Spirit Quest Guides: Athena and Merlin
Presented on: Thursday, March 12, 1981
Presented by: Roger Weir
The King and the Queen in the Quest
Presentation 10 of 12
Spirit Guides of the Quest: Athena and Merlin
Presented by Roger Weir
Thursday, March 12, 1981
Transcript:
The date is March 12th 1981. this is the tenth lecture in a series of lectures Roger Weir on a subject The King and Queen in the Quest. Tonight's lecture is entitled Spiritual Guides of the quest Athena and Merlin
I guess the next program is coming out. You'll be able to get up the next few days, I think. Two or three days.
**inaudible comment or question from the room**
Sunday.
**inaudible comment or question from the room**
Spring. Spring Quarter 1981. And this particular ongoing event will feature the primordial image base. The first lecture on April 2nd is Trickster and Bodhisattva, Saviors from form and saviors of form. And then a lecture on the I-Ching. And on May 14th, just to draw your attention in case you don't get a chance to come back until that time, we'll have the ti-chi. And by a very good friend Chow-Li Chi will come in and we will create something together. On June the 18th I will try to bring my friend A.E. Van Boat(?). The great science fiction writer in when we take the mind, the primordial images of the mind. He spent 40 or 50 years studying the mind. An extraordinary thinker. And so, these will be interesting. And they are here so you can review this for yourself. I'll put in on the **inaudible word** after.
I noticed that quite a number of people have been coming continuously since the Summer Solstice of last year when I came out of permanent retirement and began lecturing again. And for those who have come consistently I think it might be interesting to start this evening with a poem by Wallace Stevens entitled The Snowman. Written very early in Stephens career. And it should have a reverberation for you. And bring back a sense that after all of the excursions that we have done since the Solstice, summer solstice, we can come back and find a reverberation the arcs of meaning by having this poem highlight for us again what Frank Lloyd Wright used to call the center line in the architecture of reality. There is such a thing as a center line. And this is one of those poems that is on the center line. And I think that in our excursions that we have come back tonight with Athena and Merlin as spirit guides to that place on the Hermetic questing where and all paths come together. And there's a moment of silent presence available to us if we can somehow comport ourselves to that moment.
So, The Snowman by Wallace Stevens.
One must have a mind of winter to regard the frost and the boughs of the pine trees crusted with snow. And have been cold a long time. To behold the junipers shagged with ice. The spruces rough in the distant glimmer of the January Sun. And not to think of any misery in the sound of the wind. in the sound of a few leaves. Which is the sound of the land, full of the same wind that is blowing in the same bare place. For the listener who listens in the snow and nothing himself behold. Nothing that is not there and with nothing that is.
**inaudible word** for American Insurance agent. We are the most mystic country on the Earth. We just haven't gotten around to it yet.
I'd like to start with Athena tonight, but I'll start with Merlin instead. Merlin is extraordinarily misunderstood and miss-positioned in terms of imagery. And I think that many of us have had acquaintance with say T.H. White's The Book of Merlin or Tennyson's Merlin and Vivian and The Idols of the King. Or any number of the children's versions like Howard Pyle and so forth or the stories of the knights of the Round Table. And always we have led to suppose that this fine early medieval magician does a few tricks and then sort of reseeds into the background. And all the Knights go on their adventures. And Arthur occupies his place. And somehow Merlin fits in. And somehow the image of the wonderful mag who has the peeked conical hat sporting celestial images in suspension on the dark blue ground. Crowning this white bearded probably pipe-smoking figure. But who is he really? After examining for many, many years all of those stories again and again Merlin is there at every juncture of meaningful change in the Arthurian Cycle. He is the tribal joint by which the skeleton of the entire epical apex(?) moved. He is present. And his presence allows for the movement and the change. Because quite frequently instead of just normal objective changes of direction there is a alchemical transformative change, which is required, and Merlin provides.
Now in terms of actual references to Merlin, the very first references that I would draw your attention to Geoffrey of Monmouth The History of the Kings of Britain, Historia Regum Britanniae written about 1135. Considered a fiction by many people for many centuries. In this book the very first appearance of Merlin is at a time about two kings before King Arthur. Vortigern tries to build a castle redoubt structure. And constantly the structure as soon as they mass enough stones to begin to have a form it sinks. So, all of the court magicians, and you have to imagine that now that somehow from the classical realm to the medieval realm. We passed from the era of the King as like an emperor surrounded by advisors. To the king in sort of a rough approximation of the Roman Emperor, where instead of having advisors he has court magicians who guess a lot. I think you've seen those kinds of people. The magicians say that the only thing that can a swage the Gods is the blood of a peculiar boy whose father is unknown. And whose mother approximates a mystical virgin. Such a boy is found and is brought before Vortigern. And it is the young Merlin. And instead of simply accepting the faith that is cast his way by the court magicians, Merlin even as a boy challenges them. He's the eternal child. The prayer iturnus. And he comes up with a pure vision through the ground and says what is there is that this is a pool of trapped water which makes a quicksand condition. And your structure is built on this and constantly sinks. And the only way that it can be firmed up is to drain the pool. Then he turns to the magician and he says what is in that pool. And they of course having not even had the capacity to see the pool and understand the dynamics of the quicksand are stymied.
