Documente Academic
Documente Profesional
Documente Cultură
Act I
The Awakening of Self
1
MOGG MORGAN
2
THE CURSE OF MERLIN
3
MOGG MORGAN
Published by
Mandrake of Oxford
PO Box 250
OXFORD
4
THE CURSE OF MERLIN
Contents
The Curse of Merlin I ........................................................................ 7
The Curse of Merlin II ..................................................................... 15
The Curse of Merlin III ...................................................................17
The Curse of Merlin IV - Long slow magical journey ................ 20
The Curse of Merlin V -
Long slow magical journey (continued) ........................................ 27
The Curse of Merlin VI - Conventionalism ................................. 31
The Curse of Merlin VII .................................................................. 36
The Curse of Merlin VIII - 1st Degree ......................................... 40
The Curse of Merlin IX- 1st Degree (continued) ....................... 45
The Curse of Merlin X - ‘I’m a potato’ ......................................... 50
The Curse of Merlin XI - ‘Cunning little fox’ .............................. 56
The Curse of Merlin XII :
'A stone to trouble the living stream’ ............................................ 60
The Curse of Merlin XIII ................................................................ 62
The Curse of Merlin XIV ................................................................ 66
The Curse of Merlin XV ................................................................. 74
The Curse of Merlin XVI ................................................................ 78
The Curse of Merlin XVII: ............................................................. 82
The Curse of Merlin XVIII ............................................................. 87
The Curse of Merlin XIX ................................................................ 94
The Curse of Merlin XX ................................................................. 99
The Curse of Merlin XXI ............................................................. 103
5
MOGG MORGAN
6
THE CURSE OF MERLIN
7
MOGG MORGAN
8
THE CURSE OF MERLIN
9
MOGG MORGAN
Every day he came into our corner shop for his sandwiches,
which my mother, Joan, made for him from that day’s fresh rolls
and enormous slabs of mature cheddar.
***
One of the unexpected things about being fifty is that you
suddenly start to learn lots of things about what happened just
before you were born. That’s PR I suppose – a handy anniver-
sary to celebrate – hence Roger Bannister and the four minute
mile, another 50 years since the Book of the Law, the nuclear
tests and the floods of 1953. They say it was the UK’s forgotten
disaster. I must have heard people talking about the floods and
when I think about it this road on which I spent so much of my
youth 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 a
result; hence some of of my minor learning difficulties and
absence of a sense of smell.
***
The River. Never underestimate the effect of living next to one
of the most powerful rivers in the world. I know every inch of
the Usk, Celtic for river, from its estuary of shifting treacherous
sands, 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 watching
the waters rise until all was still and the basin could hold no
more water. The grey sludgy tidal water mixing like cream in the
clear coffee of the non tidal stream. There’s an almost audible
silence, and then the moment as if miles away someone has
pulled the plug and the water begins to drop out of the basin in
a mad rush.
The mighty Usk cannot be said to meander its way to the sea –
‘hairpins’ it way might be better. It rushes through Caerleon
where my parents still live, and which I knew intimately, long
before I moved there. The river slices through Cryndau, where
there was once a precipitous park now just another road. This
10
THE CURSE OF MERLIN
***
11
MOGG MORGAN
***
I always liked people, even girls. Maybe I was four or five going
to my ‘sweetheart’s’ birthday party. I drank all the orange juice
as a joke. Her mother sent me home in disgrace, orange juice
was expensive, my parents moved house and I never saw her
again. It was six years before I had another go. I went out with
Angie from my school. She had long hair and a sweet face. We
bought some cigarettes and I took her to my secret landscape.
Everyone should have a secret and sacred landscape. The
stretch of wasteground beside the river. I lived beside a bridge
next to the power station. Where my street rose up over the
flood defences of the river, I followed the rail lines to the coal
storage. It was a real wilderness, closed off on all sides by
12
THE CURSE OF MERLIN
deserted factories. The earth was black but wild roses grew
there. I took Angie to the tiny lake to see newts and stickle-
backs. We smoked cigarettes until our mouths were dry. Angie
lay back awkwardly on the grass, her cheap sheepskin coat
bulging out. We tried kissing but it made us feel funny. Angie
said she didn’t like the smell from the ‘chem’ but I couldn’t
smell anything. I felt nausea.
I wonder where she is now? Angie’s mother could knit and made
a sweater for my mother. It was lopsided and didn’t fit. Her
mother was very jealous of Angie’s long sleek hair. She wanted
her 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 that
Angie got all fat. I have pictures of her from the school play -
she played Mary and I was the archangel Gabriel (She’s the one
marked out by a circle of biro). I have another picture, me as
the Pied Piper, she as one of the fat burgers of Hamlin.
***
13
MOGG MORGAN
14
THE CURSE OF MERLIN
Time to move on, to the west end of the park. The feeling I had
that first time I found the megalithic stone circle, right there in
the park. The beautiful, hungry stones of local old red sand-
stone, blackened by the Casnewedd air, encrusted with lichen
15
MOGG MORGAN
16
THE CURSE OF MERLIN
Whatever the problems that beset the people of Wales, are they
really deep down about nationality? I think lifestyle and social
class are as valid a candidate for the core or base of society -
from which so many structures and problems grow. Isn’t it
always the way of the demagogue to play the nationalist card on
any and every issue?
