When mention is made of the Holy Grail, one automatically thinks also of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table, who searched for the Holy Grail, so our study today seems to fall quite naturally into three parts:-
1.What part of King Arthur’s story, if any, is true to history?2.What is the story, even if not reliably historical, of the Holy Grail?3.What significance does the Grail story have for us?
It should be noted that the Grail story has come down to us over manycenturies, and that, during the early parts of this long period, the story was passed down by word of mouth only, so it is easy to imagine that, in the several centuries which might elapse between an event and the appearance of a scholar capable of writing an account of that event, the original story could, and no doubt did, become distorted and probably also embellished. The scribe might have few written records to guide him, and he might also have constraints of a political kind, such as the need to please, or not displease, his bishop, or even the king of the day. Later writings even dispute some of the earlier ones, alleging that the earlier ones had been tampered with in order to make them state as alleged fact certain stories that would add to the venerable reputation of Glastonbury Abbey, so our short study will have to try to steer an impartial course through the maze.Beginning with King Arthur then, such a man did indeed live in England in the middle of the fifth century A.D. as depicted rather fancifully in the 2004 film ‘King Arthur’. Most of England had, by then, been part of the Roman Empire for about five hundred years, and that had been the British, who were then Celts, enjoy as high a standard of civilization as most other parts of the Empire. However, due to troubles nearer home, Rome withdrew her armed forces in 410 A.D., and this left a vacuum which the Celts were too slow, and probably too disunited, to fill. In any event, when the Saxons began invading the east and south coasts, the Celts were quite unable to cope and had to retreat westward, abandoning large tracts of country. Obviously, something had to be done to curb these Saxons, and this was where Arthur proved to be the man for the crisis. His real name seems to have been Artorius, and he was a Celt who had been educated by the Romans, and he knew some of their military history. He knew that Roman generals had originally used armoured foot soldiers mainly, with only some few cavalry on the flanks, but that they had been forced by a serious defeat by cavalry to include more cavalry in their armies, so he organised and trained some Celtic cavalry for use against the Saxons. This was an instant success and is undoubtedly the basis of Arthur’s later reputation as a famous leader of knights. He was justifiably famous in his own time and had a title roughly equal to our commander-in-chief, but he was never a king. He was so feared by the Saxons that, when he was eventually killed in battle, his death was kept a secret, so that Celtic morale remained high, and the Saxons were still wary. It was an easy extension of this story to the story that Arthur had only gone away to some fabulous place to recover from his wounds, and that he would return if ever
Britain ever stood in great danger. This idea that Arthur might return and rule was still so strong seven hundred years later that, in 1190, to reassure King Stephen, whose claim to the throne was disputed by some, the monks of Glastonbury Abbey exhumed a skeleton which, they said, was that of Arthur – an announcement that greatly added to the fame of Glastonbury.Turning to the Holy Grail story itself, there were a number of scribes down the centuries, up to the eleventh and twelfth centuries, when there were several, in Britain, France and Germany. The British one was Sir Thomas Malory, a colourful character, who wrote his Le Morte d’Arthur while in gaol. This was about seven hundred years after Arthur and, about seven hundred years later still, Tennyson wrote his beautiful version of Le Morte d’Arthur and The Idylls of the King, but Tennyson sanitized Malory’s version, so as to make it fit for the drawing-rooms of Queen Victoria’s England.The Grail story begins with the life of Jesus Christ, whose disciples were all poor men. The crucifixion was on a Friday, and two thieves were crucified at the same time, and the Jewish priests were quite concerned that the three bodies should be taken down from public view before the Sabbath(Saturday) started. A necessary first step was to make sure that the victims were really dead, the usual method was to break the legs, and this was done to the two thieves, but, as Jesus was obviously already dead, his legs were not broken. John’s gospel 19:36 says that this fulfilled scriptural prophesy. However, a Roman soldier named Longinus, apparently thinking that the dead body would not bleed, pierced Jesus’s side with his spear, and bystanders were surprised to see two issues, one of water and one of blood. Nearby also was Joseph of Arimathea, who had secretly been a disciple, and he managed to catch in separate receptacles some of this blessed water and blood.At this point, we may be permitted to wonder whether there are certain implications in this story. The Romans would not have known of the scriptural prophesy, and the Jews would not have conceded that the prophesy applied to one whom they regarded as a gross blasphemer, so why was Jesus treated differently from the others? One is reminded of an aspect of some initiation ceremonies, where the notional thrust of a spear into the candidate’s side was deemed to kill the physical man, and so allow