Ascendant Scorpio by Henry Glover & War by Arnold Böcklin
At the time of Merlin an important transition was just taking place. During the period immediately before him, the gods and demi-gods, whom the human being met in his dreams by night and in his day-dreams, too, had still been revealing themselves in the phenomenon of air and water. The adventures of the Knights of King Arthur have to do with this stage in the evolution of human consciousness. The nineteenth century artist Böcklin reproduces very truly in his paintings the mood and feeling of this epoch.
Then came the time of Christianity. Long, long ago Persephone, the power of clairvoyance, had disappeared in the dark realm of Pluto. Isis, the human soul, wandered a widow through the world, filled with longing for the realm of Light and Imagination—for Osiris, her husband. The time had come when this universal realm of Light and spiritual Imagination was dismembered into many isolated symbols. Sadness and grief spread out among the seekers of the spirit. The fair world of their dreams receded ever more, and the plain, matter-of-fact everyday world alone remained. This was the time when the Round Table of King Arthur gradually became a place of loneliness. When the Knights, for lack of spiritual experience, had nothing more to relate, they stayed away.
The point of time was not always the same in different lands. The peoples, it is true, all of them, passed through the different phases of consciousness, but they did not all do so at the same time. Yet for every nation, sooner or later, the moment came for which the word of Christ was spoken: ‘Blessed are now no longer they who behold, blessed are they who believe.’
…
The blood of Christ must be sought for in the crystal cup. Thus did the Knights of Arthur seek.
—Walter J. Stein, The Death of Merlin (p.165–6)
