I. The Grail Symbol
1st
Excerpt from
From Grail
Christianity to Rudolf Steiner’s Anthroposophy
|
I |
n my book How the
Grail Sites were found – Wolfram von Eschenbach and the Reality of the Grail
the thought was already expressed that Wolfram’s Grail can be compared with the
cosmic foundation stone of the earth. An expert in the history of the earth’s
evolution asked in this context, if this foundation stone was perhaps the human
being. We regard this question as justified, because the human being as the
image of God or as a reflection of the Cosmos, as a microcosm could very well
be viewed as the foundation stone of the entire evolution of the earth. But let
us leave this question open and first examine Wolfram’s information concerning
the Grail…
The Grail
in Kyot’s factual report (Parzival)
is definitely not the dish of the
Last Supper, neither is it a cup, but exclusively that fully defined stone, of
which we believe today that Wolfram in his Parzival
called it lapsit exillîs (P. 469:7).
This term, however, cannot be right for the following reasons: Wolfram never
fails to elaborate a concept, if it is not clearly understandable. Quite often
he leaves us over long stretches in doubt about something, but when the proper
time comes he enlightens us fully (P. 453:1-10). This pedagogical-didactic
method is a symptom par excellence for recognizing Wolfram’s style.
The concept
lapsit exillîs, which nobody
understands anymore, is never mentioned by Wolfram again. It can hardly be
argued that he, the exact historian, wants to purposefully keep us in the dark
of all things about the nature of the Grail stone, which is indeed the most
important element of the whole history of the Grail. When Wolfram does not
elaborate on an unknown concept, it may be concluded that it requires no
additional elaboration. Since Wolfram does not explain it in this concrete
case, it can only mean that the stone has another name. Wolfram must have used
a concept that required no further explanation.
As a
matter of fact, there are beside the concept lapsit two other traditional names for the Grail. The (handwritten)
manuscript “d” reads lapis, which is
just as puzzling as lapsis. The manuscript “gg”, on the other hand, contains a
concept which Wolfram, and with him the rest of the world, uses to denote a
semi-precious stone. This stone is called iaspis
(P. 469:7, note). Of all the traditional names of the Grail the concept jasper
(High German: Jaspis) is the only one that requires no additional explanation,
because it is generally known. We have no reason in this point for not
following the manuscript “gg”.
Although we now know that the Grail is a stone called
jasper, we have no insight yet into the connection between this semi-precious
stone and the supreme Grail symbol. We must first get to know this stone
better.
The
mineralogist reckons jasper together with hornblende and firestone (flint) to
the class of chalcedony. The formula for the jasper material is SiO2,
i.e. silicium-dioxide or silicic acid. The stone is amorphous, has a
mussel-like crease, shines pale or wax-like on the surface and gleams like
glass when polished. It cannot be melted down and like quartz it is insoluble
in acids. It is assumed that during rock formation boil-like hollow spaces were
formed that were filled, through spinning holes, with silicic acid. This
silicic acid would then later have petrified into pebbles of stone.
The
neutral jasper has a milky grey colour. Depending on its mixture with metals,
it changes colour and depending on the colour, it also changes its name. When
yellow-brown it is called cornelian. With white or black layers, its name is
onyx. The sardonyx has brown- or black-white layers. When the stone is brown or
reddish to honey-yellow transparent, it is called sardius. This honey wax brown
jasper, which is found in
Just as
there are eggs on rare occasions with two yolks, there are also jasper bulbs
with two such double systems. With this type of abnormality, each system
influences the sphere of the other. Lemniscate shapes are formed by such
abnormal twins. Such sheaths inwardly structured by morphic fields can only
have an organic nature.
We shall now look in still more detail at the spatial
form of jasper. Jasper is, like an egg, an ellipsoid. But it is not a
rotational ellipsoid that can be turned around on its sectional axis. An egg is
defined by two axes. The third spatial axis has the same size as the second
one. One cross-section in a right angle to the sectional axis is always
circular. With jasper such a cross-section is ellipsoidal. The third axis is
shorter than the second one. We therefore call such a spatial form a triple axis ellipsoid.
The form
also changes, with the exception of deviations, depending on the axial
relation. Jasper can be bulky or almost spherical; it can also have long or
thin shape or be more or less flat. We can recognize jasper always by its shape
as a triple axis ellipsoid, but because of the various relations between the
lengths of the axes, an infinite number of jasper shapes have been formed in
nature. Its shapes and sizes are so variable that, in contrast to an egg, no
jasper stone is ever the same. Each jasper stone has – and here the expression
may be used – an individual form.
