Being a follower of Christ means we should NOT fear anything or anyone but God. Perfect love for Almighty God casts out our fear. Don't think for a moment you are going to vote the Illuminati out of office. They control the major and minor political parties. They control the process of government, they control the process of information flow, they control the process of creating money and finally they control Christendom. (However, God controls the hearts of His people.) In short the Illuminati are generational Satanic bloodlines which have gained the most power. A generational Satanist described the Illuminati as "Satan's elite." The Illuminati is the secret occult oligarchies which rule the world. God Himself has told us that the whole world lies in the power of the wicked one. Indeed a small group of Satanic families control their nation and the world from behind the scenes. They have Satanic power through their secret societies and exercise this power from behind the scenes .Long ago, powerful kings discovered how they could control other men by torture, magical practices, wars, politics, religion and interest taking. These elite families designed strategies and tactics to perpetuate their occult practices. Layers upon layers of secrecy have hidden these families from the public. Alexander Hislop wrote a classic called "The Two Babylons." He researched the occult world and the connections between the different groups. His classic book shows that there is a continuity between the ancient occultism of the Mystery Religions and modern day religion. Many have paid the ultimate price and died as they dared to challenge the power structure to get to the real facts. The Illuminati mocks and imitates God's 12 tribes. And this is why Jesus called the Illuminati, who say they are Jews but are not, the "Synagogue of Satan. Satan blessed the 12 bloodlines of the Illuminati. The Illuminati are the elite of Satanism. The 13th bloodline of the Illuminati is the bloodline from which comes the Antichrist. The tribe of Dan was used as a Judas Iscariot type seed. The royalty of the tribe of Dan have descended down through history as a powerful Satanic bloodline. The 13th or final blood line was copied after God's royal lineage of Jesus. This was the Satanic House of David with their blood which they believe is not only from the House of David but also from the lineage of Jesus, who they claim had a wife and children. The 13th Satanic bloodline was instilled with the direct seed of Satan so that they would not only carry Christ's blood--but also the blood of his "brother" Lucifer. Yes this is what they really believe. Yes they do have very real power from Satan. The occult world has remained hidden from the history books. Publishing and education have been controlled privileges. The Illuminati have ruled behind the scenes. The Mystery Religions each had their secret councils which ruled them, and these councils themselves came under the guidance of a secret supreme Grand Council or Governing Body. The Mystery Religions in turn ruled the masses and the political leaders. Enough research into the Illuminati will clearly show that history books have been doctored. The hidden truth is how great power was concentrated in the hands of oligarchies around the world.

Who were these powerful people? If there is a conspiracy who are the conspirators? The history books are full of information about the elites and the masses. Yet very close examination and with the light of the KJV Holy Bible, one can see that the elite have continued their power for centuries. The Illuminati elite have worked hand in glove with other elites to control the masses. Wars between kings were not really wars between elite factions, but contrived wars to control the masses by their greedy elite masters. Power doesn't have to have high visibility to be active. In fact, due to the evil dark nature of these evil bloodlines they have traditionally tried to remain secret. Yet there have been some people who have stepped out of the generational Satanic bloodlines of the Illuminati and who have given their lives to Christ. This is how the truth comes out when someone in those generational Satanic bloodlines come out to the light of Jesus Christ.  Those who are still in the Illuminati are much too fearful to tell anything of generational Satanism. The power is very real and the fears of those within the Illuminati are well grounded since most have seen occult ritual torture and murder first hand.  Several people from different places have confirmed that there are 13 Illuminati bloodlines. Fritz Springmeyer is among the top researchers of the Illuminati. Several ex-Illuminati people have confirmed the list of 13 families. Who are the families. Here are the names of some of the more obvious powerful families: Mellon's, Carnegies, Rothschild's, Rockefellers, Dukes, Astor's, Dorrance's, Reynoldses, Stiliman's, Bakers, Pyne's, Cuilman's, Watson's, Tukes, Kleinwort's, DuPont's, Warburg's, Phippses, Graces, Guggenheims, Milner's, Drexel's, Winthrop's, Vanderbilt's, Whitney's, Harkenesses.  Have you not noticed how well these and other super rich Illuminated families get along quite well with Communists. Can you not see something wrong with that picture of how they manage and do business with those who supposedly want to take away the wealth of these men and give it to the people? Yet this is only to support the delusion that Communists are the enemies of all Capitalists. Here is the BASIC UNDERSTANDING YOU MUST GRASP. Communists, like the super rich families, are not the enemies of MONOPOLY CAPITALISM: they are the enemies of FREE ENTERPRISE."  Some of the Illuminati secret and semi-secret organizations are: the Order of the Garter, RIIA, Bohemian Grove, Bilderbergers, the Cosmos Club, the CFR, the Club of Rome, the Council of 9, the Council of 13 which is the Grand Druid Council, the Jason Society, the Jason Group, the Ordo Saturis, the OTO groups, MI-6, MJ-12, the Mothers of Darkness, the Pilgrim Society, the Prieure de Sion, the Process Church, the Sanhedrin, and the Temple of Power. Eph 5:11 And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them. Eph 5:12 For it is a shame even to speak of those things which are done of them in secret. Eph 5:13 But all things that are reproved are made manifest by the light: for whatsoever doth make manifest is light. Eph 5:14 Wherefore he saith, Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light. The god of this world is in its full reality is Lucifer, Satan, the devil. But he is a defeated foe to those who have already died to self and have hid their life with Jesus Christ in the One True Living God. The thirteen bloodlines of the Illuminati are: 1-The Astor Bloodline. 2-The Bundy Bloodline. 3-The Collins Bloodline. 4-The Dupont Bloodline. 5-The Freeman Bloodline. 6-The Kennedy Bloodline. 7-The Li Bloodline. 8-The Onassis Bloodline. 9-The Reynolds Bloodline. 10-The Rockefeller Bloodline. 11-The Rothschild Bloodline. 12-The Russell Bloodline. 13-The Van Duyn BloodlineMerovingian (European Royalty) .

