Chronicle One begins… Being My Search for the Round Table

An introduction to the Quest:

These are strange, restless times when, in the words of the late Joseph Campbell: “We have no modern myths to sustain us.”

Many of us live greedy, fragmented lives, devoid of any direct contact with nature, the numinous or the divine. We are often dissatisfied, or disaffected, forever in pursuit of elusive Eldorados. Why? Whatever made us this way? Sociologists and psychologists blame it all on the Industrial Revolution – the age of the machine. Certainly, science has been doing its best, since the Age of Reason, to make mythology irrelevant, and the Christian church, in turn, has made God appear to be against Nature. As a direct result anything natural or mythological has been viewed with the gravest suspicion and frequently derided in public, certainly during the course of the twentieth century.

Nowadays, our lives appear to be governed by electronics and machinery. For example: mobile ‘phones, televisions, stereos, videos, DVDs, microwave ovens, computers, cars, railway trains, buses and aeroplanes. Nature and myth have become totally abhorrent to our mechanistic way of thinking. In consequence, we appear to have done our best to destroy both of them. Nonetheless, during his lifetime Joseph Campbell insisted: “We need mythology, to provide us with an understanding of the inexplicable, or the transcendental…”

Correspondingly, we cannot go on denying that we are ‘Children of Nature’ either, because we are beginning to realise how dependent upon the Earth we are for everything. In the mid-nineteen-seventies, I was a typical ‘mechanist’, forever in hot pursuit of my personal Eldorado. Prior to 1974, mystical or transcendental things rarely happened to me. Never, in my wildest flights of fancy did I ever imagine I might become involved in a search for Truth, or believe that a glorious energy would burst into my life and call itself, ‘Merlin, the Magician’.

However, such events did occur in 1975 and changed my life completely and forever. You might be tempted to say at this point, ‘Oh No! Not another New Age fruitcake!’ But what I want to share with you in this book, are important notions that all have a direct bearing upon your life as well as mine. I understand this information is imperative if we are to survive the chaos ahead.

I want to take you to some of the ancient places we visited as a direct consequence of the appearance of the Merlin energy; places where there are still secrets from the past to be teased out. Awesome information was revealed to me, which was designed to open my eyes to the ‘Truth’. This happened through a peculiar process, like something akin to ‘osmosis’ I suppose. I was the last person on earth to have expected anything like this to happen. Indeed, I asked on a number of occasions – why me? The simple response I received each time I asked was – why not?

I guess I must always have been a bit of a maverick. Since I was a teenager, I entertained the idea that we are never told the whole truth about life, or death for that matter. Consequently, after the initial shock of our first meeting, I was delighted when the Merlin energy announced it was going to begin to teach me about the transcendental qualities of existence. The Odyssey I undertook introduced me to ideas, which I later discovered were much like those promoted by that distinguished American philosopher, Joseph Campbell. This rich education was begun and indeed enhanced by setting me off on a quest for the legendary ‘Round Table’ and the true nature of mythology. The astonishing events surrounding my on-going forty-year-plus search provided the basis for what became a series of chronicles, which are a personal diary devoted to a study of the geomantic dimension Merlin introduced into my life.

What is geomancy? For me it has become the all-inclusive title for various disciplines that involve landscape geometry, the alignment of ancient sites and other Earth mysteries, like water divining (‘dowsing’) and Feng Shui. I wonder if you noticed how that ancient Chinese system of balancing energies began to become so much more a part of western culture in the last decade of the twentieth century.

Through Merlin’s intercession back in 1975, my introduction to natural Earth sciences helped me retain some semblance of sanity, whilst mind-blowing things were happening all around me. The Mage was a most informative guide and mentor. Conversely, he was also infuriating, leaving me to work things out for myself a whole lot of the time! Eventually, I discovered this was a perfectly normal approach to mystical subjects. All true adherents to the ‘occult’ (‘the hidden’) have to take an ‘empty-handed leap into the void’ on their own. I have made a great many ‘leaps into the void’ and a great many voyages around the rural countryside of England, Scotland and Wales over the past forty years.

This first chronicle charts some of my long pilgrimages throughout the sacred British landscape in search of the Round Table; it examines the peculiarly myopic vision of archaeology that I discovered en route, which has continued to block forward-thinking people until comparatively recently (and still does in certain sectors); it looks at the on-going, persistent ‘interference’ from the Christian Church in totally unexpected areas of human existence and experience; and it also reveals some of the innermost thoughts and feelings I enjoyed along the path.

