MRC_Hans
Penultimate Amazing
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The Genesis Seal
- Thread starter Kingfisher2926
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MRC_Hans
Penultimate Amazing
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Just noticed this. The highlighted part shows just how sloppy your argumentation is: Even though you put citation marks around it, even using the term proof in this context is ... simply dishonest. You found the numbers 3, 4, 5, and a triangle that appears to be right angled (but is not). That can be called an allusion to Pythagoras' theorem, but it certainly not proof of anything, not even that this allusion is intentional.
Unfortunately, the rest of your arguments are of no better quality.
Hans
Kingfisher2926
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You have mis-understood me completely. I have referred to a well-known classical 'proof' of the Pythagoras Theorem. There is surely no argument over whether such a proof exists. My only new assertion is that the following illustrations of the Genesis Seal make a strong case for the Theorem having been taken into account in the design of the Genesis Seal. Clearly, there is a right-angle between the words for 'three' and 'four' in Figure 5(a) because, as you have pointed out often enough, right-angles abound in a rectangular matrix.
I can accept that the mis-understanding is the result of my sloppy use of language.
Kingfisher2926
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You are partly correct. In the 553x553 Torah Square, there are 937 emergent copies of the word for light (emergent meaning in orientations other than the flow of the inserted text). This is not surprising, since it is a short word, composed of frequently used letters. But there are no uses of the explicit word for 'light' in the 8x8 Genesis Seal source. However, the 937 tells me there is approximately a 1 in 5 chance that an emergent copy of 'light' might occur in any 8x8 square. On that basis, the presence of two copies in the G1 Square is quite exceptional, defying odds of around 5x5 to 1.
I accept, and I have said it elsewhere that I have not offered quantitative proof that the 'cryptic' content of the Genesis Seal is there by design. But I reserve the right to use its striking appearance as qualitative evidence, to show that it has made its mark in human history and literature.
Sincere apologies; my only excuse is that posters who use photographs don't always show themselves.
Kingfisher2926
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I can think of two, non-supernatural explanations for the existence of the Genesis Seal (over and above its obvious existence as the text of Genesis 1:1-2). Which of them is most plausible depends on how long it has existed. These are:
- The internal structure of those verses was arranged at the same time as later Torah narratives that appear to expand on its 'prophetic' nature.
- The same text was micro-edited during the Babylonian Exile of the Jews, to create a respectable, retrospective history that might stand them in good stead in the future.
Marduk
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or 3, you have ignored everything said to you in this thread and as a result, no one here is interested
tell you what, why don't you ignore this post and write something that no one else will bother to read through which is full of your own personal speculation and nonsense. It's what we've come to expect
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Kingfisher2926
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The Holy Grail – A plausible fiction
Think of me, if it helps, as a new kind of investigator with a particular interest in an assortment of historical literature, the selection of which was not entirely in my control. My choices have been dictated by the discovery of an ancient set of story-boards, written in a heathenish script, which came to me as a single package. They were found lying all neglected in a dusty corner of an otherwise busy place. I have come to the conclusion that the same story boards have been used many times in the weaving of stories that have little else in common.
In this post, I shall make use of Mediaeval Grail Quest literature as a vehicle to show how, in that period, the Genesis Seal turned the Christian world upside down. I must start with the briefest of overviews of the circumstances of a certain time and place that have long intrigued historians. The time is the early 12th Century, the place the court of Hugh the Count of Champagne at Troyes in Northern France. The First Crusade had recently ended with the Christian armies recovering Jerusalem from the expansionist Muslims. In the Holy Land, the Christian pax romana was in place but still a little fragile, with many reports of pilgrims being waylaid on the last leg of their journey from the Mediterranean coastal ports to Jerusalem.
A Jewish Rabbi known colloquially as Rashi (1040 to 1105), living in Troyes, was an influential Hebrew scholar of his time, and is still remembered for his incisive commentaries on the Torah and on two competing versions of a Talmud. Rashi is also sometimes noted for an interest in Kabbalah, which came to prominence at this time.
After nearly four centuries, the Jewish Masoretes had recently produced a definitive Torah to replace all the variants that had crept into popular use, following a perfect original that they probably believed had been dictated by God to Moses, letter-by-letter. The final outcome is the Masoretic Torah text that is still accepted as the gold standard by both secular and religious authorities of all denominations.