The British Royalty are tied in with the 13th Bloodline. Many of the American political leaders have been related to the British Royalty incl. George Bush and Dan Quayle. It is from this 13th Satanic bloodline of the tribe of Dan, Judas Iscariot, most powerful Satanic bloodline from which the Antichrist, Prince Charles of Wales comes. The 13th or final blood line was copied after God's royal lineage of Jesus. This was the Satanic House of David with their blood which they believe is not only from the House of David but also from the lineage of Jesus, who they claim had a wife and children, in this Satanic perverted yet powerful belief system. The 13th Satanic bloodline was instilled with the direct seed of Satan they would carry the blood Lucifer. Yes this is what they really believe that Lucifer was Christ's brother, that Jesus Christ did not die on a Roman Cross on Calvery, but married Mary Magdeline and produced this bloodline which has a divine right to rule the world. Their god is Lucifer. The very spirit of Lucifer Satan the devil will soon indwell Prince Charles of Wales to be the antichrist and seek to have all worship him as god of this world. The 13th Illuminati Bloodline is where the Anti-Christ will come from. This bloodline believes that it has both the Holy Blood of Jesus and the blood (or seed) of Satan in its bloodline. This bloodline is so extensive in its many branches that its membership takes in many of the Presidents of the United States, including George Bush and George Washington.  All of the Mormon Presidents in history, whether RLDS or LDS, trace their blood back to this 13th bloodline. Within the Illuminati rituals, the emphasis of the 13th bloodline is that they are the seed of Satan. They really believe that they are the direct descendants of Jesus's spiritual brother Lucifer. Some of the earliest attempts to trace the seed of Satan were some books which did extensive research on the Tribe of Dan and the decedents of Cain. "The Curse of Canaan" is an interesting book along with its mate World Order by Eustice Mullins. Another good book if you can find it is Gerald Massey's A Book of the Beginning (Secaucus, NJ: University Books, Inc., 1974.) The book shows in detail how the inhabitants of the British Isles came originally from Egypt. This is Important because the Druidism of the British Isles was simply a derivative from the Egyptian Satanic witchcraft/magic of Ancient Egypt.  The Illuminati is the continuation of the Mystery Religions of Babylon and Egypt. And the bloodlines of the Illuminati go back to people who at one time lived in Babylon and Egypt.  You may see on the GJiGT just how the House of David (the Satanic one) and the blasphemous Holy Merovingian Blood of the 13th family fit as you may know Prince Charles is the Antichrist. The 13th Illuminati family does goes back to ancient times. Is this via the Tribe of Dan or via some Druidic bloodline or is it via the Merovingian's or all three. The 13th bloodline has amassed a great deal of power and wealth on this planet. The 13th bloodline lacks nothing to bring forth their Anti-Christ who will appear to have all the correct credentials. I would not even be surprised if their Anti-Christ in order to appear real will expose another Anti-Christ. The 13th bloodline has kept its genealogies very secret, yet you may find the bloodline of Prince Charles going all the way back to David and the tribe of Judah on the GJiGT.  The tribe of Dan was prophesied to be the black sheep of the nation of Israel which would bite the other tribes of Israel. The tribe of Dan had the snake and the eagle as its two logos. The tribe of Dan left its calling card all over Europe as it migrated west in the names of many places. The tribe of Dan ruled the Greeks, the Roman Empire, the Austro-Hungarian empire and many others which used the eagle as its logo. Great Britain is the mother country of Satanism. Scotland has long been an occult center. The national symbol of Scotland is the dragon (the snake), and for years the chief of Scotland was called the dragon. The Gaelic language is an important language for Satanism, although English and French are also use extensively by the Illuminati. The planning sessions for world takeover that some ex-Satanists experienced were held in French.  The British Royal Family have long been involved with the occult. They have also been actively involved with Freemasonry. British MI6 has been a major vehicle for the Satanic hierarchy working behind the secret veil of Freemasonry to control world events. British MI6 is the most secret intelligence organization in the world. It is properly known as British Secret Service not to be confused with the U.S. agency by that name but performing a different function entirely. It is the personal secret service of Prince Charles, who may be the richest man in the world with some estimates of his personal net worth as high as 26 Trillion Dollars. The British Royalty have served as important figureheads to British Freemasonry lending credibility and respectability. British Freemasonry has managed to keep itself free of much of the criticism that the other national Masonic groups have brought on themselves. However, much of the credibility of British Freemasonry is undeserved. British Freemasonry in the lower level Masons by their dues and activities are unwittingly supporting an organization that is led by Satanists at the top. The English Grand Masonic Lodge, all Freemasonry, all of the occult, the Vatican, and all major national and military intelligence agencies are all working together. The