17
MOGG MORGAN
18
THE CURSE OF MERLIN
19
MOGG MORGAN
20
THE CURSE OF MERLIN
I was just eighteen and had crashed out of school. The Head-
master told me not to come back. He was classically educated
and said I was something like a spermologos. It’s what the Greek
philosophers called Paul of Tarsus. It means a ‘seedpicker’, a
person who like a bird randomly gathered scraps of information
and terminology. It all started to go wrong when someone told
21
MOGG MORGAN
But let’s stick with the last of these for now. It was occultism
that really exposed the gaps in my education. There I was back
in the reference library daydreaming over a bit of Crowley and
trying to make sense of Blavatsky; unsure whether to believe
some 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 Trade
Union movement had been good to me - sending me on courses,
paying for night classes. I wrote the obligatory essay for entry to
Ruskin College but was asked to defer entry for a year as they
felt I wasn’t quite ready. Perhaps they sensed I only really
wanted to go there to be with ‘my close personal friend’ who
already had a place. But then suddenly I had three offers of
places from mainstream Universities - Nottingham, Reading and
Sussex.
22
THE CURSE OF MERLIN
23
MOGG MORGAN
24
THE CURSE OF MERLIN
25
MOGG MORGAN
why mystics speak of good and bad angels contending over the
soul’s fate.
Vivekanda was the most useful guide to all this. It was as if he’d
thought of all the angles. Nod off in a meditation - it would be
there as one of the signs of progress - it shows the Ego is
getting worried enough about what you’re doing to try to put
you to sleep. In a western idiom these might be likened to
‘demons’ - tormentors ultimately sent by the Ego to deflect you
from the path. Why one part of mind would want to stymie the
efforts of another is one of those little paradoxes of magick. My
little experience of ‘enstasy’ was over. All I had left was some
excruciating sensations of ‘pins and needles’ caused by sitting
still for thirty minutes or so. The positive thing was that
Vivekanda wrote that meditation was a special kind of remem-
bering. This had several senses - the most immediate being that
the experience I had just ‘enjoyed’ could be called to mind at
any future time - and doing this would repeat its effects and also
cause it to grow. Meditation, like magick, was something that
could grow, even if painfully slowly, the more I practiced. . .
26
THE CURSE OF MERLIN
One of the best and most readable studies of the OTO’s recent
history: is The Unknown God: W. T. Smith And The
Thelemites, (Martin Starr 2004). Starr tells the story of Wilfred
Smith and I suppose what one might call the second generation
of Thelemites, who set about to promulgate the Crowleyan
teachings in 1930s Hollywood.
27
MOGG MORGAN
him that can take it’. And indeed, according to Martin Starr, if
Crowley could only have proved his right to the OTO crown
and 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 magical
world of the 1980s might have looked. Can you imagine what
the Theosophical Society, would look if Crowley had succeeded
Besant? Would Gloucester Place be rocking to the sound of
AC/DC?
It was the 1970s when I myself was first drawn into the OTO
net. I met a member of a recently reformed American branch of
the Order who up till that point had been a bit of a sleeper but
was happy to be re-activated. Kenneth Grant’s UK based
‘Typhonian’ OTO was a visible presence but was, for many, an
unattractive prospect. And that’s despite KGs high profile as
consultant to groundbreaking part work Man Myth & Magic,
and the first of nine seminal books of modern occultism. Whilst
many found these books an inspiration, I’d say no other occult
writer in any other Thelemic organisation has managed anything
like their sweep of vision and font of magical ideas. The best
the rest of us have done is maybe a few footnotes to Crowley.
Despite this, as a magical leader KG obviously left a lot to be
desired – the possibilities for empire building were just too
limited.
28
THE CURSE OF MERLIN
‘With Germer expired the last chance for Thelema to take root
in the United States, and the prospects internationally were no
29
MOGG MORGAN
So the moving finger in the sky pointed at Motta. But the Hairy
Pothead 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), Jack
Parsons (expelled then blown to bits) and the Martin Starr’s hero
Wilfred Smith – lost on a wild goose chase for a god unknown.
Luckily I didn’t know too much when like a fool I joined the
OTO. . .
30
THE CURSE OF MERLIN
31
MOGG MORGAN
32
THE CURSE OF MERLIN
33
MOGG MORGAN
34
THE CURSE OF MERLIN
tives’ , for me that’s precisely what it did. This at the time was
how I came to interpret Crowley’s maxim : ‘The aim of religion,
the method of science’
Notes:
35
MOGG MORGAN
36
THE CURSE OF MERLIN
***
37
MOGG MORGAN
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 the
magical implications - but it seemed to work out alright in the
end. Perhaps that is as it should be - it takes a while to unrival
all of the ramifications of a magical name. ‘Katon Shual’ is a
38
THE CURSE OF MERLIN
fairly ‘one for one’ transcription of the I Ching’s ‘Little Fox’ - the
one that is skating on thin ice but somehow manages to survive
by cunning and the judicious use of his (or her) tail. It’s also
difficult to decide which way round the elements of the name
should be viewed - but that also seems quite appropriate. There
was loads more to discover - including the mysteries of those
cunning little fox spirits - the Kami.