At the start of the 12th Century, interest in Hebrew texts was at an all-time high, no doubt stimulated by renewed contacts between educated Christians and native, Palestinian Jews, as well as the new breed of mystical Muslim Sufis. It is easy to speculate that long-forgotten texts now made their way into Europe for the first time. And the Church had appointed and encouraged its own experts in Hebrew translation. One such was Stephen Harding, an English Cistercian monk, and close confidante of Abbot Bernard (later canonised St. Bernard) of Clairvaux.
The city of Troyes was a vibrant centre of political, religious and cultural life. It was from here, in 1119, that the Order of the Poor Fellow Soldiers of Jesus Christ were mostly recruited and dispatched to Jerusalem, ostensibly to protect Christian pilgrims travelling there from Mediterranean sea-ports. These soldier-monks were billeted in the Al Aqsa Mosque compound on the Temple Mount, leading to their title being extended to include ‘…and the Temple of Solomon’. In this way, they have become better known as the Knights Templar. Strictly speaking, the Templars did not become an official Ordo of the Church until ten years after their formation, when Abbott Bernard organised the Council of Troyes, at which their first written constitution was authorised. The Council was also attended by Stephen Harding, whose chief claim to fame is his expertise in translating Hebrew manuscripts.
During this period, official records kept by leading Christians in the Holy Land are strangely silent about the Templars’ activity. That is one reason it has been easy for pseudo-historians to imagine some strange explanations for the Templars’ stratospheric rise to power and wealth, and their equally spectacular crash in 1307. The former phase was undoubtedly launched in 1139, when Pope Innocent II issued his bull: Omne datum optimum (Every perfect gift). That granted the Templars exemption from all intermediary ecclesiastical jurisdiction and payment of tithes, while granting the Order the right to collect tithes of their own, and to charge others for the privilege of burial in Templar cemeteries. In addition, the Templars were to be allowed to keep all booty from their vanquished enemies. Yet, apart from the significant support of their patron, Abbot Bernard, there is no clear explanation for that papal largesse.
While the Templars were a young Order, and the attention of the Church was still focussed on its furthest borders, a more insidious threat took hold in the midst of Christendom. In several pockets, all over Europe, a new religious movement known as Catharism began to spread. Its greatest centre was in the Languedoc, now a large part of Southern France, but politically independent at that time. The Church hierarchy became so alarmed by this development that it sent out emissaries to try to preach the ‘True Faith’ and restore proper authority. One such was Abbott Bernard, who also arranged an anti-Cathar conference in the city of Albi, from which he is credited with inventing the term Albigensian to describe the Cathars. Finally, in 1208, the desperate Church launched the Albigensian Crusade in which up to a million innocents were slaughtered by their fellow Europeans, often by burning on communal pyres after a brief trial by the newly formed Inquisition.
It is known that the Cathars of the Languedoc welcomed Jewish communities into their midst, and shared territory with numerous Templar strongholds. It has been a source of rampant speculation that both Cathars and Templars were reputed to possess fabulous treasures, both of which included unusual Hebrew manuscripts. The Templar treasure was also said to include gold and artefacts of Solomon’s Temple such as the Ark of the Covenant. The Cathars on the other hand were said to hold the Holy Grail, a concept that had only recently taken shape, initially in the poetry of Chrétien of Troyes. That is the same Troyes in Northern France to where many relevant threads of history may be traced.
Enter the Genesis Seal as a provident story-board.
Straight away, we may speculate that an important but previously unknown Hebrew source had found its way into Europe. If that was a description of the Genesis Seal, it would instantly explain how the Knights Templar could have possessed the Ark of the Covenant. This was not the 8 feet long physical Ark, but an elaborate, multi-faceted image of the Ark seen mostly in the G1 and G3 Squares. In fact, the way the Genesis Seal seems to foresee later biblical episodes might have been accepted by the Church as a great blessing; the Seal even sees aspects of Christianity as an outgrowth from Judaism. However, this was not seen as a blessing at all. One reason the Church might have wanted to sweep this thing under the carpet would have been the overtly esoteric flavour of the Seal. After all, the rather tamer Apocalypse (the Book of Revelation) almost didn’t make it into the New Testament canon for that reason. In addition, open access to the seemingly oracular Genesis Seal might have risked unlocking the flood-gates to widespread personal forms of worship that did not depend on a Church hierarchy sanctioned by Apostolic Succession. The Church might even have recognised the Genesis Seal as a primary source of Catharism, which was not so much an entirely new religion as a heretical form of (Gnostic) Christianity that incorporated re-incarnation, and in which everyone was a potential Christ. These are all possibilities that might become more plausible if the Genesis Seal can be shown to be the source and inspiration for the Cathars’ Grail treasure.