The most
beautiful form is felt to be the one where the axial relations correspond to
the golden section, i.e. if the ratio between the smallest and the middle axis
is equal to the ratio between the middle and the greatest axis.
I had the
opportunity of studying the jasper reserves in the coral atoll of Isteinerklotz at the place in
While
studying these jasper reserves, I became convinced that the jasper inside the
coral atoll of the Isteinerklotz must have lived in whole colonies. These
living beings had not as yet formed any physiologically recognizable bodily
organs. Jasper was, simply put, a “vitalized sheath”, i.e. an organic complex
at the stage of an archetypal organism with its gel-like body of protein
enclosed by an egg-like skin. These liquid creatures enclosed by a glassy
transparent but malleable skin inhabited the lagoon of the coral atoll. They
floated about in the water or watery mist like jellyfish today in the sea and
nourished themselves with the micro-organisms from their environment. When they
died, their corpses sank to the mineralised bottom where they became embedded
in the lime banks of the deceased micro-organisms.
This
vitalized sheath as the archetype of the organic-biological-earthly realm
would, physically speaking, not be a bad symbol for a group of people following
Grail objectives. The Grail family strove not only to perform physical research
into nature, but also research into the super-sensible formative forces that
generate nature. A petrified organism that is similar to the archetype of the
formative forces body (ether body) would in this sense be an inspiring Grail
symbol. Jasper would then also fulfil Wolfram’s condition that it be in
existence since the time of Adam.
This is an indication of the direction that research must
take to discover something concrete in Wolfram’s Grail symbol. During this
quest it will turn out that the stone mined in the Isteinerklotz area and
popularly called jasper, is not called jasper in mineralogical terms, but
Neolithic silica (formerly silex). We are striving to broaden this concept, and
with the name jasper we denote all semi-precious stones whose nature is organic
and which on the basis of their structure are “vitalized sheaths”. In this
sense, not only our jasper or Neolithic silica would be a sort of jasper, but
also chrisopas, sardius, sardonyx and onyx.
The
philologist could object here that the question concerning jasper merely
appears to be resolved in such a simple fashion, because only half of this
mysterious concept has been explained. Wolfram’s stone is not just called
jasper. His concept includes a second word: exillîs, which is such a riddle
that until now nobody has given it any concrete meaning, even though whole
books have been written about it since Albrecht von Scharfenberg designated the
stone “Jasper from the Heights”.
I have to
admit that none of the manuscripts known to me give a clear and concise meaning
for this second word. Unfortunately, I cannot indicate the right name in such a
simple manner as was done in the first part with the concept jasper or iaspis (P. 469:7 in the manuscript
‘gg’).
We have
already come across the name jasper. The miraculous bed in which Gawain had to
fight his battle in Schastel Marveil, rolled on a polished jointless floor
composed of (P. 566:21-22):
Jaspis, von
crisolte, Jasper,
of chrysolite
Von
sardîn, als er wolte Of
sardius according to wish.
What we have here are the Middle High German names for
the above-mentioned semi-precious stone jasper, chrisopas and sardius. Iaspis
is the Latin form of the Middle High German jaspis. The whole concept must
hence be Latin.
If we
assume that the second part specifies the first, then there are good
mineralogical reasons for thinking of the substance, of which jasper or
Neolithic silica is made. This is silica or flint with the chemical formula SiO2
= silicium-dioxide. In English, the stone could be called flint jasper or
jasper from silica, or in Wolfram’s Latin: iaspis
ex silex. I suspect that Kyot called the stone in Latin iaspis ex silice, but that the wording
became more and more French in the course of tradition (oral history). There
are semantic grounds for this. The Latin ex
silice, pronounced in French (ce
becomes phonetically s), is now
called ex silisse or ex sillîs. Rhymed with Fenix (
I hereby request
philological experts to assist me and to come forward with professional,
properly formulated evidence. I did not come to this solution from the
philological aspect, but from the mineralogical one. Above all, I have absolute
confidence in Wolfram’s historical sensibility. I know his character and also
his semantic idiosyncrasies. He would have elaborated on the concept, if it
could not have been understood in a completely self-evident manner. I am
convinced that it is right to identify the Grail or the stone iaspis (P. 468:7) as iaspis ex silice or ex
sillix, thus as jasper made of silica.