39
MOGG MORGAN
40
THE CURSE OF MERLIN
It was always made clear to me that the OTO I was joining did
not encourage contact between members. It’s magical
programme was in fact more akin to the grade structure of
another Crowley creation - the AA - an acronymn of uncertain
meaning - perhaps Argentinum Astrum - Order of the Silver
Star. The Typhonian OTO was framed around a curriculum of
individual magical study and attainment. All this was interesting
but hardly rocket science. The ace up the sleeve for the
Typhonian was the Kenneth Grant’s own extention of the
Thelemic mythos through a series of books and articles that
form the Typhonian trilogies.
41
MOGG MORGAN
When in the 1940s Kenneth Grant began his own career chan-
neling messages from ‘another world’ it was regarded by
Crowley’s successor Karl Germer as an insult to the great man’s
memory and as tantamount to blasphemy. Grant was receiving
messages from a trans-plutonian planet, which he identified
with the star goddess Nuit. Rumour has it that this was viewed
as a contradiction of the one of Thelema’s holiest texts where it
says ‘every man and every woman is a STAR’.
But Grant had captured the mood of his times better than any
of his contemporary magicians ever could or would. Grant was
obsessed with the idea that something out there is trying to tell
us something using a whole variety of mediums and modes of
communication. Crowley, he tells us, ‘with prophetic acumen [ ]
presaged the massive interest in alien phenomena which erupted
soon after his death and which was caused by Kenneth Arnold’s
‘flying saucer’ sighting [in 1947]. Whatever one’s attitude to
such phenomena – positive, negative or indifferent – there is no
just 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 fact
that something approaching a seemingly new and inexplicable
nature began slowly and insidiously to disturb the world in the
year 1947.’. (The Ninth Arch p xix)
42
THE CURSE OF MERLIN
Without getting too far ahead of myself - I ‘ve never been that
into the UFO hypothesis although I appreciate how it can
function as an important metaphor that can provoke the imagi-
nation, especially of artistic types. In the words of the historian
Michael Wood, UFOs are false but also real, or Umberto Eco’s
lies that are more powerful than truth. I had more empathy for
the 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 to
look forward to a future Aeon, which they hoped would be
ruled over by more balanced forces such as Maat, the ancient
Egyptian personification of Justice. The voices that speak to
the Maatians are not from some other race - but our own per-
fected future selves. Kenneth Grant had initially recorded and
rejected this philosophy but had over time changed his mind.
The prime source here would be his book Outside the Circles of
Time, which I was lucky enough to obtain from one of
Brighton’s remainder shops. The chapter ‘Andahadna and the
Mystique of Maat’ is particularly interesting. Andahadna or
‘Nema’ was / is an merican priestess. As I read it her story I
focussed on her mystical journey and skipped over Grant’s
attempts to analyze the esoteric subtext which didn’t mean a lot
to 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’t
really getting too much in the way of practical guidance from
my OTO mentors but there were plenty of ideas from my books
to mull over. I had gleaned that there was a particular aim for
this first degree practice - the vision of the holy guardian angel.
So the practice was all about vision. There was also the rather
unusually stipulation that the work was to last nine months -
which implied I was to give birth to something. Of the many
books that guided me through this time two in particular were
most useful - the first was George Chavalier’s The Sacred Magi-
cian: a ceremonial diary. The author has since comeout as new age
guru William Bloom. The second was Crowley’s own short diary
43
MOGG MORGAN
44
THE CURSE OF MERLIN
It was probably all bullshit really. I guess she really just wanted
to be with me but couldn’t bring herself to say that. She was my
first real grown-up girlfriend and I suspect it was pretty much
the same for her. We both had our hangups - conditioning that
needed to be undone. Like many women of the time she was
full of self doubt. And me, well yes, I had my own demons.
Magick helped me cultivate a ‘devil may care attitude to life’, it
made me a risk taker, much more willing to experiment and at
same time not worry too much about the consequences. That’s
why we messed the whole thing up right from the start. Jay
45
MOGG MORGAN
46
THE CURSE OF MERLIN
***
Wendy was our guide and bullshit filter through all this. She’d
mellowed her style, integrating material from western insights
such as Alexander Technique. The way she combined different
47
MOGG MORGAN
body magick styles was way ahead of its time. She told us that
those so-called gurus who refuse to teach menstruating women
are chauvinists who hide behind tradition. It was a very ‘tantrik’
class. After each session we all went to the student union bar for
a 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 know
about yoga from reading Crowley; but how wrong that is. Swal-
low your pride and you can learn so much more from a mumsy
teacher at the local community centre. One thing Crowley was
right 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.’ What
Crowley forgot was that you can’t relax and tense a muscle at
the same time. Magick still lacks its own bespoke yoga system.
None of the available styles quite fits the bill - either too New
Age or too materialistic. In my opinion a good teacher of body
magick could go a long way. Some sort of combination of yoga
or Ti Chi with magical visioning techniques. Whatever way you
look at it magick requires a warm-up - which is maybe what
Mahindra was getting up with his preparations. Some of the
most intense gnostic states I’ve achieved have been in that
warm afterglow following a good workout.
