaten.

I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land ofEgypt, out of the house of slavery; 3 you shall have no othergods before me. 4 You shall not make for yourself an idol,whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or thatis on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. 5You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I the

81

THE CURSE OF MERLIN

Lord your God am a jealous God, punishing children for theiniquity of parents, to the third and the fourth generation ofthose who reject me, 6 but showing steadfast love to the thou-sandth generation of those who love me and keep my com-mandments. 7 You shall not make wrongful use of the name ofthe Lord your God, for the Lord will not acquit anyone whomisuses his name.

See what I mean - its all about Egyptian religion really and itsdenial. It's in that remembered moment on Mount Sinai that the'pagan' was born and fanaticism came into the world. TheEgyptian, like all his or her contemporaries in the ancient world,could always translate or find a home for 'foreign' or 'alien' godsor goddesses in the native language - thus Baal is Seth, Maia isIsis etc.

The fanatic has no need of translation - anything other than 'theone god' is a demon, everyone else is wrong. Historically that'squite a new idea - it's the double birth of the pagan and thefanatic - who will for ever be locked in battle.

So I'd say I'm quite proud to identify as a pagan. I feel an affin-ity with those, in the classical world that really did self-identifyas such. And on a morning when 200 Yezidi are killed or injuredby the modern day descendants of ‘Abraham’, I feel more thanever that the world has need of pagan values.

MOGG MORGAN

82

The Curse of MerlinXVII:Dreams in the WitchhouseThe house is preternaturally quiet. Occasionally I hear someonecreaking through the claustrophobic corridors but it's alwaysdeserted when I go out to use the shared bathroom. The combi-nation of a strange bed in unfamiliar surroundings makes meuneasy, which I tell myself is probably the point. I perform thatday's final practice - I do the basic LBR opening rite sotto voce. Imay have a sense of remoteness but it's surprising how far thosevibrated calls can carry. In a sense I'm 'sleeping with the enemy'- I feel fine in myself about all that - after all I'm on a spiritualpath as valid as any of my retreat house companions - but Idoubt they would concur - so I must be discrete and respectful.

The oak flooring whilst aesthetically wonderful doesn't quitelend itself to my habitual asana. So I was move the horsehairarmchair forward so it roughly corresponds to the centre of mycircle. After my lustrations and mystical gestures I settle downin the chair aiming to dissociate as much as possible from myphysical body in order to explore the imaginal world of the ShriYantra. I am travelling light and haven't bought all my variousbits of kit - but I figured that after near enough nine months ofdaily, often more than daily work with these objects; they werepretty much now a permanent fixture in my mental landscape.The title of a H P Lovecraft story, Dreams in the Witchhouse,drifts into my mind. Very appropriate, I thought to myself,becoming excited at the prospect that this spooky setting woulddo wonders for my visioning.

* * *

I've never been a very disciplined thinker. Over the years I havemet many magicians who claim a rock solid concentration but

83

THE CURSE OF MERLIN

not me. I'm much too astral. The late Gerald Suster, whose pathI was yet to cross, was very impressive describing his unswerv-ing use of Crowley's methods such as the exercise of holdingthe image of a white, equal armed cross against a black back-ground with such resolution and application that the magician isvirtually able to drill holes in the astral. Perhaps that's why I wasso drawn to the tantrik approach - no black and white images inTantrism, more a riot of colour and image, overwhelming thesenses.

Well that's the theory - on this night the Shri Yantra was just toofamiliar and I was soon drifting. But there again, was there reallyany need to resist - surely it's good to drift, it will no doubt allcome right in the end. If the body really is the microcosm, thenit surely knows the way already, it just needs to be let go freerather than told to tighten up?

So in my slumbering 'witchhouse', my mind was soon wanderingin the corridor outside my locked door. One corridor soonturned into another - I found myself at the head of a stairwellwith the choice to go up or down. Up into the roof and perhapsthe refreshing night sky seemed like a good option, the waydown into the darkened corridors more sinister and foreboding,also more interesting. Like a moth I following the scent down,past the ground floor dining room and library, down into theoverheated, enfolding bowels of the house.

Ahead of me was a door, the warm colours of its stained glassthrown into relief and glowing from the candlelight emanatingfrom within. Like all astral visions it took a while to resolveitself. At first I was pleased to see it as the Shri Yantra - itsmultifarious colours throbbing with life. Then it was a miniatureversion of those magnificent rose windows of Chartres andother European cathedrals. It was a transept window, like thoseFulcanelli described as a hidden form of the Egyptian Ankhsymbol. The light penetrates the ever-virgin glass in a mostdelightful way. The single rose became two intersecting circles,the common ground, a caustic curve, inhabited by an image of

MOGG MORGAN

84

the Mary - but which one I couldn't say. I have the overwhelm-ing impression that my student friend Leah, or perhaps herfellow covener Kali are waiting just the other side of the door.The door opens and I drift in on a current of warm scented air.It's an overheated shrine, its walls decorated with kaleidoscopicmosaics.

