What the Holy Grail is. . How the Holy Grail was rediscovered.
By: Lee Perry Copyright (c) Lee Perry 2004 This paper first was presented on May 7, 2004, to the International Society of Hildegard von Bingen Studies, and to other
attendees of the 39th International Congress on Medieval Studies, at Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, Michigan, Zip Code 49008-5432. It is being presented again, together with this
Addendum, on October 7, 2004, to The Thirty-fifth Annual Interdisciplinary CAES Conference, and The Twentieth Anniversary Celebration of the International Society of Hildegard von Bingen Studies, at Ball State University, Muncie,
Indiana, Zip Code 47306-0460. This Addendum to Endnote 84 is being prepared on the third anniversary of 9-11, that is, September 11, 2004, at the request of attendees at the 39th Congress
for a "short summary, with brief endnotes, of what scholars have said the Grail is versus what my now-deceased research partner, Charles Longstreet Weltner, and I discovered the Grail actually to be."
Scholars customarily insist upon citations to original documents instead of secondary sources. Nice, if you can read the Grail literature in over two dozen present-day and obsolete
languages--something which no single linguist can do! Nice, also, if you are an accredited scholar with access to the reading rooms of the world's oldest surviving libraries. Scholars often snub my writings because I
cannot comply with those two conditions. But I do not write for scholars. I write for the common pewsitters of various and sundry Pauline, Nicaean, Augustinian, Christian
denominations. And for those persons who have left their pews, probably never to return, because their rational minds cannot accept many of the dogmas which the clergy demand that they believe and obey. The sources
cited in this Addendum are available to everyone at small cost. For that reason alone, as well as for the accuracy of the reprints, they deserve our consideration.
Christian hierarchy and clergy accuse me of wanting to destroy Christianity. That is a bold-faced lie, and they know it! My fondest hope is that modern Christian true-believers will learn data about the origins of the
Christian faith which were known to every
first-century convert to Christianity from the earlier Mystery Religions. In my opinion, Christianity will be strengthened rather than destroyed by each pewsitter's knowing that many of the narratives within the Christ Story are accurate history of visionary experiences instead of "inerrant" history of real events which occurred between real people in real time and real space. That knowledge will allow many former pewsitters to return to Church because they no longer will have to express belief in the incredible. And, in any event, it "ain't nice" to tell little white lies about God Almighty, even if one's honest intention is to protect institutionalized Christianity from its thousands of deliberate misrepresentations of fact.
Years ago, I was shocked to learn how much of my data is known not only to graduates of religious seminaries, normally considered to be places of learning, but as well
to graduates of Bible colleges, too often discovered to be places of indoctrination and brainwashing instead of learning. Come with us on this brief Grail quest, keeping
always in mind two admonitions from the American-Indian-cowboy humorist Will Rogers, who insisted, first, that "The human brain is like a parachute--useless, unless open." He later quipped that, "The surest way toward
perpetual ignorance is to scoff at a suggestion which is contrary to popular knowledge and experience instead of investigating it thoroughly." The eminent
Grail scholar Jessie L. Weston once suggested that a solution to the mystery of the Grail "demands the active and sympathetic co-operation of minds too apt to stand aloof from one another, too apt to view each other's work with
distrust, or even contempt." Weston, Jessie L. The Quest of the Holy Grail, Dover Publications, Inc., Mineola, New York, 2001, at page vii. [The Dover edition is an unabridged republication of the
standard edition of that work originally published in 1913 by G. Bell & Sons Ltd., London.] Weston suggested that "The Church of the eleventh and twelfth centuries knew well what the Grail was, and we, when we
realize its genesis and true lineage, need no longer wonder why a theme, for some short space so famous and so fruitful a source of literary inspiration, vanished utterly and completely from the world of literature." Weston,
Jessie L. From Ritual To Romance, Dover Publications, Inc., Mineola, New York, 1997, at page 177. [The Dover edition is an unabridged republication of the first edition originally published in 1920 by
Cambridge University Press.] For the sake of brevity, further references in this Addendum to those two excellent summaries of Grail literature, which are readily available to anyone at a low cost, will be to pages in "Quest"
and "Ritual." Weston's reference to the "short space" is to the period of roughly fifty years during the end of the twelfth and the beginning of the
thirteen centuries when the literature known to most scholars as "Grail literature" was composed. Quest, at page 1. Her reference to the knowledge of the Church during the eleventh century, as well as