***
I caught the last train back to Brighton after a hard day slaving
over a hot keyboard. My mind was straining to accomodate all
the new ideas. My body was stretched in the yoga class; I’d
drunk too much beer; smoked too many cigarettes, if I was
lucky smoked a little dope, stayed on the dance floor until the
last waltz, then back to my bedsite. Many, many times my diary
reads, did the banishing, sat down to meditate in front of the
shri yantra then passed out; crawling into bed with you know
who. There were always so many dreams, I was good at the
dreaming. Uninspiring as it was my meditations did provide
some sort of back beat to the other comings and goings in my
48
THE CURSE OF MERLIN
49
MOGG MORGAN
50
THE CURSE OF MERLIN
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.”
***
I wasn’t the first to climb that ladder and soon the loft was quite
crowded when without warning the meditation began.
51
MOGG MORGAN
Allaaaaah,
Illaaaaaah
Allaaaaaah
Wry smiles went round the room. Rashid seemed a bit lost from
words and eventually responded with an anodyne ‘just persevere
and you’ll get there in the end.’
52
THE CURSE OF MERLIN
When middle class New Age types start talking about their
mortgages you know the meditation is defininely over. We were
back to normal mode - from the sublime to the ridiculous.
But something had still changed for me. University campus was
very beautiful, great care having been taken to build it in har-
mony with undullating hills. Many of the trees were very old
and had not been uprooted during the construction
process. 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 in
the cold earth just waiting to burst forth. I hadn’t felt that way
for a long time.
---
Note
http://www.geocities.com/nabarz110/theseethingcauldron1
http://www.agoron.com/~clavis/midsum.html
53
MOGG MORGAN
...
54
THE CURSE OF MERLIN
The left hand path (LHP) philosophy within the OTO kept on
growing and found an even wider audience when Gerald
Gardner the British founder of Wicca was initiated into 9th
grade of OTO. Gardner himself had travelled greatly in the
East and was a Sufi initiate according to ‘Witches-an
encyclopædia of paganism and magic’ by Michael Jordan.
Gardner was also a friend of Idris Shah, the most prominent
Sufi writer in the west. Idris Shah wrote Gardner’s biography
‘Witch’ under the alias Jack Bracelin, who was another mutual
friend. It could be suggested that Shah didn’t use his own name
as he probably didn’t want to be associated publicly with Wicca,
while Jack Bracelin was already doing a great deal to catch the
eye of the media. Shah’s Octagon press published the biography
in 1960. Idris Shah’s proposal in his classic book ‘Sufis’ (1964)
of the influence of Sufism on medieval Witch cults in Europe
via Spain, was probably inspired by his workings with Gardner.
Shah’s proposed number of potential Sufi influences in the
medieval period magical lore, to name a few: Moorish (or
Morris, which is disputed) dance, witch’s athame (blood letter),
Rosicrucians, the Knight Templars and Baphomet.
Maybe I got the wrong end of the stick regarding the herstory of
neo-paganism, but then there are people who really think the
Necronomicon is an ancient text, written by Arab mage, Abdual
Alhazred!
55
MOGG MORGAN
Curse of Merlin XI -
Cunning little fox
'It is god's nature to be without a nature. Humanity
being made in the divine image, affords a clue to the
mystery of god. To get at the core of God at his or her
greatest, one must first get into the core of oneself at
the least, for noone can know god who has not first
known themself.'
Meister Eckhart
Every morning I took the Eastbourne train from Brighton
station for the fifteen minute ride to the University stop at
Falmer. I often meditated before setting out as I'd read some-
where that the mind is clearer at the beginning of the day. It's
just very difficult to keep awake. The ancient Egyptians, if they
ever 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 for
more than a few days in succession. Mostly the early morning
commuters were wrapped up in their own worlds, reading
morning papers or a swanky new novel or magazine. The shriek
of the guard's whistle sent the ubiquitous seagulls screeching
into the air; doors were slammed shut and the train drifted away
from the platform. The seven hills of the city soon give way to
rolling downland. Perched up on the highest of those hills was
the grandstand of Brighton race course. I loved to see it hover-
ing there at the most unlikely of angles, before allowing the rest
of Brighton's townscape to slide by unobserved. Time to read
my book. This day I had with me Richard Wilhelm's translation
of the I Ching. I'd only read a few lines when a women said
'Now you amaze me that you'd be reading that.'
56
THE CURSE OF MERLIN
'Oh I don't know, I haven't really had time to read it yet.' I said
pointedly
Which you think might have detered her from saying more but
no way. She sat beside me. 'That's OK,' she said, 'I know all
about it. Let's do a reading. You're supposed to use yarrow
stalks but coins do just as well.'
'Yarrow stalks for the agricultural age, coins for the industrial,
maybe dice for the new one.'
She took three coins from her purse and invited me to cast
them. I threw them onto seat opposite, still warm from where
she'd been. They fell: 3 heads, 2 heads & a tail, 2 heads and a
tail, 3 tails, 3 heads, 3 tails.
57
MOGG MORGAN
'Whew,' she said, 'loads to read. "Nine in the third place means
the well is cleared, but noone drinks from it. But you could if
the king were clear-minded". That's tricky - but wells are good
things "whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will
never thirst; the water that I shall give him will become in him a
spring of water welling up to eternal life.etc etc" that kind of
thing.'
