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THE KNIGHTS TEMPLAR AND THE HOLY GRAIL
Henry Lincoln(a self-proclaimed expert on the Templars) cites that Baphomet makes a very good cryptogram of the Hebrew for Sophia(Goddess of the feminine principle and wisdom). Sophia was revered by the gnostics also. On that score, all the books that come out about the Templars: "The Temples of the Knights of God" "Murdered Magicians, the templars and their myth" "Proceedings against the Templars in France and England for heresy AD1307-1311" "The Templars:Knights of God";ISBN 0892812214 All give varying pictures. Some books emphasize the Solomon's temple in the masonic tradition. The reason for that is that they were called "The poor fellow knights of Jesus Christ and the temple of Solomon". In the 12th century(1118) the order was founded. The order was founded along Cistercian lines hence the white cloak. The red cross is added to the mantle later.
It is also necessary to explain about the Templar's themselves, constituted in a very small part of knights. More numerous were the clerics and the third group of craft workers, cooks, carpenters and stonemasons etc. Clerics carried out the administration work of all kinds, Knights did the fighting, the craft workers did the fortifications etc and the order held rites of sanctuary. The order did not contain many knights in relation to the other groups. It expanded quite rapidly from its foundation. In the 200 year period from 1118-1310 a great deal in communications and work took place. Pilgrimmages, travel, banking, organisation of people in boundaries, holy wars and crusades entirely occupy this period and all enmesh the people of Europe. There were great disruptions of material life and their are colossal movements of mind and spirit underway. The Arthurian tales tell us of an age of chivalry promoting the feminine as a symbol of the human soul. The princess or soul trapped in the tower. The tower being materialism. Freed by the Knight Errant. The sleeping princess held in a state of enchantment in a stone castle in the middle of a dense wood is awakened by a kiss(love conquers all). Vast sufferings and loss of life during the crusades ultimately lead to failure and to the Saracens retaining the holy land and the heart of Christianity ie.Jerusalem(the holy city). And perhaps a question arose as to how could God allow such a thing to happen.(Deliberate aggressive warfare is not really a Christian ideal, but defensively okay). But the war was seen as the Holy of holies. Had evil triumphed? The problem with the relationship with spirit with matter was it was clearly interwoven with how evil entered into this God created world. The juxtaposition of matter and energy(spirit) clearly played a part in the manifestation of order and chaos(good and evil). The gnostic belief of salvation though knowledge that is by comprehension of the true nature of reality appealed to the artisans, mystics and soldier monks. A new outlook was emerging-study of Greek classics, alchemy, Babylonian mathematics,gnosticism and neo-platonism. These began to reveal a sort of western mystery tradition long suppressed by the church and also heralded the dawn of the age of chivalry. Chivalry is a teaching system. There are many legends of chivalry and man's veiled accounts of man's search for truth. These beautiful stories are not merely folklore but are part of a once well organised teaching process that involved an individual on the quest for something remote and hidden(a treasure beyond price). Perhaps the best know of this mystery teaching is the high history of the Sangreal. Traditions of the Holy Grail and its connections to the Knights Templar can be traced in many European authors and Parsifal the perfect Knight(Wolfram Von Eschenbach) achieved a great deal of acclaim in the 13th century.
In fact Templesium, the Knighthood of the Grail and the Templar order are practically indistinguishable in German mystical lore. The only other possible contender for the title of Templesium understood to be the Knights of San Salvador de Montreal (1120) founded at the same time as the Templars and possibly part of that order. They were later known as the order de San Salvat. The knights had lent their name to the mysterious Mount Salvat which stood the legendary castle of the Holy Grail. In the 14th century a subsequent order had been founded by Bridget of Sweden known as the Brigateen order. This order disguises the grail tradition in a Christian guard. Centres of that order were in Scandanavia, Germany, Scotland, Netherlands and San Diego de Compostella, Golithia, Spain- the most popular and greatest centre of the Brigateen order. The nature of this European gothic material is perhaps best understood in Eschenbach's epic medieval poem Parsifal. Eschenbach wished to depict through his work the Templar's as a Christian brotherhood seeking to create a kingdom of the faithful (an elect of the Lord).
An institution outwith the Roman hierarchy free from the pope, privileged priesthood and without the inquisition. A new body of honourable mankind. Living without fear and where God himself would allow revelation of the Grail and be King and judge of such a people. Eschenbach considered the real and natural priesthood to belong to those individuals who struggled towards a true affinity with God and not an exclusive class of persons merely following the vocation of priests. Finally he proclaimed for the templar's the idea of a perfect constitutional brotherhood something which was heretical. It suggest something distinct from both church and paganism. It also implied that the quest for the grail kingdom alone led to salvation. Honour and glory to the vanquisher of death. To the source of life eternal went the phrase for the Grail. Just as the Knights of the Temple fought for the Holy Sepulchre. So would the knighthood of the Grail fight their way through death's dark veil to Mount Salvat (the Mount Royale in the Grail Kingdom). If this mystic dream of such brotherhood could become a practical reality then the political and religious institutions of Europe would almost certainly undergo change.
