By Douglas Gabriel

Every aspiring soul is seeking for union with the nourishment that only the spirit can provide, a sort of quest for the holy grail to transcend the physical and re-enter a paradisical state of consciousness. You may call it enlightenment, the golden moment of illumination, or the quest for the holy grail of your personal yearnings, among many other names.

This insatiable desire arises like a flaming sword that cuts through the barriers that separate the soul and its spiritual longings to find the garden of paradise again. Like a powerfully hurled spear of fire, the awakened consciousness of wisdom that is gleaned from wielding the flaming sword falls like lightning and pierces the heart to open it as a wound that blossoms into a flowing vessel of love. This vessel of consciousness then overflows with the descending rain of fire coming from the fiery thoughts that rush into the pierced, humble heart-grail of the aspirant of the spirit.

This process is the physical signature of the cosmic descent of the human spirit. It is an ongoing process and must always be “sought after” like the “quest” of the grail knights or the “Way” of the early Christians. It takes an open, seeking soul that has purified itself beforehand to witness and participate in this wondrous process of human spiritual evolution.

Throughout history, humanity has described this process in many different myths, legends, stories, and religious beliefs. The holy grail mysteries of the blood have been little understood as a process of spiritual evolution. Often, in Christian religious beliefs, the stories of human spiritual evolution are directly linked to the life, passion, death, and resurrection of Jesus. Jesus becomes the archetypal human being (the second Adam) to redeem the “Fall from Paradise” and open the “path” back to the Garden of Paradise Eden. The blood of Jesus Christ becomes the ransom payment for the fall of humanity into this earthly world. Truly the blood of God, through his only begotten Son, became the vehicle of redemption as it was spilled into the earth itself through the passion and crucifixion of Jesus.

Are you on a quest?

This “blood of the gods” that the Greeks called “ichor”, was occasionally shared with humanity by Zeus having children with humans. These half-human, half-god heroes/heroines often had to conquer great evil on the earth to attain immortality in the stars, just as BMHercules and Psyche did. The ichor in the blood veins of Hercules from his father Zeus made it possible for him to become immortal. That divine blood was given to Hercules as a sort of gift from Zeus, the gift of divine blood that causes immortality and pseudo-divinity in a human being.

Whether we examine the stories of the Hindu god Krishna, or the Norse god Odin, we find that the divine beings who “sustain” our world often sacrifice themselves for the good of humanity. There are numerous pre-Christian “solar heroes” that prefigure the deeds of Jesus Christ. These pagan mysteries were melded into the stories, myths, and legends that surround Jesus. The Roman Catholic Church, much like the Romans before them, often amalgamated the beliefs of those who they conquered into their own pantheon of gods and goddesses. Jesus Christ, for the Romans, became the ultimate solar hero who fulfilled all prophecies and had the same characteristics of prior divine solar heroes.

Jesus is the archetypal representative of humanity and each seeking soul can identify with the suffering of what is called, the twelve Stages of the Cross. These stages seem to replicate the steps of suffering that awaken consciousness. The Christian path of the holy grail (“The Way”) is one of long-suffering love, compassion and wisdom that arises from devotion to the holy blood mysteries.

Until the time of Abraham, human or animal blood sacrifices were the propitiating offerings that communicated with “heaven” and sought favorable responses from the gods. The worship of blood as a vehicle of “communion” between the seen and unseen worlds was a central focus of ancient religions and cultures. Blood, offered up to the gods, was the only substance that humans believed the gods were interested in. Burnt offerings were also part of many devotional rituals, including burning the body after death as a means to cross over into the spiritual world. Blood was the key to religious and spiritual experience and was known as the vehicle of consciousness.

When the Son of God, Jesus, offered his own blood and body as a sacrifice for the prior “sin” of humanity that was incurred in paradise that caused the “fall”, the turning point of human spiritual evolution tipped in favor of the spirit. Pre-Christian beliefs predicted the archetypal blood (and body) sacrifice of Jesus Christ who would plant his blood/body in the earth as a spiritual seed that would stop the fall of humanity into cold, dark matter. This spiritual seed enkindled the fire of spirit that descends from heaven to warm human hearts with the same love that God expressed in offering His only Son as the “final blood sacrifice” in the history of human spiritual evolution.

Christ brought to each person a “living drop” of blood of the Son of God (His ichor) to their heart. This living blood (“The Life”) can receive the descent of the Pentecostal tongues of flames (“The Truth”) and answer in like fashion with the fiery love and compassion that Jesus of Nazareth demonstrated as “The Way” to be part human and part divine. Receiving this “living blood” is the spiritual inheritance needed to ascend back to the Garden of Paradise, from whence we came.

