ILLUSTRATIONS ARE IN BLACK AND WHITE The Grail Path is an ancient system of inner transformation developed specifically for creative and emotional personality types. It guides the creative and emotional person through a mystical transformation that calms the emotions and brings clarity to the mind. It contains a detailed account of the transformative experience, as well as meditations, exercises, and visualizations that will deepen your mystical experience. The creative-emotional person and the trained spiritual guide will learn: Why ego-killing spiritual transformation systems are detrimental to the physical, psychological, and spiritual health of creative-emotional personalities. The four basic personalities that are encompassed within the creative-emotional personality category. Which religions and practices are harmonious with The Grail Path's transformative process. The qualities and symbols that are found in scriptures and myths. The natural progression of inner transformation for a creative-emotional personality.
Reveals the long-forgotten prequel to the Grail mythos and how it has profound resonance with modern times • Includes the complete text of the Grail prequel, The Elucidation of the Grail, a 13th-century poem newly translated by Gareth Knight and Caitlín Matthews • Examines the forgotten story of the Faery Wars and the role of Well Maidens in the Grail story • Discusses the Seven Guardians of the Stories, the Grail Kings and Anti-Grail Kings, the Rich Company, the Courts of Joy, and the otherworldly Land of Women Unveiling the long-forgotten prequel to the Grail quest stories, Caitlín and John Matthews examine The Elucidation of the Grail, a forgotten 13th-century French text, and show how it offers the key to understanding the sevenfold path of the Grail and the deeper stories beneath the Christian Grail narrative. Beginning with a new translation of The Elucidation by foremost esotericist Gareth Knight and Caitlín Matthews, the authors provide a complete commentary on the poem, revealing a startling alternative cause of the Wasteland and the Grail quest, one which has a profound resonance with our own times. They examine the forgotten story of the Faery Wars and explain the Faery Accord, an agreement that once existed between humans and the Faery and upon which the spiritual and physical health of the land depends. The offering of the Grail and its regenerative powers by the Maidens of the Wells--Faery women--was part of this Accord. King Amangons and his men violated the Accord, through their abuse of the Well Maidens and other evil actions, causing the wasting of the land. The Knights of King Arthur seek to avenge the Well Maidens and rebirth the Grail to restore access to the lost paradisiacal “Courts of Joy” held in ancestral memory. On their quest, they encounter the Rich Company whose greed keeps the Knights occupied in long wars of attrition, yet their quest to restore the generous hospitality of the Wells--the true Grail, the Faery Grail--continues. In addition to the Faery Accord and Knights’ quest, the authors examine the Seven Guardians of the Stories, the Rich Fisher, the Courts of Joy and paradise lost, and the otherworldly Land of Women. They show how this lost book of the Grail reveals themes familiar to the modern world and offers hope of healing the rift between the worlds of Faery and human as well as restoration of our natural belonging to the land.
An experiential guide to the spiritual path of the Holy Grail • Traces the evolution of the Holy Grail from the sacred vessel of the Celtic goddess to the Cup of Christ and how it represents the longing for the divine feminine • Provides exercises, meditations, and rituals to connect you with the powers of the Cauldron of Rebirth, the Chalice of Healing, the Sword of Light, and the Holy Grail • Explains how attaining the Grail brings full consciousness of the soul and Divine influence for the healing of self and others The primary myth of Western culture, the quest for the Holy Grail persists through the centuries like a recurring dream, embodying the longing for the divine feminine suppressed for more than two thousand years. The Holy Grail emerged not only as a symbol of the feminine but also as a symbol of the soul, for hidden within the sacred Grail legends lies an initiatory path that leads to the highest realms of consciousness and spiritual illumination. By working with the symbols of the Grail tradition we can gaze into our own hidden depths and heal the separation between masculine and feminine, Spirit and Matter, and Heaven and Earth. Mara Freeman traces the evolution of the Grail from the sacred vessel of the Celtic goddess to the Cup of Christ, revealing a spiritual path rooted in the mysteries of the Goddess, the Grail, and the Sword. She explains how the Sword has dominated over the Goddess and the Grail for far too long, leading to a spiritual wasteland as foretold in the Grail stories. She provides a practical workbook of exercises, visualizations, and magical rituals to restore the power of the divine feminine through spiritually transformative experiences with the Cauldron of Rebirth, the Chalice of Healing, the Sword of Light, and the Holy Grail itself. Drawing on folk traditions and medieval Arthurian romances as well as alchemy and the wisdom of the mystics of Glastonbury, Freeman reveals the ancient Celtic teachings of the Western Mystery tradition. She shows that attaining the Grail involves achieving full consciousness of the soul. Then, as a Grail-bearer, you can bring the light of the Grail into the world for the healing of self and others.