view from the top of this Satanic Antichrist pyramid structure helps maintain an overall view perspective. When you go to the top of the Antichrist structure and scheme of things you have to look at the prince himself. "And the dragon gave him his power and his throne and great authority." The dragon is "symbolic" to others, but not to Prince Charles. He has a red dragon on his coat of arms. It comes from the flag of Wales, and it is in this title, Prince of Wales, that Charles is heir-apparent to the throne of Great Britain. At his coronation (investiture as Prince of Wales) in 1969, he sat on a chair with a large red dragon emblazoned on it. During the ceremony, his mother Queen Elizabeth II said, "This dragon gives you your power, your throne and your own authority." His response to her was, "I am now your Liege-man, and worthy of your earthly worship." Liege is an old English word meaning "Lord". "I am now your Lord-man, and worthy of your earthly worship." Another reference to the red dragon is in Revelations 12:3 And there appeared another wonder in heaven; and behold a great red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns, and seven crowns upon his heads. Prince Charles is the ONLY person in the world to whom "And the dragon gave him his power and his throne and great authority" can literally be applied to!  Another symbol on Prince Charles' Coat of Arms is that of The Order of the Garter. The Order of the Garter is the parent organization over Free Masonry, worldwide. When a man becomes a 33rd Degree Mason, he swears allegiance to that organization, and thereby to Prince Charles.

According to "The 'Morals and Dogma' of the Ancient and Accepted Rite of Freemasonry" written by Albert Pike (Grand Commander, Sovereign Pontiff of Universal Freemasonry, July 14, 1889) Lucifer is the GOD of Freemasonry (see page 321 of the 1942 edition). On page 819 you will find just one example of why there are many people in Freemasonry who believe that it is natural to be a Christian and a Mason. Masonry intentionally misleads the low degree initiates and hides the truth that the god of Freemasonry is Lucifer, except to those in the 30th and higher degrees. "The Blue Degrees are but the outer court or portico of the Temple. Part of the symbols are on display there to the Initiate, but he is intentionally misled by false interpretations. It is not intended that he shall understand them; but it is intended that he shall imagine he understands them." Further proof of Lucifer worshipping amongst Freemason can be seen in how they measure the year. For instance the year 1998 (up until September) is according to freemasonry the year 5997 AL (that is 5997 anno Lucifer). On March 6th, 1996 on CNN, Prince Charles showed the world that he and his two sons William and Harry, had been the first people to be voluntarily implanted with a microchip (traceable biochip) in their right hands, allegedly for security purposes. On June 26th 1994, Charles announced that when he becomes king he will relinquish the monarch's role as head of the Church of England. He said he would rather be seen as "defender of faith", or "defender of the faiths," rather than "defender of THE faith." "I happen to believe that the Catholic subjects of the sovereign are as important [as the Protestants], not to mention the Islamic, Hindu and Zoroastrian," he told the independent Television network. There are currently at least two biographies available on Charles that describe his desire to unite all the world's religions 'in order for peace' (see Daniel 11:37). Various reports have appeared in London and Arab news papers over the last few years, claiming that Charles has converted to Islam. This supposedly took place when he met with the mufti of Cyprus Shaykh Nazim Adil (in 1993).Now while there's no actual evidence to prove that he has converted to Islam, there is no evidence to prove that he hasn't. In fact his lecture delivered in February 1994 at Oxford extolling the virtues of Islam, his frequent visits to Islamic holy places, his dedication of a South London mosque, outfitted in traditional Sunnah attire; and his 1993 trip to see the Quran of Sayiddina `Uthman (in Tashkent, Uzbekistan) with Shaykh Hisham Kabbani, only lend credence to the claim. Of course, this is just the sort of tactic to expect from the antichrist. That is to say, if he were to openly come out and say that he had converted to Islam, this would make many Jews wary of him. Whereas, if he were to spread rumors that he was a Muslim and not publicly deny them, then he could get Muslims on side whilst not alienating Jews. On June 2nd 1953, with the knights of the garter carrying and holding the canopy over her head, Elizabeth II was anointed and crowned as "Queen of thy people Israel". Both Prince Charles and his mother believe that the throne upon which the queen was crowned, the famous coronation chair at Westminster Abbey in London, is the rightful throne of King David. One of the reasons for this is because up until recently it contained a 336 pound stone known as Jacob's Pillar (also referred to as Jacob's head-rest, the stone of Scone, or the stone of destiny). For more information on the significance of this stone see Genesis 28:18. In 1296, Edward I stole the stone and took it to England, where it was placed in Westminster Abbey, and used since 1308 for English coronations. On St Andrews Day, 30th November 1996, on Queen Elizabeth's orders, the stone was taken back to Scotland and installed in Edinburgh Castle. Many people believe that this stone will be used to crown the antichrist (posing as the messiah). (See also Ezekiel 21:27, Genesis49:10, Daniel 9:24, and Ezekiel 37:22). Many blasphemous European royalty including Prince Charles and Queen Elizabeth II claim to be of the Blood line of Jesus Christ and Mary Magdalene. According to the lie, Jesus didn't die on the cross and rise from the dead. Instead they claim he married Mary Magdalene and fathered a number of children. This bloodline is referred to as the "Holy Grail", with those possessing it believing themselves the rightful heirs to the throne of Jerusalem. They believe that a new king of "the holy seed of David" will preside over the "Masonic kingdom" of Israel and the world. Prince Charles' link to the non-existent bloodline of Christ is through the Merovingian Kings of France. He is allegedly descended from the Merovingian Hildegarde.