So, Merlin goes further in penetration of his vision. He says that in the bottom of the pool you will find the tent all wrapped up. And wrapped in that tent our two dragons sleeping. One red and one white. And they are, and you imagine them sort of like the Piscean position head to tail and so forth. And this is a mystical axis of Earth. And he turns to Vortigern and lets it be known that he has chosen sacred site to build this temple. And that all of the circumstance was simply a way of reintroducing Merlin in his capacity as a seer eternal to come back into time and space and participate again in the turning of a whole wheel of cycles. Of which Vortigern is just the sheer beginning.
Well the pool is drained. They find, and Geoffrey of course, fine early 12th century historian recounts the draining of the pool. The finding of the tent. The extracting of the two dragons. Merlin then appears on the scene as someone who has the eternal vision. He not only sees through matter, but he sees through the primal nature of matter which is energy. And also, through its vicissitudes in time-space. He has the capacity to see through to eternity. Not the sophomoric idea of, I think there was a film about twenty years ago The Man with X-Ray Eyes, not like that. This is the inner eye of wisdom. But in a mode that is known to us I think classically as a prophetic insight.
And in fact, Merlin then, as he is accounted in here, is given an entire chapter. And it's called The Prophecies of Merlin. And he goes on to spin out the entire cycle which is just being initiated. and he recounts to Vortigern, who will soon die, the entire happenings that are to be. And Merlin himself lived through all of these happenings. He is there at the end of Vortigern's life. He is there to usher in the new king, certain Ambrosius. And then his brother Uther, who becomes Uther Pendragon and. Then the son of Uther Pendragon, Arthur. And he holds together the entire transformation personally. He is the golden thread which holds that eternal ritual together.
Let me digress for just a second gives you an image. One which you can incidentally see here in Los Angeles. there's a certain ceremony of integrity in the Mahayana, Mahayana Buddhism, where all the monks of a temple will sit together and chant. And they will all hold a single gold thread all the way through the chant. And that is to declare that they are linked eternally in the fabric of time-space. and that through our comprehension in them, we also participate in a universal design. Well Merlin in himself, in his physical historical presence, is the golden thread that holds together the transformation from Vortigern to Ambrosius to Uther Pendragon to Arthur. And Arthur of course has his realm truncated suddenly. And Merlin is literally put on ice. He is frozen by Vivian. And we'll come to that.
What about these prophecies in **inaudible word**? Let me give you some of the flavor. This is in the Penguin Classics translation. One of the few that are actually available.
As they struggled on this way the king ordered Ambrosius Merlin to explain just what this battle of the Dragons meant. Merlin immediately burst into tears. He went into a prophetic trance and spoke as follows, alas for the red dragon for its end is near. Its cavernous dens shall be occupied by the white dragon, which stands for the Saxons. Whom you have invited over. the red dragon represents the people of Britain who will be overrun by the white one. For Britain's mountains and valleys shall be leveled. And the screams in its valley shall rock with blood. The cult of religion shall be destroyed completely. And the ruin of the churches shall be clear for all to see. The race that is oppressed shall prevail in the end for it will resist the savagery of the invaders.
And so on. And it goes on for about 25 pages. Exquisite detail. And it reads very much like a book from the Old Testament. A prophetic book. Very, very similar.
This prophetic quality of Merlin surfaces when he is young but recedes into a different energy modulation as he grows older.
He next exhibits the capacity to transform human nature from what it is into what it can become. That is to say he can aid in the transformation of a person into an animal or a bird or a creature. In this sense, and one can take it as a psychological metaphor, he is the one who helps Uther Pendragon penetrate through the fortress of Tintagel on the very, very southern western tip of England. Where a certain beautiful woman, the wife of a certain knight, is kept in her fortress. And her name is Igraine and she is the mother of King Arthur. And Merlin, not to promote adultery, but in his vision, he sees that Igraine is the proper mother for the savior of England. And the person who will reinstitute a certain order in the world. And that Uther Pendragon in his last **inaudible word** is the proper father.
Now Pendragon is sort of a mispronunciation of pan dragon, which means all dragons. Which means immediately in the context of information available to you dragons of every color. Red, white etc. etc. So that Uther Pendragon carries a banner. And Merlin in fact in many, many illustrations is the one who actually carries the banner of a dragon. And the dragon of course is a very large serpent. And always to indicate the wildness of the serpent the dragon is curled. And more and more as you look at the curling of the dragon it is stylize. And it is stylized in a certain way which once you see it, it's not just a pure geometric form. But once you see it you never forget it. And later on, when we come to Athena, we will see that the serpents of the mantle of Athena are curled in the same way in which Uther Pendragon's banner was curled. And the imagery of Athena is about 2700 years before these events. And there was very little connection. other than of course the reinstatement of a spiritual epic in total, whole and redeposited in time-space again. Complete with the image base that was always there and the personages.