When we use the flaming sword of wisdom (Sophia) to cut the ties of attachment to this world and seek the heavenly kingdom that Jesus said he came from, our thoughts become spiritual fire that pierces fear, doubt and hatred burning away earthly dross. Wielding the sword of wisdom begins the process of ascending back to paradise. The blood of Christ is everlasting and was seeded into the earth and the hearts of every

person, whether they believe in Christianity, Buddhism, Judaism, or any other belief. All religions, mythologies, and effective spiritual paths point to the reality that the lower self can rise up into a higher form through virtuous thoughts, feelings, and actions. The goal is always the same metaphorically – it is the attainment of the holy grail that feeds us the exact spiritual nourishment that we need to take the next step in our personal evolution. This “Holy Grail” is connected directly to the “living blood” that is necessary to ascend to spiritual worlds through the higher self.

It is incumbent upon the aspirant of the spirit to accomplish the same twelve stages (Herculean labors) that Jesus of Nazareth underwent and conquered through His passion, death and resurrection. Each knight or lady of the grail must pass tests to be allowed to find the holy grail and learn to use it to turn their blood into a vehicle of spiritual consciousness that transcends the physical world. In the grail romances, the knights who attain the grail, must then become faithful guardians of the grail and protect it from unworthy eyes.

Thus, the chivalrous knight must conquer his own inner demons and dragons before he comes to the Grail Castle to witness the procession of the keepers of the grail, the grail maidens, as they display the bleeding spear and the vessel that catches the blood. And even then, after beholding the grail procession, the worthy grail knight might not have developed enough higher consciousness to understand what he has seen and then ask the appropriate question, “Who does the grail serve?”

Might and valor serve the grail knight only in the beginning stages of the quest. Seeking the grail ultimately brings you to your own personal “Dark Knight” that you must conquer with faithfulness, devotion and love, not war, fighting, and killing. These first stages are appropriate for grail seekers to tame the dragon, conquer the ills of the outside world, and turn from the physical sword and spear to the spiritual flaming sword of wisdom and the spear of love and mercy. The tools of war must become spiritual tools that conquer the knight’s lower self. It is the unending desire to seek and find the higher self in the outer world that embodies the quest in the first stages. The dutiful knight (soldier) of the divine fights to control lower desires of selfishness and vice.

Only virtue can battle with vice until the holy grail is recognized as a true and valid cause for the sacrifices of the quest. It is a slow, and often difficult, pilgrimage path (“The Way”) back to paradise.

The archetypal nature of Jesus Christ’s blood-sacrifice starts with the divine Trinity deciding to send the only Son of God to earth to mitigate the effects of evil upon the human body, soul and spirit. Christ, the second being in the solar logos, makes the ultimate sacrifice and descends into a human body with all of its limitations and, as yet, unredeemed evil. This was the greatest pain and humiliation that a divine being could endure. To move so far back in spiritual evolution and unite with humanity’s slow spiritual growth is the ultimate sacrifice of all times – the death of a god. Christ offered his blood/body as the gift that keeps growing, like a grail overflowing with love and mercy.

Each person who takes up this Christ (higher self) impulse and fans the flame of love for all beings in their heart/grail, becomes a living image of what Christ has done so perfectly. We simply follow the path (“The Way, The Truth, and The Life”) that we have been shown by Jesus Christ’s perfect example. We need only follow the “Way of Christ” to fulfill the mission of attaining the Blood Mysteries of the Holy Grail in our own hear.

Heavenly Grail

The legendary story of the Holy Grail starts in heaven with the sin of Lucifer whose pride made him refuse to bow down to Adam and Eve after God the Father had created them. Lucifer believed he could create a better man and woman. He sat on the throne of God and claimed to be as great as God the Father. Lucifer was one of the brightest of angels and his light was great, but it still paled next to the light of the throne of God. Lucifer was so jealous and prideful that his hubris drove him away from the presence of God and into the darkest corners of heaven where he fashioned great stones of light for his crown and a mighty sword to strike down his enemies.

The Heavenly Grail  (Vimeo has censored this video.)

When Lucifer came before the throne of God again, the Archangel Michael was on the right side of God with a flaming sword of power and a spear of might. The Archangel Gabriel stood on the left side of God standing in front of the newly created human beings hiding behind the throne. In his hand, Gabriel held the Lily of Heaven, like a pure grail-vessel of beauty and grace. Lucifer had become a dragon of darkness and his hatred filled him until he directly attacked the throne of God. The Archangel Michael struck the crown of Lucifer from his prideful head and the central green stone of the crown was dislodged and fell like a meteorite from the presence of God.

Michael then used his spear to cut a huge gash into the outer wall of heaven to let the stone and Lucifer fall from heaven into the outer darkness. As he fell, the Old Dragon of Lies swept one third of the human souls up with his tail and pulled them down into the darkness with him. The dragon fell like a meteor to the earth pulling humans, like falling stars, behind him.