Princess Diana's Bloodline can also be traced back to the Merovingians. This is why Prince Philip selected her. His World Business Forum comprises 200 of the world's top corporate leaders and consolidates 26% of the world's wealth. Charles is literally able to steer the environmental ethics & business agendas of the world's most powerful multinational companies. The holdings of the House of Windsor constitute enormous wealth including the Archer-Daniel's-Midland company (they are stockholders with controlling interest) which controls 75% of the world's grain. In times of famine, the royal family will literally be able to control who eats and who starves. Prince Charles considers himself to be psychic and believes in guidance from the spirit realm. The Queen (also involved in spiritism) and Prince Philip both believe that Charles, "is the Chosen One - placed in line for the throne through a divine, preordained plan." In the early 1990's representatives of Israel and the Palestinians were invited to a secret meeting in London, during which it was decided to try secret negotiations in Oslo, Norway. The Israelis were represented by Yitzchak Rabin, and the Palestinians were represented by King Hussein of Jordan (both 33rd degree masons). The third party at that meeting was Lord Victor Mischcon (also a 33rd degree mason), and personal attorney for Prince Charles. Prince Charles attended the funeral of Yitzchak Rabin. Within two hours after the funeral, according to the Jerusalem Post, Prince Charles was in Prime Minister Shimon Peres' office "insisting" that he attend a meeting at the Orient House, (in the Palestinian sector of Jerusalem), to begin negotiations to give back the Golan Heights to Syria. To truly understand Charles, it is important to understand his father, Prince Philip. Philip is a eugenicist who wants reduce the population of this planet from a current level of about 6.0 billions persons, to much less than 1 billion within the next two generations. To quote Prince Philip "In the event that I am reincarnated, I would like to return as a deadly virus, in order to contribute something to solve overpopulation. "Prince Charles may seem like a wimp, however he is quite athletic, an expert horseman, a qualified jet fighter pilot in the Royal Air Force, a qualified helicopter pilot in the Royal Navy, and a senior military officer in all three branches of armed services. No one else on Earth has the religious, political, financial, historic, and other ties that Charles has! Prince Charles media exposure has exceeded that of any other man in history! Still not convinced, then read 2Thessalonians 2:9-12 2 Even him, whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders, And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness

THE HIGH HISTORY OF THE HOLY GRAIL

By Vincent Bridge

Joseph Campbell, in his epic study The Masks of God places Wolfram's Parzival squarely on the dividing line between ancient and modern. Emma Jung, whose psychological insights are invaluable, identifies the Grail cycle as the beginning of the immanent spirituality of Christianity, in opposition to the more ancient transcendent view. Adolf Hitler considered the Hallows of the Grail to be an important component of his plan for world conquest. Sort of a psychic equivalent to a Panzer battalion. The Grail would seem to be the ultimate slippery idea. Even the word itself has a half-dozen different derivations: from gradual, gradulis in Latin, to a wide plate or dish, gradule in Old French, to the really strange meanings such as Sang Real or royal blood. A persistent whiff of Sufism lingers on, along with traces of other arcane undercurrents, such as Goddess worship, "witchcraft," and contact with such megalithic concepts as landscape zodiacs. To approach the Grail is to enter into Fairyland, the Magic Kingdom, but one such as Walt Disney could never have imagined. The Grail is, or becomes, all things to all seekers. Perhaps it is best seen as a state of mind, one in which the numinous exists in sharp and bright detail, while the mundane becomes charged with significance and meaning. If The Castle, or Temple of the Grail is the Garden, then the Angel of the Fiery Sword becomes a Grail Knight. And to enter one must simply ask: "Whom does the Grail Serve?" We are talking of nothing less than the redemption of the human condition, the true promise of Christianity, reneged on by the Church and forgotten by all but those who take up the Quest. Like all great and essentially timeless ideas, the Grail is a product of a specific time and place, a specific and exact set of enabling conditions that allowed the emergence of this seminal myth. To understand the Grail, we must look first to history

