| 1. THE GRAIL CASTLE
The mythic underpinnings of today’s strange world can be found in legends
of the Holy Grail.
 In a secret nexus at the center of space-time, and therefore outside of
it, is a castle where a King reigns timelessly over all the universe. He
never leaves his chamber in the highest battlement, and seems to care not
a whit for the fortunes of the material worlds or the endless generations
of beings who inhabit them; yet somehow he creates and sustains all these
worlds, and his heart pumps the blood and the sustenance into all that
lives.
The King possesses
two implements, which are all he needs for his eternal task, for they are
the source and the origin of life and of death. The one glows brilliantly
in the dark night of the Abyss which surrounds the castle; many who see it
call it a star, while some come away with a memory of it as a gemstone of
the most lucid radiance. The other implement is sometimes seen as a weapon
in the King’s right hand -- a sword, a spear, a lance, or in modern times
a gun. It’s also visaged as a skull, like the one Hamlet held when he
sought to penetrate these very mysteries.
The King entrusts the care of the Star of Life to his Queen, who keeps it
in a precious cup to carry it forth into the halls of the castle. And his
sword the King hands over to his noblest and mightiest knight, who
accompanies the Queen wherever she goes and acts as Guardian of the
treasure that she bears.
In those times that are today called the Middle Ages, among the people who
lived in Europe, the Star of Life became known as the Holy Grail, and the
Cup of the Queen was identified as the chalice that Jesus used at the Last
Supper, containing the wine that became his blood; and in like manner, the
weapon of the Guardian was said to be the spear that pierced Christ’s side
while he hung upon the Cross. Embodied thus in these symbols, the
mysteries inspired the rise of many orders, whose members pledged
themselves to sacred service as knights and maidens of the Holy Grail.
These outward orders were modeled after the true Inner Order of souls who
live in the Grail Castle, and venture forth from it into the world on
periodic quests of enlightenment and salvation. This has gone on forever,
and always will, in every land and every world, in ways invisible to the
average mass of sentient beings; but the Medieval Grail legend gave to it
all a local habitation and a name. In this way, the
ineffable became tangible to mundane folk, and enabled them to be
recruited into the sacred work.
Every day in the Great Hall of the Grail Castle there was a convocation in
which all the knights and ladies gathered ’round, as
the Queen held forth
the chalice and the Guardian removed its covering, unveiling the stellar
light of the Grail within. Then the cup was passed around the table, and
each person in turn renewed their vows to service of the Grail and its
King. Then they wished for whatever they might need at that moment,
including food, drink, clothing, and any other items of sustenance; and
instantly the Grail provided it, for indeed the Star of Life is the sole
and never-flagging source of all substance and energy in the universe.
Then the Guardian yielded up his spear to the men, though in some versions
of the story it was identified as the sword Excalibur. Each knight in turn
would seize it, renew his oath to defend the Grail with his very life, and
the sword or spear would be magically replicated into whatever weapon he
needed for his next battle.
Thus were the members of the Order sustained so that they could pour all
the grace of their souls and all the force of their power into
accomplishing the mighty millennial task of bringing the world gradually
ever closer to total salvation.
2. AMFORTAS AND KLINGSOR
Now we come to one of the many tales of the Grail which has a peculiar
resonance for modern times, and which in fact has been rendered into new
adaptations to highlight this poignance of an eternal myth for a
particular situation in space and time. This is the story of Parsifal.
In this variation of the epic, the Grail Castle itself has fallen upon
hard times: the Spear has been stolen, the Guardian has been wounded, and
the Grail Queen has disappeared!
How have such disasters come about? The tragic pattern of events began
with an aspirant to the Grail Order named Klingsor, who could not master
the required self-discipline over his lusts and his desire. Burning with
ambition for attainment, he chose the weakling’s path and castrated
himself, seeking to banish the drives he could not overcome by force of
will. The Guardian of the Grail was at this time
Amfortas, a king in his own right (though not the Grail King); when he
found what Klingsor had done, he banished him forever from the Castle and
the Order.
Thus there was sown in the heart of Klingsor an unquenchable lust for
revenge against Amfortas, the Order, and the Light of the Grail itself.
The spiritual knowledge and abilities he had acquired in his
apprenticeship he now turned to the usages of darkness and the ruination
of souls rather than their salvation. He built a mighty castle of his own
in the boundless deeps of the Abyss which separates the Grail Realm from
the mundane world. Hither he lured hapless souls who fell prey to his
enchantments. Every human being has within them a wish to take the easy
way to the heights, to gratify their senses without penalty, to experience
pleasure endlessly with nary a twinge of pain nor pang of grief. So it was
that Klingsor established in his stronghold a garden of earthly delights,
where all wayfarers were physically titillated and given illusions in
which their fondest fantasies seemed to have come true. This went on just
as long as it took Klingsor to cunningly ensorcel their souls beyond all
hope of escape. Then they found to their dismay that the price of folly is
high indeed, as they were forced into slavery to Klingsor, and became the
pawns by which he drew still more souls into his endless mesh of
treachery.