Merlin is that golden thread and that prophetic magician, transformer who sees this coming to be and midwives the rebirth of this eternal event.
The young child that is born of this union. And later on, Uther marries Igraine so as to legitimize Arthur. But because of the initial situation Arthur is taken away to be raised by other people. In particular to be tutored by Merlin. Who visits him again and again and again. and his training of Arthur is very, very similar in nature and in tone to Aristotle's tutoring of Alexander the Great. that is, he taught in what we would call today psychic wholes. He didn't parcel out information bit by bit by bit so that one wonders, one knows objectively many things but doesn't know what they add up to. Aristotle to Alexander and Merlin to Arthur taught in wholes, totalities. So that not only were the bits of objective learning available, but they were spiritually in focus so that all the connective tissue was also there and in focus. So that Arthur by the time he is 15 and is crowned king he is in fact a king and every sense of the word. Just like Alexander even though he was very young also, was the King. Because he has been trained literally from birth to be reinstated.
I guess a digression here. The closest analogy that we have is the reincarnation of a Tibetan lama line, like the Dali Lama. or the Karmapa. Or any of the long lines of reincarnation. That is to say that the figure is not simply another person who learns naturally from scratch but is a cosmic personage who recall and recollects the totalities that are presented to them. So that by a very young age 15, 16, 17 they are again in possession of their worldview which they have had before. So that the teaching is really a teaching in terms of a process of recollection urging the student to recall what indeed they know already. And I think Socrates' phrase that he's a mid-wife of ideas. The idos is the mental image of what it was that you recall. And one simply midwives that. Brings it to birth. Brings it to birth again. Brings it to rebirth. Helps it to reoccur again in time-space. Merlin does this for Arthur.
Then Merlin realizing that he has brought this entire landslide process in motion again must find another person in whom he can trust and confide. Because he has to keep track of what it is that he is doing because it is so enormously complex, and he has such a tremendous responsibility. And he does not have advanced, at this point in his life which I am relating now, he does not have the capacity to have a female companion. He's dealing in spiritual energies and he just does not have that capacity. So, he finds a holy hermit named Blaize. There's several different spellings of that. B-l-a-s-e. B-l-a-i-z-e. B-l-a-d-d, oddly enough from the Welsh. Blaize lives in the far north of England. Northumberland. which is up almost in the sky. As matter of fact the lot of the illuminated Gospels Lindisfarne and so forth were down in the very area in which Blaize was said to have had his hermitage. And I personally have always thought that it was appropriate that those wonderful illuminated Gospels should have occurred first there. And then as the Vikings came of course they moved across the, the landmass of England and on to the Isle of men into Ireland. And finally, into Kells where they stopped.
Blaize is the scribe for Merlin. And Merlin after a series of adventures, after a series of processes, journeys to Northumberland to spend time alone in the forest retreat with Blaize. And he recounts detail by detail all of the events to Blaize who writes them down. Menu winces(?). So that in this tandem confidence Merlin is keeping track like a cosmic accountant would keep track of a business. He's keeping track of the reoccurrence of this tremendous event.
Now one of the adventures, one of the images that Merlin brings into play is the round table. He is the one who has the fabled round table made. Which is made for Uther Pendragon. And after King Uther dies, Merlin to preserve the quality and the pristine character of that table has it deposited in the hall of a King named Leodegrance. And you can play with the metaphors of that. Leo. Leo the Lion, the King. Degrance, of grace the king of grace. Leodegrance. Whose daughter when she is born is Guinevere, the wife-to-be of Arthur. So, Merlin with his eternal vision, is prophetic capacity, sets up all the elements in the exact place where they need to be. And years later, decades later, a generation later the various elements come back into play and begin to collalesque. This is the way a master magician works. Gets chinsey to pull rabbits out of a hat. and it's not much better just to levitate tables. But to create reality over time-space and have it come out as a work of art that's magic.
I once asked a Tibetan lama, I said you know you wrote this tremendous, this tremendous book on history of the Karmapas. And the karmapas are the real very famous magicians. The fifth Karmapa. The first Karmapa was a natural telepath named Dusim Khyenpa. And he was a, he was wild card. A juvenile delinquent and everything. And when he grew up, he was really something. Miraculous kind of, of a spiritual energy. And the fifth Karmapa convinced the Mongols to become Buddhist by performing celestial miracles, meteor showers and everything for 18 days in a row. Until they finally gave up. and they were tremendous murals.