The stone of Lucifer’s crown fell into the deepest part of the earth, Palestine. It was found and brought to the King of Tyre, who polished it into a bowl that looked like a heavenly emerald. This bowl was given to King Solomon by the King of Tyre to place in the holy of holies of Solomon’s Temple. Joseph of Arimathea used this bowl to gather the blood (and water) of Jesus of Nazareth during and after the crucifixion. When the blood of the Son of God touched the stone of Lucifer’s crown (Solomon’s Bowl), the redemption of Lucifer began. The blood of the gods (divine consciousness) had spread to all humans and merged with their blood (spiritual-consciousness) transforming the human being into a potentially immortal, divine being. And Lucifer, having Jesus Christ’s “human-divine” blood pour into his “jewel of the crown” emerald bowl, finally bowed before a human (Jesus of Nazareth) and recognized his sin of pride which caused his fall from paradise.

When the blood/body of Christ united with the earth, humanity was given the blood of the gods that can transform the kingdom of Lucifer (earth) into the sacred Grail Castle. These secrets are referred to as the Mysteries of the Holy Blood Relics and the Quest for the Holy Grail. If a seeking aspirant (grail knight) understands the living imagination of the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus, he has entered the Grail Castle where the grail maidens (the three Marys) display their devotion to the grail and ask the important question –  Who does the grail serve? Each seeker can quest for the grail and use this “Way” to find the entrance to the Grail Castle so they might awaken and ask the “grail question,” hopefully being morally developed enough to understand the answer.

Every element involved in the fall from paradise and the crucifixion of Jesus are important tools for the questing knight and lady of the grail. In the first stage of seeking, we are all soldiers of the divine trying to right the wrong and conquer the dragons and wild animals that exist below the virtue of our heart’s morality. We need the sword of Michael to strike pride from our haughty heads and let the jewel of the crown become a humble, simple stone that falls into the compassion and love of the heart. We also need the fiery spear of heaven that can hold the demons and dragons at bay without killing them.

We need to use the spear to keep the distance between our higher Michaelic/ angelic forces and the lower forces derived from the seven deadly sins of vice and immorality. The spear also cuts open the prideful wall of the mind so that consciousness can find its home in the heart instead of cold, earth-bound thinking centered in the head. We must not separate the sword of wisdom and the spear of love but use them together as spiritual weapons to conquer the dragon of selfishness that rules the lower self.

We are also the Archangel Gabriel in this heavenly grail imagination. Gabriel is the archangel of the moon as Michael is the archangel of the sun. Gabriel rules procreation, birth, and the blood forces of the female body that are embodied in the image of Gabriel holding a lily – a pure six-sided chalice that represents the female womb of birth and procreation. Gabriel appears to Mary as the messenger of God who brings the blessings of the Holy Spirit to deliver the Son of God to her pure soul. Gabriel held back and protected two thirds of the human beings while Lucifer was pulling one third down into darkness with him as he fell from heaven. Gabriel also held back and protected two very special souls who would later become the vehicles for Mary and Jesus when they incarnated on the earth, the one and only time they would incarnate in a physical human body. These bodies would become the “new Adam and Eve” under the cross, the “new Tree of Life.”

One of the reasons Lucifer could not except God’s creation of the human being was because Lucifer knew that one day, every human being could complete the quest and become not only redeemed and able to return to paradise at will, but also because humans would one day become the masters of Lucifer and the other dragons/demons who still believe in dark power. Humans, when the holy grail is attained, will outstrip Lucifer’s attempts to return to heaven. Lucifer’s pride made him turn away from witnessing the crucifixion of Christ. Lucifer still denies that Christ has redeemed his fallen jewel of the crown, and the whole earth, and all human beings. Lucifer can no longer find the grail himself because of his pride, jealousy, and hatred. He can only see that some humans have attained the grail and ascended back to heaven. Someday, the legends say, Lucifer will be completely redeemed by the Wisdom of Sophia and the mercy of the Holy Spirit.

Upon close examination, we see that the same spiritual “tools” were present at the crucifixion and the fall from paradise. The sword of wisdom was present in the wisdom of Mary (the three Marys) who mustered the strength to endure witnessing the passion, pain, and death of Jesus knowing that he was the Son of God. This wisdom could only be fully held in the heart of the mother of Jesus. It took both the wisdom and strength of Michael and Gabriel combined to “hold all these things in her heart.”

Mary was so transformed by her experience that she ascended (Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary) bodily into paradise after her Dormition (three days of sleep).

Wisdom became love and the holy grail was attained as Mary ascended into heaven before the followers of Christ.

.