The mystic
will criticize this – in his eyes – profane treatment of the supreme Grail
symbol. We beg him to exercise a little more patience. The physical stone made
of silica is only a symbol for the real Grail. The Grail itself is not a
physical object, but the supreme aim in life of the Grail family. But the Grail
symbol as a physical object is already something very special.
Our idea
to treat jasper or iaspis ex silice
as a petrified organism or fossil is not yet current today. It is assumed that
jasper originated “physically” or “by itself”. If this were the case, the Grail
family would hardly have chosen such jasper to be the central symbol for their
aspirations. The Grail family wanted to view the world in such a way that the
primordial ideas underlying the creation of nature could be recognized. The
Grail seekers aspired to decipher the meaning of nature and to organize their
life in harmony with the intentions of the Creator.
Whoever
would like to get to the bottom of this is asked to turn to an expert in the
realm of “organic evolution”. We refer in this professional field of genesis to
the life work of the natural biologist Gunther Wachsmuth. This close colleague
of Rudolf Steiner made a scientific study of the evolution of the cosmos, the
earth and the human being and has described the evolution of the organic-living
realm due to the etheric formative forces. It was he who coined the words
“vitalized sheath” (German: Vitalisierte
Hülle) used here for the evolutionary phase in question. Wachsmuth aspires,
like the Grail family, to recognize the supersensible, creative spirit in the
universe and to make its intentions transparent. The books containing the results
of his research are published by the Philosophical-Anthroposophical Publishing
Co. at the Goetheanum in Dornach.*
The Grail symbol jasper refers therefore not
only to the purely mineral realm, but also to the organic, to the “vitalized
sheath” living in the sea during the Mesozoic, i.e. the late Lemurian epoch,
whose former gel-body we find in mineralised form in the Jurassic formations.
Like every
organism, jasper did not only consist of matter. Part and parcel of an organism
is what created and enlivened it. There must in advance be formed a structured
morphic field in space in which matter can be deposited. This vital force is
physically invisible, but it becomes apparent to living thinking by means of
its effects on visible bodies. The present-day human being does not normally
possess an organ with which this morphic field or ether body can be “seen”
directly. The supersensible, non-physical sheaths of his entelechy remain
invisible for him. He recognizes their presence, however, in the physically visible
realm by their effects through thinking about the perceptible forms, thereby
generating living concepts.
Now there have at all times been people who
had in addition to physical organs also organs for the direct perception of the
supersensible realm. These “divine seers” “saw” images: they had Imagination.
One must turn to such exceptional persons for advice in the realm of
imaginations.
But what
does the stone jasper have to do with the world of imagination?
In the introduction to Grand St Graal, it is described how the Master of the Grail enables
an unnamed hermit “to behold God”. This hermit “sees” the risen Christ in (his)
imagination, whom we cannot see with our eyes because there is nothing physical
about Him.
The hermit
from Grand St Graal indicates with a reference to the apostle John the
conditions for exercising this type of vision:
And
though I also said now that I saw three Persons and that I saw them separated
from each other, this may be no grounds for envious and jealous folk, who do
nothing but rebuke and find fault with people, to come to me and say that I
have spoken against the authority of Saint John, the Apostle most high; for he
declares that no human being ever saw the Father nor could see Him - and I
agree with him. For not all who heard that, know what he meant. He wanted
namely to say this about mortal human
beings: the human being is mortal only to the extent that he is corporeal, and
what dies is only the flesh. But when the human being has laid down his body,
he can certainly see and recognize spiritual things and from that you may well
understand what
This comment by the hermit, whom we identified as
Titurel, comes directly after the supersensible experience, which the hermit
describes as follows:
Then
he took me to another level, which was a hundred times more transparent than
glass and coloured so exquisitely and so mild and so luminous that no human
being could have any presentiment of these colours. There he showed me the
power of the Trinity, for there I saw and distinguished the Father, the Son and
the Holy Spirit - so that I could differentiate one Person from the other. And
then and there, I saw clearly how Three Persons united themselves into one
Substance, one Godhead and one Power.
