Merlin's touch
IT FEELS LIKE I'VE entered a Paulo Coelho novel. Twelve of us sit in a circle in a blacked-out office above Hollywood Road. We are holding hands, our eyes are closed and a voice is telling us to visualise yellow rods streaming down from the soles of our feet. Like a banyan tree's roots, I see them shoot down the 10 stories of the building, under the pavement of the SoHo night crawlers, through the Earth's crust to connect with a great crystal quartz ball at the core. 'Now imagine another rod stretching into the sky. White light is pouring down it and filling you.'
The voice stops. I struggle to keep my mind focused on my breathing. I sense him approach the woman on my right, and can feel the tension slipping out of her hand. Then he appears at my neck. I feel a heat being emitted like sunlight, but more intense. It is thick, like liquid, and golden, unlike any energy I have ever felt. By the time he has moved on, I feel grounded, comforted and amazingly energised.
This is a shock. I arrived at Anup's Merlin Trinity Healing Circle feeling stressed and sceptical. The British, Bangkok-based healer (passport name: Mark Karlsson) had just flown into Hong Kong to spend this week sharing and teaching the Merlin Trinity System: a new form of energy work similar to reiki. Except instead of being a 200-year-old system, this is just three years young. And Karlsson invented it. But he is not claiming ownership of the healing system: he says it has been channelled through him, from Merlin, the legendary seer of King Arthur's day.
After two hours in the man's presence, witnessing the absolute turn-around of 12 people's energy levels - from subdued and stressed, to pulsing and spry - it becomes clear that Karlsson is indeed blessed with the ability to heal. Merlin may or may not be involved, but the message seems to be a good one.
Tonight's event was an introduction to a one-day Merlin Trinity Healing System workshop, in which Karlsson will pass on the keys for tapping into the delicious 'universal energy of love', that I felt pouring into my back.
Over a cup of peppermint tea, the Middlesborough native stresses this is not black magic, and he is not a cult leader. 'It's from the highest realm, this is 100 per cent from the angelic source, from love,' he says slowly and softly. 'It's a high vibration - we're putting pure chi in the body, which is what we need. Without chi we'd die. Chi comes from trees and the sea. In a city like this, you're not getting chi, you're not getting life force. So using something like this - or doing yoga, tai chi or qi gong - is vital.'
There are no airs about him - he is humble and earthy, with a gentle presence that is immediately calming. However, things haven't always been so relaxed. Karlsson had worked as an instrument technician for chemical factories until 15 years ago, when he found himself down and out in Sydney.
'My life was rock bottom, I had major problems with addiction and was heavily into drugs and alcohol,' he says. A personal empowerment seminar literally changed his life overnight: 'Until then I didn't realise that my thought created reality. I thought life was circumstantial.'
In 1993 he arrived in Hong Kong, a new man and ready to 'get rich'. Yet, instead of finding a career, Karlsson was diverted into an alternative track: he met a continual stream of healers. One guru led him to an Indian ashram, which gave him the name Anup ('a nickname that I've kept'). He returned to Hong Kong and became a reiki master, then six years ago Merlin materialised.
'I went to a few sessions with a channeller and he channelled Merlin. He said, 'I'm King Arthur's Merlin'. I was Mr Sceptical at first. But that evening I felt so much love, and the whole air became pink. Something was really happening.'
Five years later, the magician's presence returned, but this time there was a message.
'I was doing a reiki attunement on somebody. I went into a deep space, which is quite normal when doing an attunement, and I saw a symbol.'
He pulls a chain from under his shirt with a silver triangle: the trinity. He explains that two more symbols appeared to him, and he found that by drawing these symbols in the air and visualising them with the help of crystals, he began to have access to a new form of energy.
'It seems more powerful than reiki, which I still teach and am not condemning at all, but this just seems more in line with what people need today. It deals with things very, very quickly. It gets in, pulls stuff and gets it out. It's a transformational energy.'
Karlsson admits that at first he was scared by what was happening.
'I convinced myself through lack of self-worth, that I had made it all up, so I stopped doing it . . . but it came back, more powerfully than before.'
For the past three years he has been using the method for healing people and topping up his energy levels and awareness. He now travels the world sharing its secrets. He has created 10 masters and 30 teachers from London to Tokyo. The testimonies for those who have sampled the system are positive and after a two-hour workshop, every face is beaming.
Conversing with the body through energy, is an overlooked and incredibly powerful transformational tool.
'We're a race of unfeeling people,' says Karlsson. 'If we go into the body, we know we'll have to face some painful emotions that we've repressed. So we take our attention to our heads and create a fantasy - so we don't have to look at the feelings. People avoid their feelings in many different ways: drugs, alcohol, food, people, places.
'We are much more than just our name and our career, there's universal love inside of all of us and this energy wakes you up to that.'
