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New Albany Commandery, No. 29
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Ever since the early to mid 13th
century, when German knight Wolfram von Eschenbach identified them as such in
his epic poem Parzival, the legendary
Knights Templar have been closely associated with the mythical Knights of the
Holy Grail. While no hard historical evidence has ever been produced establishing
a direct connection between these two chivalric orders, in the paragraphs which
follow will be demonstrated the notion that the influence of Von Eschenbach’s
association may have played heavily into the development of the Templar
knighting ceremony as it is practiced to this day by the Commandery of the York
Rite of Freemasonry. It is on this account that the author has come to view
Masonic Templary as something of a modern guardian of the authentic Grail
tradition. Given the sensitive nature of the subject matter at hand, it has
been necessary that the author take certain precautionary measures so as to
avoid any violation of his Obligation as a Knight Templar. Such being the case,
any apparent interruption in the continuity of the paper should be taken a direct
reflection of the difficulty in the author’s task of conveying his platform
under the stated necessary precautions.
That being said, let us take a moment to briefly
touch upon some of what it is that the Grail tradition actually entails. It
will also be helpful to examine a couple of the primary literary precursors
which some scholars believe may have contributed to the rich lore surrounding the
Grail tradition. The Holy Grail is most commonly depicted as being the cup from
which Jesus Christ drank during his ‘Last Supper’ prior to being crucified.
According to legend, this cup was later used by Joseph of Arimathea, the secret
disciple of Christ who donated the tomb wherein Jesus was to be laid following
his crucifixion, to collect the mixture of blood and water which flowed from
the laceration in Jesus’ side made by the lance or spear of Roman soldier
Longinus. Being thus sanctified, the cup was then said to have been imbued with
miraculous virtues such as curative powers and the ability to make barren land
fertile, and it was for the purpose of preserving this sacred vessel that the Order
of the Knights of the Holy Grail was originally founded.
As a literary precursor to this tale, several
scholars have sought to identify the legend of the Holy Grail with the Welsh
legend of King Bran, the mythical king of Britain, and his magical cauldron --
the latter of which was said, similar to the qualities attributed to the Holy Grail,
to be able to mysteriously restore the dead to life. Magical characteristics
such as these were not limited to King Bran’s cauldron, but were also
attributed to Bran himself. According to The
Mabinogion, an ancient book of Welsh folklore, after realizing his impending
fate, the king ordered that his head be severed and returned to Britain where
miraculously it continued to speak and, in some cases, even prophecy. After
some eighty years, the head ceased speaking, at which time it was taken to a
place called ‘White Hill’ and buried facing the direction of France in order to
protect the British from French invasion. The legend even goes on to declare
that it was none other than King Arthur, the same who features prominently in
the Grail tradition, who recovered the skull from its place of rest.
In more recent times, certain scholars have sought to align the Holy Grail with
the golden platter on which the severed head of St. John the Baptist was served
to the dancing Salome by the remorseful King Herod. The reader is asked to note
that in both cases the object identified as a forerunner of the Holy Grail is
directly associated with the motif of a severed head.
The Knights Templar were formed in the 12th
century for the noble purpose of escorting Christians on their pilgrimages
throughout the Holy Land during the Crusades. After inventing a system which is
widely recognized as the forerunner of modern banking, the Templars grew
exceedingly wealthy to the point that the powers that be, i.e., the crown and the tiara, sought to relieve them of their riches,
and in 1307 a statement was issued by the debt-ridden King Philip IV of France
declaring the Templars to be heretics. A great many of them were subsequently
arrested, interrogated, tortured, and executed -- their wealth then claimed by
the greedy Philip. While no ‘holy cup’ was reported to have ever been
discovered amongst the Templars’ treasures, the most widespread of the confessions
made by the knights during their interrogation was the collective veneration of
a mysterious severed head, reportedly called Baphomet, which was used by them during their ceremonies of
initiation.
According to Von Hammer, the word Baphomet is a combination of the two
Greek words Baphe and Metis which, when combined, translates
to the baptism of wisdom -- but as we
shall see, the use of the word ‘baptism’ here may have less to do with the
physical act of submerging the body in, and raising it up out of water, and
more to do with the imbibing of a certain libation from a sacred ‘cup.’ Such is
the case in The Corpus Hermeticum, a
collection of writings attributed to Hermes Trismegistus, the famed author of
the Tabula Smaragdina or Emerald Tablet, wherein we read the
following:
“Reason
indeed[...]among all men hath [Deity] distributed, but Mind not yet; not that
He grudgeth any, for grudging cometh not from Him, but hath its place below,
within the souls of men who have no Mind[...]He willed, my son, to have it set
up in the midst for souls, just as it were a prize[...]He filled a mighty Cup
with it, and sent it down, joining a Herald [to it], to whom He gave command to
make this proclamation to the hearts of men: Baptize thyself with this Cup's baptism, what
heart can do so, thou that hast faith thou canst ascend to him that hath sent
down the Cup, thou that dost know for what thou didst come into being!” (The Cup or Monad, vv. 3 & 4).