Such words are not phantasms. The hermit describes things
that he experienced himself. The hermit and founder of the new Grail
guardianship in the West “sees” a crystal clear structure in exquisite colours,
like the structural image of jasper. He does not see this structure at rest,
but in motion. Moses saw this supersensible stream of colours as moving clouds
or blazing fire. But because these flames were not physical, the burning bush
did not burn down. Titurel too saw his body as on fire, but it did not burn and
he did not burn himself. He was afraid, however, and that hindered him at first
from observing quietly. He must have taken a hold of himself and have
distinctively observed, so that he was able to recognize that he did not “see”
flames of fire, but streams of light and colour. He must in any case have been
reminded by what he saw of the inner structure of Jasper, for he chose this
stone iaspis ex silice to be the
Grail symbol (P. 469:7).
The Grail Christians were Christians of the
apostle John. But John too is an expert in supersensible cognition. He too had
“beheld God”. Just as the Master of the Grail commended the guardianship of the
Grail to Titurel, so John was initiated by that same Master and directed to
write to the seven communities (parishes) in
And
immediately I was in the spirit: and, behold, a throne was set in heaven, and One sat on the throne. And He that sat
there was to look upon like a jasper and a sardius stone.
In the description of his imagination John compares “He
who sat there” metaphorically with the stone jasper. Because we know this stone
now, we can deduce the form and structure of the physically imperceptible image
seen in the imagination from the egg-like shape of this stone and its
cloud-like veiled spheres. God appears to him with respect to His formal
structure in a sea of cloudy veils laid in spheres around a core and enclosed
by an egg-shaped sheath.
John also
mentions Sardius, which is structurally jasper as well, a petrified “vitalized
sheath”, but it has a special colour. The stone named after the Asian community
and addressed by John is very special transparent beeswax brown. The beheld
supersensible image of the “Father”, who is identical to God the Creator, would
therefore have to be imagined in these honey tints.
We have
now highlighted next to the physical-sensible side a second one, the
etheric-supersensible, which need be studied more thoroughly to render the
choice of jasper as Grail symbol even more understandable. From what has just
passed the review arise unusual, perhaps even shocking consequences: God looks
in the supersensible realm like the stone jasper and sardius in the sensible
realm. We have known this from reading
the Apocalypse for a long time, but who can believe that? God Himself would
thus have looked like the whole macrocosm, the cosmic egg. The human being
created in the image of God would have had in the period of creation the same
form and structure that John compares with the image of jasper. Jasper would
therefore, on the one hand, be something like the physical reflection of the
supersensible cosmic plan, of the cosmic word or the Logos; a symbolic
foundation stone of the earth embedded in the whole solar system. It would,
however, also be a reflection of our human progenitors and a comparative image
in stone with the plastic imagination of the supersensible Trinity. That way
the structural image of jasper also becomes the symbol for supersensible
imaginative vision.
In view of
the complexity of these things, one feels compelled to think of Casper Hauser,
the enigmatic 18th century “Child of Europe”, and his simple
interpretation of his imagination, about which he says that it appeared to him
“as if all was one, humanity together
with nature, but so that it is actually first humanity that makes it into a
whole.”
If we
consider that the Grail Christians distinguished themselves from the other
Christians of the time by including the whole cosmos and an astronomy with a
supersensible background reaching from beyond the moon to the fixed stars in
their research into the meaning of Creation, then the decision to make the
stone jasper into the Grail symbol no longer appears so unfounded. If the
initiate John compares the Trinity in his imagination with the stone jasper,
then we may assume that he wanted to say the same thing as the Grail
Christians. The significance of jasper lies in the fact that it is not only a
symbol in the mineral world, but also in a Grail Christianity founded on
supersensible knowledge of a higher world, which can only be experienced in the
realm of Imagination. The egg had this significance in the ancient mysteries.
Occultists spoke also with reference to human beings of the auric (golden) egg.
Jasper would be the first physical condensation point inside the much greater
auric egg.
*
We have thus taken Wolfram von Eschenbach with regard to
the Grail symbol seriously and by studying the structure of this iaspis ex sillîs have gained access to
the forms of the etheric world perceptible by the imaginative vision of
In evaluating precious stones according to
their value or appearance, there are more precious stones than jasper. If we
view this stone, however, as the petrified bodies of the archetypal human
living beings from the Mesozoic period, and at the same time as the symbol for
the etheric world, we have found a standard of comparison enabling us to regard
the stone jasper in the sense of the Apocalypse as the stone most precious and
the stone iaspis ex sillîs as Grail
or as metaphor for the supreme aspirations of humanity. The most fervent wish
of the Grail family was to achieve saelde
(bliss or blessedness), i.e. that state judged in the Christian Beatitudes to
be the goal of human education in Christianity, a state which is identical with
the supersensible recognition of the Will of God.
