Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Clivedurdle · 11-18-2006, 05:53 AM

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MERLIN

# 156: (In Welsh: Myrddin, latinized as Merlinus because the more natural Merdinus would have connected it with Latin merdus, 'dung'). Arthur's magician and counsellor, in many ways the architect of his reign. The popular modern image of Merlin is a wise elder, but there is abundant evidence in many early sources of Merlin's true nature as a primal prophet, magician, wise man, and, paradoxically, foolish seeker of the truth. His life was in three phases: innocent prophetic youth, madman and hermit, and wise elder. In the classic form of the tale, Merlin was begotten by an incubus. Robert says the devils of Hell had determined to set on earth an evil being to counter-balance the good introduced by Jesus Christ. Happily, the child was promptly baptized so he was not evil! Vortigern, King of Britain some time after the Roman withdrawal was haplessly trying to build a tower for, whenever it was erected, it would collapse. The king's counsellors told him he would need to sacrifice a fatherless child to remedy this. Such children were hardly thick on the ground but Merlin, now a youth, was popularly supposed to be sireless so he was secured for this purpose. However, he pointed out that the real reason for the collapse was the existence of a pool beneath the foundations. Digging revealed the truth of this and a brace of dragons emerged, one red and one white; these caused Merlin to utter a series of prophecies.

http://www.celticgrounds.com/chapter...lopedia/m.html

John Matthews in Merlin p 64 expands on this story.

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In Celtic tradition, this was the framework for a specific myth, that of the wondrous child. Such children were invariably begotten by an unknown or other wordly father on an innocent virgin.

The Celtic myths have significant differences and parallels to the childhood stories of Jesus.

The virgin mother is rejected by her parents or tribe, she gives birth in difficulty, friendless but for servants and animals. There are prophecies that the child will disrupt things. The child is reared amongst animals or poor people who rear him in great danger. The qualities of the child bring him to notice of a person of wisdom who agrees to foster him and teach him.

The boy is brought to court and astounds royalty and wisemen because of his precocity. His mother recieves him again secretly and gives him a name and a destiny, arming him with weapons or magical powers.

Matthews comments that in the above story Vortigern summons his adviser who tells him that Apulieus "asserts in De Deo Socratis that between the moon and the earth live spirits which we call incubus demons. They have partly the nature of men and partly that of angels, and when they wish they assume mortal shapes and have intercourse with women."

Is anything original in the New Testament? Why in a story about the salvation of mankind, of bringing together and making a new heaven and earth, is there an assumption of any historicity at all?

The Evil One · 11-18-2006, 06:08 AM

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Is anything original in the New Testament? Why in a story about the salvation of mankind, of bringing together and making a new heaven and earth, is there an assumption of any historicity at all?

The Merlin story is not, so far as I can see, a candidate for "borrowing" for the NT narrative. But it does provide one more example to demonstrate the universality of certain human thought patterns regarding the mythic hero.

Clivedurdle · 11-18-2006, 08:43 AM

Merlin may not be, but it is in a tradition of wondrous child tales, of which Jesus looks just like a load of others. Googling, this also seems to be a Hindu tradition, but I could not see an example.

There is of course the possibility that a much older tale was brought into the Arthurian legends.

The concept of the incubus and the modern stories of alien abductions seem very similar - is the virgin birth about sleep paralysis?

Clivedurdle · 11-18-2006, 09:50 AM

http://watarts.uwaterloo.ca/~acheyne/incubus.html

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Among the best-known experiences associated with sleep paralysis is the sensation of a strong pressure on the chest or back. Most often it is on the chest since sleep paralysis is also associated with lying in the supine position. Often it seems that there is someone or something sitting on one's chest. Sometimes this entity may also be experienced as choking the victim, or just pushing forcefully on the chest, or even biting into the shoulder, or twisting limbs. One of the most evocative accounts of the sense of the incubus (incubare: to lie upon) / succubus experience is provide by the writer Guy de Maupassant in Le Horla.

