Ambrosia was his name in a Celtic language, which is also a word which means nectar of the gods — a drink which confers longevity. He was known as Myyrddin Ambrosia, Myyrddin being a Druid rank. In his mother's language he was known as Merlinius Ambrosius, or informally, Merlin. Based on many conversations with him, I can say that he strongly resembles the character Gandalf in The Lord of the Rings, in his personality, his heritage and his mission. It seems likely to me that Gandalf was inspired by Ambrosia, and that Galadriel was inspired by Maryam.
Over many medium sessions we became friends. One time I flew to southern Florida for a session. Merlin appeared and asked me to put a cassette tape in the recorder because the medium had forgotten to do so. After a few moments of me fumbling with it, he grabbed it himself and inserted the cassette quickly and with dexterity. Most embodied spirits would not attempt such physical activity and seldom even opened the medium's eyes. Merlin, on the other hand, with permission, would embody the medium during his sleep and, with Sun Bear's help, take apart his computer to learn how it worked. At the end of our session I mentioned that I had rented a car and intended to drive to Key West. Merlin responded that he wished he could come with me. He no longer needs to incarnate, but perhaps he misses physical experience a bit.
Merlin encouraged me to learn about and practice lucid dreaming so he could meet with me in dreams, so that I wouldn't need the medium to communicate with him. I followed his advice and had a dream in which I was playing a game of billiards when I noticed a man sitting in a chair against a wall. The man got up and walked toward me until we stood very close together, face-to-face. Somehow I knew he was Merlin, although he said nothing. As I studied his face, I noticed that there was a light behind his eyes. As I stared into them, I was pulled into the light, but I don't remember what happened next, just as I did not remember entering the light during my near-death experience.
Sometime later I decided to go on a drive in my car to practice following signs and synchronicities. Whenever I came to an intersection I let my intuition guide me. Over an hour later I found myself at a spiritual bookstore far from home. I assumed that there was a book there for me to read. But after wandering around the store for some time, I gave up. Nothing had grabbed my attention. I decided to buy some incense to support the store and made my way to the cash register. While waiting for the cashier, who was busy elsewhere, I looked down on the counter and staring back at me was an image of Merlin, an artist's conception of his face on a discounted cassette tape, eerily similar to the face in my dream, even including light behind his eyes. The title of the album was Merlin; the artist was Medwyn Goodall, who performs his instrumental compositions on a variety of traditional instruments.
Listening to the inspirational tracks at home, I felt transported to another time, another life.
The next time I spoke with Merlin, I asked him about the dream. Was it actually him I had encountered? Yes, that was me. Then I told him about my spiritual odyssey and the audio tape I found with a depiction of him on the cover. He interrupted, saying: I hope I’m not wearing a pointed hat! I said that he wasn’t; rather he looked very… mystical. He was pleased. Then I asked him if the music on the tape had been inspired and I mentioned Medwyn’s name. Upon hearing the name, Merlin became very excited. Medwyn! Yes, he is one of the most profound expressions of my being in your world! I let Medwyn know and he was glad to have confirmed the identity of the presence he feels while composing and performing.
Merlin said that he had known me when I was an apprentice. He said that I hadn't had a chance to live my life fully because I had been attacked in retaliation by one of his enemies. He went on to say that he had caused much harm in his life but then had an awakening. He realized that he would not be able to undo all the damage he had done but he committed himself to do what he could to make amends. Over time he has observed that everything eventually gets used for good by a higher power, and that that higher power loves to use willing agents to orchestrate the movement of everything in one direction. The problem, he said, is that if you offer yourself in service you will get used, so be prepared to take the hits that go with that. But you will be rewarded many times over.
I am a servant of the secret fire — Gandalf
Merlin realized that one of the things that had gotten him into trouble was his enormous, bombastic ego. This bothered him so much that one day he asked the Creator to have his ego removed. The response was: Merlin, you will always have your ego, so keep coming back to me. Merlin said that he thought that that was a wonderful answer.
He stressed the importance of the daily intention and the daily review as a spiritual practice. Before you take one step out of your bed in the morning, ask the Creator how you can be of maximum service to the light. Before you go to sleep, conduct a daily review asking, how might I have done better in this or that situation. He also recommended conducting a detailed life review, called by Don Juan Matus the recapitulation. Maryam had previously indicated that this was the most important teaching for me to absorb from Carlos Castaneda's workshop, which I was about to attend at the time. I can attest to its life changing power. Why wait until after you die to get the benefit of the life review? You can effectively reincarnate while still in this life. There is nothing like being honest with yourself about yourself and your life to give you the power needed to traverse timelines and bend reality.
His teachings tend to emphasize character development as essential to spiritual growth. He said: Love is the greatest spiritual quality. Courage is perhaps the greatest virtue. If you have one, the other will come. He encouraged me to walk through my fears, proceeding with decided determination, as though trudging through deep snow.
I am still awed by Merlin’s extraordinary brilliance. It is most appropriate that the word brilliant is used to describe minds like Merlin’s. He is a conduit of the Creator’s light into Creation, just as Maryam is a conduit of the Creator’s love into Creation. Merlin once said to me: Do you know that there is only one mind? I mentioned that I loved mathematics, and have had spiritual experiences working on mathematical problems, feeling as if my mind soared to ecstatic heights. Merlin became excited. Ah, yes! Mathematics is the closest we come to understanding the Mind of God.