the spiritual man to be born and function free of the flesh. As for the two streams from Jesus’ side, this reminds one of the labours of Hercules in cleansing the Augean stables. When all defilement of the animal had been removed, there were two streams, signifying the two facets of our life here – spiritual and material.Returning to our original theme, Joseph had also managed to save the cup which Jesus had used at the Last Supper and had obtained permission from Pontius Pilate to inter Jesus’ body in a new tomb which Joseph had had prepared for himself.A point to note here is that this secret disciple, Joseph, who is able to provide a new tomb, is obviously a man of some wealth, and the tradition is that Joseph was indeed a rich man, having made his money in trading in tin from the mines of Cornwall. One version has it that, on one or more such journeys, Joseph took with him the lad Jesus, still a teenager, and we will refer again to this in our final section. It is historically true that a big trade was done from south-west Britain at that time, in the reign of Cymbeline, but this trade fell away later, when the Romans developed tin mines in Spain.After the resurrection and assumption of Jesus, we find Joseph setting off from Jerusalem with a party comprising the Virgin Mary, Mary Magdalene, Mary the wife of Zebedee and mother of James and John, Lazarus and others. Dropping the others off in the south of France, where we shall leave them temporarily, Joseph continued on to England, where he founded a chapel at Glastonbury, to house the sacred relics which he had brought with him, viz: the Cup used by Jesus at the Last Supper (the Grail), the Spear (or Lance) of Longinus, which had pierced Jesus’ side, the two phials containing the Blessed Blood and Water, and a number of other so-called Hallows, which need not concern us here, as the various scribes differ.The actual date of this journey is also open to question, because scribes differ, and the use of A.D. years had not then begun, but we can for our purpose take the word of the earliest British scribe Gildas, A.D. 425-512, that Joseph’s journey occurred in the last year of the reign of the Emperor Tiberius, A.D. 37. Even here, there is a gap of nearly four centuries, probably ten or twelve generations, so there would be plenty of time for the story to change.In due time, Joseph is succeeded by his son, Joseph II, as keeper of the Grail and other Hallows, and the latter has his life lengthened by divine intervention, so that he can await the coming of somebody worthy, to whom the Hallows can safely be entrusted. Joseph II has quite a long wait, but eventually King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table come on the scene. These Knights lead very busy lives, jousting, and rescuing damsels in distress, righting wrongs, etc., all with the aid of liberal portions of magic, but their lifestyles mostly fall somewhat short of the purity required of one who could be entrusted with the sacred Hallows. Even King Arthur fathered a son, Mordred, by his half-sister, and this incestuous liaison was to dog the King to the end, as it was Mordred, himself mortally wounded, who inflicted the blow from which the Kind died.In actual history, the real Arthur was, it seems, on bitter terms with his son. The only Knight who proved to be worthy was Sir Galahad who, by a birth in special circumstances and a chaste and blameless life, was accepted by Joseph II, who handed the sacred Hallows to Sir Galahad. Joseph II was then free to depart this life, and Sir Galahad, with the sacred Hallows, departed for “Sarras, the spiritual city”.Reverting now to the Holy Family whom we left in the south of France, they were made welcome by the locals, and the men of the party embarked on missionary work. This party too had some sacred relics, chief of which were the Holy Grain (not a cup, as in England, but a marvellous jewel representing the third eye), and (surprisingly), the Spear of Lance of Longinus. We reported earlier that Joseph had taken the Spear of Longinus to England, and the literature does not explain, so we leave our readers to decide for themselves which report is correct. Anyway, the Spear in French hands certainly worked wonders, as it is credited with giving the Frankish King Charles Martel a miraculous victory in A.D. 732 over the Arabs invading France from Spain. In the following centuries, the Spear was credited with many victories won by German princes of the Holy Roman Empire. By Napoleon Bonaparte’s time, the Spear was in Nuremburg, and Napoleon made plans so seize it, but he was thwarted when the Spear was smuggled out to Vienna, where it stayed for nearly a century and a half. By 1914, with the Great War soon to start, the Kaiser thought that the Spear would be a useful talisman in the coming conflict, so he asked the ageing Emperor Franz Joseph in Vienna for a number of historical items of regalia, including the Spear, to be loaned for a Pan-German exhibition in Berlin. One of the Kaiser’s confidants knew that the Kaiser intended to keep the Spear, and not return it, so he secretly warned the Emperor, who sent a curt note saying that those articles could not be loaned. The Kaiser was extremely surprised by the note, but never found out the reason for the refusal. The next national leader to want the Spear was Hitler who, as an unemployed youth, had spent hours gazing at it in its glass display case in Vienna, so almost the first thing he did after the annexation of Austria in 1938 was to take the Spear back to Nuremburg, from where it was returned to Vienna by the U.S. army in 1945.Finally, let us look at the significance