http://watarts.uwaterloo.ca/~acheyne/LeHorla.html

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Making sense of anomalous experiences requires that people draw on a variety of cultural resources. In Le Horla, Guy de Maupassant presents an account of a 19th century intellectual who draws on diverse cultural sources to interpret a confusing array of highly unusual experiences. A focal point of the story is a vivid account of hypnagogic and hypnopompic hallucinations associated with sleep paralysis. Such experiences have been implicated as sources of traditional narratives of alien spirit attacks and abductions and, more recently, as the experiential foundation of a modern legend of abduction by extraterrestrial aliens. I argue that one effect of the increasing availability of popular science in the 19th century was to provide new grounds and material for explaining bizarre and uncanny experiences. The resulting accounts did not, however, simply replace traditional narrative themes with scientific explanations but conflated them. These hybridized accounts are often most at odds with mainstream scientific explanations, in part because scientific paradigms change with time and because discarded scientific accounts often become incorporated into the cultural tradition.

I sleep—for a while—two or three hours—then a dream—no—a nightmare seizes me in its grip, I know full well that I am lying down and that I am asleep . . . I sense it and I know it . . . and I am also aware that somebody is coming up to me, looking at me, running his fingers over me, climbing on to my bed, kneeling on my chest, taking me by the throat and squeezing . . . squeezing . . . with all its might, trying to strangle me.
I struggle, but I am tied down by that dreadful feeling of helplessness which paralyzes us in our dreams. I want to cry out—but I can't. I want to move——I can't do it. I try, making terrible, strenuous efforts, gasping for breath, to turn on my side, to throw off this creature who is crushing me and choking me—but I can't!
Then, suddenly, I wake up, panic-stricken, covered in sweat. I light a candle. I am alone. (p. 893)
Guy de Maupassant — Le Horla

The passage above, excerpted from Guy de Maupassant's gripping tale of horror, Le Horla—published, in its better known form in January, 1887—presents a remarkably thorough and highly evocative account of several phenomena associated with sleep paralysis (SP) (Schneck, 1994). Maupassant's story appeared about the same time as some of the earliest reports of SP in the medical literature (e.g., Mitchell, 1876) and details of his account are remarkably consistent with current descriptions of SP (Hufford, 1982; Hishikawa, 1976). In addition, Maupassant links these experiences to a number of psychological phenomena, such as anxiety, hypnosis, agoraphobia, panic attacks, and other forms of pathology in a manner that is remarkably contemporary. Finally, he makes a connection between these experiences and the notion of alien possession/abduction, also a subject of recent research and speculation (Baker, 1992; Blackmore, 1998; Hufford, 1982; Liddon, 1967; Spanos, 1996).

Add together our abilities to make up stuff, these horrorfying experiences - what can it be but a demon in the night, create a heirarchy of gods and demons, have them dwelling all over the place between earth, the moon and heaven, imagine sin causes these nightmares at night, imagine salvation and create a religion.

Entire myth based on real human exparience.

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Parallels to incubi include Arabian djinn [jinn], Greek satyrs, Hindu bhuts, Samoan hotua poro, Celtic dusii... (Sagan 1995, 124).

http://skepdic.com/satan.html

Clivedurdle · 11-18-2006, 10:10 AM

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The Wish Child motif, as it is known by folklorists, calls for a woman to make a wish for a child while alone in an orchard or wooded area at a certain time of day. There she meets a stranger, a supernatural being in disguise, who becomes the agent of her pregnancy. Found in the apocryphal legend of St. Anne and reinscribed in the events of the Annunciation, the motif expresses the sanctity of a union between the divine and the mortal; the child born from such a union is destined to be extraordinary and exhibits a precocity of virtue and maturity beyond his/her years. Within the constellation of stories just mentioned examples are St. Anne, the Virgin Mary, and Christ himself. But in narratives in which the motif foreshadows an ominous event of some sort, i.e., a promise to the devil, it is referred to as the Devil's Contract. [7] One of the most famous instances of this type and relevant to Sir Gowther is that of Merlin, the famed counselor to King Arthur, whose circumstances of conception are similar to Gowther's: a lone woman is approached by a demon disguised as a handsome youth who seduces her and then announces the impending birth of a wondrous child. Merlin is precocious from the start and grows up to inspire a range of portrayals, some more positive than others. For many writers he is the preternatural prophet and trusted mentor of King Arthur; for others he is a wild man sired by a demon. Demonologists in the late Middle Ages considered him a figure for the Antichrist, prophesied in the Book of Revelation to signal the end of the world. [8] Given Gowther's "wylde" antics in the first half of the poem, his genealogical relation to the demonic Merlin seems to be born of necessity. Not only is Gowther conceived in a similar way, but an explicit relation is established between the two. Born of different mothers, they are sired by the same father:

http://www.lib.rochester.edu/camelot/teams/gowint.htm

Clivedurdle · 11-18-2006, 10:15 AM

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In Greek mythology, satyrs (in Greek, Σάτυροι — Sátyroi) are young humans, possibly with horse ears, that roamed the woods and mountains, and were the companions of Pan and Dionysus. In mythology they are often associated with male sex drive and Greco-Roman art often portrays them with erections.