Chrétien of Troyes was the first person ever to write about a Grail by name – he called it a Graal. His epic poem, in which the Grail hero is called Perceval, remained unfinished at the time of Chrétien’s death in 1190. In the Grail Quest literature there are many uses of sexual metaphor and innuendo. Some of these depend on the word rechem (a womb or maiden) in the middle of the G2 Square. Some are clearly based on the image of human male genitals in the 4x7 matrix obtained from just Genesis 1:1. And there are episodes that clearly envisage two or more aspects of the Genesis Seal superimposed on one-another to generate a composite meaning.
In Chrétien’s story, the Grail is kept in the castle of an aged, sickly lord who suffers constantly from an old wound to his thigh. The Grail is the only thing that can sustain him in his agony. The lord’s son is an avid fisherman, whom Percival chances to see in a boat on a river, as he is riding by on a long journey. The young knight asks the angler for directions and is instead offered lodging for the night at the Grail castle.
As Percival approaches the castle, preparations are already in hand for a banquet, to which the knight is enthusiastically invited. He is even asked to sit on a couch or bed with the lord of the castle, with whom he makes conversation. Then, in the English translation by William W. Kibler, we read:
As they were conversing in this way, a squire entered by the door. He was carrying a sword hanging by straps from his neck; he handed it to the noble lord, who unsheathed it halfway so that it could clearly be seen where it had been made, for it was engraved upon the blade. He also saw that it was made of such good steel that it could not be broken except in one singularly perilous circumstance known only to him who had forged and tempered it. The squire who had brought it said: ‘Sire, your niece, the beautiful maiden with the long tresses, sent you this gift; you can never have beheld a finer sword, in its length and weight, than this one here. You may bestow it upon whomsoever you choose; but my lady would be most pleased if it were given to someone who would use it well, for the man who forged it made only three and he will die before being able to make another sword after this one.’
Immediately, the lord invested the stranger among them with the sword by placing its straps, a great treasure in themselves, over his shoulders.
To understand these few lines, we need to be familiar with both the G1 and G2 aspects of the Genesis Seal. In G1, the headline image is a large, symmetrical Y-shape that is placed over the vertical diagonal of the Square. During the reorganisation that occurs in the G1 to G2 transformation, one of the letters that moves takes up a position in the middle of a horizontal cherev (a sword). The sword will be seen later in Figure 27. The same letter is also the lower element of the ‘V’ shaped rechem (a maiden). In Chrétien’s description, he makes two points that are superficially independent, but are closely related in the context of the G1 to G2 transformation. One is the suggestion that the sword may not be broken except in one perilous circumstance. The other is that the man who forged it…will die before being able to make another sword after this one. Chrétien would have seen the symbolic relationship between the G1 image of a Y and the crucifixion of Christ. It is only by Christ’s death that the transformation occurs that brings together the parts (3 letters) that forge the sword. And in a Gnostic allegory, Perceval too bears the sword over his shoulders (like the 614th commandment that is over the shoulders of the crucified man (see post#827)). Notice, also, that the sword is a gift from a maiden (rechem), the beautiful niece of the tragic lord.
Next, we read:
As they were speaking of one thing or another, a squire came forth from a chamber carrying a white lance by the middle of its shaft; he passed between the fire and those seated upon the bed. Everyone in the hall saw the white lance with its white point from whose tip there issued a drop of blood, and this red drop flowed down to the squire’s hand. The youth who had come there that night observed this marvel but refrained from asking how it came about, for he recalled the admonishment given by the gentleman who had knighted him, who taught and instructed him not to talk too much; he was afraid that if he asked they would consider him uncouth, and therefore he did not ask.