Elenor of Aquitaine was in many ways the most remarkable woman of the middle ages. Indeed, she was perhaps one of the most amazing women of all time. Outright sovereign of Aquitaine, the richest and fairest province of France, she was married very young to the King of France. The saintly Louis seems never to have known quite what to do with this powerful, beautiful and headstrong woman. Elenor started the fashion of the Court of Love, which flourished throughout Europe and reached its peak at the turn of the thirteenth century. Elenor's daughter, Marie de Champagne, inherited her mother's love of Provencal troubadours and all the other trappings of the cult of courtly love. Elenor and her court accompanied Louis the Young on his expedition to the Holy Land, known as the disastrous and ineffectual Second Crusade. Elenor returned from crusading and soon embarked on the great royal romance of the period. Henry Plantagenet, Henry II of England, swept her off her feet. He married her with the aid of large bribes and good friends in Rome. Their children included two of the most renowned and infamous characters in the long panorama of English history: Richard the Lion-Hearted and King John, the signer of the Magna Carta. With illustrious siblings as these, it is easy to lose track of a simple princess, no matter what her literary tastes.

Marie de Champagne deserves a better niche in history if only for her encouragement of poetry. She brought to her court the greatest storyteller of the age, Chrétien de Troyes. Through Chrétien the undercurrents of the Grail mythos surfaced into literature. Not much is known about Chrétien, his origins or his early works. He was born around 1130 and by 1170, he was famous as the author of a version of Ovid's Book of Love, now lost, and a version of the Tristan story which has also disappeared. Erec is his first medieval bestseller. This poem introduces in a formal way the Matter of Britain to the cosmopolitan audience at the court of Marie de Champagne, and from there passed throughout the courts of Europe. Erec sets the basic pattern for all Arthurian Romances, but though the splendors of the Celtic world are here on display, the Grail is not yet in evidence. Chrétien followed up his success with three more Arthurian tales. Cliges is a Roman myth with an Arthurian background. It wasn't all that popular. There are only two copies extant. But it did introduce certain key elements in the Matter of Britain. Cliges contains the first mention of the Round Table and the first specific mention of Camelot. Chrétien may have picked up this name from Camulodunum, the Roman name for Colchester. The Knight of the Cart and The Knight with the Lion are perhaps Chrétien's masterpieces. Certainly Ywain or the knight with the lion with its marvels, strange adventures and courtly love, its finely drawn characters and well wrought unity is a masterpiece. The Knight of the Cart , our introduction to Lancelot, fares less well. The action is unexplained and unmotivated, requiring a broader canvas in order to give the causes and consequences of the adventure. The overall feeling is that of a piece of a larger work rather than a completed work of art in itself. We can imagine Chrétien working on just that problem of scope in the early 1180's.While Chrétien produced most of the Arthurian stage dressing that would define the very concept of Romance over the next three hundred years, the Grail has yet to appear. Chrétien's last work, left unfinished at his death, was Perceval, or the History of the Grail. With this uneven masterpiece, Chrétien plants the seed germ of the spiritual qualities that will, within only thiry years, become the driving force behind works as unique as Wolfram's Parzival and Walter de Mapp's Queste del Saint Graal. While the scope of Perceval, or the History of the Grail is broad enough to encompass the entire medieval world view, it is riddled with difficulties and inconsistencies. Chrétien himself claimed that he was merely reworking the material that he had found in an old manuscript. Perhaps the marvels and strange doings of his Celtic original simply proved too much for Chrétien's more down to earth approach. At any rate, his version ends after Gawain's adventure of the Perilous Bed. We can be sure that Chrétien began his last work, commissioned by Phillip of Flanders, with great enthusiasm. Chrétien refers to the story as the greatest ever told in any court. His opening scenes are full of color and verve. He tells of his hero's blunders and gaucheries with a keen comic sensitivity of effect. He invests the encounter with the Fisher King with just the right amount of awe and reverence mixed in with the mystery and strangeness. And Chrétien is equally successful with the startling appearance of the Loathly Damsel and her violent denunciation of Perceval, whose growth from boyish boorishness to knightly grace has been well drawn and realized. With the shift of narrative focus to Gawain, the tale begins to unravel. By the time the story returns to Perceval, it is obvious that Chrétien is deeply confused and that some important concept concerning this "graal" has been lost or misunderstood. But the clues are there, painted in broad strokes in the Grail procession scene. To understand the mystery of the Grail, it will be necessary to have the outline of Chretien's scene in the Grail Castle firmly in mind. Our first glimpse of the Grail offers many guideposts in the tangled thickets of theological and eschatological speculations to follow. Chrétien faithfully followed his original, even when he didn't understand it.

