Salvatore Mergè was born in Rocca di Papa, June 16, 1899. He was an Italian hermeticist, orientalist, martial artist and painter, Mergè was the son of Romano and Giuseppina Tardiola, both from wealthy families, breeders and livestock dealers.
At the age of 17 he participated in the First World War and was wounded. After graduating, he became an employee of the State Railways, which allowed him to often go to France, to Beausoleil, to visit the master Giuliano Kremmerz, of whom Mergè, still very young, had become a disciple thanks to the introduction of Giovanni Bonabitacola, doctor and family friend.
On 21 December 1933 he married the American of Japanese origin Florence Strunsky (1909-1967) in Rome. The Mergè family, excluding the long interlude in Tokyo, lived in Rome in the Corso Trieste area, without children, sharing the experience of meditation and hermeticism.
As a direct disciple of Giuliano Kremmerz he is known in the esoteric circles of Christian Hermeticism with the sacred name of Elis Eliah. A multifaceted intellectual he has given his contribution in specific fields that are very different from each other: orientalist, iamatologist, professor of Japanese language, literature and culture in Rome at the Institute for the Middle and Far East (ISMEO); pioneer of Aikido, first Western direct disciple of its founder Morihei Ueshiba and first to teach this art in Italy ; official at the Italian Embassy in Tokyo during the Second World War following the armistice of ’43 until ’45 he was imprisoned in a concentration camp by the Japanese government.
Mergè was also an excellent painter and draftsman. Initiated by the higher Centers of the West and the East, he maintained relationships throughout his life with the intellectual elites of Western and Eastern esotericism.
To be continued…
Source: Facebook/Aikido
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