The key to Chrétien’s disguised purpose here is close at hand. The same triangle of letters in the G2 Square that spell rechem (a maiden) may be read as romach (a spear). Except that I do not believe Chrétien had a literal spear in mind. If we re-read this passage, exchanging the colours – red for white, and white for red – it becomes a clear innuendo for what is euphemistically known as a hand-job. The chief clue is in the way that a spear (shaft) has become substituted for a maiden.
Immediately after, we read:
Then two other squires entered holding in their hands candelabra of pure gold, crafted with enamel inlays. The young men carrying the candelabra were extremely handsome. In each of the candelabra there were at least ten candles burning. A maiden accompanying the two men was carrying a grail with her two hands; she was beautiful, noble and richly attired. After she had entered the hall carrying the grail the room was so brightly illuminated that the candles lost their brilliance like stars and the moon when the sun rises. After her came another maiden, carrying a silver carving platter. The grail which was introduced first, was of fine pure gold. Set in the grail were precious stones of many kinds, the best and costliest to be found in earth or sea: the grail’s stones were finer than any others in the world, without any doubt. The grail passed by like the lance; they passed in front of the bed and into another chamber. The young knight watched them pass but did not dare ask who was served from the grail, for in his heart he always held the wise gentleman’s advice. Yet I fear that this may be to his misfortune, for I have heard it said that at times it is just as wrong to keep too silent as to talk too much. Whether for good or for ill he did not ask or inquire anything of them.
In the entire history of the Arthurian Legend genre, this paragraph is the first ever mention of a Grail, by name. It isn’t even a Holy Grail; that particular slant followed quickly after Chrétien’s version, in a Church-sponsored, knee-jerk re-write by Robert de Boron. I shall get around to that version soon.
The complete paragraph above is quoted to show that Chrétien’s Grail is introduced as just one, understated item in a procession. The Grail’s composition is touched upon, but its exact form is left undescribed. It is, of course, notable that the Grail is borne by a maiden, whereas the candelabra are carried by young men. The exact form of the true pre-cursor to those candelabra may be deduced from their context in the Genesis Seal. Figure 26 demonstrates the true form of the Golden Menorah first fashioned for use in biblical temples. Clearly, this is not the form that is generally adopted in modern Judaism; yet it perfectly honours its biblical provenance. This image even has the word for ‘light’ associated with two of its branches. The reason candelabra are carried by men may be because the candelabrum in the G1 Square is superimposed over the crucified man (the light of the world).
The presence of this menorah in the Genesis Seal would also help to account for the same artefact being listed in the inventory of Templar treasures.
In Robert de Boron’s Church-sponsored Holy Grail, we again see a superimposition of the G1 and G2 squares. In this version, the Grail is a chalice used by Jesus at the Last Supper, offering wine to the Apostles as a symbol of his blood. It then becomes the receptacle in which Joseph of Arimathea collected the real blood of Christ at Golgotha. So, from the G1 Square (Figure 26) we take the form of a chalice, which is also the image of the crucified man, as a blood sacrifice. In Figure 27, we see the G2 Square with particular letters highlighted. Already familiar are the letters of rechem, in the same ‘V’ formation as the outstretched arms of the crucified man in G1. Completing a 3x3 square in G2, an upper letter lamed combines with two letters of rechem to form the word lechem (bread). Comparing G2 with G1, this bread (symbol of Christ’s body) is seen directly over the rim of the chalice. Finally in G2, above all of those components is the emergent word yayin (wine), pouring downwards towards the chalice.
It is plain to see that Robert de Boron and Chrétien were basing their respective Grails on the same story-board, which is the Genesis Seal.
Yet another version of a Grail was invented twenty years after Chrétien’s death, by Wolfram von Eschenbach, a German knight. Wolfram is rather contemptuous of Chrétien, suggesting in the introduction to his Parzival that his predecessor had not made best use of his source. In the Foreword to the well-received English translation of Wolfram’s Parzival, Professor A.T. Hatto writes:
Chrétien’s poem [Perceval] is the earliest extant narrative of the Grail, though he tells us that his patron Philip, Count of Flanders, had lent him its ‘book’, presumably in one or other respect a source, but a work of absolutely unknown content.
That book could well have been a copy of the Hebrew creation account or, more likely, a very particular commentary on it.
