The Western Gate

Merlin: Master of Magick
Gordon Strong
Crossed Crow Books

I’ve dipped my toe in again and purchased another Crossed Crow Books publication, so really I guess I’m ankle deep. Courtyard Books- Glastonbury informed me that Watkins Books-London also stocked a range of Crossed Crow Books. Being only a few miles from my humble abode I went to Watkins and asked them what titles they stocked, he checked stock via the computer and began listing them, in fact so many, I ended his endless spiel with, “you’re just showing off now.”
Anyway, in a nod to Glastonbury I purchased Merlin: Master of Magick by Gordon Strong, I’m sure I’ve heard of the author somewhere.
Gordon tells us he will use the term Magick with a K, as Crowley did, to distinguish it from the rabbit in a hat variety, well Gordon doesn’t say that but Crowley did, and k (?), Gordon says being the 13th letter of the alphabet blah blah ? eh, as every biker knows, someone with a 13 number patch denotes a follower/seller/user of wacky backy ~M (viz.Marijuana) being the 13th letter of the alphabet. However, as we’ve been the rabbit down the hole we know Gordon means the 13th Hebrew letter. Though he doesn’t say that for anyone not familiar with Hebrew, and why would they be if they were into Merlin and not some ancient desert religion, no doubt they’ll be studying Ogham, and wonder why Magic isn’t written -Magicgn – Gn, being the 13th ogham …. oh, why am I babbling on?
Merlin! The greatest magician that we have come to know, as, Gordon tells us that those from Atlantis…-well their names have not come down to us. so we’re left with Merlin. Lets just sigh and move on eh?
Our psychic abilities, accordingly and apparently have diminished over the last 5000 years as a result of the reduction of the Earths magnetic field. Its an interesting theory, which has been given no footnotes or research tabs to confirm. Yes it’s true, the magnetic field is diminishing. To what extent and measure? 5000 years ago~ 50–60 µT and today ~ ~30 µT. It’s quite significant. Does this affect our subtle sense as the author suggests, that we have lost inherently some environment to which our sixth sense is attuned? Have psychics been tested in zero magnetic chamber, akin to a Helmholtz coil, and likewise, tested in a stronger magnetic field, perhaps synchronised with another where a receiver/teller is sat? Again, i’m deviating, babbling. When authors throw a profound sentence in and try to move on I’m the student at the back, waving my arm, “whoa back…. ” I want to know more. But the sentence has little to do with the subject, just seemingly thrown in their as some sort of colourful dressing, some fancy design to display the meal perhaps.
Merlin! we are given a colourful and sometimes imaginative dive into the variances and whether-alls of Merlin. The narrative dances about encompassing all manner of parallel notions. Atlantis, UFo’s, the levitating Stones of Stonehenge at least Gordon emphasises the dates of the stones being way off for Merlin and his magic wand to float to their position, and then spoils it by saying perhaps they were moved by Merlin from a different location.
There are numerous bolt on ideas, using Tarot as symbology to denote the characters of the Arthurian legends, and then astrology, and then Qabbalah. At which point I could concede it’s all nonsense. But. I don’t know, there’s something enchanting, something hidden within, between the lines and blatant groovy freewheeling dialogue. It comes to Hiraeth, that longing for a time past, a kingdom inhabited perhaps only on the inner planes, that never really existed. The melting pot of a visionaries cauldron bubbling over with Atlantis, the Fey, Wizards and shapeshifting lusty kings having their way with the sexiest dancers. Yet when the meal is done we remember only the last druids slaughtered on the isle of Anglesey, whose religion and knowledge was taught orally, and only orally. And all the centuries hence who proclaim to reveal the knowledge of the old ways are not only false, but disrespectful. If, the beholders of the knowledge die, then so does the knowledge, that is the key exact.
What Merlin: Master of Magick does, is to inspire, to dream and to seek.
It is said, that if we all die, and in a few millennia a new race of intelligent beings evolve, ultimately, science will be revealed exactly the same, for it is constant and by nature of experiment continuous. Religion however will be completely different, only forming to certain archetypes, of which the natural markers are the two solstices and the two equinoxes, there will be stories and legends regarding the phases of the moon, the war between light and dark, and the Sun disappearing into winter. Characters will take the place of them, emulating nature’s dance. And where will the New Merlin be? But the narrator, the conjurer and the meddler of the tale. All things act in polarity, and balance and Hiraeth is the dance of Salome~ the glance of Igraine, we must have her, we demand it.
Avalon- the Isle of Apples, our Eden surrounded by the mists as surely as the seas upon Atlantis, Glastonbury, that Shining illuminate Green Kingdom, that even Oz pathed a road to see the wizard behind the curtain. Even if we were to deviate and meander through wordriddles, Oz in Hebrew is Mighty, and strong, and also after another manner/manna goat. … how we can wrap ourselves up in words and rhetoric, riddles and spells.
This is my problem. The Arthurian legends and Merlin’s legacy need not be drawn into whether they were descended from Atlantis, or Egypt or the wandering tribes of Hebrew. It was born in the belly of Albion, raised and nurtured by her breast. This land is the sacred temple, that western sunset, the temperate and content climate, the liminal between the life we have experienced and the passing over to eternity, where the last druid but laughs in death at the fickle wants of man. Mayhaps.
Why the fairly good star rating? Simple, I enjoyed it.

“The Beguiling of Merlin” by Sir Edward Burne-Jones