Thus we see
that that the term ‘baptism’ can be a reference to the well-known ritual of bodily
submersion in water and, more obscurely, a sacred cup or libation. Baphomet therefore, the severed head
allegedly venerated by the Templars, may be at once a cryptic reference both to
a baptism of wisdom as well as a cup of mind. Interestingly, Von Eschenbach
specifically refers to the Knights of the Holy Grail as “baptized men.”
As demonstrated above, the lore surrounding
the Grail tradition is intimately connected with legends involving severed heads.
These two seemingly separate themes, a sacred
cup and a severed head, would appear
somewhat irreconcilable if it was not for the historical precedent provided by
the potentially shocking rituals once observed by the Goths of Scandinavia who, according to the research of
English Freemason Rev. George Oliver, were prone to drink alcoholic libations from the cap of a
human skull, thus uniting neatly the theme of the sacred cup or libation with
that of the skull or severed head. Paraphrasing
from Oliver’s 1840 work The History of
Initiation, Gen. Albert Pike, 33° says that the initiatory rituals of this Eastern
Germanic tribe included
“[a] long probation, of
fasting and mortification, circular processions, [and] many fearful tests and
trials…[The candidate] was obligated upon a naked sword (as is still the custom
in the Rit Moderne), and sealed
his obligation by drinking mead out of a
human skull.”
Turning our
attention to the Far East, we find that the ritual motif of drinking from a
human skull plays a central role also in the ceremonial observances of the
reclusive Shiva worshipping Aghora of
India, as well as the remote Vajrayana
Buddhists of Tibet, both of whom preserve the curious rite of imbibing
libations from a sacred kapala or skullcup. These kapalas are often employed by the practitioners of Vajrayana Buddhism for the additional purpose
of making religious offerings to the deific Dharmapalas,
who themselves are frequently depicted as bearing these strange yet fascinating
relics. The word Dharmapala literally
translated means Defender of the Faith,
which itself is a phrase that should be particularly meaningful to every
Masonic Templar.
Sir Knight Frederick Shade, in his The Quest for the Holy Grail and the Modern
Knights Templar,
provides an outline of several other similarities between what he calls the Templar hallows and the lesser hallows of the Grail tradition.
The lesser hallows of the Grail tradition
are described as being certain sacred relics for which the Grail Knights are
searching in addition to the Holy Grail. The similarities between the so-called
Templar hallows and the lesser hallows of the Grail tradition include,
among other things “[t]he dish of bread, which is the food given to the pilgrim
on his arrival” and “[t]he skull of mortality, with which the novice undertakes
a year of penance, and with which the imprecations are made.” Sir Knight Shade
goes on to say that
“[t]here are several other hallows and sacred
signs in the Templar tradition. Some of the lesser hallows of the Grail cycle
are suggested here, such as the Templar crucifix, with the nails prominently
displayed thereon. There is the knight’s sword, which is to be wielded in
defense of the faith and also his shield, all which are beautifully explained
in the quotation from St. Paul. They may not necessarily come directly from the
Grail legend, but they certainly evoke many aspects of that tradition and
resonate as hallows in their own right.”
Thus we see that Von
Eschenbach’s association of the Knights Templar with the mythical Knights of
the Holy Grail may very well have had more than a minor influence on the
development of the Templar knighting ceremony as it is currently practiced by
the Commandery of the York Rite of Freemasonry. Because of the probability of
said influence, it is the author’s opinion that Masonic Templary can rightly be
called a modern guardian of the authentic Grail tradition, furnished with all
that such entails. This is true even for the Candidate who sits silently
contemplating in the grim Chamber of Reflections at the commencement of the
Templar ceremony, where the human skull present there still has the potential
to exhibit that miraculous power of prophetic speech attributed to the severed
head of the mythical King Bran. Surrounded oftentimes with oracular messages
such as I was what you are and, more
importantly, I am what you will be,
does not the skull in the Chamber of Reflection speak something of our fate to
us all? Is not the bitter cup of death that from which every man must sooner or later
partake?
REFERENCES
Barber, Malcom. The Trial of the Templars
Barrett, Ron. Aghora Medicine: Pollution, Death, and Healing in Northern India
Bernard, Elizabeth A. Chinnamasta: The Aweful Buddhist and Hindu Tantric Goddess
Burkle, William S. Memento Mori – The Symbol of the Skull with Crossed
Bones
De Costa, Helio L. The Chamber of Reflection
De Hoyos, Arturo. Albert Pike’s Morals and Dogma: Annotated
Edition
De Troyes, Chretien. Perceval, the Story of the Grail
Goering, Joseph. The Virgin and the Grail
Loomis, Roger S. The Grail: From Celtic Myth to Christian Symbol
Mackenzie, K.R.H. Royal Masonic Cyclopaedia
Martin, Sean. The Knights Templar: The History and Myths of the Legendary Military
Order
Oliver, George. The History of Initiation
Shade, Rev. Frederick. The Quest for the Holy Grail and the Modern
Knights Templar
The Corpus Hermeticum
The Holy Bible: Master Mason Edition
The Mabinogion
Von Eschenbach, Wolfram. Parzival
Zeldis, Leon. The Initiation in the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite
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Tupelo Masonic Lodge No. 318 F&AM
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