Although I can't see Leah or Kali I'm still convinced they mustbe lurking in the shadows. But it's Sister Magdalene who blocksmy further progress into the circle. She moves close, her handbehind my neck; she pulls my head down so she can whisper inmy ear.

On a dark night, Kindled in love with yearnings-- oh, happy chance! --I went forth without being observed,My house being now at rest.In darkness and secure,By the secret ladder, disguised-- oh, happy chance! --In darkness and in concealment,My house being now at rest.In the happy night,In secret, when none saw me,

I recognise the familiar lines from the mystical poems of St Johnof the Cross. I am very excited. Her hand slides to the small ofmy back - why I feel the warm sensation that soon becomesprickly heat, then burning and finally an agonising pain thatshoots through my left kidney.

In an instant I'm back in my physical body, my back arched totry to get away from the very real pain. I may have called outbut now I stifle my cries, furiously rubbing the small of my backwilling the pain to go. It takes several minutes for the pain torelax its iron like grip sufficient for me to drag myself over to

85

THE CURSE OF MERLIN

the bed and bury myself beneath the covers. I sleep but in themorning my back still feels very tender. By the time I make itdownstairs the breakfast room is empty apart from SisterMagdalena clearing up. 'You missed breakfast,' she said, withjust a trace of disapproval in her voice, 'but you could do worsethan one of the café's in the High Street, try Rainbow's end.'

Over my coffee I ponder whether all that is a good or bad sign?There's none I can really ask. The rest of the morning I exploredsome of the surrounding countryside including the hummockyremains of the original Lakeland village. I am careful to be backat the retreat house for lunch. After lunch I let myself into theAbbey grounds for the afternoon performance of theGlastonbury mysteries.

I suspect like a lot of pagans on some sort of spiritual journey itwould seem churlish to pass over any possibility of some lighton the path, even if that supposed light emanates from thosewho see themselves as the pagan's historical enemy. Pagans canbe terrible know-it-alls. We feel that we understand where allreligions and spiritual creeds are coming from. It's maybe some-thing we get from Theosophy, which in turn is derived from theHindu Tantrism and its 'theory' of Brahmanical or orthodoxy, itsstrengths and weaknesses.

The Glastonbury mysteries are surprisingly moving. I findmyself responding emotionally to the scene of the supposed'slaughter of the innocents'. One moment the actors are carryingtheir living babies and children. A moment later and red ribbonsstream from their cloths - it's a remarkable simple yet effectiveconvention - I am amazed by the power of a symbol to invokereal feelings. Intellectually I doubt this massacre of theHebrew's first born by King Herod ever really happened - it's amemory yes - but memories can be constructed, they can befalsified. Even so the underlying theme is universal.

Coming on top of last night's adventure I am beginning to feelas if this really is some sort of roller-coaster. I'm not completely

MOGG MORGAN

86

relaxed by the orthodox, i.e. in this instance Christian contextbut there again, if this really is a dialogue with the otherworld -I should not reject the message because of the manner in whichit is spoken.

87

THE CURSE OF MERLIN

The Curse of MerlinXVIII

Again the quiet of the house, sometime during the day I gotmyself another potable version of the Shri Yantra and a specialyoga cushion, ‘kusha’ brand, obviously named after the type ofgrass recommended for this purpose in the Bhagavad Gita.

Trouble is I’ve also spent the evening in the Rifleman’s Almswhere I’ve had a few drinks, smoked too many cigarettes. Howdid this come about? Well there was a big surprise waiting forme back at the retreat house. The suppertime dining room wasbuzzing with new arrivals, a party of mainly middle aged,parishioners, volunteers who’d come to redecorate the retreathouse. And there amongst them I recognised Emlyn. The leaderof the parish group was their vicar, who seeing me exclaimed toEmlyn, ‘ah yes, I told you there would be someone here of yourown age.’

I guess Emlyn was as surprised as I was, we’d not met sincethose chance meetings months back on the Falmer commutertrain. So we both had secret lives but also sufficient presence ofmind not to blow each other’s cover. After supper, Emlynsuggested we go for a beer. His seeming greater familiarity withthe lay of the land made it seem doable. I should perhaps havecast my mind back to the time when as a very young inner cityteenager I’d been whisked off by the ‘Covenanters’ to a ‘out-wards bounds’ retreat in the Brecon Beacons. The combinationof healthy physical activities, spiritual talks and clean living wassupposed to be tonic for our souls. Back then; skipping Sundayprayers in favour of a ‘pub lunch’ didn’t exactly go down astorm.

MOGG MORGAN

88

We were soon eyed each other over our beers.