during the twelfth century, is to fact that the explosion of literature about the Grail for roughly fifty years arguably had its genesis in earlier compositions, an issue about which too many Grail scholars quibble almost
endlessly! And she is correct that we no longer need to wonder why the Grail literature withered and died with Malory, after roughly fifty years of flowering, until Tennyson and Wagner brought it to our attention once
more. Ritual, at page 177. The reason? The Church now has lost its power to torture authors of literature, both spoken and written, then to fire them alive at the stake--although institutionalized
Christianity retains the power to fire professors from their teaching positions, a power which the Christian trustees of your institution most probably will exercise if you dare to pass these matters on to your students! Enough preliminaries. Now to the root and core of the matter of the Holy Grail. Problem one: Almost every student and non-student quester after the Grail reads abridged
versions of the tales in his or her modern native language rather than the unabridged originals in the many languages in which they were written. Editors abridge Grail tales for a variety of reasons, including the following:
To squeeze them into the limited time allowable for their study during curricula which must cover a wide variety of the literature of times past. Editors also abridge Grail literature to keep Christian pewsitters sitting in
their pews. If Christian student and non-student questers are forced to speculate endlessly about the true nature of the Grail, they most probably never will discover its original meaning. Editors also abridge Grail
literature to remove portions deemed not to be consistent with "good writing habits," which good habits the professors are trying to hammer into the heads of their somewhat illiterate students. Those are the principal
reasons, but you probably can think of other equally-valid ones. The principal problem with customary abridgements of Grail literature is that the original authors
usually wrote expressly what they thought, or knew, the Grail to be. Too often, those expressions of fact and opinion are to be found these days on the cutting-room floor.
Look in any large-size or small-sized English-language dictionary under the word "Grail" and you will be given a list of possible or arguable meanings. The lists
will vary widely. Usually on most lists are a wide variety of kitchen and dining-room implements, and an occasional reference to some sort of rock, crystal, or gem, while the more exotic suggestions will be that the Grail was
a halo, nimbus, or glory. A good dictionary will suggest that the Grail arguably is the Sang Real, that is, the actual blood of the crucified Christ, a subject we soon will discuss in some detail. Or some intangible matter
such as the love of God. An excellent book about the Arthurian legends and the Grail is Littleton, C. Scott, and Linda A. Malcor, From Scythia To Camelot,
Garland Publishing, Inc., New York, 2000, at pages 131, 135, which shocks most Grail scholars by suggesting that these tales may owe their origins as much to the Sarmatian calvary men of the Roman Army who were stationed in the
British Isles (minus Scotland and Ireland) as they owe their origins to the Celts, either Brythonic or Goidelic! The authors of that excellent work suggest that the people we now call "Iranians" considered the Grail to be a halo,
nimbus, or glory--a theory which holds much more water, as proven by Charles and me, than the customary suggestion that the Grail is some sort of kitchen or dining-room item!
The last suggestion is sure to provoke the wrath of that coterie of Grail scholars who consider the Grail to be nothing but a Christian concept arising from the fifty-year period we
already have discussed! Question: If the Grail is nothing but a Christian concept, why is it that not a single one of the many Canons of the Bible, or of the books of the Apocrypha, or the books of the Pseudepigrapha, or any
of the many writings of the "founding fathers" of Christianity, ever mentions the Grail either by name or description? Would it not be more accurate to say that
the Grail was a non-Christian concept, outside of the many heresies of Christianity as well as outside its mainline versions? Would you be shocked to learn that the Navajo Indians of the western United States include the
Grail mandala in their sandpaintings, which sacred drawings have been proscribed rather than taught by the Christian missionaries who have tried to convince them to change their ways? Would you be shocked to learn that the
Navajo understand about the Grail that which you probably do not? We must discuss the Sang Real (blood of Christ) theory of the Grail because my
correspondents Lincoln, Baigent, and Leigh, who wrote the best-seller entitled Holy Blood, Holy Grail, have had their work borrowed as the foundation for my correspondent Dan Brown's best-seller murder-mystery
The Da Vinci Code, which now is being made into a movie which surely also will become a best seller. The key to the last sentence is the word "seller."