But in 1307 such dreams became a nightmare of the repression due to torture, death and arrest of the Templar order. The legends of the Sangreal bore a message not of the usual Christian form but veiled in the guise of chivalry. The true knight is not to seek war but the kingdom spiritual. The temple is not made with human hands, but is eternal in the heavens. The communion between God and man is complete. Legends personify seekers of the grail as Ticheval the seeker of the grail. He is a poor knight having war'd against the saracens(it is an allegory against all godless materialism) gives his last to the poor and needy. His courage and humility is marked with his piety and humility. The perfect knight while one day walking in the wood comes face to face with an angel who informs him that he is to be the guardian of the mysterious chalice known as the holy grail. This he will find on Mount Salvat. The knight is warned by the angel that he may speak of his quest to no-one. Ticheval then ponders which direction he should take and where Mount Salvat should be. Nobody to this day has found this mystical place. The trials of Ticheval who possesses nothing, but his sword and armour(and largely also allegorical) he passes through vast solitudes of impenetrable woods, climbs jagged peaks, overcoming obstacles, overcoming all barriers of faith and fortitude. Trusting all the while in nothing but a small intangible cloudy light. This mystically leads him onwards and finally clinging to the black rocks and gazing straight ahead and scales the last possible height of Mount Salvat and there he behold's a beam of radiant light. The Sangreal bourne in the air by invisible hands. He raises his heart in passionate prayer so that he may be found worthy enough to take up his charge as guardian. In a state of rapture he then hears the spirits of a welcoming host of veteran knights in shining armour.
The Sangreal as it seems so effervescent as it is beautiful soon allegorically fades. The mystery tradition tells us that the Grail vanishes from earthly view. Only when mankind becomes too materialistic and too gross to obtain the wonder in its midsts. Because the grail could no longer visibly sustain itself on the Earth. Ticheval conceived the plan of building a worldy temple of great purity suitable for its reception in a future and more spiritualized Earth. 'Legends of the Middle Ages' pg.246-The knights who help build this mystic temple are called templars as the legend tells us. There is an obvious similarity between Ticheval's temple and King Solomon's temple can hardly be overlooked. It has long been said that there exists a secret doctrine for those who undertake and devote their lives for the search for the grail. In this respect the Teutonic grail sagas of Germany are also mirrored in the Celtic Arthurian cycle and in Spanish and French myths. The grail is seen as the chalice of Christ's blood or the Celtic vessel of resurrection. Allegorically it could be viewed as a secret gospel or secret doctrine or a tradition of a spiritualized knighthood only giving allegiance to divine kingship as embodied in the spirit of Ticheval and his sacred mission. Through these teaching stories such knighthoods were answerable only to God and not the man made institutions.
The chief function of the grail kingdom seems conceived to supply a constant type of spiritualized person who can obviously govern worldly society. Ideal and perfect knights trained and destined to become a practical incorruptible civilizing power. Such knights not seen as a passive spiritual force in humanity but also accurate and powerful in the banishment of evil from this earth. The acquisition of high conscience and natural personal nobility could not be reached other than by the conquest of one's lower nature gained in this earthly field of struggling and suffering where gross and godless materialism was the tyrant giant the impossible barrier that the solitary knight must overcome before the vision of the grail kingdom can become manifestly visible. To sustain the poor fellow soldiers still fighting their way if you like to self-realization in the ever the shadowy vision of the mystical guardians led by the mystic king to whom is entrusted charge the holy relic and teaching.
The earthly sights from which this invisible help operated was enshrined in secrecy. Legend has it that so carefully secluded was the spot that it could not by discovered other than by the aid of a higher power. And that the Grail King still has communion with the gross material world despatching the occasional faithful champion in cases of relentless need. The belief in such occult intervention in the affairs of base man was frowned upon by both the Vatican and state. Faiths and concepts which lay beyond political and religious control were being accused of being heresy and treason or both. The challenge to the Temple and the religious authorities inherent in the idealized grail kingdom and psychic inheritance seems very clear. But allied to the far flung Templar institutions of the 13th century was the involvement of the age of chivalry. The concept of sacrifice and emphases on honour, courtesy, care of the poor and the weak. and the idealization of the feminine. This new amalgam didn't fit in well with the totalitarian aims of European history with its ethics of the jungle and wars of universal homicide and the quest for political power. In 1307 the slaughter of the Templar order suddenly eradicated the problem or did it?
The whole question of what happened after the Templar suppression is one which I suppose occupied many scholars and those interested in the occult. There is no question that some books teach that the Templars fought at Bannockburn. It is a fact of life that the Templar suppression was ordered everywhere in Europe except for the sole exception of Portugal and Scotland where no order for suppression was ever issued. A verdict of not proven was issued by the papal authorities in Scotland headed by Bishop William Lamberton of St. Andrews. But the order in Scotland lost its cloak, its insignia, its construction and property. Its property consisted of 625 properties administered by clerics and workers. The knights were a very small body. But only the knights were charged with heresy. No charge is brought against clerics or fellow craft but the disruption caused huge upheavals. Although you could suggest perhaps that this underground movement did not die but continued on. Rosycross (Rosicrucians) The individual founder member of this order wandered the roads of Europe and founded the knowledge of alchemy. Its symbols are similar to the templar symbols. However the templar order in Scotland was demolished and handed over to the order of St John. Mystic teachings of the Grail ie.Veil of Veronica and where Adam is buried were of great interest to Madame Blavatsky. One of these were the occultic paintings of the Scottish painter John Duncan(one in Dundee art gallery) another was the 1810 revival in Germany. A document 'Templars in Cyprus' produced in Germany revealed the subject of matter and energy. The key which opens the futures iron door and all the hidden caverns of the past and natures most occult laboratory. Blavatsky stated that she believed the templars were about:
The templars were the first true knights. The cross pointed to the four corners of the compass and was recognized in all countries. In order to avoid the persecution the Templars performed rituals in the greatest secrecy. Ecclesiatical worship was carried out in chapels belonging to the order. The main charges brought against the order were correct from the standpoint of the Vatican of what the pope and his council believed to be correct. The superior form of Christianity which the Templars possessed could be described as a amalgamated from of free thought and Theosophic Calvanism. Other Templar groups in Europe have developed strange horrendous untruths. But the Scottish order remains true to most of the original aims and purposes.