Mary, the mother of Jesus, also used her body as the holy grail to birth the Holy Blood of Jesus, the purest spirit who had not incarnated in a human body before (or after). Mary transformed into the living grail whose blood became the vehicle for the divine to incarnate. Mary birthed the spirit of the sun, the solar deity, for the redemption of all humanity through the most cruel and vile death that was transformed into a divine gift to human spiritual evolution. Mary was over-lighted by Gabriel to bring forth the most perfect human body possible. Thus, through the process she became a “virgin soul” who was the perfect example of a soul questing for the holy grail and finding it by reuniting with the divine – our paradisical home.

The Archangel Michael was said to be the only angelic hierarchy who could bare to witness the crucifixion and death of the Son of God. It was Michael who guided the hand of Longinus to pierce the heart of Jesus with his spear. Longinus was supposedly blind and would have needed guidance to lance Jesus in the heart to demonstrate that he was already dead and did not need to have the Sanhedrin break his legs to expedite his death by suffocation. It was a merciful and loving deed that Longinus did to open the heart of a god to bleed for all humanity’s redemption. Upon piercing the outer chamber of Christ’s heart, blood and water (plasma) gushed forth and struck Longinus in the eyes, healing him of his blindness. Thereupon Longinus called out that ‘this surely must be the Son of God.’

At the moment of piercing Christ’s sacred heart, an eclipse happened along with a great storm and an earthquake. The earthquake allowed the blood of Christ to enter deep into the earth. Longinus’ spear broke in half and the spearhead separated from the staff and heated up to red hot. It looked as if the broken spear had cut a gash into the earth so that the blood of Christ might enter. Longinus fell from his horse in amazement and then saw that the Spear of Phinehas, the Sanhedrin’s banner of authority, had also broken and fallen to the ground. This was the same spear used to behead John the Baptist for Salome and Herod. Thus, the spear of the Roman centurion becomes the Lance of Love as the evil Spear of Phinehas is vanquished and, at the same time, it was reported that the veil that hides the Temple’s Holy of Holies had been rent from top to bottom so that the Ark of the Covenant was no longer hidden from the eyes of the believers. Christ’s deed redeemed Lucifer’s War in Heaven and humanity’s Fall from Paradise.

Earthly Grail

Legends tell us that Joseph of Arimathea brought Solomon’s Bowl to the Last Super with Jesus and his disciples. Joseph then brought it to the crucifixion and used it, and a set of vials, to capture the blood and water that flowed from Christ’s side. Joseph and Longinus also helped take down the body of Jesus to clean and prepare it for burial. Longinus and Joseph became very close and worked together later in their ministry to spread the truth of “The Way” of Christ’s life, even to far away England.

Thus, Solomon’s Bowl, the vials of water and blood, the spear-head of Longinus, the sponges used during the crucifixion, pieces of the holy cross, the holy nails, the veil of Veronica, the burial linens, and numerous other “blood relics” were gathered by the seekers of “The Way” and given to Jesus’ Mother and Mary Magdalene. The alabaster vials that held the oils used on the feet of Jesus were also considered holy and were preserved. All of these “holy blood relics” (grails) were protected by the soldiers of Christ while revered and worshiped by the women who became the first grail maidens and keepers of the holy blood relics.

Just as Gabriel holds the grail lily as a representation of the female blood mysteries of birth and the moon, so, too, Mary Magdalene was seen by some as the wife of Jesus and the mother of his children. There are numerous legends concerning these ideas and different stories say they had either three male children, two male children, or one female child. The male children are often confused with the children of Joseph of Arimathea and Longinus who end up being the founders of the Arthurian grail stories in England where Joseph and Longinus established the first church in Christendom at Glastonbury.

The female child of Jesus and Mary Magdalene was named Sarah, the wondrous child, who legend claims was the founder of the Merovingian line of monarchs in France. Much attention has been focused on this child in books and movies suggesting that the holy blood line of Jesus and Mary Magdalene continues to this day. There are a great deal of legends concerning the children of Jesus of Nazareth.

Even though legends and traditions exist, to carry the “blood mysteries” into a “blood line” is somewhat speculative. But many believe that it is a given that Jesus, “the Rabbi”, had to have been married because it was a prerequisite to being a rabbi. Mary Magdalene, the one the Lord loved, is certainly the best suggestion seeing that Jesus seemed to be the closest with her and she was truly the most faithful follower. It also seems common sense that the Mother of Jesus and Mary Magdalene would cherish and hold any blood relics of Jesus.

To add a child to the blood mysteries, opens the scope of why the women seemed most faithful and devoted to the instructions and teachings of Jesus. Surely, the first Christian community surrounding the Mother of Jesus would have held all the blood relics as sacred, especially if Jesus had offspring.

The Earthly Grail (Vimeo has censored this video)

 

This selection from Holy Blood Relics and the Grail Quest – Hidden History of the Grail Queens by Douglas Gabriel. To follow along as the e-book unfolds, subscribe to this blog.