The reader has to recognise how this first volume is merely the opening stage in a rather long and complicated personal pilgrimage. The second chronicle details my further researches, journeys and discoveries from 1981 to the year 2002. The later parts of the quest often involve my interpretations of the evidence we discovered and accumulated. The third chronicle does not really include so much of the physical quest, more of the mental or psychological quest and a series of important connections and numbers I discovered on the journey. Later Chronicles grew out of my on-going search for vital information and help to bring the whole quest into a clearer focus. Remember these are personal interpretations made over a period in excess of forty years.

Although I began my early expeditions as a skeptic, I made a lot of unexpected discoveries during this lengthy and time-consuming mission. At a certain point in my personal crusade I became a convinced follower of ‘the Way’, or the ‘Tao’. However, my conversion was not an easy one and truthfully it does not occur in this first chronicle alone, which purely covers the opening years of the quest from 1975 to 1981. Only later on, during my lengthy investigations, did I begin to comprehend what it was I had actually experienced, gleaned and learned from the whole epic journey. I suppose you could say Merlin acquainted me with what Richard Leigh and Michael Baigent call ‘Hermeticism’, or the practice of real magic and mysticism. Those of you, who have read any of my earlier Merlin books, will understand when I say the incidents I experienced through the Magician’s appearance in my life proved to be an astonishing spiritual apprenticeship.

Merlin made a number of prognostications during the course of my long conversations with him throughout the nineteen seventies and eighties, and sporadically during the nineties too. From 1975 – 1981 he made several cautionary and dire predictions about water, chemicals and food, which, regrettably, have all come true since that time. Consider the human form of ‘Mad Cow Disease’ and the growing incidence of ‘poisoning’ through our water supplies.

He also mentioned New Testament inconsistencies in 1975. He talked about this again on a number of occasions during the 1980’s, when he questioned the veracity of Saint Paul. Intriguingly, two recent books entitled The Jesus Mysteries and The Templar Revelation offered convincing scholarly arguments that the original figure of ‘Jesus’ was either based upon a pagan god in the tradition of the ‘Old Mysteries’, or an Egyptian/Osirian initiate. Similarly, authors Freke & Gandy had this to say about the ‘Literalist Christian version’ of an historic Jesus:

“Like countless scholars… we have found that looking for an historical Jesus is futile. It is astonishing that we have no substantial evidence for the historical existence of a man who is said to have been the one and only incarnation of God throughout all history. But the fact is we do not…”

During the course of my researches I have found the whole theological ethos surrounding the mythologies of Jesus to be a scholarly minefield, open to a multitude of different interpretations. Over the past decades a number of important issues have been raised concerning the legitimate story of Jesus, in particular, whether or not he ever existed! I have seen ‘Saint’ Paul revealed as an unreliable source in this regard. Similarly, the established Christian church does not come out of this smelling of roses either. The theological, hierarchical framework, which regulates different churches and temples, is undoubtedly politically motivated and subject to intense control by unseen ‘power-brokers’. ‘Constantine – the Great’ (whose statue still stands outside Yorkminster) instituted the whole notion of political control through religion at the Council of Nicea in the fourth century after Christ. Virtually nothing has changed since then. Consequently, I have come to question the validity of all patriarchal religions.

I believe that most of the Establishment ‘hierarchies’, in particular the religious ones that still exist today, have become violent to the point of obsession, completely corrupt and almost totally politicised. I consider they will stop at nothing, not even murder, to get their own way. I have no wish to upset any potential readers who might be committed Christians, but I should warn you at the onset, if you read any further into these chronicles I predict your faith may well be called into question.

However, I am jumping ahead of myself too quickly here. We must take this journey one step at a time. If Merlin has proved to be substantially correct concerning most of the religious and political matters we discussed, then what about the geomantic dimension he introduced into my life? I have to say it has been an unbelievable and yet utterly fascinating journey. I found the whole expedition to be quite miraculous and the knowledge the Magician revealed to me to be astonishing. I hope you enjoy sharing every aspect of this quest for ancient wisdom and that you get as much out of it as I did.

Peter Quiller

Hertfordshire, 2005

Excerpt From The Quest Series – A symphony of Geomancy and Magical Wisdom published by:

Dragonfly, a division of Dreams Unlimited Publishing House

Peter Quiller was born in Hertfordshire, England in 1944. He married in 1966 and produced four children with his lovely wife, Branwen. In 1975 he woke early one morning to be confronted with an intense light energy that spoke to him. As a result he severed his connections with his job in the film industry. In 1981 he attended the University of Hertfordshire, where he obtained a B.A. Honours degree in English and Drama. Graduating in 1984 he became a fully qualified teacher in 1992. For seventeen years he taught Drama and English to students of all ages, whilst continuing his magical interests. He was the principal of his own drama school from 1979 until 2009 but is now fully retired. He has lived in Powys with his wife since 2009. Although plagued with bad health in recent years he continues to write about his experiences with the ‘odd’ and Merlin.

For more, go to www.peterquiller.co.uk

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