She quickly scanned a little more from the book. 'Ah!' she said.
'What?'
I wasn't sure about the way this conversation was going. Was
she making some sort of innuendo? The train trundled along
into Stanmer, the next stop would be Falmer for the university. I
wondered if the other passengers were earwigging our conversa-
tion.
'Don't leave it too long, sit on the fence too long and you end
up with. . . '
58
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, walking
on thin ice - using his tail to test things. If you want to get all
the way - to succeed - you must be a cunning little fox. . . here'
she said, closing the book with a snap and thrusting it into my
hand. 'Must dash. I've a nine oclock tutorial.'
Indeed the train had come to a stop and almost everyone surged
through the doors. Leah was already several yards ahead, she
took one last look back over her shoulder and called 'see you
later.'
59
MOGG MORGAN
The point about dice and any other oracle is that you are putting
the final decision into the lap of the gods. Although there are
notable examples of where that leads to disaster there are other
examples where it seems to work out OK. It's probably handy
to be able to allow a bit of chaos into the equation. Some might
object that oracles of the past were manipulated by a
machiavellian priesthood. Perhaps - although even control
freaks get it wrong sometimes, thing fall apart, things just refuse
to be controlled.
60
THE CURSE OF MERLIN
For those who would like to try to memorise the throws - here
are the first four permutions:
61
MOGG MORGAN
'Are you serious about all that occult stuff ?' he said.
62
THE CURSE OF MERLIN
I wasn't really sure if it was a good idea to say but in the end I
told him. He smiled in a manner dangerously close to being
supercilious.
It was my stop so I got off. Emlyn kept his seat in the now
largely deserted compartment as the train moved off in the
direction of Eastbourne. I slunk off for a coffee before a ten
oclock lecture.
***
A week or so later and I was again on the train when Emlyn sat
down opposite. He obviously had to knack of how to bump
into people accidentally on purpose.
'Ah, he said, 'I'm so glad I bumped into you again. I enjoyed our
little chat about the mysteries although I wanted to apologise if
I was in anyway rude about your esteemed holy order.'
63
MOGG MORGAN
'Touché!'
'Well let's face it, Crowley hated everyone, anyone who was a
rival. And during the war there seem to have been a several rival
occult orders, some of which are still around and some that
seem to have died a death. I only associate them because I
picked up a prospectus for your International Order of
Kabbalists at the Atlantis Bookshop. But come to think of it,
during the war Michael Houghton, aka Michael Juste, was the
owner and he ran a lodge of the Order of Hidden Masters until
Jean Michaud, the head of the Order, ran off with his wife!'
'I did but there was something in the prospectus that at the time
I found jarred. All that stuff about loyalty to King and country -
it just wasn't me - just too conservative.'
'Are you forgetting what happened just a few months ago on the
4th May?' he said
'I've been doing my best to forget all that. Do you really think it
has any spiritual significance?'
'Perhaps that's going a bit too far but I've been trained to at
least consider the possibility that it might be some sort of shift
in the zeitgeist. Oh and before you say it, don't fall into the trap
of those crazy types who start thinking they are somehow the
cause - that's just ego gone mad. No, its more a case that people
engaged in magick or other spiritual activities tend to become
sensitive to changes in the underlying spirit of an age.'
64
THE CURSE OF MERLIN
65
MOGG MORGAN
It's only when you do this kind of thing that you realise just
how many distractions the physical world can contrive. It's just
people moving about at their daily business; the tiny noises a
building makes as it expands and settles throughout the course
of the day. I know by now that to become too fixated on these
'distractions' is fatal to ones inner equilibrium. It's best to try
and 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 very
opposite effect. It's almost as if other beings intuitively know
what's going on and make a beeline for the door. Soon 'they' will
be hammering away.
66
THE CURSE OF MERLIN
be. Awake awareness means letting the sense data flow through
me and whatever else I do – I must not move my head to have a
good look..
I'm hoping things are going to calm down soon. But far from it
as I hear more of the little scratching noises. It takes just about
all the effort I can muster not to take a good look. Then they
stop. I'm pleased with myself, not to have given in. My eyes
open slightly and there on the yantra is a tiny mouse. I guess it
must be a real mouse that has scuttled under my door and now
it's sitting on its haunches enjoying a grooming session no doubt
before moving off again into the fluff and debris beneath my
wardrobe
***
That night he would bank the fire higher, remove the lid and sit
'til dawn observing closely the subtle changes passing over the
iridescent liquid within the crucible.
67
MOGG MORGAN
'Tell me mouse, whilst you were caring for my library, did you
perchance read? I wondered if you might express an opinion on
the relative merits of some of these esteemed authors. What of
this one, the blessed Avicenna, Liber Canonis De Medicinis
Cordialibus, a faithful translation or so I am told, from the Arab
tongue into the Latin? This book is a great favourite, one of my
oldest and most treasured. From this book I learnt the mysteries
of mercury. See, here, where I have marked the page in silver
point, all those years ago. "What is mercury?" asks the sage, a
question I have often asked myself and am still no wiser after
all my experiments.' "One kind" he says "is obtained by purify-
ing its mineral; another is extracted from crystals by fire, just as
gold and silver are obtained. When pure it has the colour of
cinnabar." Aye yes' Vaughan went on 'I have prepared the
quicksilver myself with the aid of this glass and the summer
sun. Burning the mineral and brushing aside the metal with a
pigeon's feather. But I bore you, do please take the floor.'