Klingsor had the power to temporarily transplant his castle and all its
keep from the Abyss to any likely spot in the material world. So
it was
that one day when Amfortas had journeyed forth into the land on a mission
for the Grail, he encountered what he took to be the fair demesne of a
local landulf. Squires and damsels hailed him as the renowned and noble
Guardian of the Grail, and entreated him to come and dally inside for
awhile, and sup with their own great lord, whose name they did not
mention. Greeted in so beguiling a manner, Amfortas saw no harm in
accepting the invitation. Once inside, he was given the honored place at
table as stout-looking knights regaled him with battle tales and enticing
maids danced about in sensuous costumes. Little did he suspect that the
wine he drank was drugged with a substance that dulled the wit and
inflamed the senses; so, though he imbibed with the moderation suitable to
his discipline, he was soon drunk and vulnerable to seduction.
And the seduction was swift in coming. Klingsor’s most passionate harlots
swarmed over Amfortas like snakes, caressing him and kissing him and
begging him to take them to bed this very minute. Every touch of their
delightful flesh on his body was enhanced a millionfold by the potion, and
the formidable will of the Guardian began to waver.
Suddenly, however, his soul awoke. He leapt to his feet and shouted, “Avaunt!”
and cast the houris from him. He took up his Spear and shoved aside the
knights who would bar his way, as he strode out of the castle.
Standing just inside the gate to the outer courtyard was the most daunting
obstacle of them all: Klingsor’s ultimate whore, an outrageously alluring
wench who reeked of the silk of cornfield romps in the bloom of youth,
whose fervid glance could warm the cockles of a corpse, and who now wove
about herself a spell to make her appear to Amfortas as the stunningly
perfect double of the Grail Queen.
The Guardian stopped where he stood on sight of her. “Why are you here,
Milady?” he said, with his drug-befuddled brain struggling to make sense
of the perfidious image.
In reply she held out to him the Grail in its
cup, or a masterfully-contrived doppleganger of the same.
This trick
triggered in Amfortas all the awe and reverence he naturally felt for the
Grail. He reached out as he always did in the ritual to remove its
covering, and instead found himself parting the diaphanous garment of the
imagined Queen, and beholding her naked body, glistening with sweat and
yearning to be penetrated by his wildly tumescing manhood. “My Lady. . .
!” he said with the last remaining shard of his common sense. “My lover,”
she replied, and drew him insistently down upon the carpet.
No sooner had Amfortas spent himself in the embrace of the witch than
Klingsor leapt forth from a crevice and snatched up the sacred Spear from
whence it had fallen. The veil dropped from Amfortas’ eyes, and he saw the
horrid reality of his condition. Groggily he strove to rise to his feet,
but in an instant Klingsor with a hideous shriek of triumph thrust the
point of the Spear squarely into its Guardian’s groin.
The Grail knights, who had followed a trail of stardust, found their
leader lying senseless and covered with blood in an empty field where the
enchanted castle had been. They carried him home, and great was the
wailing of the maidens and grief of the knights. But nothing was so
afflicting as the sight of the heart-stricken Queen, as she wept so
piteously at sight of him. Then she breathed life into him until he
revived, dressed his wound and bathed him, and finally he returned to
himself enough to sit up and look with recognition on those about him.
But he was in terrible pain from his wound. The Queen called for everyone
to attend a convocation. At the given moment of the ritual, she held out
the chalice to Amfortas. He required two knights to support him as he
wanly put forth his hand to lift the covering -- but at that instant there came back to him the memory of the scene in Klingsor’s castle, of what had happened when he unveiled the imagined Grail. And now he shrank back and
screamed in a most unmanly way, and despite all the urgings of his
brethren and weeping entreaties of the Queen, he could not gird himself to
lift the cover of the Grail. And thus the very power that could heal him
was denied him by the wound itself.
The knights spoke amongst themselves and concurred that: “He needs the
Spear. We must recover the sacred Spear from Klingsor, and that will
restore Amfortas and open again the Grail.” All the knights pledged
themselves to the quest, vowing they would not rest nor falter until the
Spear was returned to its rightful place beside the Grail.
Then the entire assemblage joined hands in a great circle and sang a prayer to the Grail King in his chamber above for the success of the quest and the rapid recovery of the Spear. Finally the Queen, with tears running down her cheeks, raised her clasped hands to the ceiling and cried out:
“My Lord and my love, my spouse and my master, please tell us the will of
the stars in this fearful matter.”
The room was hushed, for so rare was the direct intervention of the Grail
King in the affairs of the Order that only the most ancient individuals in
the great hall could remember the last time his voice had been heard
herein. But now, after a pause of a few long heartbeats, that voice
resounded to the multitude.
In grave and compassionate tones it said: “The
Spear will not be won save by the hand of an innocent fool,
who will attain wisdom through pity.”
Then there was silence again, broken at length by sighs of grief, the
weeping of strong men, and the soft lamentations of women. A voice said
loudly: “Alas!”, and darkness fell.
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