The meaning of this symbol for the etheric
world would be, that also the one unable to “see” should make a clear mental
picture of how the supersensible world is seen and how it manifests itself in
the world of the senses such as when human beings like Titurel stand before the
highest Guide of humanity, the Master of the Grail of the Visio from 750. Those unable to see the world of Imagination as
yet, should at least be reminded of this still elusive supersensible world and
be prompted to examine the knowledge of their visionary teacher with logical
thinking and, provided it makes sense, to acknowledge it.
The Grail symbol should, however, also
motivate one to cultivate those paths that lead to a state where one can see
for oneself. With jasper as the Grail symbol the actual nature of Christianity becomes
apparent. The main characteristic of Grail Christianity lies in the fact that
its knowledge is found along the way of
Imagination.
We have gone through the trouble of
recognizing Wolfram’s descriptions as realities. We have not uttered a word yet
about the fact that what is said about Gawain’s experiences in Schastel Marveil
or about the miraculous power of the Grail appears more than unrealistic. Now,
however, the time has come for asking the realist, historian and geographer
Wolfram von Eschenbach how he can explain the function of a miraculous pillar
or a wondrous bed that rolls around by itself.
Wolfram would probably have used a metaphor
from the Revelation of John to help us get rid of our zwîvel (doubt). It was revealed to John that at the end of the
earth’s evolution – when our earth will have passed away – a New Earth and a
New Heaven will come, of which the spiritual researcher says that it will not
contain anything physical. The lowest plane of this
The lowest plane of the supersensible world,
the etheric, is the foundation of New Jerusalem. Revelation (Ch. 21:19):
And
the foundations of the wall of the city were garnished with all manner of
precious stones. The first foundation was jasper; the second, sapphire; the
third, a chalcedony; the fourth, an emerald.
The ground floor, the etheric world, is again called jasper. When we read by Wolfram that the
floor on which the lit marveil (magic bed) rolled around was made of
jasper, then this realist – for whom the spiritual world is also a reality –
wants to indicate that the miracles he describes in Schastel Marveil (Magic or Wondrous Castle) should not be conceived
of in physical terms. They occur on a higher plane, on a jasper ground, thus in
the etheric world. We are not dealing here with physical events, but with
imaginations or supersensible experiences on the part of Gawain. The Grail must be conceived of in a
similar way. It is not the physical stone jasper that nourishes and keeps us
alive, but the Grail itself, i.e. the etheric world for which since the days of
antiquity the Grail stone jasper has been its symbol.
Since the
baptism in the river
ez is hiute der Karfrîtac Today is Good
Friday,
daz man für wâr dâ warten mac, When one can infallibly see
ein tûb vom Himmel swinget: A Dove wing down its way
from Heaven.
ûf den Stein diu brenget It brings a small
white Wafer to the Stone
ein kleine wîze
oblât. And leaves it there.
The dove, the symbol for the spirit of the sun descended
down to earth, completes the Grail symbol in the Christian era. The turtledove
is the mark, the insignel (insignia)
of the Grail family. Cundrie carried this sign in Arabian Gold on her black
cape (P. 778:19-23):
ir kappe ein rîcher samît Her hood was of
rich samite
noch swerzer denn
ein gênît. Blacker than genet.
arabesch golt drûffe schîn, On it there gleamed a
flock of Turtle-doves
wol geworcht manc
turteltiubelîn Finely
wrought in Arabian gold
nach dem insignel
des grâles. In the style of the Grail insignia.
Next to jasper, the symbol for Imagination, comes the
dove, the symbol for Inspiration and Intuition. Expressed in Biblical terms:
since the mystery of Golgotha, the reception of the dove, the pre-Christian
experience of Jonah (Matt. 12:39-40),
which leads to the Holy Spirit inhabiting the human being is possible without
the three day stay “in the belly of the whale”.
* * *
* Books by G. Wachsmuth
available in English at your local Anthroposophical Library are: Cosmic
Aspects of Birth and Death; Etheric Formative Forces in the Cosmos, Earth and
Man; The Evolution of Mankind; The Life and Work of Rudolf Steiner;
Reincarnation as a Phenomenon of Metamorphosis.