Lecture Six: Galahad
 To experience the feeling that something deeper was going on and that little by little the essence of the inner history of the Grail was rising to the surface of consciousness. If so, then we may expect to find in Galahad the stories of the Grail were passed on over the centuries and freely elaborated on by generation after generation of storytellers and poets, "and this", says Charles Williams, " rather than anything else, was the first cause of the invention of the sacred and glorious figure of Galahad." Galahad replaces Percival as the central hero of the later Grail stories, in particular of the "Queste del Saint Graal"(about 1225), and then of Thomas Mallory's Morte d'Arthur which is the definitive form of the Arthurian stories for English speaking readers. While the stories developed by trial and error and according to the likes and dislikes of generations of authors, we may also reach a new level of understanding of the inner quest. However, among those with a spiritual interest in the quest, Galahad is an oddly controversial and, for some, enigmatic figure.
"Galahad is a cardboard character... because he has no failings he is not human", says Richard Cavendish and even John Matthews, whose spiritual métier is precisely the Grail material, says unenthusiastically, is (Galahad) a difficult archetype to work with.
Before going further we will tell the story of Galahad but only very briefly and that for a reason we shall develop in a moment Galahad was the son of Lancelot and Elaine, the daughter of Pelles the Grail King, brought up mysteriously (Williams suggests that Merlin carried him to Blanchfleur, Perceval's sister, for rearing), he comes to Arthur's Court as a knight amidst many marvelous events, for example he is the first to be able to sit in the Perilous Seat at the Round Table, which reveal him to be the one who will preeminently achieve the Grail. Through him the Fisher King is healed, and after many adventures he, with Perceval and Bors, comes to the place of the Grail and dies in ecstasy after receiving Communion from the Grail at a Mass offered by Josephus, son of Joseph of Arimathea, and then the Grail passes beyond knowledge..."A great marvel followed immediately on Galahads death: the two remaining companions saw quite clearly a hand come down from heaven...It proceeded straight to the Holy Vessel and took both it and the lance, and carried them up to heaven, to the end that no man since has ever dared to say he saw the Holy Grail" Queste
Now one difficulty with the character of Galahad, which makes him appear 'cardboard" to Cavendish, is that he is utterly simple and direct in his movement, through all the adventures, towards his goal. He has no faults, he is in fact a truly Good man, so he is called "The Good Knight," and so he seems impossibly strange to us--as strange, maybe, as a visitor from another planet! Yet is not the simplicity of goodness what is in fact proper to humanity? Indeed Galahad entirely expresses the idea, Kabalistic, if you will, of humanity as a perfect vessel for the Divine light. And this is a little terrifying...as C.S. Lewis observed, "it is not so ultimately alarming if one fears a demon, but what if one meets an angel and can only flee in fear?"
With that, perhaps excessive, caveat we do say, nonetheless, that the Galahad character requires especially the approach of reading the story and traveling with him as it were. For this reason we have not summarized the story in detail but rather ask the reader to acquire The Quest Of The Holy Grail (the readily available paperback translation of the Queste) and ride along in Galahad's company for a time. I daresay that most readers for whom the Quest is at all appropriate as a spiritual way will find the character of Galahad finally exhilarating like a spray of cold water, and perhaps say with Lancelot, his much more earth-bound father who at the end travels with Galahad alone for half a year in the mysterious Ship of Solomon (set adrift on the sea of time by Solomon and painted in red, white and green), "Truly, never before knew I of so High adventures done, and so marvelous and strange."
A.E.Waite is also, as so often, insightful if, as also often flowery, on the character of Galahad, "As compared with the rest of the literature, we enter in his legend upon new ground, and are the eminence of Mount Salvach rather than among the normal offices of chivalry...The atmosphere of the romance gives up Galahad as the natural air gives up the vision from beyond...He issues from the place of the mystery...Galahads entire life is bound up so completely with the Quest that apart there from he can scarcely be said to live." The Hidden Church Of The Holy Grail
A second objection to Galahad, and more than the first I take this to be the source of Matthews' difficulties, is that in passing with the Grail beyond the circle of the world we know it contradicts the supposed "here and now" accessibility of the Grail. Matthews says, "it (the Grail) is for all men to find and recognize within themselves. For we are all Grails when all is said and done." Therefore "Galahad can learn from us, along these lines--one supposes--of being a more democratic man, more like "L'homme moyen sensuel", as well as we from him. I suspect that one important question is, granted that we are all potentially vessels of light, why isn't there first of all, the one Grail of the three tables, and the first of those that of Jerusalem?
However let us propose to postpone direct consideration of the nature of the Grail to our next article and here follow a somewhat different path of access into the meaning of Galahad, one suggested by the conclusion of the "Heart Of Wisdom Sutra", "This is the Great Mantra, the Incantation which dispels all fear: Gatte! Gatte! Hara Gatte! Gatte! Hara San Gatte. Gone! Gone! Gone Beyond! Gone Beyond! Oh What an Awakening! All Hail!"
Again, are we wrong in supposing that those for whom the Quest of the True Grail is meant will resonate inwardly to these words? In any case they seem to me entirely appropriate to the Quest of Galahad, for what he was seeking was not something in this fragmented world of reflections, but; something at the Root Above, and his purity was manifested in an air of velocity which was always with him even in repose and which in end carried him beyond all things and revealed that henceforth the vision of the Grail is only for the one who can similarly pass Beyond.
 Charles Williams, poet and true mage, perhaps understood this quality of Galahad better than any other contemporary writer, and I should like to educe here two quotes from Williams --the first not directly concerning Galahad but, rather, concerning the "velocity", "The flight of the alone to the Alone"...Speed, speed and always speed! His mind remembered that wild careering herd; so, and swifter than so, he desired the Return. He seemed to hear the beating of hooves..." The Place Of The Lion. The second quote is from his poem, The Last Voyage.
Through the sea of omnipotent fact rushed the act of Galahad. He glowed white; he leaned against the wind down the curved road among the topless waters. He sang, "Judica Te, Deus; the wind, driven by dove’s wings along the arm-taut keel, sung against itself Judica Te, Deus." Prayer and irony had their say and ceased; the sole speech was speed... In the monstrum of triangular speed, in a path of lineal necessity, the necessity of being was communicated to the son of Lancelot and the ship and the song drove on".Back to Top
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