Lecture Three: The Wounded King
"What, it will be questioned, when the sun rises do you not see a round disc of fire somewhat like a coin? Oh No! No, I see an innumerable company of the Heavenly host crying Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord God Almighty..."In these words the great 
English poet and mystic, William Blake, whom we may also consider to belong to the Christian Hermetic tradition, puts very clearly the distinction between outer vision which stops with a description of the physical object, in this case the sun like a red disc, and that inner vision which adds depth and spiritual understanding. "The aim of spiritual exercises is depth.... The Hermetic tradition is in the first place and about all a certain degree of depth, a certain level of consciousness."
I. Meditations On The Tarot
So as we travel towards a deeper understanding of the Grail, it is appropriate to note that all esoteric work is precisely a working to deepen, and add a new dimension to, our understanding. True esotericism never contradicts the exoteric rather, as with Blake's way of seeing the sun, it is a way of deepening. It should be added that this work of deepening, or "esotericizing", is by no means limited to those within the Hermetic tradition, narrowly defined, who think of themselves as esotericists.
For example, when the liturgy of the Church imagines Adam lamenting his loss of communion with God, "...I have become an exile from the joy of Paradise.... who once was king of all God's creatures on earth am now become a prisoner...I who was clothed in glory must now... wrap myself in mortality...” Martinez De Pasqually is doing a similar thing in his Treatise On the Re-integration Of Beings, and doing it at least as successfully and profoundly.
This particular theme, of our separation from God and from the land of heart's desire, is an inexhaustible subject for meditation because it is the starting point of the human condition. If we look into ourselves even a little we will find that this sense of separation and loss, over which Adam lamented, is present with each of us every day of our life.
Plato was meditating it in one way when he taught us the difference between the "Necessary" and the "Good". Leon Bloy deepened our understanding of it in another way when he said, "the only sadness is to not be a saint." If the subject is inexhaustible, our intention here is to see how the theme of separation and loss is developed in the Grail material and we will turn to that after touching briefly on the parallel developments in Kabbalah and in Masonry which, with the Grail, constitute three main streams of the esoteric tradition or--in A.E. Waite's way of putting it--"three literatures which testify concerning the voided House of Doctrine."
In Kabbalistic teaching as developed by Isaac Luria, the Divine Light was dispersed into ten vessels, the Sephiroth, and all except the first three were unable to bear this influx and were shattered. In particular, Malkuth, in which all the higher powers are reflected, was broken into fragments of light scattered throughout the world and together constituting God's Presence, or Shekinah, was unable to easily return to its source. There is then a Divine Exile which parallels the wanderings of the people of Israel and, indeed, the co-operation of man is necessary to restore both the Upper and the Lower worlds.
In Masonry it is the "Word" of the Master Mason which is Lost. It is by speaking a "Word" that God began the creation of the world ("And God said..." Genesis l:3) and it is perhaps chiefly by the harmonics of sound that we begin to know the harmony of the worlds. The passing on by word of mouth of initiatic teaching represents, and this is perhaps its deep significance--deeper than the actual content transmitted--that time when the human word will be united to the Divine Word. However the "Word" is lost and is the object of a quest; "I have traveled from west to east, and from east to west again...in search of that which was lost, the Master's Word."
We shall find both the idea of the Kabbalah of man's participation in the restoration and the Masonic idea of quest developed in the Grail writings. Let us first of all, however, set the scene in which the knight visiting the Grail Castle first sees the holy things or "hallows". While the Fisher King is conversing with the knight--Perceval is his name, but we shall consider him as an individual at a later point--a procession passes before them bearing these holy things. Depending on the account the holy things are enumerated differently but in general they consist of a spear (perhaps dripping blood), a dish, a sword and a chalice, which is the Grail itself. You will note that these echo the four suits of the Tarot and, indeed, all the correspondences of the scale of four.
As to the Grail itself, Chretien tells us; "A damsel came, holding between her two hands a grail and as she entered with the grail there wa
s such a brilliant light that the candles lost their brightness, just as the stars do when the moon or sun rises...the grail was of refined gold set with the richest precious stones that exist in the sea or in the earth."
Later we are told that the king is sustained by the Grail as all the Guardians, from Joseph of Arimathea on, have been,” He is (daily) provided with a single Mass wafer, which is brought to him in the Grail; and it sustains his life, such a holy thing is the Grail."
Now all of the stories of the Grail agree that, although the Fisher King is surrounded by the life-giving holy things, he suffers from a wound. Although the stories differ greatly in detail as to the cause, and nature, of the wound, they agree in certain essentials; that the wound can be healed only by the achievement of the Grail Quest by a knight from outside the land of the Fisher King, and that in the meantime this grievous wound saps the vitality not only of the King himself but also the fertility of the surrounding land. This is one dimension of the problem of the Quest, and another is the Table.
In the time of Arthur's rule in Britain, Merlin established the third Table. That of Joseph had been, we are specifically told, square, but that of Merlin was round; "...for it mirrors the roundness of the earth, the concentric spheres of the planets and of the elements in the firmament; and in these spheres we see the stars and many things besides; whence it follows that the Round Table is a true epitome of the universe." Queste de Saint Grail
But the Grail is not present at this table of the universe and, as we said before, Britain is not united to Logres...the inner kingdom to the outer. Charles Williams summarizes the matter;” At the first Table is our Lord, at the second the fish caught by Brons which was the image of our Lord in the imagination of the young Church, and also the arch-natural vessel; at the third there is yet nothing, but something is to be-- Logres and the Grail are to come together, and the King is to preside at the union. The empty chair (of the second Table) is to be left there also till he who was to be the union should come."
Reviewing then, we see, as A.E. Waite puts it, that "the same story of loss is therefore told everywhere, if never twice in the same way." In the Grail stories the themes of loss, as developed in the esoteric and exoteric traditions, are gathered up with particular force and intensity and the way to resolution is shown. Merlin's Table is without the Grail and the Grail lands suffer as the Fisher King suffers; "Well should Logres be named with tears, with bitter weeping, grief and fears. For here no fertile seed is sown, Neither peas nor grain are grown...On the trees no leaf is seen, Nor are the meadows growing green, Birds build no nest, no song is sung..." Sone de Nansai
What is needed is a "freeing of the waters" to fertilize the land (compare Indra's freeing of the waters, also the union of the 'Upper and Lower Waters' in the Zohar) and this can only be done by a quest achieved by an ordinary person from this world who dares all to bring the worlds together and "achieve the Grail." We will continue in our next by examining more deeply the nature of "quest" in general and of the Grail Quest in particular.Back to Top