But I asked him. I said for this lama. His name is **inaudible word or two** why is there no magic now at the contemporary Karmapa? And he said well there is. He said saving the Dharma this time is the biggest magic of all. to pull that off but it's the ultimate trick. This kind of a thing. This is what Merlin does. He is that spirit guide who creates out of eternal sensing and timely placing that eventual coalescing, that relationality of persons and events, which will create a spiritual reality. That's what he's up to.
He also moves a series of circles of stones from Ireland onto the Salisbury Plain. And he relates that he had done this in times past. And the people around him think he means twenty years ago, and he means several thousand years ago. And he means that he was one of the creators of architects of Stonehenge in Avebury. And he does it this time because this is exactly how it should be. And he says that on this spot where we have set up a stone circle. And its purpose is to restore human beings to health. That this is the right place. And of course, later on oddly enough as some would say on that spot is built Glastonbury Cathedral. Which was the, of course, the Great Hall the spiritual Hall of the Arthurian cycle. The ruins of Glastonbury are still there. It was the largest Cathedral in England. It was wrecked of course by the restoration 1650's-60's. But the ruins are still there. And Glastonbury is the place where Arthur originally was buried. And it is, Glastonbury Cathedral is within a day's walk at Stonehenge and Avebury and all the other places. They're all there on the plain.
Merlin and his adventures in this mode are best told I think by Thomas Malory. M-a-l-o-r-y. Thomas Malory. I don't want to dwell too long on this because we have to, we have to get to Athena. Because she's the, she the other side of this. But here's a sample
For what cause is that boy Arthur made your king? Sirs says Merlin I shall tell you now the cause. For he is King Uther Pendragon's son. born in wedlock gotten of Igraine. The Dukes wife of Tintagel. Then he is a bastard they said all. Nay said Merlin. After the death of the Duke more than three hours what was Arthur begotten and 13 days after King Uther wedded Igraine. And therefore, I approve him, he is no bastard. And who saith nay he shall be King. And overcome all his enemies. And or he shall be long King of All England. And have under his obedience Wales, Ireland, Scotland and more realm than I will now rehearse.
And of course, Arthur becomes king because he is able to draw the sword out of the anvil. And I think the, I think the mythic image here to center on in your speculations and let it circulate through your psyche, is that the sword in the anvil is held there by a kind of maga...magnetism, electromagnetism. Which needs to have something to break the polarity to release the sword. In other words, it needs the hand of he who cannot be polarized to draw the sword out. And Arthur by the tutelage of Merlin knows how to do this. He has that capacity. So, this is the perfect mythic image of that personage, even though he's fifteen, who already is psychically and spiritually whole. And is able to pull the sword out of the anvil. the anvil has the intransigence in the world. the sword always has the image of cutting through to wisdom.
Later on, of course Merlin besides going to the forest retreat of Blaize, goes across the English Channel. He goes to France to Brittany. And there in a sacred wood, Broceliande, he encounters a woman named Vivian. And Vivian of course is also a very, very old mystical figure. But she is related to the Lady of the Lake. Who by her arm appearing above the lake holds up Excalibur. The sword from the anvil is not Excalibur. Excalibur comes from the lake. And this is a, we'll go into that in in another lecture. It's a, it's a complicated thing. but the Lady of the Lake is one of the most mystical images of all time. And this sword held up, Excalibur, must be returned to that source.
Now there's another connection for those of you who are thinking along with us investigating. Lancelot's name is Lancelot du Lac. French for the lake. So, there's a connection between Excalibur coming from the Lady of the Lake and Lancelot who is the knight of that order and that realm and Arthur. Who is of course the recipient of Excalibur and the King to Lancelot. But behind it all the mastermind, the shaping consciousness, is Merlin.
It is said that Merlin is finally trapped because he takes Vivian into his confidence. And of course, she feels love for him. And finally asks him to teach her a charm which can bind people without iron, without wood, without stone. And Merlin teaches this charm to Vivian even....
**inaudible few words/sentence or so** may we have it on the table. That would be excellent. Thank you very much. We didn't even get a chance to light our candle. **inaudible word or two**. Thank you very much.
And so...stop on Merlin.
Merlin is said in one version to be encased on a crystal ship and suspended from time-space. And that when the time is right and Arthur is to, to return, because he is also the future King, that Merlin will be released voluntarily by Vivian from the charm. And he will be returned whole and in motion to the world of time and space. And will again shape the realm of Arthur.
Before all of this and linked to it in an odd way was Athena. And I think you should know that Athena was the patroness, the Goddess for several places in the classical world but primal way beyond all others. She was the patroness of the city of Athens. And she is also the central spiritual figure in Homer. She appears in The Iliad as one of many Gods and Goddesses. But she emerges in The Odyssey as the basic moving force, spiritual force. She was initially a tutelary Goddess which is why she is called in The Odyssey mentor. She takes the form of a of a teacher for Odysseus' son Telemachus and she calls himself mentor. And today we call that person who teaches us not an instructor, not just a teacher but an educator who recreates for us learning. That person is a mentor. Is our mentor. There is a personal relationship.