(Subsequent quotations are also taken from this excellent A. T. Hatto translation)
Wolfram claimed as his own source the prime version of the tale, written in the heathenish script and given to him by one Kyot, the Provençal, who had discovered it: lying all neglected in a corner of Toledo. He had had to learn the characters’ A B C beforehand without the art of necromancy. It helped him that he was a baptized Christian – otherwise this tale would still be unknown. No infidel art would avail us to reveal the nature of the Gral and how one came to know its secrets.
Toledo at that time was a hot-bed of Kabbalah creativity. It will not go unnoticed that I adapted these words in my own opening paragraph of this post.
Wolfram’s Grail (he calls it a Gral) also makes its debut during a banquet at a Grail Castle, called Montsalvat. Some authorities equate this castle with Montsegur, the Pyrenean hilltop fortress where, in 1243/4, the Cathars made their last concerted stand against the Albigensian Crusade. It was from here, so the story goes, that four Cathar Parfaits (Perfects) were let down the most precipitous side of the mountain on ropes, at night, carrying their Grail treasure to who knows where. Richard Wagner alludes to Montsegur through the Pyrenean setting of his opera Parsifal. Wolfram even invented an order of knights he calls the Templeisen, whose role it was to guard the Grail. He evidently recognised the same role in the Knights Templar of Troyes. However, it is not clear whether, in Wolfram’s mind, the Templars were guards of protection or of imprisonment.
His version of the Grail is described as a lapis exilis, a stone from the stars and a veritable cornucopia of all good things. Bread and wine (G2) are especially in evidence at his version of the Grail banquet. Yet again, this ‘stone from the stars’ may be explained by the superimposition of the G1 and G2 aspects of the Genesis Seal. The stone derives from the presence of the ‘stone’ tablet – the 2-letter luach - in the central 2x2 zone of G1. Then, in G2, the same concise zone contains the number 35113, which is a Star of David number and a splendid Star-of-stars-of-stars-of-stars (see Post#827). Significantly Wolfram could have recognised this amazing decimal number whereas Chrétien, a generation earlier, could not. That is because the decimal system of arithmetic was introduced into Europe in 1202, by Leonardo Pisano Bigollo, better known as Fibonacci. And if Wolfram knew about the spectacular Star number at the centre of the G2 Square, he would undoubtedly have known about the same square’s lesser star-of-stars perimeter (see that same post).
In Wolfram’s version of the banquet he, too, begins the procession with a page carrying a spear oozing blood, though without the lewd conotations. This is again followed by two candelabra, but carried by two maidens (rechem). The Grail comes next, carried by the Princess Repanse de Schoye, of whom Wolfram writes: Such was the nature of the Gral that she who had the care of it was required to be of perfect chastity and to have renounced all false things.
There were 400 knights plus other guests at Wolfram’s banquet; and the Grail delivered into every outstretched hand whatever sustenance was desired. Every cup was instantly filled with any preferred beverage, by the miraculous Gral. Wolfram concludes: ‘There never was such a thing!’ many will be tempted to say. But they would be misled by their ill-temper, for the Gral was the very fruit of bliss, a cornucopia of the sweets of this world and such that it scarcely fell short of what they tell us of the Heavenly Kingdom. No less can be said of the Genesis Seal, which is the archetype of all legitimate Grails.
Wolfram goes on to say:
While [Parzival] was musing…a page approached carrying a sword whose sheath was worth a thousand marks and whose hilt was a ruby. Whilst its blade could have been a source of marvels. His lordship bestowed it on his guest.
‘Sir,’ he said, ‘I took this into the thick of battle on many a field before God crippled my body. Let it make amends for my lack of hospitality you have suffered here. You will wear it to good effect always. Whenever you put it to the test in battle it will stand you in good stead.’
The next day, having left the Grail castle, Parzeval chances to meet his own cousin Sigune, and learns the secret of his new sword:
‘If you know its secret magic you will be able to fight without fear. Its edges run true. It was fashioned by the hand of high-born Trebuchet. Beside Karnant there is a spring from which the King takes his name of “Lac”. The sword will stay whole for only one blow, but at the second it will fall apart. If you will then take it back, it will be made whole again in the same stream, only you must take the water where it leaps from under the rock before the ray of dawn lights on it. The name of the spring is “Lac”. If the fragments of that sword are not scattered beyond recovery and someone pieces them together again, as soon as they are wetted by this water, the weld and the edges will be made one again, and far stronger than ever before, and its pattern will not have lost its sheen.’
