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To: alt.magick.tyagi,alt.satanism,alt.magick,alt.pagan,alt.mythology
From: tyagi@houseofkaos.abyss.com (mordred)
Subject: Re: Merlyn-Druid or Christian?
Date: 27 Jun 1995 12:20:25 -0700

Kali Yuga 49950627

DangerMag (dangermag@aol.com) wrote:
|>|>| Just curious. When and where did the idea/legend/whatever of 
|>|>| Merlin being the son of The Devil crop up?

From a brief look at some Stewart texts (and without Tolstoy handy)
I gather that Geoffrey of Monmouth was the originator of this aspect
of Merlin's life.  Note that this origin, at least according to 
Mr. Stewart, was of a FAERIE BEING, a 'daemon' or 'spirit', along the
lines of Socrates augoeides or Crowley's holy guardian angel.  It is
only the Christian interpretation which equates 'deamon' with 'demon'
and 'faerie tryst' with 'incubus assault'.  I'm unsure where this 
interpretation was brought to bear on the story of Merlin's birth.


mouser@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Christopher B Siren) says:
|>|Well, Geoffrey of Monmouth (1135ish) had Merlin as the son of A devil,
|>|specificlly an incubus.  Incubi being the male counterpart of succubi,
|>|who were sort of medieval versions of Lilith - temptress demons to
|>|help explain nocturnal emissions.

With this I agree as above, though did Geoffrey perpetuate the extreme
(negative, Christian) interpretations of Merlin's birth, or was his an
expression like Stewart's?


ej613@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Maureen S. O'Brien) wrote:
|>And Merlin wasn't the only good-guy child of an incubus....

Oh indeed.  In fact if we toss out the moralism of 'incubus' and merely
admit that we're talking about 'otherworldly' or 'supernatural' beings,
then there are an INCREDIBLE array of legendary and religious persons
who would qualify (the Buddha and the Christ being obvious examples).


thaxton@cyber.net (Mandy Thaxton) writes:
|the legend of Merlin and his real life story are widely different.  
|There is a book by Douglas Monroe called something like "The 21 
|Lessons of Merlin".  READ IT. I wont go into what all it says, but 
|it basically tells the true documented story of Merlin and Arthur.  
|It's really surprising how different the truth and the legend are.  
|In my opinion, the truth is much more incredible.  Also, you get 
|great lessons in Welsh Druidism.

As you have seen by other posts the book you mention is not popularly
considered to be a 'scholarly' work.  However, you are bringing up
some very important issues and I'd like to emphasize them slightly.

Apparently there is a popular preference for 'physical=real' (i.e.
materialism) and a fascination with ascertaining some sort of 'real
history' about 'legendary figures'.  Not only is this somewhat
specious (since 'reality' includes nonphysical elements also), but
it detracts from what we may learn about Merlin and legendary people
like him.  

Considered from a purely mythological perspective, Merlin/Myrddin is
a prototype of the Wizard, and his life-pattern indicate some serious
consistencies among those who walk the path of magick and/or wisdom,
even if but symbolically.  Being 'between the worlds' (not completely
human and not completely otherworldly) is an important factor in most
neoshamanic traditions, for example, and this carries into modern
occultism and hack-mysticism as well. 

Various stories of Merlin (e.g. T.H. White) also have him with a quite
peculiar and unique relationship with the wilderness, being a hermit
in a cave or living in the wilds among the beasts.  White even has
him shape-changing and instructing Arthur through this means (perhaps
the most popular and instructive element of White's Merlyn, besides
his iconoclastic wit and bumbling charm).  

I don't think that either of these is insignificant coincidence.  The
popular conceptions of what Wizardry includes and how one qualifies
for status/authority within the field belies common prejudice as well
as common wisdom.  The moralism can be dispensed with rather quickly
(we can come to understand that if we don't accept the popular Xtian
cosmology then 'devils' and 'demons' may actually be beneficent 
entities), and what lies beyond it (and Mallory, if not Geoffrey) can
become a window into a type of Neopaganism which informs our experience
and leads to wonderful encounters which cannot be quantified or 'defined'.
The ambiguity and 'tweenness' of Merlin illustrates perfectly the lack
of clinging to analytic and materialistic categories of knowledge, for
example.

mordred
tyagi@houseofkaos.abyss.com
---------------------------
'Magick' has it's origins in the Wiccan religeon, as did Alester Crowley.  
He was a Wiccan High Priest at one time.  He turned away from the Wiccan 
faith and formed his own version here in the States (much as Martin Luther 
did with the Catholic Church) and it was then that he gave into his baser 
instincts and began to pervert what Wicca had taught him.

alt.magick: kheldar@vax1.mankato.msus.edu 
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