The biggest expression that I can think of, of Athena and her capacities and powers is the Parthenon. That building that was shook just a few weeks ago by the earthquake in Athens in Greece. And I'm sorry I didn't, could not find any of my slides on the Parthenon. I simply have to remake them. it might take me a year or so, but I'll get all these things together again. The Parthenon is interesting because of course everyone knows it's on the Acropolis. Which is the huge rock outcropping in the center of Athens.
And Athena as a Goddess goes back before there was an Acropolis, before Athens was really a city. She is that spiritual energy that inhabited the Acropolis. And she is a mountain God. That is, she has a connection with the wildness of nature. But not the wildness of nature that is groot or clumsy but the wildness of nature that is full of God's wisdom. so that she is that spiritual energy which brings the sophistication of the natural order into a focusable attention whereby man can't focus his mind and learn. She is prism by which the spectrum of the natural order casts its light for mans intelligence to learn. And he in turn expresses his learning by building things like the Parthenon. Or even larger by creating in terms of time-space a city like Athens. Or in its deepest reverberation creates a civilization like classical Greece. It comes from the same spiritual pitch. It's just the larger elements of the tune, the theme, the composition, the symphony. All those comes because there is finally an investigation really a prism and really an Athena as a spirit guide. And certainly, really individual human beings who can be that this is how it is and learn. This is how it happens.
And not to go too deep into the archaeological background and so forth but Athena as a spirit guide exists well before the Hellenic era. She is already present around 2000 B.C. in Minoan Mycenae age. And of course, archaeology today is very sophisticated has traced her back. She is akin to Neth in Egypt. N-e-t-h. Neth in Egypt and eventually....
END OF SIDE ONE
**inaudible background chatter and misc. conversations in the room for several minutes**
Lecture starts at 9:20
I wanted to alert you all to two summer solstice happenings. We're starting to observe the equinoxes and the solstices again. And on June the 6th doctor Stephen Kerr(?) a very good friend of mine and doctor Engler Breton, is one of the trustees of philosophic Research Society are going to do a summer solstice program, mystical birthday of the soul. And that's June 6th. And they're doing that early because dr. **inaudible word** has to be out of the country. On exactly the solstice, June 21st, I am going to be doing a celebration with two friends of mine, Theodore Sturgeon and his wife Jane Sturgeon. for those of you who don't know Sturgeon is for 40 years been one the world's great writers. He writes a lot of interesting semi fantasy, semi science fiction. But quite an exotic person. And we'll be doing a two-hour program and it's going to center around Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream. Which of course is the all-time great summer solstice celebration. And we'll do something that'll be interesting. Draw your attention to that.
I want to have time for observations and questions because I think that that is appropriate. I'm going to try to get my slides remade on **inaudible word or two** the Paris Opera. And it'll come in just right. We'll do it next week. I brought the basic book down so you can look at it.
Athena is difficult to envision. Merlin still is alive in our unconscious, advisedly using that term unconscious. But images of that era are still alive for us. Whereas for the classical Greeks they're a little lower down. Require a little bit more penetration to get to.
So, I'd like to refresh. I think I might have from read some of this. This is Homer. This is the section in The Odyssey after all the adventures. After all the traveling. After enduring the complete mythological cycle Odysseus returns home. Is returned home. Almost as a gift. Because companions along the way return us to our home. And he had been asleep while this is happening. And when he wakes the Goddess Athena and all that she now presents as you can understand is standing before him. He's examining all of his treasures on the beach.
"But now Athena came him. Likening herself in form to a young man. I herdsman of sheep, a delicate boy such as the chosen kings are. Wearing a well-worn shawl in a double fold over her shoulders." See right away she changes shape a bit. She shapes herself so that the human psyche can apprehend her.
Under her shining feet she had sandals, and, in her hand, she carried a sphere. Odysseus in joy at the sight, came up to meet her. And spoke aloud to her and addressed her in winged words saying, dear friends you are the first I have met with in this country. I give you greetings. Do not cross me with evil purpose but rescue these possessions of me. I make my prayer to you as a God and come to your dear knees as a suckling. And tell me this and tell me truly so that I may know it. What land is this? What neighborhood is it? What people live here? Is it some one of the many Southern Islands? Or is it some poor land slanted out from the generous mainland into the salt sea.
He also is someone for whom Athena as a spirit guide has changed shaped. And so, he's impersonating the fact that maybe he, he's a stranger. He doesn't know where he is and all that.
And so, Athena right away because she is his spirit guide, his tutor says, dear friend since you are the first...she says,
Dear friend you are some innocent Oh stranger. Or else you have come from far away if you ask about this land. Or is it not so nameless as all that? There are indeed many who know it. Whether among those who live toward the east in the sunrise. Or those who live up and away from the mist and darkness. See now this is a rugged country not for the driving of horses. But neither is it so unpleasant though not so widely shaken for there is abundant grain for bread grown here. it produces wine and there is always rain and the dew to make it fertile. It is good to keep goats and cattle. and timber is there of all sorts. And watering places good through the seasons. So that stranger the name of Endicott has gone even to Troy.