Satyrs were originally imagined as small, human-like creatures with exaggerated appetites who accompanied Dionysus. Their chief was called Silenus, a minor deity associated (like Hermes and the later Roman god Priapus) with fertility. These characters can be found in the remaining Satyr plays: Cyclops by Euripedes and Sophocles' The Searching Satyrs. The satyr play was a lighthearted follow-up attached to the end of each trilogy of tragedies in Athenian festivals honoring Dionysus. These plays would take a lighthearted approach to the heavier subject matter of the tragedies in the series, featuring heroes speaking in tragic iambic verse and taking their situation seriously as "straight men" to the flippant, irreverent and obscene remarks and antics of the satyrs.
The groundbreaking tragic playwright Aeschylus is said to have been especially loved for his satyr plays, but none of them survived.
Satyrs acquired their goat aspect through later conflation with the Roman Faunus, a carefree nature spirit of similar temperament. Hence satyrs are most commonly described as having the upper half of a man and the lower half of a goat.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satyr

What references are there in the New testament to trees and forests and mountains? Was there not a discussion here about Pan?

Doug Shaver · 11-19-2006, 06:30 AM

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Originally Posted by Clivedurdle

Why in a story about the salvation of mankind, of bringing together and making a new heaven and earth, is there an assumption of any historicity at all?

Because not everyone assumes that the gospels started out in their present form. Many people assume that they began as rather ordinary stories about an actual charismatic rabbi called Jesus and only later evolved into stories about the salvation of mankind etc.

I don't happen to think that assumption is correct, but I don't see anything prima facie unreasonable about it.

Clivedurdle · 11-19-2006, 06:45 AM

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Originally Posted by Doug Shaver

Because not everyone assumes that the gospels started out in their present form. Many people assume that they began as rather ordinary stories about an actual charismatic rabbi called Jesus and only later evolved into stories about the salvation of mankind etc.

I don't happen to think that assumption is correct, but I don't see anything prima facie unreasonable about it.

But Ockham means you start with what you have and then posit extra layers of complexity if required. Assuming an evolution from ordinary stories is more complex than taking them at face value as religious fantasy novels.

Doug Shaver · 11-20-2006, 07:25 AM

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Originally Posted by Clivedurdle

But Ockham means you start with what you have and then posit extra layers of complexity if required.

Occam is irrelevant until you consider all of the data relevant to the question you're trying to answer. In this case, that means all data pertaining to the origin of Christianity. The gospels in their present form are only a small subset of that data.

I do happen to believe that historicity is not the most parsimonious accounting of all the relevant data. However, until somebody finds an uncontroversial way to actually measure parsimony, it is quite beyond me how I or anyone else could actually prove that.

Sarpedon · 11-20-2006, 07:34 AM

I have a book on Celtic mythology that states that Myrddin was a real person (in fact, two different real people), based on records of his doings (including the thing with the tower) I'll see if I can dig it our for you.

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11-18-2006, 08:43 AM	#3
Clivedurdle Contributor Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: London UK Posts: 16,024	Merlin may not be, but it is in a tradition of wondrous child tales, of which Jesus looks just like a load of others. Googling, this also seems to be a Hindu tradition, but I could not see an example. There is of course the possibility that a much older tale was brought into the Arthurian legends. The concept of the incubus and the modern stories of alien abductions seem very similar - is the virgin birth about sleep paralysis?

11-20-2006, 07:34 AM	#10
Sarpedon Veteran Member Join Date: Sep 2002 Location: Minnesota, the least controversial state in the le Posts: 8,446	I have a book on Celtic mythology that states that Myrddin was a real person (in fact, two different real people), based on records of his doings (including the thing with the tower) I'll see if I can dig it our for you.

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