‘What are you doing here?’ he asked

‘Well I could ask you the same question.’ I replied, although itwouldn’t have taken a lot of research to unearth the veryintimate dialectic between Christianity and magick. Manycommentators see even Crowley’s Thelemic cult as a hereticalsect within Christianity.

‘Yes,’ he said, offering me another cigarette, ‘but what are youdoing here.’

What the hell, I thought, may as well spill the beans? ‘I’m on aquest,’ I said, he smiled. ‘OK maybe quest is the wrong word, Ican’t remember if I told you about the OTO?’ Emlyn nodded.

‘Well I’m just coming the end a nine month probationary prac-tice.’

‘That’s interesting. Nine months, bit different to a year and day– like giving birth to yourself I suppose.’

‘I’m also told its modelled on the Egyptian mysteries.’

‘Really,’ he said, leaning forward in his seat. ‘Now that’s myspecial interest but I can’t say I’ve ever heard that the period ofnine months was especially important in Egyptian magick.Where does that come from?’

‘Ah,’ I said smiling no doubt in an arch manner, ‘that’s an ordersecret I’m afraid.’

There was an awkward pause, punctuated by another trip to thebar. Emlyn took a long pull from his beer. ‘So is it going alright?’he said ‘in as far as you are allowed to divulge Order secrets?’ Itwas his turn to be arch.

Ignoring the bite, I launched into it. ‘Well yes I suppose it is

89

THE CURSE OF MERLIN

going quite well.’

‘You seem unsure?’

‘Well I had a very disturbing experience last night.’

‘Go on, you can trust me.’

I told him a little about my vision. ‘And just at that point,’ Icontinued, I was wrenched out of the whole thing by the mostawful pain.’

‘Umm,’ he said knowingly, ‘sounds tricky. Apart from the pain,how do you feel?’

‘I feel, well I feel good.’

‘You don’t feel violated in any way?’

‘Violated, not at all violated, what’s that about?’

‘It’s just that I’ve been reading in Plotinus that good spirits canmake one feel bad at the time but good afterwards. But on theother hand, bad spirits make you feel quite wonderful when youare in their presence but they leave you with a terrible sense ofviolation.’

‘Oh,’ I replied, ‘so do you think my visions were demonic?’

‘I’m just not experienced enough to really know, just tossingsome ideas around, trying to be helpful. Oh yes, one more thing,Plotinus says that even evil demons can be a sign of betterthings to come.’

‘How so?’ I said.

‘He says that when the good daemona approaches, the first signthat it is getting close is the arrival of the bad guys. It’s almostas if they are pushed forward by the approach of the good.’

MOGG MORGAN

90

‘So either way it’s not all bad?’

‘Maybe not?’

At which point the landlord called time.

‘Jesus, is that the time!’ I said, ‘we’re be locked out.’

‘Calm down!’ he said, I’ve got a key.’

I didn’t ask how he managed that. Even so I thought we’d betterget back.

We both emptied our glasses and stood up to go. But Emlyn hadone last point, always one last point to make. ‘Oh, one otherpoint.’ He said

I interrupted him, saying: ‘Lets not stand on the manner of ourgoing, but just go’ I said, paraphrasing Lady Macbeth.

To which Emlyn countered:

‘The last moments are the most magical of any hour.’

‘OK, OK’ what’s your point

‘The pain you mentioned. Couldn’t it be just some sort of yogicthing –– something being pierced, unravelled, cleansed, thatkind of thing?’

‘I hope you’re right.’

And with that we made our way unseen, well almost, back tothe retreat house and our beds.

Midnight – the witching hour. I struggling to stay awake longenough to finish my practice. The thought occurs to me thatEmlyn is the demon, distracting me from what could so easilyhave been a breakthrough night. My mind drifts and for amoment I am wandering again through the empty corridors of

91

THE CURSE OF MERLIN

the house, down to that glowing stained glass door that looks somuch like the yantra.

The Abbot forbade me to forget my old name and existence.Upon admission every novice is given a new name in eitherLatin or Greek. I was Pelagius, a name identical to the Britishoriginal; “Inhabitant of the Sea”. As far as I know, my familyhas always lived by the sea and often been fisherfolk or the like.

I have friends amongst the other novices but sense the antago-nism of the monks. They were foreigners, haughty and intellec-tual. My race has always a role in religious affairs for which theyare often resented. I was advised to seek admission to a reli-gious order far away from home.

When it was clear that mine was to be a religious life, I gotmyself accepted as a novice at a very prestigious religioushouse. In the first year of a spiteful, fellow neophyte told methat the only reason Pelagius has gotten into the place, wasbecause of the notoriety of his home village. “Pelagius” he said“did not fool him!”

Home was Caerleon, world famous because of the martyrdomof Britain’s first Christian saints. It was commonly believed thatthe Druids had done them in; Caerleon had been a Druidstronghold before the coming of the Romans. So this was not anunlikely thesis, for the gloomy Druids did kill many an earlyChristian missionary. But St Julius and St Aaron had as all thelocals knew, been martyred in the Roman amphitheatre, theruins of which could still be viewed outside the village. Aftergenerations of stone plundering, the structure was not what itwas, but nevertheless retained a glimmer of its former glory.

