Welcome to Merlins Wisdom, a series of training workshops and initiations exploring the path revealed by the myths of Merlin. Through this work Merlin seeks to transform the individual and their connection to the ancestral Celtic lands. This is a set of teachings involving one's relation to the self, and the land (the greater self). It uses our relationship to the land and it's traditional myths and spiritual powers to transform the individual.

Although working with Celtic myths and processes, these courses are open to anybody, not just those with Celtic heritage - but anybody who can benifit from transformational change through deepening their relationships with ancestral wisdom.

A major part of the process is the use of the Celtic Sweathouse, which is similar to but different from the Native American Sweat, and is a genuine tradition in the Celtic lands - notably Ireland.

Merlin

Most people know Merlin from his portrayal in films like "Excalibur" where he is shown as the wise sage-magician - but this is only one of his many personas.

Merlin as teacher incorporates all these and many more - he is an archetypal being who has many expressions: madman, magical child, prophet, warrior prince, sage.

In "Merlins Wisdom" he undergoes his initiatory journey from worldly prince to madman of the woods, finally transforming into the wise elder. His madness is a very important part of his mystery, it is the "crazy wisdom" of the shaman - he flees from the organised and limiting mindset of society to the forest, he is unable to return until he has integrated the new perspective his madness has given him.

When he does he returns as a "wise man" with his experience under his control, the madness that allowed him access to wisdom but rendered him uncontrollable has been mastered.

The Courses

The Merlin's Wisdom program is run in various locations around the Celtic world, it is envisaged that each of the seven stages will take place in one of the Celtic nations. We endevour to hold each course in a location that is a vital and dynamic sacred space.

Each course is facilitated be members of the original Clan of the Mysteries who have been through the first initiations already and who are currently working on developing the mystery path of Merlin.

Merlin I
Cae Mabon, Llanberis, Wales - Date to be arranged for 2009

This residential course utilizes the Celtic Sweat House (Teach an Allas) as an otherworldly gateway leading to a new sense ofunderstanding and perception, which can compliment other ways of working or stand alone.

In the middle of an Oak Forest by the banks of a rushing river the participants meet together, working with Shamanic journey, meditation, ritual and song to prepare for a Celtic Sweat.

While the teachings of Merlin and the Sweat ceremony are powerful and challenging, the entire course is taught in a gentle and respectful way so that no prior Sweat lodge experience is necessary. Participants will work from early Saturday morning with the sweat in the evening, potentially running into the early hours with as much time spent on the land as possible - rain or shine!

Sweathouse Tradition

Ireland has preserved a native Celtic tradition of the sweathouse. Sadly, this has been rather unknown and unstudied by archeology. Remarkably, it was practised within living memory.

The Celtic version of the sweathouse, or "Teach Allas" is a stone beehive hut made of dry stone walling with a small entrance and a smokehole in the top. The hut was covered in turf sods and the smokehole could be covered.

To use them either of two methods could be employed. Firstly a turf fire was built inside the hut and then scraped out leaving the stones of the hut to heat it, rushes and herbs could be spread on the hot floor to give off vapour. Secondly the more familiar firepit could be used, heating rocks to be brought in very much like the Native American system. Sweathouses were both mixed and single sex.