Perceval's early life echoes the boyhoods of the great Celtic Solar Heroes Culchuin and Finn. His entry to the great hall of Camelot is taken from the tale of Kulwich in the Welsh Mabinogion. After his knighting, Perceval sets out in search of further adventures and arrives at the castle of the Fisher King. The Fisher King presides over a vast, empty hall, large enough for four hundred men. An old man is seated on a couch pulled close to the central fire. The Fisher King presents Perceval with a Sword, a richly appointed weapon, a marvel that "could not break save only in one peril which no one knew save him who forged and tempered it." A procession passes through the hall. First, a squire carries a Spear dripping spackles of blood onto the floor. Two squires with ten-branched candlesticks follow. A beautiful maiden enters carrying a "Graal" which blazes so brightly that it puts out the light of the candles and the stars. Following her is another maiden carrying a talleor, a casket or tabernacle. Perceval watches all this but fails to ask its meaning.  In the morning, the castle is empty and disappears as soon as Perceval moves across the drawbridge. He comes upon a lady holding a headless body. She informs Perceval that all could have been healed if he had only asked of the grail. She also tells him that his sword will break in a careless moment, but that it can be renewed in the lake where the smith, Trebuchet, dwells. On the surface, this is no stranger than any other marvelous encounter in any of a dozen Celtic adventure tales. It is only when the hermit, whom Perceval visits for confession after five years of godless adventure, begins to explain and chastise that we sense that something is missing or misunderstood. Why does the hermit rebuke Perceval so severely for not asking of the Grail when he was merely following the teachings of his chivalrous mentor? And, in any case, Perceval did not know that he should ask, or that there was any penalty for not asking. It somehow doesn't seem quite fair. But even more disturbing is the hermit's assertion that the "Graal" carried by the beautiful maiden did not contain a salmon or lamprey as Chrétien implied it should, but simply a consecrated wafer intended for the King's father. Church orthodoxy specifically excluded women from serving in such a priestly capacity. Yet the Grail Maiden passes unexplained. At any rate, a dish wide enough to hold a large fish seems a strange choice to hold a smallish wafer. And, if its purpose is simply sacramental, why does it accompany each course? The old hermit's explanations are more tantalizing than satisfying, and suggests that Chrétien found the need to alibi and cover over his religious tracks. The idea of a miraculous dish is an ancient Celtic motif. The later romances give the Fisher King the name of Bron, a close proximity to the ancient Welsh Bran, whose cauldron supplied the needs of any and everyone. Bran was wounded in the foot, echoing the Fisher King's injury, a spear wound through the thigh. It's a mistake to assume, as does Professor Loomis and other authorities, that Chrétien simply misinterpreted Bran's horn, corz, which also had miraculous abilities, as cors, or body, thereby connecting the dish and the body of Christ which accidentally created the spiritually potent image of the Holy Grail. This pun is definitely a clue to the real intention, but it is hardly an accident. And there is still the matter of a woman celebrating a form of the Mass, something unheard of in orthodox tradition. Where could this have come from? To simply say "from Celtic sources" is to beg the point. For all the pagan influences in the Grail story, it is still almost numerously Christian. But it is a Christianity far removed from the corruption and politics of Rome. This doesn't explain the eruption of Grail literature in the thirty or so years between the major Romances. For that, a broader perspective is needed. These thirty years, from roughly 1185 to 1215, marked, in many ways, the nadir of medieval Christianity. The papal squabbles of the mid-century, along with the general sense of discouragement after the failure of the Second Crusade, created a religious vacuum, into which more "heretical" forms of Christianity stepped. These heresies took root so quickly because of the contrast they presented with the church of Rome. These priests lived with and cared about their flock. It was common for prelates in Rome to spent their whole tenure in absentee, and the lower clergy was often as venal and corrupt as the local landowner. The decline of the church was given an extra push in the 1160's and 70's by the wide circulation of Abelairdian rationalism. Abelaird, best remembered today for his romance with his pupil Heloise, discussed the superstitions of the church with such clear-headedness that many intellectuals agreed that change was necessary, even essential. If the second crusade has been disappointing, then the fall of Jerusalem in the autumn of 1187 was devastating. It was seen as a sign of God's disfavor. A crusade was proclaimed, joined by such personages as the Kings of Germany, France and England. Frederick Barbarrossa died along the way and even though Elenor's golden child, Richard I of England, pursued the crusade with all the force of his fiery personality, Jerusalem remained in the hands of the infidels.