of these Holy Grail stories, we must not fall into the error of taking the first word “Holy” as indicating that these stories are of Christian origin, because they had their beginning very much earlier. The Cup, Spear, Sword and Disc or similar objects occur as magical combinations in ancient Egypt and China, and they even appear as the four suits in the Tarot cards which gypsies have for centuries used for fortune-telling. The word “Grail” means a receptacle like a deep dish, but there is no difficulty interpreting this as a cup or chalice. On the few occasions when King Arthur’s Knights were granted a vision of these objects, the Cup was made of some precious material, the Spear or Lance had blood dripping from its tip, they were carried by beautiful maidens of a celestial appearance, and those present had a great feast. This suggests the ancient fertility rites, which often had phallic overtones. The whole idea was that there was something worth striving for, above and beyond the visible church or temple, with its ritual that could be performed perfunctorily. What can this mean, but the higher initiation, with the Grail stories an attempt to preserve the esoteric core at the heart of Christianity, as of all religions?Another popular misconception which a study of the Grail stories dispels for us is that Rome brought civilization to Britain under Julius Caesar in 54 B.C., and Christianity under Augustine in 597 A.D. It is true that Caesar brought technical expertise that was new to Britain, but the Celts of Britain and northern France (Brittany) were led by their priests called Druids, who were highly organised and trained. Indeed, the Druids’ main centre at Glastonbury was a highly-respected shrine of learning where “they expounded the physical as well as the spiritual sciences, the harmonious progress of the heavenly bodies, the formation of the earth, and the immortality of the soul” (Isis Unveiled 1: 18). The wisdom of the Druids was highly praised in the writings of Julius Caesar, Pomponius and Pliny, and at least one scholar from ancient Greece is said to have gone to Britain to study in about 200 B.C., while even the great Pythagoras, 5th century B.C., acquired his great knowledge by travel to the East and to the barbarians - ? Druids. The Druids called themselves Snakes, which reminds one of Jesus’ dictum “Be ye wise as serpents” and there are good grounds for believing that when Patrick (born 390 A.D.) went to Ireland to convert them to Christianity and he also rid the country of snakes, the term “snakes” referred to the Druids. Historians generally agree that the great Stonehenge structure long pre-dates the Druids, thus indicating an earlier civilization still.As for the coming of Christianity, Augustine in 597 A.D. did not bring it, he was only trying to bring into the family of the Pope of Rome a Christian Church which had flourished in Britain for about five hundred years. The BritishChurch was very proud of the fact that it had been established even before Rome, and this primacy was asserted even centuries later. William the Conqueror at his coronation would allow no Roman Catholic participation, and five hundred years later Henry VIII, when he cut the tie with Rome, was not lacking in local support. Even his daughter Mary 1, who was Catholic and would have liked to reverse her father’s act, still defended the primacy of the Church in England. Three centuries later still, the sentiment was still alive, and William Blake composed the beautiful poem which would have served admirably as a national anthem:-And did those feet in ancient timeWalk upon England’s mountains greenAnd was the Holy Lamb of GodOn England’s pleasant pastures seen?And did the Countenance DivineShine forth upon our clouded hills?
And was
Jerusalem builded hereAmong these dark Satanic Mills?Bring me my Bow of Burning Gold
Bring me my Arrows of Desire
Bring me my Spear: O clouds unfold
Bring me my Chariot of Fire
I will not cease from Mental Fight
Nor shall my Sword sleep in my hand
Till we have built
JerusalemIn England’s green and pleasant Land.On the continent of Europe, as in Britain, the story of the message of the Grail had a long life. In the centuries when literacy did not extend far outside the ranks of the clergy, the medium was the minstrel or troubadour, and it is interesting to note that this word troubadour comes from the French word ‘trouver’ to find – surely an allusion to the idea that the Grail message pointed to where one could ‘find’ if one would only seek. The poet and the composer have always suspected that there is something beyond the superficialities of everyday life. Mozart obviously had this idea in his MAGIC FLUTE, while Wagner, with his well-known passion for Germanic legend, included in his operas themes which fit very well with Grail legends. Of particular interest to us here in his opera PARSIFAL, for which he drew on the writings of a medieval scribe. The hero is really each one of us, an aspirant for initiation some day and, like each of us, he fails in his first attempt, because he fails to ask the appropriate question when seeking entry to the Grail castle. To ask the right question would, of course, have proven that he had developed and attained the necessary compassion and wisdom and, on his second visit, he is able to do this, thereby gaining entry to the higher reaches. There is a lesson for all of us in this.
This is the text of a lecture given by the author at a public meeting of the Theosophical Society (Pasadena) in Melbourne, Australia. The ideas expressed in all our public meetings are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the TS (Pasadena).