Here, we see a fresh interpretation of the Genesis Seal story-board, from the same characteristics that Chrétien had described as the forging of the final sword by a man who would die before being able to repeat the feat. In the G2 Square, the letters of a horizontal cherev (a sword) come together where they had been apart in G1. Where they assemble (see Figure 27), they are placed symmetrically across where the stem of the crucified man had been before. In the G2 Square, however, the newly ‘forged’ sword lies across the Lamed River that has assembled as a result of the same internal reorganisation. In G1, the water had appeared less organised (a lake), with the word achu (a bulrush) seen overlapping where the sword would soon be forged. Note Wolfram’s unusual ploy of linking the words for ‘stream’ and ‘lake’. It is very easy to see, in the same attributes of the Genesis Seal, the inspiration for the historically later Sword Excalibur and the Lady (rechem) of the Lake.
In describing the unhealing wound of the Grail King, Wolfram is much more explicit than Chrétien had been. Wolfram writes:
‘One day – his nearest and dearest did not at all approve – the King rode out alone to seek adventure under Love’s compulsion and joying in her encouragement. Jousting, he was wounded by a poisoned lance so seriously that he never recovered, your dear uncle – through the scrotum. The man who was fighting there and rode that joust was a heathen born of Ethnise, where the Tigris flows out from Paradise. This pagan was convinced that his valour would earn him the Gral. His name was engraved on his lance. He sought chivalric encounters in distant countries, crossing seas and lands with no other thought than to win the Gral. As a result of his prowess, our happiness vanished. Yet your uncle’s prowess must be commended too. He carried the lance-head away with him in his body, and when the noble youth returned to his familiars his tragic plight was clear to see. He had slain that heathen on the field – let us not waste our tears on him.
‘When the King returned to us so pale, and drained of all his strength, a physician probed his wound till he found the lance-head and a length of bamboo shaft which was also buried there. The physician recovered them both. I fell on my knees in prayer and vowed to Almighty God that I would practice chivalry no more, in the hope that to His own glory He would help my brother in his need. I also foreswore meat, bread and wine, and indeed promised that I would never again relish anything else that had blood. I tell you, dear nephew, parting with my sword was another source of sorrow to my people. “Who is to be protector of the Gral’s secrets?” they asked, while bright eyes wept.
‘They lost no time in carrying the King into the presence of the Gral for any aid God would give him. But when the King set eyes on it, it came as a second affliction to him that he might not die. Nor was it fitting he should after I had dedicated myself to a life of such wretchedness, and the dominion of our noble lineage had been reduced to such frailty.
‘The King’s wound had festered. None of the various books of medicine we consulted furnished a remedy to reward our trouble. All that was known of antidotes to asp, ecidemon, ehcontius, lisis, jecis and meatris – these vicious serpents carry their venom hot – and other poisonous snakes, all that the learned doctors extract from herbs by the art of physic – let me be brief – were of no avail: it was God Himself who was frustrating us. We called in the aid of Gehon, Phison, Tigris and Euphrates, and so near to Paradise from which the four rivers flow that their fragrance was still unspent, in the hope that some herb might flow down in it that would end our sorrow. But this was all lost effort, and our sufferings were renewed. Yet we made many other attempts. We obtained that same twig to which the Sibyl referred Aeneas, to ward off the hazards of Hell and Phlegethon’s fumes, not to name other rivers flowing there. We devoted time to possessing ourselves of that twig as a remedy, in case the sinister lance that slays our happiness had been envenomed or tempered in Hellfire: but it was not so with that lance’.
Notice the direct reference to the same four rivers of Genesis 2:10-14 that are pre-ordained by the G2 Square, having been foreseen in G1 (see my Post#288). As for the Grail King’s wound, all the components are to be found in Figure 28.
Here, identical 4x7 matrices obtained from Genesis 1:1 show how the lance head (a) coincides with the scrotum (c), while having the venomous serpent (b) interposed. In much the same way, all the esoteric elements of Wolfram’s Parzival can be traced to the Genesis Seal story-board.
In Figure 28(b), the top and bottom links may be removed to leave a shape that is not unlike the Lamed River of the G2 Square, that passes through the ‘womb’ there. Apart from the obvious coital symbolism, parts (b) and (c) are also reminiscent of two, consecutive biblical verses, starting with Genesis 2:25, in which identical Hebrew adjectives describe the man and woman as ‘naked’ and the serpent as ‘cunning’.