Writing in a clear and readable style, two leading women of the Jungian school of psychology present this legend as a living myth that is profoundly relevant to modern life. 17 illustrations.
Storyteller and ceremonialist Linda Sussman explores how to speak in a new way that is one that heals and transforms. She takes the epic story of the grail, as told by Wolfram von Eschenbach in "Parzival", as her guide. This tale weaves together Celtic, Oriental, Christian, Arthurian and alchemical sources. Linda Sussman sees "Parzival" as depicting the path of initiation to healing speech, to doing the truth in word and deed. First, she tells the story in a beautiful way, allowing the reader to reproduce within themselves the potent inner pictures of the text. Then she shows that it is not so much a path toward perfection, as the recovery of a right relationship to our imperfections. She shows, too that it is a path in which male and female aspects work together in the overcoming of evil.
A spiritual leader leads men and women on an inner journey to find the true self using the ancient Arthurian legends of knights in search of the Holy Grail.
A comprehensive look at the Grail that reveals its fundamentally Celtic nature beneath layers of Christian interpretations • Emphasizes the significance of the Quest as an archetype of spiritual seeking • By the world's preeminent authority on Celtic civilization The Grail has long excited the imaginations of those seeking to see beyond the world of appearances. No other sacred object has inspired such longing or such dread. The Grail is the archetype of the marvelous object in which each individual can enclose the goal of his own personal quest. For some the goal of this quest has been divine grace or the Philosophers' Stone, for others it is simply a treasure that connects various episodes of the King Arthur legend. Yet the Grail, as an object that is both close and unapproachable, was not the original focus of these stories. The Celtic tales on which the Grail legend is based emphasize the theme of the Quest. Through his exploration of several versions of this myth that appeared in the Middle Ages, Jean Markale digs deep beneath the Christian veneer of these tales, allowing us to penetrate to the true meaning of the Grail and its Quest, legacies of a rich Celtic spirituality that has nourished the Western psyche for centuries. He also examines how these myths were later used by the Knights Templar, as well as how their links with Alchemy and Catharism played a decisive role in the shaping of Western Hermetic thought.
This book is not so much an addition to the long bibliography already existing on the subject, but rather an examination of a particular element, already present in the literary tradition of the Grail: the arrival of the Marys in the south of France and the subsequent journey of Joseph of Arimathea to Glastonbury, Wales, Great Britain. My intention is to focus, among the many themes of the Grail, mainly on the “path of the Holy Grail”, that is, the journey of the Marys from Palestine to their arrival in Provence, in the south of France, as told by Jacopo da Varazze, or Varagine, (1228-1298) and before him by Rabanus Maurus (776-856). Joseph of Arimathea is also mentioned as part of the group that, starting from the south of France, founded the first church in Great Britain, on the plain of Glastonbury, another extraordinary place with very strong ties to the Grail and the Arthurian cycle. Some of the main characters, such as Mary Magdalene and Joseph of Arimathea, have been represented in a comparative way, using the canonical and apocryphal gospels and some codices and documents found at Qumran.
In this fascinating work, Barber traces the history of the legends surrounding the Holy Grail, beginning with Chrtien de Troyes's great romances of the 12th century and the medieval Church's religious version of the secular ideal.
The first collection of Joseph Campbell's writings and lectures on the Arthurian romances of the Middle Ages, a central focus of his celebrated scholarship, now in paperback Throughout his life, Joseph Campbell was deeply engaged in the study of the Grail Quests and Arthurian legends of the European Middle Ages. In this new paperback volume of the Collected Works of Joseph Campbell, editor Evans Lansing Smith collects Campbell's writings and lectures on Arthurian legends, including his never-before-published master's thesis on Arthurian myth, "A Study of the Dolorous Stroke." Campbell's writing captures the incredible stories of such figures as Merlin, Gawain, and Guinevere as well as the larger patterns and meanings revealed in these myths. Merlin's death and Arthur receiving Excalibur from the Lady of the Lake, for example, are not just vibrant stories but also central to the mythologist's thinking. The Arthurian myths opened the world of comparative mythology to Campbell, turning his attention to the Near and Far Eastern roots of myth. Calling the Arthurian romances the world's first "secular mythology," Campbell found metaphors in them for human stages of growth, development, and psychology. The myths exemplify the kind of love Campbell called amor, in which individuals become more fully themselves through connection. Campbell's infectious delight in his discoveries makes this volume essential for anyone intrigued by the stories we tell--and the stories behind them.