Aaron, a converted Jew, had been an early Christian missionary.Rejected by his friends and family and thereby freed to pursue aquest for the sacred resting place of Joseph of Aramathea. Thetrail had taken him firstly to the lakeland settlement ofGlastonbury and from there to the gilded city of Caerleon.

MOGG MORGAN

92

It was at Caerleon that he met Julius, a minor official in theRoman garrison. The pair met one day at the local bathhouse.Julius was indulging in his weekly session that always endedwith an exercise swim in the large open-air pool. His routineallowed for twenty lengths before a final rubdown. This was a“Romans only” day, but it was common practice for assortedlocals to gather by the pool to watch the bathers. The fountain-head of the pool issued from a small shrine to the GoddessDiana, complete with dolphins-head spigot. Aaron recalled Paulof Tarsus’s brush with this Goddess, and it seemed an appropri-ate place for him to stand and pursue his vocation as disciple ofthe divine fisherman.

Somehow they noticed each other and a friendship began, afriendship under any other circumstances between a Jew and aRoman would have been out of the question. However Aaron’snew faith made him more willing to forget old scores. No-onecould remember the pretext for their martyrdom. Some said thatAaron had gotten on the wrong side of one of Diocletian’spurges and that Julius had chosen to follow his intimate friendto the same grisly death. In that provincial amphitheatre, therewere no lions or gladiators, except on special occasions. Theywere likely executed by Roman firing squad after many indigni-ties.

Pelagius knew all this from his reading at the monastery andfrom local knowledge. His interest in the subject sparked by oneof his childhood visions. The ruins of the Roman occupancywere now a playground for the village children. A popular gamestaged in the defunct amphitheatre. The oval floor was a finelawn, the sand and gravel carted off years since for other build-ing projects. The grass grew stronger and sweeter and thisattracted the local sheep whose gnawing kept it close cropped.A dozen or more would gather and with a blood-curdling howl,chase off the livestock. Dividing into sides they acted out thedramas of old. Sometimes they were Romans and Druids,sometimes Romans and Christians, Christians and Lions. Hourby hour they played, drifting home in ones and twos.

93

THE CURSE OF MERLIN

After one of these gatherings, I Pelagius was alone in theamphitheatre. It was twilight. Exhausted I lay on my backwatching the moon rise. I must have slept until a cool breezeblowing into my ear roused me. Startled I realized that thebreeze was a whispering human voice. At first I was too numbto understand. Someone was lying beside me, nudging me fromsleep with a name, a hand cupped over my ear to shield it fromthe wind. On the other side I felt another hand and the faintvibration of breath in the nostrils of a man. All the while I keptmy eyes tightly shut, it was after just an illusion caused by thecoldness of my body. Nevertheless I listened to those voices.

The first voice was of a youngish man, intelligent and sensuous.‘You’ he said, ‘Will follow the religious life as I once did, butentering a religious house.’

The other man’s voice was effeminate and less cultured than thefirst. ‘Wherever you go’ he said, ‘there will be trouble. Expectno support from comrades, no matter how they might seem onthe surface. It’s all the same in the end, the same petty loyaltiesand factions.’

The first voice spoke again telling me that no one would everknow who I really was, my name would become a heresy. Thisheresy was to deny that anything was absolutely sinful. Youopponents will say publicly that one should do whatsoever oneinclined to, but in their hearts they will think otherwise.

After a little while the voices faded to an unintelligible whisperand I was able to open my eyes just a crack. On the far side ofthe field I saw lights dancing about and wondered if it was myghostly friends. As the light approached I saw my father search-ing for me in the twilight. Cold and tired, I could not walk. Myfather lifted me up onto his back and carried me home.

MOGG MORGAN

94

The Curse of MerlinXIX‘Who will reject a gem for the mere reason it is found in animpure place.’

Dattatreya

A thought kept coming into my mind of a place whose descrip-tion really belongs in an earlier part of this narrative where Idescribe my childhood home on the banks of the mighty riverUsk. If I follow the road eastwards, paralleling the river, I passshops and enormous factories until way up at the very end ofthe road there is a tiny oasis in the midst of the industrial chaosthat is the eastern docks. A circular pond surrounding by leafytrees, the clear water full of tadpoles, stickleback fish anddragonflies. An old isolated cottage; probably the originalfarmer’s cottage before the land was parcelled up and sold tothe Corporation that built the docks. Why they left this littleoasis I’d don’t know but it was truly a magical place to find inthe middle of an industrial wasteland. I suppose that’s why itstuck in my mind so. It’s a physical metaphor of the wondersthat can be found almost forgotten in the midst of chaos.