The Mediaeval Grail Quest literature was not just a form of entertainment. It was, in fact, quite subversive and critical of the Church’s actions in response to the Cathars of the Languedoc. Chrétien of Troyes was a trouvere, counterpart of and perhaps sympathetic to the Cathar troubadours. His literary treatment of courtly love (like that of Wolfram) was a close parallel to the Occitanean concept of ‘minne’, which was held up in contrast to the misguided principles of orthodox Christian love and of sexual procreation. The Cathars thought of themselves as Christian, but with a strongly Gnostic-Dualist bias that the Church could not tolerate.
The Knights Templar are, as always, a distinct enigma. Their origin in Troyes and the support they enjoyed from Abbott Bernard of Clairvaux suggests they were formed to act on behalf of the Church. Bernard was also an active agent of the Church in opposition to the Cathars. Wolfram von Eschenbach, a contemporary of the Templars, evidently saw them as guardians of the ‘Grail’, the mysterious treasure of the Cathars. It is not unlikely that the Templars started out as guardians over the Grail secret. A generation later they became ‘gamekeeper turned poacher’, screwing unprecedented concessions and sanctions from Pope Innocent II. The fact that the Genesis Seal reveals images of the Ark of the Covenant and the 7-branch Menorah makes it prime suspect to account for the myth of the Templar treasure. The fact that the Seal also accounts for several versions of the (Holy) Grail makes it a strong candidate to have also been the treasure of the Cathars. And the fact that Troyes was, at that time, a centre of excellence in the study of biblical Hebrew texts makes that the place where the Genesis Seal was most likely to be discovered.
My own story-board hypothesis puts the Genesis Seal in the frame as a smoking gun. It independently serves to link all the right players in a web of double- and triple-stranded connections. That is a lot more convincing than some of the legal evidence that sent men to the gallows in 20th Century England. Let us not forget that the same mediaeval period and places were the stage on which Kabbalah took on a grander appearance recalling, from my post#289, the way the Genesis Seal reflects an important tenet of the Mystical Kabbalah.
I now feel obliged to say something about the controversial modern Magdalene hypothesis for the Grail. Like most thinking people, I see the Grail as a concept rather than a real historical object. One form of it can be as valid as another. Yet there is something truly uncanny about the Magdalene version, because it places the womb (rechem) at centre-stage. One does not need to accept this as a literal truth to see how extraordinary it is that major themes in this post also came together in a pseudo-historical investigation and a blockbuster best-selling novel. I am referring, of course, to The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail by Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh and Henry Lincoln; and The DaVinci Code by Dan Brown. The similarity even extends to the symbolic ‘V’ of ‘a womb’, which is the very configuration this word takes in the G2 view of the Genesis Seal. None of this makes the ‘Holy Blood’ version of history any more valid than it was without the Genesis Seal. But it could suggest that a historical paper-chase was once created using only a detailed knowledge of the Genesis Seal. And a plausible fiction can be even more convincing than an unsubstantiated alternative reality.
Think of me, if it helps, as a new kind of investigator with a particular interest in an assortment of historical literature, the selection of which was not entirely in my control. My choices have been dictated by the discovery of an ancient set of story-boards, written in a heathenish script, which came to me as a single package. They were found lying all neglected in a dusty corner of an otherwise busy place. I have come to the conclusion that the same story boards have been used many times in the weaving of stories that have little else in common.
In this post, I shall make use of Mediaeval Grail Quest literature as a vehicle to show how, in that period, the Genesis Seal turned the Christian world upside down. I must start with the briefest of overviews of the circumstances of a certain time and place that have long intrigued historians. The time is the early 12th Century, the place the court of Hugh the Count of Champagne at Troyes in Northern France. The First Crusade had recently ended with the Christian armies recovering Jerusalem from the expansionist Muslims. In the Holy Land, the Christian pax romana was in place but still a little fragile, with many reports of pilgrims being waylaid on the last leg of their journey from the Mediterranean coastal ports to Jerusalem.
A Jewish Rabbi known colloquially as Rashi (1040 to 1105), living in Troyes, was an influential Hebrew scholar of his time, and is still remembered for his incisive commentaries on the Torah and on two competing versions of a Talmud. Rashi is also sometimes noted for an interest in Kabbalah, which came to prominence at this time.