Dan Brown wanted his fiction to sell well. And it has. It unquestionably is the best murder-mystery I ever have read! Whereas my two books and several academic papers have been censored and suppressed by the
American electronic and print news media at the instance of the Unholy Trinity of Power Structures, that is, Church, State, and Commercial Enterprise. Why the difference of treatment of his and my work--beside the fact that
his fiction is pleasant to read while my historical work is convoluted and contrary to what Christians have been scared into believing? Dan Brown's work has some chance of producing a
good social consequence because it suggests that women should be returned to places of importance in the hierarchy and clergy of institutionalized Christianity where they once served equally with men. Whereas my work destroys
Christianity's fraudulent claim that major narratives within the Christ Story are entirely inerrant history of real events which transpired between real people in real time and real space, instead of being accurate history of
visionary experiences. Something your clergyman does not want you to know in fear that it will send you packing out of his flock! Dan Brown's having told
American Christian pewsitters about the beliefs of past and present-day Magdalenian Christian heretics of France is not apt to lead many mainline, American Christians into that Christian heresy. The notion that Jesus did not
die on the Cross, as the Muslim holy book known as the "Holy Koran" contends, and that Jesus and his alleged wife, Mary Magdalene, moved to France where they had children who are the ancestors of thousands of French people, is not
apt to appeal to many American mainline Christian pewsitters, particularly after the French response to 9-11. From whence came such notions? The
English Benedictine abbey at Glastonbury had a sister Roman Catholic foundation at the French Benedictine abbey of Fescamp. Glastonbury claimed to have the actual Holy Grail, which it claimed was the actual cup from which
Jesus drank at the Last Supper and the receptacle in which Joseph of Arimethea caught some of the actual blood of Jesus as Jesus hung on the Cross. Fescamp claimed that it had the actual Holy Grail, which it claimed was a
vial of the actual blood of Jesus. Thus, Glastonbury claimed the actual cup. And Fescamp claimed the actual contents of the actual cup. Both claimed that their relic was the Holy Grail. All of which
beliefs we nowadays refer to as the "Cult of Relics." The concept of that cult was simple as well as practical. The Vatican did not allow a foundation to tax folks who did not live in its district as drawn on a map by
the Vatican. The way that a foundation got money from persons who lived outside its official territory was to induce them to come as pilgrims (We would call them "tourists.") to the foundation to allow them to see, and
perhaps to touch, and even to kiss some claimed relic--in return for a monetary contribution to the out-of-district institution! Which went along quite well for many years until the sum total of the claims of the various
cathedrals and monastic foundations would be that Saint Somebody had three right arms, or Mother Mary had an entire wardrobe of robes, whereupon the Church put its foot down and slowed down the practice, after finding itself
unable, even to this day, to stop the scam completely and thus funnel the funds into the Vatican's own coffers! So, my friends, you now know that some folks nowadays claim the cup is the Grail whereas others claim the
contents of the cup, the Sang Real or actual blood of the Christ, is the Grail. Both speculations being probably wrong. See, Quest, at pages 53-63, 148, and Ritual
, at pages 151, 193-194. Numerate persons reading this Addendum may enjoy reading "Cracking the Da Vinci Code," an article in the June, 2004, edition of Discover
magazine, beginning at page 64. Dan Brown's excellence in the writing of murder-mystery fiction far exceeds his ability at mathematics. His characters in The Da Vinci Code
often fail to understand the mathematical concept of Phi. That's Phi, 1.61, not Pi, 3.14. Jessie L. Weston and I agree that the Grail
author Wolfram von Eschenbach knew what the Grail actually was and is, and that Wolfram told his readers and listeners as much as he could if he were to keep his flesh from being cut, torn, scraped, and burned off his bones.
As she put it, the Sang Real or Holy Blood theory was "eminently satisfactory, so long as the original texts were unknown or ignored." Quest, at page 63. Weston opined about the methods of the scholars in
these words: "Scholars have been too apt to exercise a capricious selection between the different forms of the Grail, and to decide in favour of the originality of that which best conforms to the conditions imposed by their
particular theory; but all and each is The Grail, and any sound theory of origins must recognize and admit them as such." Quest, at page 93.
Weston realized that the Grail most probably was "a mysterious and undescribed Food-providing Object, which comes and goes without visible agency." Quest,
at page 1. She also realized what the Grail was not, referring to these words: "[F]or of wood was it not, nor of any kind of metal nor of stone was it wrought, neither of horn, nor of bone." Quest
, at pages 2, 91. She knew that the Grail had been described as an "achmardi," Quest, at page 145, which word the readers of my 1991 opus learned means a precious piece of green silk upon which lines and
circles have been sewn using golden threads. Symbolizing the green Earth fertilized by the golden rays of the sun. See, Perry, 1991, index, "achmardi." My readers discovered the word "achmardi" also in the
tale about the Piebald Knight who was dining with the Grail King in the Castle of the Grail King. As the meal progressed, the serving dishes and pitchers mysteriously refilled with food and drink. The knight asked the
king the source of the food and drink. The king replied that the Grail was the source. The knight asked the king where the Grail was. The king replied that the Grail was on the dining table right before the very
eyes of the knight! The knight replied that he did not see the Grail. That he only saw an "achmardi." See, Perry, 1993, at pages 38-40.