* * *

Glastonbury 1980. . . The next day I paused for a momentbeside the arched gateway outside the retreat house consideringwhich in which direction to walk into town. The way left wasquicker but the right hand road took a more circuitous andinteresting route that got there in the end. But that morningsomething drew me across the street to where another road leddirectly up, presumably to the top of Chalice hill. I hadn’t reallytaken that way before. As I passed the nameplate I couldn’t helpbut smile wryly to myself as I read “Dod lane” - dead lane.

95

THE CURSE OF MERLIN

Dod lane rose quite steeply and within just a few hundred yards,at the place where Chalice Well Road forked off, there stood alarge old manor house. The sign outside read “Grail Centre –please come in” – so I did. I walked through a pleasant gardenup to the front door where I tugged on the bell pull. No onecame – The place was deserted. There was a note pinned to thedoor. It said –

“Grail Spiritual Centre,

Visitors Welcome –

Please wait in the Day Room”

The glass-panelled door wasn’t locked. Inside a long corridor ledoff into silent darkness. Just to the right was a large book linedroom, with information leaflets carefully arranged on the table.At the far end of the room a semicircle of chairs were arrangedaround an elaborate array of slide projectors. I pressed the onbutton and as the machine thrummed into life I sat down.

“Welcome visitor.” began a cultivated female voice, “You areabout to hear the story of the Grail centre and its place inGlastonbury. I hope you will forgive what might seem an imper-sonal way of presenting our ideas, but the centre is so busy, itseemed the most efficient approach.”

I looked at the row of empty seats.

“The Grail centre is dedicated to the work of the Edwardianmystic Evelyn Underhill. In the early part of the twentiethcentury EU was a regular visitor to Glastonbury in the companyof her friends and fellow mystics, Arthur Machen, ArthurEdward Waite, Charles Williams and Susan Howatch. Thesefamous writers and mystics formed a discrete fraternity dedi-cated to the search for what they called the “ultimateHieroglyph”.

MOGG MORGAN

96

The presentation continued with what was by then a fairlyfamiliar survey of Glastonbury lore. The tape ended with anexhortation – “if what you have learned from this presentationstrikes a chord for you and you would like to experience moreof our fraternity – please return later today at sunset and join usfor a simple ceremony and meditation.”

Well who could refuse such an offer and I duly slipped out ofthe retreat house before nine and made my way back to theGrail Centre, not really knowing what to expect. In the twilight,the visitors’ room was now a brightly lit cube of light, shiningout into the darkening garden. An attractive, thirty somethingcouple seemed to be in charge. He introduced himself as Davidand his partner as Ann. Otherwise there were half a dozen of usseekers.

“It’s time to shut the door, so you must be the last.” David said,indicating that we should remove our footwear and follow himinto the sanctuary. There were no chairs in the octagonal room,lined with fresh pine but was otherwise featureless and pos-sessed of a strange anechoic quality. We were invited to settleourselves on any part of a double row of pine benches thatlined the walls. A great deal of human ingenuity had beenapplied to the design of the room. The benches, for examplewere precisely proportioned to enable all of us to sit in whatso-ever pose we favoured.

When we’d all settled down David uttered the following bene-diction “some look for the self in other people, their school,work or organisation, sometimes even an ideology. Others lookto family and friends. Some look for it in another person, alover, husband or wife. But in the end the self is something youmust find within.” David then invited us to undertake a privateand silent meditation. I emptied my mind and got right into that.After a while he began to speak again, his voice much quieterand faltering. I guessed he was in some kind of a trance and waschannelling.

97

THE CURSE OF MERLIN

“Evelyn is in the mood for a bit of a row tonight” he whispered,“sometimes she’s a bit stroppy. She says we’ve moved awayfrom the essence of her teaching and what we do here will notlast.”

It seemed a very quirky, undermining message. I wonderedwhich part of the Grail Centres’ work she was referring to – Isuspected they had eschewed her Golden Dawn connectionand, as in many another group, denied the magical heart ofmysticism; ending up in a bland backwaters of New Age Chris-tianity? Apart from the handful of books and the slide presenta-tion, the Grail group did seem to be running on empty.

David continued his conversation with an unseen and unheardprotagonist: “There you go again – reminding me of the basics –the five stages of the mystic way.”

I already knew them by heart and mouthed them to myself evenas David spoke: “Malkuth – the foundation or as she knew it‘the awakening of self ’ – this you must do now, tonight withoutdelay!”

I wasn’t sure if he was speaking literally or rhetorically– “it’sjust the beginning – a crude rough vision without the benefit ofwords to give it sense. Only later after you have purged theself ”

Yesod – I whispered.

“Then,” he continued, “only then will you find illumination, thethird stage.”

Tiphereth - the sphere of the sun.

“And after illumination comes a fourth, unlucky stage called the‘dark night of the soul’. “

Daath I remembered although it was all theory now.