Richard, Heart-of-the-Lion, was something of a troubadour himself and gave his own stamp of approval to the new mode of romance. He seemed to literally embody the Matter of Britain and its chivalric traditions. We can be sure that the new poetry of the grail accompanied the crusaders because Richard's nephew, Marie's son, Henry of Champagne was elected King of Jerusalem. It is tempting to envisage the poet Gautier de Danans chanting his continuation of Chrétien's masterwork in the great hall of Acre, with Richard and his Queens, his sister Johanna and his wife Berengaria, nodding their approval. In 1191, the whole of the Arthurian tradition was verified by the monks of Glastonbury. Staking their claim as the "Vale of Avalon," the good monks disinterred the body of a Bronze Age chieftain and his queen. The bodies were supposedly marked with a cross identifying them and King Arthur and Guinevere. Naturally, this created an international sensation, and along with it, an appetite for stories about Arthur, his knights and their adventures in search of the Grail. There were several good reasons for this sudden discovery. First and foremost stands the political reason. The Plantagenet conquest of Wales was still quite recent and the nationalist guerrillas, to give them a modern appellation, believed that Arthur, rex quondum et futurum, the once and future king would rise from his rocky tomb in Gwenydd and ride to battle against the invaders. It was politically sound to produce Arthur's body, safely buried on English soil. But, looking closer, there is something very interesting about Glastonbury's claims on Arthur and the Grail. Tradition has it that Joseph of Arimathea brought Christianity, and possibly the Virgin Mother herself, to Britain within a decade of Jesus' death. The first Christian church in the world was then the small circular wattled structure at Glastonbury. The Celtic Church, which was responsible for bringing culture, indeed one might say even civilization, back to Europe after the fall of Rome, survived at least until the eighth century. It survived even longer in the wilds of Ireland and Scotland. We find Robert the Bruce being crowned by a Culdee bishop as late as the early fourteenth century. Glastonbury functioned as if it were a school, or spiritual center of some sort. Its place was high on the list of Celtic Church pilgrimages and from the earliest times was associated with the Virgin Mother. Arthur was associated at an early era by his adoption of the image of the Virgin as a personal banner. (See Gildas and Geoffrey of Monmouth). If Arthur has an actual historical focus, it is the late 400's, just after the last legions were recalled to Rome and before the overwhelming wave of Saxon invasions in the early 500's. Arthur at this point is a "Restitutor" or rescuer of Roman civilization. His choice of the Virgin, rather than the crucifix of Rome, indicates that along with restoring the Empire, Arthur intended to change the focus away from apostolic Catholicism toward the more inspiration oriented Celtic Church. That he failed is perhaps the great tragedy of the Dark Ages. At any rate, it is not hard to see the glimmers of this earlier and more spiritual form of Christianity as the undercurrent of ideas that emerged as Chretien's "graal." The connection is never made directly, accept in the later romances, but the Matter of Britain was basically a front for the Celtic Church. In this seemingly secular form, the spiritual motifs of a truly Gnostic Christianity emerged in the intellectual current of the age. The Roman Church neither encouraged nor discouraged the Grail Romances, even though it was obvious that an earlier and possibly heretical form of Christianity was being represented. As we shall see, the Church was not above persecuting heretics, but there was absolutely no attempt to discredit the Grail stories. Perhaps the reason for this is that even the Roman Church found it hard not to believe that the origins of the Celtic Church went back to the very family of Christ. "Royal Blood," indeed.

Around 1200, Robert de Borron, following the popularity of the continuations of Chretein, produced Joseph of Arimathea, the prequel to the series the ties it all very neatly into the Celtic Church. He reveals the themes of a hidden or inner teaching given to Joseph after Christ's resurrection. These teachings appear to center around the Grail, here called a Chalice, and constitute the heart of the "mysteries." Mention is also made of a journey westward, to the "Vale of Avaron (Avalon?)" and provision is made for the future hero, Percival, who will fulfill the Quest. There is a certain murkiness to this story, perhaps as a result of trying to tell the important part (for those with ears to hear) and still stay within certain defined limits that would allow the Roman Church to ignore the tale. Things had changed by 1200. A powerful Pope, Innocent III, had regained the upper hand in his struggles with the Holy Roman Empire and began to turn his attention to unifying the whole world under his spiritual rule. By the grace of God, of course. And this led directly to the most disgraceful incidents in the history of the Roman Church. The Fourth Crusade and the Crusade against the Cathars were waged against fellow Christians. The Fourth Crusade ended with the sack of Constantinople. The Crusaders, tricked by those crafty and godless Venetians, fell upon the first city of Christendom and plundered and sacked with a vengeance. The Knights Templars found the shroud, whose adoration would produce charges of idol worship eventually resulting in their downfall. Innocent III rejoiced in the "unification of the Church." But not quite. A resurgence of a Gnostic heresy in the south of France threatened to become the majority religion and Innocent responded in the manner he knew best: call out the troops. The extermination of heretics in the south of France would continue for half a century, long after Innocent III went to his just rewards in whatever afterlife he actually believed in.