We all have access to the Mind of God. The Mind of God is our true mind, that we have forsaken in favor of a superficial mind that is part of our egoic persona construct. So the spiritual practice of quieting the mind is a necessary step toward dusting off and activating our dormant conduit to the Mind of God. This mind knows all. As a mundane example, whenever I lose something, I quiet my surface mind and chant to myself: Nothing is lost in the Mind of God. Remarkably often, either the forgotten memory emerges or I am led to the missing object. Fair warning: when you access the Mind of God you will also become telepathic, and know what others are thinking. This can be unnerving to them.
In earlier writings I have emphasized being over doing, with being more associated with the heart and doing with the mind. This is because we are out of balance, fixated on doings driven by a superficial mind, which is filled with thoughts programmed into us; they are not really our own authentic thoughts. I recommend restoring balance by first identifying with your being, apart from your thoughts. If you are used to identifying with your surface thoughts, the prospect of stopping them can be terrifying; it may seem as if all there is to you apart from your thoughts is an empty void. But no, a vibrant presence is your true identity, as you will discover, and your true thoughts are a modulation of your being just as light is a modulation of love. The Mind of God can be contacted without having grounded oneself in the heart of being, but that can lead to much wreckage, as happened to Merlin before his awakening and has happened to various brilliant scientists who have created horrifically destructive devices. However, as Merlin implied, one can reach the heart of being through doing, if one has courage.
Merlin repeatedly stressed that his words should never be believed without question just because he says them. He said this not because he does not believe that what he says is true; rather, because it would be damaging to one's psyche to do so. Always apply discernment. In addition, the stories Merlin told me decades ago are recalled by memory only, which is fallible. And distortion can occur through communication channels such as trance mediums. I have not yet independently verified what follows, but pass Merlin’s words along, as I recall them, as a perspective worth pondering.
Merlin told me that he had been obsessed with immortality. He had lived for about 300 years but did not know why during his life. After transitioning to the spirit realm, he learned the reason. His father was Yaweh, a godlike human from another planet. His race, the Elohim, naturally lived about 800-1200 years but they had also perfected cloning technology. They gave the most valued members of their society the privilege to transfer their consciousness to a clone, making them effectively immortal. Yaweh, being a prominent scientist, has been cloned many times and so is effectively immortal.
The Elohim have seeded human life on many planets in an effort to propagate the human species, and each time they create a genetically engineered human variant adapted to the specific world to be populated. Most of these experiments have failed. Only a few have flourished.
There is a competition among scientists to determine which team will be in charge of each project. Yaweh won the competition for Earth and decided to attempt to engineer a superior variant of humans. This idea was seen by another team that lost the competition as reckless and dangerous because the outcome was unpredictable. Superior humans might threaten the Elohim. The chief scientist of this rival team is named Lucifer and he has tried to sabotage Yaweh’s project. His faction wants to see Earth humans destroyed, but Yaweh has protected us from them.
Yaweh, though possessing many spiritual attributes, so many as to seem godlike, does not possess the greatest attribute, the ability to attain God-consciousness. His people do not believe in a supreme being; they believe they were created by another race just as they created us. We have surpassed his expectations; we actually have something very valuable to teach the Elohim even though in many respects they are far more advanced than us. But Yahweh and his people are not certain of our viability. According to Merlin, Yahweh has said in dismay: Look what they do with what I have given them. But he has not given up on us, whom he regards as his children. He continues to support and protect us, as do an elder race of our cousins who are much like us and have already been through what we are going through now.
To upgrade and reinvigorate Earth-human genetics, Yaweh periodically mates with an earth woman. He is the biological father of both Jeshua and Merlin along with dozens of others over the millennia. There is a modern-day offspring of Yaweh named Raël, who translates Elohim as those who came from the sky. Like Jeshua and Merlin, he has enhanced genetics, which may confer superior abilities and/or an extended lifespan, but does not necessarily confer wisdom or enlightenment.
Merlin says that much of the psyche is embedded in the genetics. Modern scientists note that DNA strands may have hitherto unrecognized functions apart from the well-known function of holding the genetic code. More recently, it is suggested that the intertwined strands may protect quantum states from decoherence. Such features of DNA may account for our inherent ability to interface with our multidimensional soul.
Merlin said to me once, if only I could explain to you how the dimensions are layered one upon the other and interpenetrate each other. But the medium did not possess the vocabulary or concepts to say more. Nevertheless, he managed to convey to me a transcendent perspective of our place in the vast cosmos. The words of Samwise Gamgee in The Lord of the Rings can remind us that there is a light beyond the reach of the darkness overtaking the Earth:
There, peeping among the cloud-wrack above a dark tor high up in the mountains, Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while. The beauty of it smote his heart, as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him. For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach. — Samwise Gamgee
We are here at this nexus of timelines to shine into the darkness, where it is needed, a light from beyond, that the darkness has no power over. Have courage in your doings and you will be secure in your eternal being.
Pippin: I didn't think it would end this way.
Gandalf: End? No, the journey doesn't end here. Death is just another path, one that we all must take. The grey rain-curtain of this world rolls back, and all turns to silver glass, and then you see it.
Pippin: What? Gandalf? See what?
Gandalf: White shores, and beyond, a far green country under a swift sunrise.
Pippin: Well, that isn't so bad.
Gandalf: No. No, it isn't.
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings
I thoroughly enjoyed that. Reminds me how much we don't know, how much wonder there is out there, and how much energy we spend on spinning our wheels. I suspect that there has been a very long history - far longer than we've been taught - of genetic experiments on humans. Maybe we're a messy genetic soup even, and I've wondered if the PCR testing had more to do with sorting out who's who. But I too, accept the light our our Source runs through humanity and whatever detours and interference we've encountered - never leaves. We may leave it, but it burns eternally and eventually beckons us home.
Thank you - beautiful post. And who doesn't LOVE Merlin?!