MOGG MORGAN

98

‘And finally for some of us ‘Unity’ or ‘Union’.”

Keter, I thought, the Kingdom.

David exhaled – releasing the mood – “There was a nice energyhere tonight” he said.

We all took that as our cue to rouse ourselves, and in slowstages to shuffle out into the balmy, star spangled night. Nonespoke and we each went our own ways – I was at the bottom ofDod lane in time to hear the bells of St Peters chime the elev-enth hour. It brought me to my senses as it meant I was lockedout. So I hurried up Chilkwell Street in the hope of catchingEmlyn in the Rifleman’s Arms for last orders.

99

THE CURSE OF MERLIN

The Curse of Merlin XXThe pub was buzzing but Emlyn was drinking alone and lookedto be in a sullen mood.

‘What happened to you?’ he growled, almost as soon as he sawme.

I was at the bar and offered him another beer, although Iguessed he might have had a few already.

I sat down and quickly told him where I’d been.

‘Well, you might have told me,’ he said, ‘Maybe I could havetagged along too.’

That was true but somewhere inside I knew that of we’d bothgone off to the Grail centre, I might be accused of leading himastray. Being a weekday there weren’t too many customers, sothe landlord called time and was soon bolting the door behindus.

‘Tell you what.’ Emlyn says excitedly, ‘Let’s not go back straightaway – let’s go for a walk up the Tor.’

I probably could have talked him out of it but given that wewere already AWOL from the retreat house I guessed anotherhour wouldn’t matter. It was only when we were passing WellHouse Lane that I remembered that I really wanted to doanother magical ‘practice’ before going to sleep.

We left the road and followed a track up between high hedgesthat blackened even further the way ahead. Someone in ChaliceCottage was burning the midnight oil; I’d heard that the writerGeoffrey Ashe lived there in what had once been the home ofDion Fortune.

We stumbled across the field, using a lighter to find the style in

MOGG MORGAN

100

the pitch darkness and were soon on the Tor side. We got up tothe deserted top using our night vision.

Glastonbury Tor is a low but precipitous finger-like hill com-manding a fine panoramic view of the Somerset levels with thelarger conurbation of Bristol, Cleveland, Portishead, mere redglows on the horizon making little impact on the night sky. Itwas a great place for a bit of stargazing, especially on such acrystalline night. We found a spot out of the perpetual breezeand lay down to stare for several minutes in silence at themanifest gods in the sky, especially the seven stars of theplough, guardians of the Pole star and humanity’s most ancientstellar companion.

Emlyn fumbled for something in his pocket, then struck amatch to light a medium-sized Jay. After a few moments heasked me if I wanted to share some. I was already tyro when itcame to this kind of thing; university helped me with that,although I hadn’t smoked anything since the end of term. But Itook my obligatory three puffs and passed it back to him ‘Howdid you come by that?’ I said still holding my breath

‘Oh, someone at the pub.’

.‘Can I ask you something?’ Emlyn said, exhaling to break theawkward silence.

‘Ask away,’ I replied.

‘I meant to ask, all this Crowley stuff you’re into, it’s kind ofsexy isn’t it?’

‘Sexy?’

‘Well, you know what I mean, Crowley magick – isn’t it all sexmagick?’

‘It has that reputation, but to be honest, I don’t really know toomuch about that side of things. At the moment I’m just a

101

THE CURSE OF MERLIN

beginner.’

‘Don’t they teach “sex magick” in the OTO?’

‘Well maybe,’ I replied, ‘But not so far, maybe in the highergrades.’

‘Crowley, wasn’t he some sort of sex maniac?’

‘Sex maniac!’ I replied, ‘That’s great. He was “a head of histime”, if you’ll forgive the pun, the drugs and all. But yes, to mehe was a sexual revolutionary.’

‘A pervert!’

‘Not a pervert stupid, he was gay, but that’s not a pervert, not inmy book anyways.’

‘Is everyone in the OTO gay then?’

‘No’ I laughed, ‘far from it, maybe they should be. Although Idid talk to someone who was convinced that they would bebuggered the time they went to see Kenneth Grant, but turnedout there was absolutely no way that was going to happen.’

‘So what about you, are you gay?’

I guessed that this was what Emlyn really wanted to ask. I knewwhere this kind of conversation can go so thought I’d betterwatch my step.

‘Lets just say I’m open-minded. Since I got into magick I’vebecome more experimental in my approach to sex.’

‘So you are experimenting with being Gay?’ he asked gleefully

‘No, not really, for me experimentation means experimentingwith being straight.’

‘Oh.’ It took a while for the penny to drop, then ‘ahhh!’

MOGG MORGAN

102

‘What about you?’

‘Me, I supposed to be mixed up. That’s why I here with thischurch group really. They are trying to sort me out.’

‘Do you need sorting out?’