And she probably looks at him very closely, to Troy.
Though they say that it is very far from **inaudible word** country. So, she spoke. And resourceful great Odysseus was happy rejoicing in the land of his father's when Pallas Athena doubling Zeus of the aegis told him the truth of it. And so, he answered her again and addressed her in winged words. But he did not tell her the truth but checked that word from the outset. Forever using to every advantage, the mind that was in him.
And he goes on. And he tells her that he's from Crete and all those things.
So, he spoke. I'm skipping a section.
So, he spoke. The Goddess gray eyes Athena smiled and stroked him with her hand. and took on the shape of a woman both beautiful and tall and well-versed in glory of handy-words. And spoke aloud with him and addressed him with winged words. It would be a sharp one and a stealthy one who would ever have cast you in any conniving. Even if it were a God against you. You wretch so devious. Never weary of tricks that you would not even in your own country give over your ways of deceiving and your thievish tale. They are near to you and your very nature. But come, let us talk for more of this. For you and I both know sharp practice. Since you are far the best of all mortal men for counsel and stories. And I among all the divinities are seen for wit and sharpness. And yet you never recognize.
And then she discloses herself.
Pallas Athena. Daughter of Zeus. The one who was always standing beside you and guarding you in every endeavor. And it was I who made you love by all the **inaudible word**. And now again I am here to help you in your devising of schemes. And to hide the possessions which the **inaudible word or two** bestowed. And it was by my thoughts and counsel on you as you started for home. And tell you all the troubles you are destined to suffer in your well-run house. But you must have necessity endure all and tell no one out of all the men of the women that you have come back from your wanderings. But you must endure much grief in silence. Standing and facing men in their Violence. Pallas Athena.
Pallas means girl.
**inaudible comment or question from the room**
P-a-l-l-a-s. Palliquey(sp?) means like a concubine. But a concubine not just sexually but a very, very dear friend. So, she is not physically a concubine, but she is so close in his spirit that she isn't a constant friend to him. she's not a distant guide but she is a constant friend. she says I; I am there all the time. I am right beside you. In fact, she is right inside of his mind. She is the foresight. She is the, the all reflective **inaudible word**.
And so, in turn the source for Odysseus spoke to her an answer. It is hard oh Goddess for it even a man of good understanding to recognize you on meeting for you take every shape upon you. But this I know well, there was a time when you were kind to me in the days when we sons of the Achaeans were fighting in Troy land. But after we had sacked the sheer citadel of Priam and went away in our ships and the God scattered the Achaeans, I never saw you daughter of Zeus after that. Nor did I know your visiting my ship to beat off some trouble from me. But always with my heart torn inside its coverings I wandered until the Gods sent me free from unhappiness.
So, he's saying well, you see he's trying to test her. saying no you weren't with me, I did this. It's a game. It's a game of illusions. And they are masterful. they are student and mentor. And they have learnt the art of reality, of creating reality. And they are vying to see if they are intact. He to see if she is Pallas Athena and she to see if this is the Odysseus who can regain his kingdom. And reinstate his family. Be a paradigm for the classical Age. And she the Goddess of the Parthenon of the city **inaudible word or two**.
"Then in turn the Goddess, gray eyed Athena answering." Now says she has grey eyed. The owl is her bird because the owl had the open eyes. And also, the owls inhabit the wild crags in the mountains. She's the mountain Goddess. The serpents come from the ground and the owls come from nesting in the crags. all these are Earth embodiments. Ones grey-eyed Athena.
Always you are the same and such is the mind within you. And so, I cannot abandon you when you are unhappy because you are fluent and reason closely. And keep your head always. Anyone else who comes home from wandering would have brought happily off to see his children and wife in his halls. But it is not your pleasure to investigate and ask questions. Not till you have made trial of your wife. Yet she is always sits there in their palace. And always with her the wretched nights of the days also waist her away with **inaudible word**. And never did I have any doubt but in my heart always knew how you would come home having lost all your companions.
She like Merlin sees in terms of wholes. Totalities. So that in her teaching, in her mentoring her wisdom, she never gives every detail, but she gives the clues like the golden thread. And she gives the basic image base. And if the student is spiritually alive and alert will create for themselves out of the clue and the material the shape of reality itself. And by that student participating will prove in fact that they understand the wisdom. If they don't it's as if it never happened. There no sutures in reality. It either happens or it does not.
And never did I have any doubt but in my heart always knew he would come home having lost all your companions. But you see I did not want to fight with my father's brother Poseidon who is holding a grudge against you in his heart and because you blinded his dear son hated you. Come I will show you Southern Ithaca so you will believe me. This is the harbor of the old man of the sea Proteus. And here at the head of the harbor is the olive tree with spreading leaves. And nearby the cave that is shaded and pleasant and sacred to the members who are called the nymphs of the well spring.
