The Secret History of the World

would nail a summons to the gates of a castle whose owner thought he could live above the law. Some nobles disobeyed the summons. They would try to protect themselves with bodyguards, but inevitably they would be found stabbed to death with the characteristic cruciform dagger of the Holy Vehm.

A noble who chose to obey the summons would arrive late at night alone at the designated place, sometimes a lonely crossroads. Masked men would appear and place a hood on his head, before leading him off to be interrogated. At midnight the hood would be removed and the nobleman would find himself perhaps in a vast underground vault, facing the Free Judges, masked and dressed in black. Sentence would be passed.

This secret society is not obviously esoteric or arcane in its philosophy, but the vault motif points to legends of Charlemagne’s underground initiation.

The Enchiridion of Pope Leo was a book of spells, including protection against poison, fire, storm and wild beasts, which emerged into exoteric history in the early sixteenth century, but was said to have been worn at all times by Charlemagne, who carried it tied to his person in a little leather bag. One note of authenticity in this story is that the first chapter of St John’s Gospel was included in the Enchiridion as its most powerful spell. These verses are still used in this way by practising esotericists.

More solid evidence of Charlemagne’s initiatic way of thinking can be seen today in the Aachen chapel. Added to Charlemagne’s palace, it was the largest building in the world north of the Alps. Its octagonal shape looks forward to the walls that will surround the New Jerusalem, according to the esoteric numerology of the Revelation of St John. Entry is by the Wolf Door — named after the legendary wolf who tricked the Devil out of possession of the chapel. The visitor looks up to the first-floor gallery to see the imposing throne of the Holy Roman Emperor, made from simple slabs of white marble. In the centre of the chapel a solid gold casket contains Charlemagne’s bones. Above it ‘the Crown of Lights’, a gigantic wheel-shaped chandelier, hangs like a crown chakra ablaze.

Charlemagne’s achievements include his bringing together of the great scholars of Christendom in an attempt to rival the court of Haroun al Raschid. The greatest scholar was perhaps Alcuin of York.

This British connection is significant in the secret history. The spirit of King Arthur lives and breathes in the history of Charlemagne. He is a defender of the faith who keeps pagans at bay with the help of a weapon that confers invincibility and of a circle of faithful knights, or paladins as they are known in the case of Charlemagne.

We have seen that the original King Arthur lived in the Iron Age, a champion of the Sun god at a time of encroaching darkness. The stories of the Grail which were added to the canon at the time of Charlemagne are based on historical events.

You might assume that the story of Parsifal is an allegory, but in the secret history he was a man of flesh and blood, a reincarnation of Mani, the third-century founder of Manichaeism. Though he did not know it, he was the nephew of one of Charlemagne’s paladins, William of Orange, who fought in a battle against the Saracens at Carcassonne in 783. This battle cost the Muslims so dearly that they withdrew from France to Spain.

Raised to be a forester, Parsifal lived with his mother deep in the woods, far away from the glamour of court life and the dangers of chivalry. He did not know his father or his uncle. He was never to be a knight like Roland, famous in his own day, a knight whose deeds were blazed across the sky and celebrated in the official records, but his local deeds, his private battles, would change the course of history.

One day Parsifal was playing by himself in the woods when a troop of knights rode by. The episode is described in a passage by Chretien de Troyes that lights up the imagination:

Trees were bursting into leaf, the iris blooming and birds singing when the son of the widow went out into the wild and lonely forest. He was practising hurling spears when he heard a clashing, jangling, thumping sound. Then suddenly he saw five knights ride out from among the trees in full armour, their helmets shining in the sun. The gold, silver, white and blue of their liveries danced before his eyes. He had never seen anything like this before and thought he was being granted a vision of angels.

Parsifal’s own imagination was fired. He left his mother, heartbroken, and set off in search of adventure.

For all his ideals Parsifal was a foolish knight and his missions were often fraught with misunderstanding and accident. His was a journey of loneliness and failure.

Then one day, as dusk approached, he was riding by a river and asked two fishermen if they knew where he could find shelter. They directed him to a great castle, set high on a hill. This turned out to be the castle of the Fisher King, Amfortas, who had been wounded and was bleeding from his thighs. It seemed that an evil king, Klingsor, had laid a trap for Amfortas, involving some kind of sexual temptation, and had succeeded in inflicting this wound on him.

While Parsifal was sitting at dinner a wonderful procession appeared, page boys carrying a bleeding spear and a shining bowl. After dinner Parsifal fell into a deep sleep. In some versions of the legend he also faced a series of trials. He was menaced by wild beasts — lions — and was tempted by a beautiful demon. He also had to cross the Bridge Perilous, a giant sword that spanned the moat. As we shall see these variations can be reconciled.

When he awoke he found that the castle was deserted. He rode out to find that the crops had failed and the country become a wasteland.

Parsifal was later accepted at court and received his spurs. But one day an ugly crone, the Loathly Lady, accosted him. She explained that the country was suffering because, when presented with a vision of the Grail, he had failed to ask the question which would have healed the Fisher King and restored his kingdom’s fortunes.

On his second visit to the Grail Castle, Parsifal asked Amfortas what ailed him, and he succeeded in the quest for the Grail where all other knights had been denied. Sir Launcelot had failed, for instance, because of his love for Guinevere. He did not have a pure heart.

At the climax of his quest, Parsifal sees first the spear of Longinus — a reminder of the connection with Charlemagne — and then, finally, the Grail itself.

What are we to make of this as history? The visionary element should certainly be understood as an account of an initiation ceremony. Parsifal’s trials and visions took place in a deep trance.

But, of course, the fact that events are symbolic or allegorical does not mean that they are not to be understood as literally true, too.

What, then, is the Grail?

^{In chivalry the helmet, the sword and the spurs are symbols of initiation. The ceremony of creating a knight by the tapping of the shoulder with a sword is a memory of the ancient initiation ceremony of tapping the forehead with the thyrsus rod that makes springs of water and of wine flow. In some modern initiation ceremonies this is remembered in the form of quite a fierce blow to the forehead. The blow allows the birth of a higher form of thought, as Athena, goddess of wisdom, was born from the forehead of her father.}

^{Esoteric heraldic devices featuring many of the creatures and symbols of the secret history from A Grammar of British Heraldry, 1854.}

We saw that in the early German version of the story the Grail is a stone. In this version the Grail also seems to have the properties of the philosopher’s stone of the alchemists. It shines, it regenerates, makes flesh and bones young again and, in the words of von Eschenbach, ‘offers so much of the world’s sweetness and delight that it seems like the kingdom of heaven’. Of course, if this stone that fell out of the forehead of Lucifer had been shaped into a bowl, it would also be a stone that had been worked on.

In order to understand what the Grail really is, we should recall what its function is, listen carefully to what the well-known story is telling us. It is a chalice or receptacle to hold bodily fluids. More particularly, it was to hold the blood of Christ, used to catch it as it spurted from his body on the cross and then later, symbolically, at the Last Supper.

As we have seen, blood is the distinguishing feature of animal consciousness, and in occult physiology the animal part of our nature nestles in or is carried by — as if by a chalice — the vegetable part of our nature.

The secret of the Holy Grail, then, is not that it represents a bloodline. This, I have already suggested, would go against the esoteric doctrine of reincarnation. Rather it alludes to the role of the vegetable part of our nature as a living receptacle for our spirit or consciousness. The quest for the Grail is the quest for a purified receptacle fit to carry a higher form of spirit, and the trials in the course of the quest involve certain esoteric techniques of purification of the vegetable body. Rudolf Steiner, perhaps the greatest teacher of the twentieth century, said that