‘I dunno?’ he said passing me the Jay ‘last toke.’

My head was beginning to swim.

‘Emlyn,’ I said, ‘Don’t take this the wrong way, but I reallyought to get back.’

‘You want to go?’

‘I have to go soon. I can’t really get into this, not now. Tomor-row yes, but not this minute, not here.’

I guessed that in the darkness he might be looking crestfallen.

‘Emlyn,’ I said, ‘don’t take it the wrong way. I really do meantomorrow – we can sort it all out tomorrow – it’s going to bebetter then – but now – tonight – I really have to do my magick,my practice, it’s maybe my last opportunity.’

‘But I can do it with you, maybe?’

I thought of what I’d read about Crowley and his lover Neuburg.It was all a very intoxicating idea. But realistically, I just didn’treally know how to make that work. All the words from the holybooks about “a curse on because” or the Blake’s – “The chapelof Love” were running round and round in my brain. Butsomehow I just knew all I’d achieved so far could so easily comecrashing down – as at this moment fate, like a demon wasconspiring to drive me off course.

103

THE CURSE OF MERLIN

The Curse of MerlinXXI

“Alone at least!” I exclaimed out loud as I finally closed the doorof my room. There’d been a few risky moments in the corridor –it was long past midnight, everything is dark, silent anddisserted, all the more so might our suppressed mumbles carryto god knows where. And what if someone had spied that lastbear hug. Inside I was feeling elated. That’s human nature afterall – the sheer fun of being on the brink of something new. Ohwell, I thought to myself, now for some serious magick. Try to chan-nel that feeling.

I’d soon prepared clear my little circle as before and launchedinto the opening benediction: “Ekas, Ekas, Este Bebeloi,

Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law”.

Quickly followed by the Lesser Banishing Ritual of thePentagramme, the sine qua non of the occult realm. Even withthe slightly limited confines of the retreat house I tried this timeto take as much care as possible over its performance, combin-ing as well as I was able to mystical gestures with the flow ofthe in and out breath so that it became a variety of east / west‘pranayama’. Crowley recommends that each action begins witha long intake of breathe, so that the out-breath ‘begins’ fromsome place very deep down inside. On this resonating columnof air that the words of the invocation float ‘Ateeeeeeeeeeh,Maaalkooooooooot, etc…..’ it vibrates but I am careful not tolet it resonate too strongly else the whole house might beoutside my door.

By the time I arrive at the closing phrases of the invocation, thelong ahhhmeeeen – I am quite giddy and this seems no bad

MOGG MORGAN

104

thing.

I let myself recover slightly before settling down for the slowbuilding lucid meditation. Images begin to form almost immedi-ately – maybe too many of them, crowding in, an almost over-whelming and distracting riot of ideas. But soon they begin tothin and I feel suddenly very rooted in my posture but also verydisassociated, as if I am watching myself from some othervantage point inside.

I am again outside my room - wandering down the corridor –

I stop momentarily outside of Emlyn’s room knowing instinc-tively that he is just the other side of the door. Intoxicated withmy new power I wonder whether I could just pop in on him fora moment. But thinking better of it I move off further down thecorridor past other doors where the gentle snoring of the occu-pants indicates who is who.

Soon I am descending the stairways to the basement where Iknow a kaleidoscopic door opens onto a secret shrine. In thisimaginal world I am able to push the door open and find thatthe temple is crowded with people, who feeling my presencedivide to make way through which I much float.

Everyone there is familiar – near the back I see Chrissy, my oldboyfriend from my time in Wales, he’s there with his new part-ner Simon. Emlyn is there too, also Leah and Kali, SisterMagdalena stands together with a stranger who I somehowknow is my brother.

Then things get really wild like the car chase episode in HermanHesse’s “Steppenwolf ” – or Offenbach’s “Opheus in the Under-world”. We are all crowded together, and it’s unbearably hot asif somewhere unseen, vast thundering engines belch out heat.Finally the entire company turns toward me and files out leavingme alone in the temple. Some of them whisper things to me asthey file past, “good luck” or “don’t expect conversation,” or

105

THE CURSE OF MERLIN

“vision not voice”; “not yet.” “he is waiting for you up ahead”.

The air clears in the temple. It’s fresher and above me I cansense the night sky. I walk forward towards what I know mustbe some sort of sanctuary. Now I see it – a glowing tentedstructure about twice my height in the shape of the hieroglyph,a Tao cross. The Tao is a three dimensional, symmetrical struc-ture. The walls are of white canvas drawn across woodenstretchers. An eternal sanctuary light hovers above the cross barof the Tao.

Someone says “go on, your father is waiting for you, in there.”

