Excalibur

From TSL Encyclopedia
Arthur and Merlin in a boat, a hand reaching out of the water holding a sword
King Arthur receiving Excalibur, N. C. Wyeth

Excalibur was the name of one or both of the swords held by King Arthur.

King Arthur had two swords. The first he pulled from a stone to prove he was divinely ordained king of England. And the second he received from the Lady of the Lake. In some texts, both of Arthur’s swords are named Excalibur. In others, only the sword from the Lady of the Lake is called Excalibur.

History of Excalibur

Arthur uses the sword he pulls from the stone to fight six kings who challenge his right to be king. When Arthur unsheathes his sword at the crucial moment in the battle, it shines in the eyes of his enemies “like the light of thirty torches.”[1] Later, this sword breaks during Arthur’s duel with King Pellinore.

Merlin allays Arthur’s concern that he has no sword and leads him to a lake. In the midst of the lake is an arm coming up out of the water clothed in white silk fabric holding the sword Excalibur. A damsel, the Lady of the Lake, comes to Arthur and tells him he can take the sword.

Symbolism of the sword

The sword is the symbol of the raised Kundalini. Arthur receives Excalibur from the hand of the Divine Mother, represented by the Lady of the Lake. The arm coming out of the water (the water element itself is symbolic of the Mother) is clothed in white—another allusion to the white fire of the Mother raised up.

Geoffrey of Monmouth was the first to give Arthur’s sword a name. In his account of British history in about A.D. 1135 , he named Arthur’s sword “Caliburnus.” In Sir Thomas Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur (c. 1469), the Lady of the Lake tells King Arthur that the name of his sword is “Excalibur, that is as much to say as Cut-steel.”[2]

Scholars believe the name Excalibur/Caliburnus is derived either from a Welsh word meaning “lightning sword,” or from the Latin chalybs, meaning “steel” or “sword,” and eburneus meaning “white as ivory.” Combining this etymology with the understanding of the Kundalini, the meaning of Excalibur is revealed as “the sword out of the white light, or the steely white light, of the Mother.”

The sword is also symbolic of the transcendent toughness of the all-conquering spirit. Folklore tells of a group of heroes who are considered swords personified: King Arthur is one of these sword-heroes.

In King Arthur we see Abraham come again to defeat with his special sword the very same kings he had slain in the Jordan valley twenty-six centuries earlier. Arthur wields the power of the raised Kundalini with both the sword Excalibur and the scepter of king.

Sign of spiritual authority and attainment

The sword Excalibur is the threefold flame of the individual. The caliber of the sword is the x factor. According to the individual’s initiation and his attainment, so is the power of his sword.

In the court of Arthur, Excalibur is the sword that is given to the one who holds the focus in the center of the circle—the sword fashioned of the cross of Christ, the sword that is given by the hand of the Divine Mother and received again into the hand of the Lady of the Lake at the close of the mission.

The sword is the rod of Aaron, it is the rising fires of the Mother that form the healing caduceus. The sword of the Mother is used against the demons, the discarnates and the fallen ones. It is for the clearing of the auras of the knights—by the one who holds the key to the incarnation of the God flame (the king)—of the forces of antichrist, the dragon, the beast, the false prophet and the great whore.

The sword is the twofold action of the fire of Alpha and Omega. As Jesus was given the all-power of heaven and earth,[3] so Arthur receives the sword Excalibur as the scepter of his authority for his divine mission. Without the sword, Arthur could not have formed the mystery school of Camelot or the Brotherhood of the Round Table.

The initiation of the sword

Jesus has spoken of the sword and its meaning:

Some have not believed me when I said, “I came not to send peace but a sword.”[4] Throughout the ages, beloved, I have loaned my sword to special initiates. The well-known legend of Arthur pulling the sword from the stone derives from an initiation of Maitreya’s Mystery School. Blessed hearts, the time did indeed come when I did tell the disciples to take the sword.[5]...

Therefore, beloved, seek the initiation of the sword. And understand that it is a rod of sacred fire fashioned by the Divine Mother out of your own sacred life-force rising from the base chakra to the third eye. Therefore, beloved, the sword that is taken from the stone of Matter is a spiritual fire. Legend would have it that it is a magic sword. Beloved, the spiritual fire does dissolve on contact all unlike itself.[6]

Lanello has said:

In the beginning the test is to take the sword from the stone. This is symbolical of the activation and loosing of the Kundalini fire, the World Mother within oneself. Thus, when the beloved Arthur took the sword from the stone, it was the placing in his hand of the object and symbol of the mighty crystal cord, star-studded with seven chakras. The taking of the sword is the taking of the rod of the Woman whereby king and prince and knight do conquer even the illusions of these octaves.

In the life of King Arthur, you observe the grand nobility of the soul facing each and every challenge, every momentum of personal and world darkness assailing each new plane of God’s consciousness which is to be discovered as one mounts the altar of sacred fire up the spine to the crown of Life—always the crown of the World Mother which she places upon her blessed sons.

Dear hearts, you have seen bejeweled swords. Know that those jewels are a sign of victory, of reward—but ultimately the sign of the starry configurations of the chakras in the mystical body of man. Thus, the gleaming, silver-white sword Excalibur, blinding in its presence, signifies the fire of the Mother complete and raised. Thus, it is in truth the appearance of the ascension flame.[7]

See also

Sword

King Arthur

Sources

Elizabeth Clare Prophet, June 26, 1993.

Elizabeth Clare Prophet, December 31, 1976.

Pearls of Wisdom, vol. 31, no. 49.

  1. Malory, Le Morte D’Arthur, vol. 1, p. 23.
  2. Ibid., bk. 2, chap. 3.
  3. Matt. 28:18.
  4. Matt. 10:34.
  5. “...Now, he that hath a purse, let him take it, and likewise his scrip: and he that hath no sword, let him sell his garment, and buy one.... And they said, Lord, behold, here are two swords. And he said unto them, It is enough.” (Luke 22:36–38)
  6. Jesus, “The Foundation of Christendom That I Have Laid” Pearls of Wisdom, vol. 30, no. 18, May 3, 1987.
  7. Lanello, “The Sign of Excalibur” Pearls of Wisdom, vol. 24, no. 8, January 27, 1985.