Part One is an Introduction to the book, telling us why the author has used the story of Arthur & Merlin, and what Wizards have to do with anything..
This is the main metaphor of the book. The Wizard Merlin is the teacher and Arthur is the student. You could think of them as Avatars .
Using stories helps us learn and remember. I would expect all of us can remember a fairy story, or fable we were told as children, because the message was wrapped up in a story.
As mentioned in the introduction, a wizard is most well known for being an alchemist, and the understanding of alchemy became the ability to turn ordinary metal into gold. What the author is doing here is taking us to a different understanding of Alchemy (the magic of wizards). The different meaning being :
Alchemy : The wizards ability to turn human beings into gold – gold being Pure Spirit. It is about teaching us to turn our fear, shame, guilt, and hate into love and fulfillment.
The author then goes further to tell us that in actual fact we are wizards ourselves. We are our own teacher. We are our own alchemist. In actuality your inner guide is your wizard. Your inner spirit is your wizard and will guide you if you listen. The lessons help us find our own inner wizard, one step at a time, and really listen to it.
If it is easier to work through the book you can replace Wizard with Spirit /Guide/Mentor/Teacher/Witch/Wizardess/Shaman/Medicine Man or Woman – whatever makes you comfortable.
Also it can be worth reading this book for the first time from the persepective of reading about the teacher and student, and skimming through it. Then read it from the perspective of yourself being Arthur (the student). Then we can turn it around to reading it from the persepctive of you being the wizard / teacher/guide.
As with all things, everything turns on our own belief system.
The author’s first lesson, the lesson that we have to take completely on trust is:
“A wizard exists in all of us” or if you prefer “Spirit exists in all of us“.
This leads us to lesson one which I will post this week also. Then I will do lesson two next week. There will be a break then for a couple of weeks as I am away, but this gives us all time to sit with the first two lessons and really feel into them, finding out where we sense a block to where the author is guiding us, and working out why.
Feel free to share your feelings on the introduction and what jumped out at you as interesting / difficult / strange. If the introduction just puts you off reading the rest of the book, then there may be a block that needs working through. Feel free to share that also. There is no right or wrong, and you are never alone.
One block I have come across often that tends to stop people reading books such as this, is the belief that there is a difference between fact and fiction. Every book ever written is based in truth. It may not be your truth, but it is somebody’s truth. Letting go of this (taught) difference in our mind helps us read without limits or boundaries to our knowledge and learning.