In the Arthurian Cycle appears a strange and mysterious figure--Merlin, the magician. In one of the legends concerning him it is declared that when Jesus was sent to liberate the world from the bondage of evil, the Adversary determined to send an Antichrist to undo His labors. The Devil therefore in the form of a horrible dragon overshadowed a young woman who had taken refuge in sanctuary to escape the evil which had dcstroyed her family. When Merlin, her child, was born he partook of the characteristics of his human mother and demon father. Merlin, however, did not serve the powers of darkness but, being converted to the true light, retained only two of the supernatural powers inherited from his father: prophecy and miracle working. The story of Merlin's infernal father must really be considered as an allegorical allusion to the fact that he was a "philosophical son" of the serpent or dragon, a title applied to all initiates of the Mysteries, who thus acknowledge Nature as their mortal mother and wisdom in the form of the serpent or dragon as their immortal Father. Confusion of the dragon and serpent with the powers of evil has resulted as an inevitable consequence from misinterpretation of the early chapters of Genesis.

Mary continued again and said: "My Lord, doth the dragon of the outer darkness come into this world or doth he not come?" "For this cause, therefore,...

The devil has taught man sorcery or witchcraft, thereby to strengthen and fortify his kingdom. But if he had revealed to man the right, true,...

We know, that the Devil slipt into the Serpent, and spoke out of the Serpent; for God did not mean [by it] that the Treader upon the Serpent should...

"And all men who shall find the mystery of one of the twelve names of that dragon of the outer darkness, and all men even if they are very great...

And so should Adam also have trodden the Earthiness under Foot, but it overcame him; therefore afterwards the Child of the Virgin (when it had overcom...