We hear these images and we hear these words and we are charmed as someone telling us a story. We don't realize it, but the imagery is so sophisticated and staggered with so much meaning that you can never literally unfold it and make a civilization. For instance, the old man of the sea, Proteus, is that personage in Greek mythology who constantly could change shape. And if this has been the only person who ever held onto him through all his changes of shape until he finally gave up, stopped metamorphizing and asked Odysseus what he wanted. And Odysseus of course wanted information. It is the questing mind, is a hermetic mind. So, on that line is the old man in the sea.
Then at the head of the harbor is the olive trees with spreading leaves. The olive tree is sacred to Athena. And on the Acropolis was an olive tree. And legend has it that the Persians burnt the olive tree and it grew back in a single day. The roots of the olive are able to live there where the owls and serpents are. And out of this sparsity produce the olive which is the staff of life in that area. Olives and olive oil and so forth.
The next line is the cave that is shaded. And of course, cave is the entrance to the underground. And Athena's father Zeus of course, had many of his early temples in caves. Especially in Crete where Odysseus and his lying to her says he was from. The Diketone cave in Crete was the original site of worship of Zeus. So, she's working this in.
And then the nymphs. The nymphs of the Wellsprings. Just remember the Lady of the Lake raises Excalibur and so forth. All of these are there in every line. But we needn't burden ourselves with trying to see staggered metaphor. We can unfold it with on your time.
This is the wide overarching cave where often you are used to accomplish for the nymphs their complete sacrifices. There is the mountain they **inaudible word** to us all covered with **inaudible word**. So, speaking the Goddess scattered the mist and the land was visible. Long suffering great Odysseus was gladdened then. Rejoicing the sight of his country and kissed the grain given ground. Then raised his hands in the air and spoke to the nymph's prayer. **inaudible word** nymphs, the daughters of Zeus I never suspected that I would see you again. but welcome now to my gentle prayers. And I will also give you gifts as I used to before. If Athena the spoiler Zeus' daughter freely grants me to go on living here myself and sustains my dear son. Then in turn the Goddess, grey-eyed Athena said to him, never fear. Let none of these matters trouble your mind. rather let us hide these possessions without the light deep in the inward part of the wonderful cave so that they will be kept safe for you.
The hiding of Odysseus tripods deep in this cave is exactly the same spiritual ritual as putting the golden **inaudible word** exactly the same thing and that's where this understanding comes from. And it is also that kind of source of energy by keeping a secret, one has a secret and derives spiritual energy from the secret. The secret treasure which is hidden and only you and the spiritual guide knows what it is and where it is.
So, the Goddess spoke and went inside the shadowy cave looking through it for hiding-places. Meanwhile Odysseus brought everything close up. Gold. tireless bronze. Clothing that had been made with care. Given to him by the **inaudible word**. And stole it well away inside. And Pallas Athena, daughter of Zeus of the aegis set a stone against the doorway. The two sat down against the trunk of the hallowed olive and plotted out the destruction of the overmastering suitors.
It goes on in this chapter.
This is the way of the spirit guide. That inner presence which discloses to us, in terms of wholes, the sense of reality. And allows us to move through time-space with design and mobility and freedom. And to see what is to be done and how to do it. And this of course the function both of Athena and of Merlin.
We will next week shift over to spirit guides who are human beings. I'll take Plato and our own beloved Manly Hall and see how spirit guides turn out in human form.
I would like to have just a few minutes if you don't mind. And just comments. It needn't be questions. I think I'm used to teaching in a mode where people actually investigated and brought back tales of their own investigations and adventures and shared them. And I'm not used to the Victorian model of someone being authoritative. I'm not very well trained in that mode. So, what observations or things do you **inaudible word**?
**comment from the room** I was just thinking of Manly Hall illustration of **inaudible word**. There's **inaudible word** superimposed in this **inaudible few words** and what not. That would be the, the sort of the **inaudible word or two** connection that enables the **inaudible word** to be opened.
Yes and...if you take a look at spiritual centers in**inaudible word or two** there's a discussion there on the physiological happenings. For many people who investigate these realms they are satisfied with the metaphor. Or they are satisfied with the doing giving attitude. But in fact, the physiological reality transmutes itself. The Iranian phrase is the man of life or the person life. It could be a woman also. Meaning that this, which is literally like **inaudible word**, literally translates to a harmony. Which can only be described as light energy. And so that it actually happens. That illustration by **inaudible word or two/name** there
I tried to get a reproduction incidentally. I have a photograph of that reproduction of Athena Parthenos that you mentioned.
