In Lohengrin also the same truth is shown to the world. It is the path of Initiation along which each must pass on his road to self-mastery. To every nation and in every tongue sacred legends have been given to teach man the path he must follow. The blind Homer of the Greeks who told of the wanderings of Ulysses gave the same great truths to the world. The Scalds of ancient Norway and Sweden and the Prophets of the Jews used the same means, and everywhere from the Sacred Books of the East to the legends of the American Indians we find one great connected truth told to many different people in ways that were best suited for their development.
Such a truth is the legend of the Round Table, given to King Arthur as a wedding gift. All true students know what wedding that was. Not of earth but the wedding of the Spiritual and Intellectual within the Initiate himself, when the spirit and the body are united eternally, each swearing to honor and protect the other. Of such a marriage was the union of Arthur and Guinevere in the legend of the King.
Let us first of all consider the coming of Arthur the King. We read in the legend of Arthur regarding Merlin the Magician, the wise man who it is said had charge of the coming King during his youth. Merlin represents the hand of the Elder Brothers, who realizing that a great ego had come into the world, had consecrated themselves to the work of preparing him for his mission.
The Rosicrucian Rose:
In this flower, which was painted upon the center of King Arthur’s Table, we see the soul of man, which through purification and service has blossomed out with all the grandeur of the Initiate.
It was under the direction of Merlin, the master mind, that the anvil and stone with the sword thrust into it were raised in the square of the city when it became necessary for a new king to be selected. It was he also who called all of the brave knights of the country and told them that the one who could draw forth the sword would be king of all the land. And of all the knights in the land, Arthur the half-grown boy was the only one who could release the sword.
There is a very wonderful mystery of the soul contained within that divine allegory. Let us read the letters that were engraved upon the sword. “WHO SO PULLETH OUT THIS SWORD OF THIS STONE AND ANVIL IS RIGHT-WISE KING BORN OF ENGLAND.”