68
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 in
manners. You must be a learned mouse, spending so much time
pissing on my books. Here is one you haven't seen for sure.
Abbot Synesius, a learned Greek, a poet so I hear, but this little
treasure is truly that. Wondrous stuff, if only I'd seen this ten
years ago.'
'Father Vaughan! Is that you I can hear in there? I've to take the
dish back. Ma sends this pie for your supper, shall I leave it?'
Peering over Vaughan's shoulder, the boy, says: 'Looks like night
in there father?'
Vaughan ignores him and makes for the kitchen, the boy follow-
ing. 'You're limping bad today father.'
69
MOGG MORGAN
'Tis a wonder with all your cunning you could not save her, they
says...'
'Yes!' Vaughan broke in 'it was a pity, but I must get on.'
Thomas grabbed the plate, flushing to his hair line. 'I be off
then'.
Not long after the boy's departure, Vaughan himself went out
and limped across the yard to the kitchen, taking up the bread
and jug of soup left there. Back in the laboratory he locks
himself in for the night.
70
THE CURSE OF MERLIN
Time passed and it seemed to his sensitive eyes that the scum
had completely detached itself from the sides of the pot to
form in the centre an island of black crystalline substance. The
mass of the liquid was now white and the amorphous island of
crystal a very dark black. 'If my eyes do not deceive me a crisis
is imminent' he said out loud. Quite fascinated by what he saw,
Vaughan made no effort to move. So fixed was his body that the
muscles were frozen in their attitudes. The oil from the lamp
burnt low, his reading lamp grew faint and guttered. As he gazed
intently on the surface, the whiteness of the liquid grew ever
more pure and luminescent, the blackness ever darker. The
71
MOGG MORGAN
***
72
THE CURSE OF MERLIN
73
MOGG MORGAN
The voice belonged to a very pretty girl, who'd I say was about
fifteen but was probably older. 'Could be.' I replied uncertainly,
'Do you know 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 the
moment – but she asked my to say hello to you if I saw you.'
'Oh I just knew, Leah described you, she said you were difficult
to miss. Besides . . .'
'Besides what?'
74
THE CURSE OF MERLIN
'Yes,' she said emphatically. 'And you too, so Leah says. Leah
and me, we are members of the same group in 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 student
parties round and about. So tell me more about your magical
group.'
'OK, but not too much – you know how it is – secret – but we
are into the goddess Maat – have you ever heard of her, the
vulture goddess.'
'You know the tarot?' she said then answering her own question
'Of course you do. I'm just learning. What are your cards?'
'Oh that,' I replied, 'Well the moon I guess for the Piscean, and
75
MOGG MORGAN
'Really?'
'Different feathers?'
'What?'
I'm not too sure; I haven't really thought about it, ' I lied
76
THE CURSE OF MERLIN
77
MOGG MORGAN
The next morning I headed up the main drag, past the Assembly
Rooms, the Gothic Image bookshop, the Rainbow's End Café,
St Johns Church, on until the junction with Chilkwell St where I
turned right. I kept going until I was walking beside the high
stonewall that marks the northern extremity of the Abbey
grounds. The uninterrupted grey of the wall was broken by a
high arched gateway. There was a driveway leading to a large
mansion of Victorian Gothic. A small billboard read 'retreat
house'. I strode across the gravel courtyard and tugged on the
bell cord. A pleasant looking Anglican nun answered my call.
78
THE CURSE OF MERLIN
I wasn't sure if she could read the title of the book that lay in
my lap.
'We pretty much leave you alone here,' she said, 'unless you
request guidance . . . there's a large library downstairs, on the
side that overlooks the Abbey. There's a little parish retreat
group meeting there at the moment. You might be able to
insinuate yourselves in with them if you get fed up of your own
company. Apart from the library you have the use of the garden;
it has its own gate into the Abbey grounds, so you can go there
anytime you like. At the moment a theatre group is staging the
Glastonbury mysteries, why not go see?'
'Oh,' she said, 'you already have the meal times. Its petty basic
stuff, fuel really, so if you want to eat out that's OK but I can't
really give you a key and we lock the front door at ten.'
79
MOGG MORGAN
'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 standard
pleasantries, people generally prefer to keep their own thoughts.'
I nodded again.
Sister Magdalene wasn't kidding when she said the food was
basic. I better illustrate that lest you think I exaggerate; the
evening meal consisted of boiled potatoes and tinned frankfurt-
ers. The nun's attitude to food was a good paradigm of how
they viewed the world - something to be denied. Pagans take
food very seriously for it lies at the heart of our philosophy.
I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of
Egypt, out of the house of slavery; 3 you shall have no other
gods before me. 4 You shall not make for yourself an idol,
whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that
is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. 5
You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I the
80
THE CURSE OF MERLIN
See what I mean - its all about Egyptian religion really and its
denial. It's in that remembered moment on Mount Sinai that the
'pagan' was born and fanaticism came into the world. The
Egyptian, like all his or her contemporaries in the ancient world,
could always translate or find a home for 'foreign' or 'alien' gods
or goddesses in the native language - thus Baal is Seth, Maia is
Isis etc.
