Voyage to Avalon

- Part II

by Robert Coon

Metatron is the archangel of Pluto-Kether. Many traditional Cabalists consider Enoch (Merlin) to be the same as Metatron. This confusion is understandable, for Metatron governs the realm of Eternal Life and Enoch is regarded as the first human in history to gain physical immortality. Kether also corresponds to the Crown chakra and is the centre of the True Will... In the Glastonbury Zodiac, the initiatory grade of Ipsissimus achieved in Kether is centred in the Unicorn figure of Capricorn, whose Arthurian attribution is Merlin (Enoch). Each star temple within the Somerset Zodiac represents a progressive stage of initiation within the A..A.. For those interested in the A..A.., I include a brief outline of this structure:

(Further information on these grades may be found elsewhere in my writings.)

There have been many learned treatises on the derivation of the word "Avalon". Isle of Apples... Merlin climbs up the apple tree... In the A.A., the Neophyte learns to invoke Sandelphon, the archangel of Earth... Sandelphon is visualised as radiant, vital, green-gold-red scintillating energy - all the shades of colour that the apple comes in... Visualise the Apple of Sandelphon before your navel centre. Know that this apple represents the Complete Truth of your own Being. With breath and will, absorb the apple into your navel area. This act signifies that you vow to obtain the full knowledge of your True Self...

Before we move on, let me deviate for a moment and invoke the Rabelaisian Angel to speak through the medium of Thomas Love Peacock on the derivation of "Avalon":

Taliesin sounded, on the gate of (Glastonbury) abbey, a notice of his wish for
admission. A small trapdoor in the gate was cautiously opened, and a face, as round
and as red as the setting sun in November, shone forth in the aperture.
The topographers who have perplexed themselves about the origin of the name of
Ynys Avallon, "the island of apples", had not the advantage of this piece of
meteorscopy: if they could have looked on this archetype of a Norfolk beefin, would
at once have perceived the fitness of the appellation. The brethren of Avallon were
the apples of the church. It was the oldest monastic establishment in Britain; and
consequently, as of reason, the most plump, succulent, and rosy. It had, even in the
sixth century, put forth the fruits of good living, in a manner that would have done
honour to a more enlightened age...

There have been other locales put forth as the hiding place of Merlin. The forest of Broceliande is quite popular. Let us look at three attempts by poet-magickians to rescue Merlin from this enchanted wood:

This from Clark Ashton Smith, friend of H.P. Lovecraft, poet laureate of California, and the last of the Romantics:

As a child, I wandered beside a fen
Where the sunset, falling through cloudless air,
Stained with scarlet the still and sedgy pools.
There I entered a silent evening wood
Knowing not that it was Broceliande.
Then, in the twilight of great oaks, a voice that I heard
And yet heard not seemed to dictate unknown words,
And I, constrained by some weird power,
Repeated them aloud...
And peering into a pool,
I saw the hoar and many-wrinkled visage
Of the ancient warlock Merlin!

And these lines from The Region of the Summer Stars by Charles Williams - as Merlin emerges from the forest and addresses Taliessin:

Merlin am I; she Brisen my sister; we are free
of the forest, parthenogenetical in Broceliande
from the Nature, from Nimue our mother; sent are we
to build, as willed, Logres, and in Logres a throne
like that other of Carbonek, of King Pelles in Broceliande,
to tend his daughter in the day of her destiny, but I make haste to Logres, to call
and install King Arthur;
at whose board you and I, again may meet.

Finally, this from Crowley - recording a ritual invocation performed amidst the California redwoods:

I found the treasure trove
Of fire, and consecrated all to love,
Smiting my soul within the protoplasm.

Within that temple of the midnight sun
I cried all night upon Hilarion!
All night I willed, I loved, I wrought the spell
That Merlin muttered low in Broceliaunde,
Till over Santa Cruz the day star dawned.
God should have heard me, had I cried from Hell!

This last reminds me of an apocryphal story I once heard about the California redwoods. A wandering magickian told me that these giant trees acted as accumulators of intense spiritual energies and had been charged by Tibetan warlocks and others through the centuries. In the 1960's these forces were unleashed and the Aquarian Age began. Perhaps Crowley was at work upon this project... The power of Merlin freed from the forest... At any rate, the Uranus-Daath - Pluto-Kether-Merlin conjunctions in Virgo-forest womb of Mother Nature during 1965 and '66 unleashed something extraordinary...

In Porius, John Cowper Powys has Merlin trapped within the rocks of Snowdonia. Porius, the hero, must rescue Merlin from his burial on Snowdon, called "the peaktomb of Cronos". The freed wizard begins to shape a "Second Age of Gold" for the liberation of suffering creation.

A common theme runs through all these "Return of Merlin" stories. Somewhere, in another dimension - within the "Explumeor" or moulting cage of transformation - the Magick of Merlin-Enoch is growing and fermenting - like good Somerset Cider in an Oak vat - awaiting the perfect moment to return to earth and to inaugurate an Omega Point of Global Resurrection. Each of us can hasten that day by our devotion to the immortal powers of Truth, Love under Will, and Gratitude... When Merlin steps forth from the Heart-womb of Glastonbury, the Aquarian Phoenix shall be reborn and All shall rise as Eagles - one in the Spirit of Truth...