It is almost impossible to say what the Grail is other than that it is what we seek and the finding of it will transform us into a higher state of being. Paradoxically, however, we have no chance of finding it unless we are already in a higher state of being.
In the Middle Ages a series of stories seemed to bubble to the surface of our Western consciousness around a single theme, the search for the mysterious Grail, and they were written down from the rich and ancient oral tradition in Wales, in France, in Germany, evolving and changing but always linked to the same characters and the same quest.
In Britain they first appeared among the stories we now call the Mabinogion. Peredur, the son of Evrawc, becomes Parzival in the great work of Wolfram von Eschenbach in early thirteenth century Germany, Percival in The Story of the Grail by Chrétien de Troyes in France, Percival in Sir Thomas Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur. Most of them suggest that the Grail is the chalice that Christ used at the Last Supper; some, Wolfram in particular, that it was a stone fallen from heaven, Lucifer’s lost emerald. Some combine the two ideas. The chalice Christ used to institute the first Eucharist was carved out of the Sacred Emerald that fell from heaven.
My theory is that Lucifer’s mysterious and powerful emerald glimmers in the mythic imagination throughout history and throughout the world, appearing in ancient Egypt in the possession of Horus (‘Horus, Lord of the Green Stone’: Pyramid Texts, Utterance 301), and as the Wisdom Book of the God Djehuti (Thoth) that glowed in the dark, was lost and sought as fervently as any Grail, and reappeared at last in the form of an inferior copy about 300 BC as the Emerald Tablet of Hermes Trismegistus – the tablet on which was inscribed in raised letters the tenets of the philosophy that became so influential as Hermeticism.
There is mention of an emerald tablet originally inscribed by Cham, one of the sons of Noah. And there is a link with Melchizadek, king of Salem, who instructed Abraham in esoteric lore, and in whose order Jesus was said to be a high priest. It appears in the legends of Chartres Cathedral, brought by the nine Templars who lived for nine years on the ruined site of Solomon’s Temple in Jerusalem imbibing the arcane knowledge of Solomon and Sheba. The name Chartres itself comes from words indicating ‘guardians of the stone’, and Frédéric Lionel, the eminent French esotericist, in his Legends and Symbols of the Cathedral of Chartres (Golden Way Foundation), claims that the magnificent statue of Melchizadek in the central bay of the north porch, is holding an emerald – the emerald!
Another intriguing echo comes from Cairo in the ninth century. Caliph al Mamoun, son of the man to whom Scheherezade told her thousand and one stories, made the first incursion into the Great Pyramid in search of a gigantic emerald that was supposed to be buried at the centre. It is through his tunnel that we now enter the pyramid as tourists.
Another branch of the story takes us to India with Alexander the Great who used the power of the emerald to conquer the whole world – but was ultimately lost because he had not learned to conquer himself.
Lucifer’s lost emerald presages the loss of Eden by Adam and Eve. It has to be symbolic of the most important quest through all the realms. In the search, we find ourselves. In the finding, we find God.
Sources
The Bible: Isaiah 14:12 and the Book of Revelation.
John Milton, Paradise Lost, Book I.
Wolfram von Eschenbach, Parzival: A Romance of the Middle Ages, translated by H. M. Mustard and C. E. Passage (Vintage Books, New York, 1961), Book IX, pp. 251-3.
Wolfram von Eschenbach, Parzival translated by A. T. Hatto (Penguin Books, 1980).
Peter Lamborn Wilson, Angels (Thames & Hudson, 1980).
Gustav Davidson, A Dictionary of Angels (The Free Press, New York, 1967).
Emma Jung and Marie-Louise Von Franz, The Grail Legend (Hodder & Stoughton, 1971).
Caitlin and John Matthews, The Western Way (Arkana, 1986).
Manly P. Hall, The Secret Teachings of All Ages (1901; The Philosophical Research Society Inc., Los Angeles, 1977), p. xcix.
John Matthews, The Grail: Quest for the Eternal (Thames & Hudson, 1981).
John Matthews, At the Table of the Grail (Routledge, 1984).
T. W. Rolleston, Myths and Legends of the Celtic Race (Harrap & Co., 1911), p. 407.
Frédéric Lionel, Legends and Symbols of the Cathedral of Chartres (Golden Way Foundation).
S. A. B. Mercer, Pyramid Texts Vol. 1 (Longmans, 1952), utterance 301, paragraph 457c.
About Moyra Caldecott
Moyra Caldecott was born in Pretoria, South Africa in 1927, and moved to London in 1951. She married Oliver Caldecott and raised three children. She has degrees in English and Philosophy and an M.A. in English Literature.
Moyra Caldecott has earned a reputation as a novelist who writes as vividly about the adventures and experiences to be encountered in the inner realms of the human consciousness as she does about those in the outer physical world. To Moyra, reality is multidimensional.
Books by Moyra Caldecott
Titles marked with an asterisk are available or forthcoming from Mushroom eBooks. Please visit www.mushroom-ebooks.com for more information.
FICTION
Guardians of the Tall Stones:
The Tall Stones*
The Temple of the Sun*
Shadow on the Stones*
The Silver Vortex*
Weapons of the Wolfhound*
The Eye of Callanish*
The Lily and the Bull*
The Tower and the Emerald*
Etheldreda*
Child of the Dark Star*
Hatshepsut: Daughter of Amun*
Akhenaten: Son of the Sun*
Tutankhamun and the Daughter of Ra*
The Ghost of Akhenaten*
The Winged Man*
The Waters of Sul*
The Green Lady and the King of Shadows*
NON-FICTION/MYTHS AND LEGENDS
Crystal Legends*
Three Celtic Tales*
Women in Celtic Myth
Myths of the Sacred Tree
Mythical Journeys: Legendary Quests
CHILDREN’S STORIES
Adventures by Leaflight
The Tower and the Emerald Page 28