81
MOGG MORGAN
***
I've never been a very disciplined thinker. Over the years I have
met many magicians who claim a rock solid concentration but
82
THE CURSE OF MERLIN
not me. I'm much too astral. The late Gerald Suster, whose path
I was yet to cross, was very impressive describing his unswerv-
ing use of Crowley's methods such as the exercise of holding
the image of a white, equal armed cross against a black back-
ground with such resolution and application that the magician is
virtually able to drill holes in the astral. Perhaps that's why I was
so drawn to the tantrik approach - no black and white images in
Tantrism, more a riot of colour and image, overwhelming the
senses.
Well that's the theory - on this night the Shri Yantra was just too
familiar and I was soon drifting. But there again, was there really
any need to resist - surely it's good to drift, it will no doubt all
come right in the end. If the body really is the microcosm, then
it surely knows the way already, it just needs to be let go free
rather than told to tighten up?
83
MOGG MORGAN
the Mary - but which one I couldn't say. I have the overwhelm-
ing impression that my student friend Leah, or perhaps her
fellow 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 kaleidoscopic
mosaics.
Although I can't see Leah or Kali I'm still convinced they must
be lurking in the shadows. But it's Sister Magdalene who blocks
my further progress into the circle. She moves close, her hand
behind my neck; she pulls my head down so she can whisper in
my ear.
84
THE CURSE OF MERLIN
the bed and bury myself beneath the covers. I sleep but in the
morning my back still feels very tender. By the time I make it
downstairs the breakfast room is empty apart from Sister
Magdalena clearing up. 'You missed breakfast,' she said, with
just a trace of disapproval in her voice, 'but you could do worse
than one of the café's in the High Street, try Rainbow's end.'
85
MOGG MORGAN
86
THE CURSE OF MERLIN
87
MOGG MORGAN
What the hell, I thought, may as well spill the beans? ‘I’m on a
quest,’ I said, he smiled. ‘OK maybe quest is the wrong word, I
can’t remember if I told you about the OTO?’ Emlyn nodded.
‘Well I’m just coming the end a nine month probationary prac-
tice.’
88
THE CURSE OF MERLIN
‘It’s just that I’ve been reading in Plotinus that good spirits can
make one feel bad at the time but good afterwards. But on the
other hand, bad spirits make you feel quite wonderful when you
are in their presence but they leave you with a terrible sense of
violation.’
‘He says that when the good daemona approaches, the first sign
that it is getting close is the arrival of the bad guys. It’s almost
as if they are pushed forward by the approach of the good.’
89
MOGG MORGAN
‘Maybe not?’
We both emptied our glasses and stood up to go. But Emlyn had
one last point, always one last point to make. ‘Oh, one other
point.’ He said
And with that we made our way unseen, well almost, back to
the retreat house and our beds.
90
THE CURSE OF MERLIN
the house, down to that glowing stained glass door that looks so
much like the yantra.
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 they
are often resented. I was advised to seek admission to a reli-
gious order far away from home.
91
MOGG MORGAN
Pelagius knew all this from his reading at the monastery and
from local knowledge. His interest in the subject sparked by one
of his childhood visions. The ruins of the Roman occupancy
were now a playground for the village children. A popular game
staged in the defunct amphitheatre. The oval floor was a fine
lawn, the sand and gravel carted off years since for other build-
ing projects. The grass grew stronger and sweeter and this
attracted 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 the
dramas of old. Sometimes they were Romans and Druids,
sometimes Romans and Christians, Christians and Lions. Hour
by hour they played, drifting home in ones and twos.
92
THE CURSE OF MERLIN
The other man’s voice was effeminate and less cultured than the
first. ‘Wherever you go’ he said, ‘there will be trouble. Expect
no support from comrades, no matter how they might seem on
the surface. It’s all the same in the end, the same petty loyalties
and factions.’
The first voice spoke again telling me that no one would ever
know who I really was, my name would become a heresy. This
heresy was to deny that anything was absolutely sinful. You
opponents will say publicly that one should do whatsoever one
inclined to, but in their hearts they will think otherwise.
93
MOGG MORGAN
Dattatreya
***
94
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 a
large old manor house. The sign outside read “Grail Centre –
please come in” – so I did. I walked through a pleasant garden
up to the front door where I tugged on the bell pull. No one
came – The place was deserted. There was a note pinned to the
door. It said –
Visitors Welcome –
95
MOGG MORGAN
Well who could refuse such an offer and I duly slipped out of
the retreat house before nine and made my way back to the
Grail Centre, not really knowing what to expect. In the twilight,
the visitors’ room was now a brightly lit cube of light, shining
out into the darkening garden. An attractive, thirty something
couple seemed to be in charge. He introduced himself as David
and his partner as Ann. Otherwise there were half a dozen of us
seekers.
“It’s time to shut the door, so you must be the last.” David said,
indicating that we should remove our footwear and follow him
into 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 settle
ourselves on any part of a double row of pine benches that
lined the walls. A great deal of human ingenuity had been
applied to the design of the room. The benches, for example
were 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 look
to family and friends. Some look for it in another person, a
lover, husband or wife. But in the end the self is something you
must find within.” David then invited us to undertake a private
and silent meditation. I emptied my mind and got right into that.