Why exterminate the Cathars, or the Perfecti as they called themselves. Why not also attack the Celtic Church which was also active at the same time? It boils down to a question of legitimacy. If Rome was afraid to open the question of the Celtic Church, it was because of the nagging suspicion that the Celtic Church had the greater claim to legitimacy and could just possibly prove it. There were connections between the Perfecti and the Celtic Church. By concentrating on the Perfecti, heresy could be severely rebuked as an object lesson that would force at least superficial adherence to Rome. The Cathars became scapegoats for the whole underground current of Celtic/Grail/Gnostic Christian survivals. It seems to have worked. For by 1220, around the time the first wave of anti-Cathar crusading was winding down, Grail Romances were falling out of favor. Other than Malory, whose rendition of Walter de Mapp's 1220 Queste de Saint Greal has become our story book Grail, there is only the "Elucidation" of Chrétien by an anonymous author. This is a half hearted attempt to give another explanation for all these mystical goings on. It is unsuccessful and is often not included in the Grail texts. Clearly, the Grail had a specific significance for those who listened so avidly to these stories of wonder and marvel. The grail's significance is simply its connection with the Holy Family. The Grail suggests in the strongest possible terms that another route to salvation -- one that had nothing to do with the Church of Rome -- was available around the turn of the thirteenth century. This is most clearly seen in the two most unique of all Grail legends, that of the "Perlesvaus" and Wolfram's Parzival. Wolfram's tale is almost devoid of any mention of the clergy. His Parzival finds grace through knightly prowess in pursuit of a Gnostic, or experiential faith. His Grail is the stone that fell from heaven. This "stone" would eventually become, over the centuries, the philosopher's stone of the alchemist. The "Perlesvaus" ties the matter to Glastonbury and may even have been written there shortly after the discovery of Arthur's Tomb. This story differs somewhat from other Grail legends, but its connection with the megalithic zodiac around Glasonbury, which Katherine Maltwood identified in the 1930's from a close reading of the "Perlesvaus," suggests the area's older connection with the gateway to Anwen, the Celtic underworld where the original cauldron of Bran was hidden. There is even an ancient Welsh poem about Arthur's trip to Anwen to capture the cauldron. The pattern is clear. Around the turn of the thirteenth century, the Grail Romances offered a direct challenge to the authority of Rome, one that Rome could not answer for fear of exposing her own shaky position. Innocent III felt strong enough, after the fall of Constantinople, to turn the iron grip of Christian chivalry on the most exposed and concentrated group of heretics hoping to quiet the lot of them. Indeed, the fear and horror of the Cathar Crusade did put the fear of the Pope back into the hearts of Christians everywhere. And if the Celtic heresy could not be brought to the sword directly, then the land of England could be put under interdiction, a terrible form of religious coercion in which the church effectively goes on strike. It will not marry or bury or hold services while under interdiction. Innocent III, for good measure, also excommunicated King John. All of this was resolved by England becoming a Papal Fief for a few years. The Celtic Church gradually faded away over the next century.

The image of the Grail, though, did not fade away. The Matter of Britain still retained its popularity, though without the spiritual overtones. The spiritual current went underground, surfacing in the Renaissance, and then again in the Rosecrucians, and again in the nineteenth century. Wolfram says that to know the Grail you must "learn your ABC's without the aid of black magic." Robert de Borron's Joseph is quite explicit. The mystery of the Grail is the inner teaching. Jesus taught Joseph strange words to vibrate over the cup that held the holy blood. This attempt to clear away the underbrush of the Grail texts has shown that the source of the Grail is that strange mixture of Celtic and Christian beliefs that developed in the west of England and Ireland before the Empire crumbled. It was defended by Arthur, and almost brought by him on to the stage of European history at just that juncture when the politics of the Empire would have allowed a completely new direction, a completely new version based on the inner teaching of the Christian mysteries. By the eighth century, the time of Charles the Great, Rome had established her death grip on the religious community, and Charles, out of guilt, or through the trickery of the Pope, allowed himself to accept the Imperial Throne from the hands of the Patriarch of Rome. The fraudulent Donation of Constantine, which supported the temporal power of the Church, clinched the situation. From that point on, Rome was locked in a desperate struggle against the various Gnostic survivals, some of whose claim to be the real "Church" was considerably better than Rome's. To admit any other claim was to lose the position of defender of orthodoxy; for if there were many churches, than Rome was not THE church, catholic and universal. This power struggle would color the next seven hundred years, ending finally with Luthor's thesis nailed to the door of the seminary. That rupture could not be healed, even by the sword. In the Grail, we see, even at this late date, the radiant quality of that early church. The importance of the Grail, for us now, as we plunge into the next cycle of spiritual evolution, lies in its symbolic nature. Within the Grail can be found a synthesis of all western mystical and magical traditions. It is the source of that underground stream of meaning that flows through the occult and esoteric teachings of the last two thousand years. The Grail is all things to all people, and to all it is The Mystery. Omnia quia sunt, lumina sunt.