**inaudible comment from the room**
There's a...I once saw a photo at one time, and I located it this past week. Usually it shows her for holding the headless winged victory here. Shield to shield in the other hand. but I **inaudible word or two** and I found it again taken by, from by a German Museum from an angle which showed the inside of the shield. And wrapped around the inside of her shield is the double heavy serpent wrapped in a Hermetic pearl right there with the hand along the shield. the shield of wisdom can only be held by someone who had that capacity. Not only not to flinch but to control. And its quite a, an interesting sight to see.
Other observations. They don't have to be questions at all. An observation.
**inaudible comment/question from the room with only a world now and then audible for several sentences**
No. Not at all. Not ever.
**comment from the room** So the real connection **inaudible several words**
It is, it is an **inaudible word**. That's right, yeah.
**inaudible comments from the room**
It is interesting, yeah.
There was another **inaudible word** in India that I'm sure you are familiar with. And that is the, **inaudible word** crystallized on some intergalactic **inaudible word**
34:33
yeah **inaudible word**
The he exposed **inaudible word** inside the tree.
Yes.
**inaudible few words from the room** for Athena. **inaudible several words**
Athena s a tree Goddess also. The olive tree.
There's another one, he's also, he's put into a cave and rolls a rock. She rolls a stone in front of the cave.
Yeah.
**inaudible word or two** crystalline cabbalistic symbols.
Yeah. The rocks in front of the cave and all that. Of course, Polyphemus, who Odysseus killed, rolled a rock in front of his cave to guard it. Open Sesame from The Arabian Nights again is another. And you know the mystical significance of The Seven Voyages of Sinbad. All these things. But for instance, just to probe.
Do we have any time at all? Are we out of time?
**inaudible response**
Just, just to prob for a second this whole idea. I don't know if I can...
There's a point in the travels of Odysseus where Athena saves him. And she saves him as the image of a tree at the end of book twelve. He has been constantly reduced, as we are in spiritual trials, to less and less and less and less. Until finally there's nothing left physically at all. And if you're going to survive you survive because you realize that there's more to you than just your body and your feeling and your mind. Because they're completely incapable of extracting it. And so, you are left position less in the universe. Well to express this Homer has Odysseus lose his crew and finally the ship. Until finally there's just the keel and the mast of the ship floating on the open ocean. He lashes them together and he clings to them. And the ocean carries them all the way back across his journeys to the place that most fears. the place of Scylla and Charybdis, which he had fled from long, long, long time back in the adventures. He's carried all the way back to that point of terror. And this is his accounting. And Athena saves him in the form of a tree.
"Zeus drew on the blue-black cloud and settled it over a hollow ship. And the open sea was darkness beneath it." Majestic **inaudible few words**
And she ran on but not for a very long time as suddenly a screaming west wind came upon us strongly blow. And the blast of the strong winds snapped both the four stays that were holding the mast. And the mast looked back works and all the running gear collapsed in the wash. Depth the stern of the ship the mast pole crashed down on the steersman's head. And pounded to pieces all the bones of his head so that he like a diver dropped from the high deck and the proud light left his bones there. Zeus with thunder and lightning together crashed on our vessel. And struck by the Thunderbolt of Zeus she spun in a circle. It was all full of brimstone. my men were thrown in the water and bobbing like sea crows they were washed away on the running waves all around the black ship. And the God took away their home coming. But I went on my way to the vessel to where the high seas had worked the keels free out of the hall. And the bare keel floated them a swell, which had broken the mast off at the keel. Yet still there was a back stay made out of oxide fastened to it. With this I lashed together both keel and mast. Yet and then rode the two of them while the deadly strong winds carried me. After this the west wind seized from it stormy blowing and the Southland came swiftly on bringing to my spirit grief that I must measure the whole way back to Charybdis. All that night I was carried along. With the Sun rising I came to the sea rock **inaudible word** of dreaded Charybdis. At this time Charybdis sucked down seas salt-water. But I reached high in the air above me to where a tall fig tree grew and caught hold it and clung like a bat. There was no place where I could firmly brace my feet or climb up to it. For the roots were far from me. And the branches hung out far. Big and long branches that overshadowed Charybdis. Inexorably I hung on waiting for her to vomit the keel and mast back up again. I longed for them to come and they came late. At the time when a man leaves the law court for dinner after judging many disputes brought to him by litigiousness young men. That was the time it took for the timbers to appear from Charybdis. Then I let go with hands and feet and dropped off and came crashing down between and missing the two long Timbers. But I mounted these and with both hands I pedaled my way up. the father of God did not let **inaudible word** see me again or I should not have escaped sheer destruction.
What was Athena? Is that old victory but this time her roots far from him the branches off. She is wisdom guiding who always is there when that terrific image is there to swallow us. The spirit guide is there. because that image, that sheer terribleness is but a shadow of a hand of help. And nothing else has in itself no reality.
And so, this is just another way in which magnificent, wonderful Homer discloses Athena as a spirit guide here. And I guess with that I can't say anything more to better Homer. We're just gonna have to leave it there. I've learned when to shut up.
END OF RECORDING