I step forward and part the canvas flaps and walk through. As Ido so the brilliant sanctuary lamp hovering over the Naos, sinksdown through the cross bar and fills the inside of the structurewith blinding, white light. I struggle to keep moving, forwardinto the sanctuary until the light consumes my entire body.There is no heat or pain. But the heart in my breast is beatingvery fast and feels as if it might burst with joy. And indeed forseveral moments I am overwhelmed. Somewhere in the whit-eout is another figure; his features indistinct apart from hiscoppery blond hair. He clutches me to his or her breast and for amoment our entities merge. All the while he says nothingalthough my ears are ringing. So here it is, I think to myself, thevision of my higher self, beyond conversation. Certainly neither he norI attempt to speak. Time passes and I am again in my oratory,my heart racing, as I sit there for several minutes struggling forbreath but still close to ecstasy.

As minutes pass I become steadily more and more aware of theroom. My racing heart slows and my breathing return too nor-mal. I am back. Now after several minutes of discomfort as Iwake my sleeping limbs before I can stand and reverse the ritualgestures and sounds of the Lesser Banishing Ritual. By the timeI have finished and extinguished my candles, the sky outside mywindow is purple with the distance approach of dawn. I throwmyself on my bed, resolving to rest for just a few minutes but

MOGG MORGAN

106

when I open my eyes the birds are singing outside my windowand the sun is high in the sky.

I looked at my watch – ten o’clock – too late for breakfast inthe centre. So I headed off for the Rainbow’s End Café. I fellgood, I fell that I had some sort of result and apart from thetidying up of a few lose ends, some reflection and analysis, myfirst degree practice is over. I had seen my higher self, my holyguardian angel – I didn’t really know what it means, it hadn’tcommunicated anything to me apart from its own existence –but that is in essence the nature of the first degree practice –the vision – the voice, the angelic conversation something foranother time and place after more preparation and training. Soon such a beautiful summer morning I was content in what Ihave achieved. In the café I feel like the poet W B Yeats, whenhe wrote:

‘I sat, a solitary man,In a crowded London shop,An open book and empty cup,On the marble table-top,While on the shop and street I gazedMy body of a sudden blazed;And twenty minute more or lessIt seemed, so great my happiness,That I was blessed and could bless.’

I was also content to turn my attention to more mundane butnevertheless important issues. I hadn’t forgotten about mypromise to spend the day with Emlyn, and who knows what. Ihalf expect him to have followed me to the café but by the timemy second cup is empty, the morning paper read there was nosign of him so I guess I’d better head back to the retreat houseand check him out.

Sister Magdalena is waiting for me in the hallway, “Can I have aword with you.” She says rather ominously.

107

THE CURSE OF MERLIN

I follow her into her office. She came straight to the point, “I’mafraid I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”

It catches me completely off guard.

“But why?” I plead

“I think you know why. Basically you are a disruptive influencehere. You have led one of the other guest astray distracting himfrom the purpose of his stay here.”

“But,” I began, then think better of it.

“Yes?”

“Nothing.” I say gloomily

“Not just that but it hasn’t failed to be noticed that you havebeen drinking in a local hostelry and return worse for drink inthe small hours after goodness knows what.”

“Anything else?” I am beginning to get fractious

“Well since you ask, yes there is more, some of it too indelicatefor me to discuss. But let’s just say strange sounds in the night.”

I think it best not to pursue that one.

”And”, she continued, “Several of us have not failed to noticehow the glamour of Glastonbury has woven its spell – yourvisits to that Grail centre for instance. Your failure to be in-volved with the normal routine of the centre, even your failureto share meals or fellowship.”

There was some truth in all that.

“OK, I’m sorry for all that.” I relent, “what would you like meto do now?”

“I’ve talked it over with the Father Jenkins, and he agrees that

MOGG MORGAN

108

its best if you just sort yourself out and leave after lunch. As ithappens Kate, one of our other guests is driving to Bath thisafternoon and she has room in her car if you would care to takeit.”

I nodded my assent and turn to leave.

“Oh,” she says, “one last thing, just in case you think you arebeing singled out I should tell you that Emlyn has alreadypacked and gone. The reverend Jenkins drove him back homeafter breakfast.

I was beginning to smell a rat, they really had us both boxed up.

There wasn’t an awful lot I could do about it but somehow Iguessed I would catch up with Emyln when the new termstarted at Sussex. Even so it had put a bit of a downer on myplans for the rest of the vacation but I was determined not tolet it dent my optimism. Besides I just had this feeling thatsomething would turn up.

My ride to Bath with Kate, an American exchange student waspleasant enough. She dropped me at the railway station. Duringthe journey I gathered she would be returning to Glastonbury.“Thank you” I said, in a laboured sort of way. Just beforeclosing the car door I ask Kate if she would pass my address toEmlyn next time she sees him. I’d scribbled my universityaddress and my parent’s phone-number on a blank postcard.“Sure,” she says with a smile, “I can give it to father Jenkins.”

As she drives away I suspect she might toss that out the windowas soon as she is out of sight.

109

THE CURSE OF MERLIN