After a while he began to speak again, his voice much quieter
and faltering. I guessed he was in some kind of a trance and was
channelling.
96
THE CURSE OF MERLIN
Yesod – I whispered.
97
MOGG MORGAN
98
THE CURSE OF MERLIN
‘Well, you might have told me,’ he said, ‘Maybe I could have
tagged along too.’
That was true but somewhere inside I knew that of we’d both
gone off to the Grail centre, I might be accused of leading him
astray. Being a weekday there weren’t too many customers, so
the landlord called time and was soon bolting the door behind
us.
‘Tell you what.’ Emlyn says excitedly, ‘Let’s not go back straight
away – let’s go for a walk up the Tor.’
99
MOGG MORGAN
the pitch darkness and were soon on the Tor side. We got up to
the deserted top using our night vision.
‘I meant to ask, all this Crowley stuff you’re into, it’s kind of
sexy isn’t it?’
‘Sexy?’
‘Well, you know what I mean, Crowley magick – isn’t it all sex
magick?’
‘It has that reputation, but to be honest, I don’t really know too
much about that side of things. At the moment I’m just a
100
THE CURSE OF MERLIN
beginner.’
‘A pervert!’
‘Not a pervert stupid, he was gay, but that’s not a pervert, not in
my book anyways.’
‘No’ I laughed, ‘far from it, maybe they should be. Although I
did talk to someone who was convinced that they would be
buggered the time they went to see Kenneth Grant, but turned
out there was absolutely no way that was going to happen.’
I guessed that this was what Emlyn really wanted to ask. I knew
where this kind of conversation can go so thought I’d better
watch my step.
‘Lets just say I’m open-minded. Since I got into magick I’ve
become more experimental in my approach to sex.’
101
MOGG MORGAN
‘Emlyn,’ I said, ‘Don’t take this the wrong way, but I really
ought to get back.’
‘I have to go soon. I can’t really get into this, not now. Tomor-
row yes, but not this minute, not here.’
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’t
really know how to make that work. All the words from the holy
books about “a curse on because” or the Blake’s – “The chapel
of Love” were running round and round in my brain. But
somehow I just knew all I’d achieved so far could so easily come
crashing down – as at this moment fate, like a demon was
conspiring to drive me off course.
102
THE CURSE OF MERLIN
103
MOGG MORGAN
thing.
I let myself recover slightly before settling down for the slow
building 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 to
thin and I feel suddenly very rooted in my posture but also very
disassociated, as if I am watching myself from some other
vantage point inside.
Then things get really wild like the car chase episode in Herman
Hesse’s “Steppenwolf ” – or Offenbach’s “Opheus in the Under-
world”. We are all crowded together, and it’s unbearably hot as
if somewhere unseen, vast thundering engines belch out heat.
Finally the entire company turns toward me and files out leaving
me alone in the temple. Some of them whisper things to me as
they file past, “good luck” or “don’t expect conversation,” or
104
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 can
sense the night sky. I walk forward towards what I know must
be some sort of sanctuary. Now I see it – a glowing tented
structure 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 wooden
stretchers. An eternal sanctuary light hovers above the cross bar
of 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 I
do so the brilliant sanctuary lamp hovering over the Naos, sinks
down through the cross bar and fills the inside of the structure
with blinding, white light. I struggle to keep moving, forward
into the sanctuary until the light consumes my entire body.
There is no heat or pain. But the heart in my breast is beating
very fast and feels as if it might burst with joy. And indeed for
several moments I am overwhelmed. Somewhere in the whit-
eout is another figure; his features indistinct apart from his
coppery blond hair. He clutches me to his or her breast and for a
moment our entities merge. All the while he says nothing
although my ears are ringing. So here it is, I think to myself, the
vision of my higher self, beyond conversation. Certainly neither he nor
I attempt to speak. Time passes and I am again in my oratory,
my heart racing, as I sit there for several minutes struggling for
breath but still close to ecstasy.
105
MOGG MORGAN
106
THE CURSE OF MERLIN
I follow her into her office. She came straight to the point, “I’m
afraid I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”
“Yes?”
“Not just that but it hasn’t failed to be noticed that you have
been drinking in a local hostelry and return worse for drink in
the small hours after goodness knows what.”
“Well since you ask, yes there is more, some of it too indelicate
for me to discuss. But let’s just say strange sounds in the night.”
“OK, I’m sorry for all that.” I relent, “what would you like me
to do now?”
“I’ve talked it over with the Father Jenkins, and he agrees that
107
MOGG MORGAN
its best if you just sort yourself out and leave after lunch. As it
happens Kate, one of our other guests is driving to Bath this
afternoon and she has room in her car if you would care to take
it.”
“Oh,” she says, “one last thing, just in case you think you are
being singled out I should tell you that Emlyn has already
packed and gone. The reverend Jenkins drove him back home
after breakfast.
I was beginning to smell a rat, they really had us both boxed up.
As she drives away I suspect she might toss that out the window
as soon as she is out of sight.
108
THE CURSE OF MERLIN
109