The green tablecloth or Grail achmardi appears in a Scottish tale relating to the production of food. Mackenzie, Donald A. Scottish Wonder Tales from Myth and Legend, Dover Publications, Inc., Mineola, New
York, 1997, at pages 199-201. This is an unabridged republication of tales originally published in 1917 by Frederick A. Stokes Company, New York, soon after they were collected directly from Highland and Island Scots
without any intervention by a Christian editor. In the domains of the Goidelic Celts (the Irish and Scots) tales like these have been preserved in the oral
tradition in pristine condition since times unknown. A far better system for the preservation of the mathematical, astronomical data which the tales encode than the written tradition, where Christians intent upon destroying
the "pagan" meanings of the tales cut and pasted words and sentences to produce literature different in both content and intentions. We Goidelic Celts always have understood the Grail achmardi and mandala to be a map of our
solar cosmos, which provides the food and drink upon which we depend. We always have realized that the Grail is a unified, mathematical theory about God's Creation, although you will not find such a statement in our written
literature. Oliver Cromwell destroyed our libraries. Some books did survive his Christian wrath. However, Cromwell did not bother to put to the sword the bare-footed crone who was grubbing in the fields as he and
his men passed by on their haughty steeds. We Goidelic Celts know much about the very origins of Christianity, as well as the mathematical, astronomical science upon which it originally was predicated, because those who would
conquer us always failed to kill the Auld Wans who keep our history and mythology in the libraries of their minds. Weston understood that the Grail was not a
chalice; rather, that an image that came and went on the Grail was "in the semblance of a chalice." Quest, at page 151. And that when the knight Gawain looked directly at and saw the Grail, "it seemed to
him that a chalice was therein, albeit none there was at this time," and that "it seemeth to him that he seeth two angels." Quest, at page 149. She was right on target when she realized that the Grail was
something upon which images come and go; appear then disappear. Quest, at page 1. Charles and I stumbled, fumbled, and fell, quite by
accident, rather than by design, upon what the Grail really was and is: A rainbow-colored pattern of lines and circles, which is known to modern mathematical science as "The Interference Pattern," and which first was found by some
Stone-Age man within a clear quartz crystal which had been struck at the proper angle with sunlight. The pattern later became the inspiration for the Celtic Ring Cross.
Some Stone-Age man later projected that pattern into the sky, mentally, and onto the ice dome he perceived there. And he and the archaeastronomers who followed
him used what we would call the "algebraic geometry" of the line pattern to determine the periodicities of the heavenly lights, thereby creating an accurate solar-lunar-astral calendar.
And the architects and engineers who followed the archaeastronomers used the same pattern to erect the four classical vaults, and to erect pendentives as the solution of the problem
of how to set a round dome, representing the posited Dome of the Heavens, upon a square foundation, representing the Biblical "four corners of the Earth." The medieval stone masons of Europe used those constructs
to build homes for God (cathedrals) here on Earth using the same mathematics they perceived God had used in constructing the quartz crystal. The Correspondence Theory
between Heaven and Earth was at work. As stated in The Lord's Prayer, "On Earth as it is in Heaven." And the religious or spiritual seers thought they saw within that mandala or pattern of lines and circles, the
patterns of things created on Earth by God during God's continuing Creation. And seers around the world divined religious symbols and images from that mandala for use in a wide variety of the world's major religions and
philosophies, including Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism. And divination explains the origins of the stories about Ezekiel's first-chapter and
tenth-chapter visions, as well as the Old Testament stories of the Tabernacle, the Tent of the Presence, the Ark of the Covenant, and Solomon's Temple. And divination also explains the images of the Christ Story dealing with
the birth, death, and Resurrection of the alleged man-god we call Jesus the Christ. As proven by God's mathematical laws of probability and beyond a reasonable doubt. Charles and I found literally thousands of
"hits" within various holy stories, yielding a probability of error so slight as to require its statement in scientific notation rather than customary decimal form. Were we talking about anything other than the Christian
religion, our theories would be deemed proven. Thus, we have discovered that the Grail to the ancients symbolized our sun-centered cosmos, and the sun's
fertilization of the green Earth, resulting in the food and drink upon which humankind depends for its sustenance. We honestly may conclude from what my research partner and I accidentally stumbled upon that the Grail was a
Stone-Age unified, mathematical theory about our little corner of God's Creation.
You may return to the text of the home page by using your browser's "back" key.