After nearly four centuries, the Jewish Masoretes had recently produced a definitive Torah to replace all the variants that had crept into popular use, following a perfect original that they probably believed had been dictated by God to Moses, letter-by-letter. The final outcome is the Masoretic Torah text that is still accepted as the gold standard by both secular and religious authorities of all denominations.
At the start of the 12th Century, interest in Hebrew texts was at an all-time high, no doubt stimulated by renewed contacts between educated Christians and native, Palestinian Jews, as well as the new breed of mystical Muslim Sufis. It is easy to speculate that long-forgotten texts now made their way into Europe for the first time. And the Church had appointed and encouraged its own experts in Hebrew translation. One such was Stephen Harding, an English Cistercian monk, and close confidante of Abbot Bernard (later canonised St. Bernard) of Clairvaux.
The city of Troyes was a vibrant centre of political, religious and cultural life. It was from here, in 1119, that the Order of the Poor Fellow Soldiers of Jesus Christ were mostly recruited and dispatched to Jerusalem, ostensibly to protect Christian pilgrims travelling there from Mediterranean sea-ports. These soldier-monks were billeted in the Al Aqsa Mosque compound on the Temple Mount, leading to their title being extended to include ‘…and the Temple of Solomon’. In this way, they have become better known as the Knights Templar. Strictly speaking, the Templars did not become an official Ordo of the Church until ten years after their formation, when Abbott Bernard organised the Council of Troyes, at which their first written constitution was authorised. The Council was also attended by Stephen Harding, whose chief claim to fame is his expertise in translating Hebrew manuscripts.
During this period, official records kept by leading Christians in the Holy Land are strangely silent about the Templars’ activity. That is one reason it has been easy for pseudo-historians to imagine some strange explanations for the Templars’ stratospheric rise to power and wealth, and their equally spectacular crash in 1307. The former phase was undoubtedly launched in 1139, when Pope Innocent II issued his bull: Omne datum optimum (Every perfect gift). That granted the Templars exemption from all intermediary ecclesiastical jurisdiction and payment of tithes, while granting the Order the right to collect tithes of their own, and to charge others for the privilege of burial in Templar cemeteries. In addition, the Templars were to be allowed to keep all booty from their vanquished enemies. Yet, apart from the significant support of their patron, Abbot Bernard, there is no clear explanation for that papal largesse.
While the Templars were a young Order, and the attention of the Church was still focussed on its furthest borders, a more insidious threat took hold in the midst of Christendom. In several pockets, all over Europe, a new religious movement known as Catharism began to spread. Its greatest centre was in the Languedoc, now a large part of Southern France, but politically independent at that time. The Church hierarchy became so alarmed by this development that it sent out emissaries to try to preach the ‘True Faith’ and restore proper authority. One such was Abbott Bernard, who also arranged an anti-Cathar conference in the city of Albi, from which he is credited with inventing the term Albigensian to describe the Cathars. Finally, in 1208, the desperate Church launched the Albigensian Crusade in which up to a million innocents were slaughtered by their fellow Europeans, often by burning on communal pyres after a brief trial by the newly formed Inquisition.
It is known that the Cathars of the Languedoc welcomed Jewish communities into their midst, and shared territory with numerous Templar strongholds. It has been a source of rampant speculation that both Cathars and Templars were reputed to possess fabulous treasures, both of which included unusual Hebrew manuscripts. The Templar treasure was also said to include gold and artefacts of Solomon’s Temple such as the Ark of the Covenant. The Cathars on the other hand were said to hold the Holy Grail, a concept that had only recently taken shape, initially in the poetry of Chrétien of Troyes. That is the same Troyes in Northern France to where many relevant threads of history may be traced.
Enter the Genesis Seal as a provident story-board.
Straight away, we may speculate that an important but previously unknown Hebrew source had found its way into Europe. If that was a description of the Genesis Seal, it would instantly explain how the Knights Templar could have possessed the Ark of the Covenant. This was not the 8 feet long physical Ark, but an elaborate, multi-faceted image of the Ark seen mostly in the G1 and G3 Squares. In fact, the way the Genesis Seal seems to foresee later biblical episodes might have been accepted by the Church as a great blessing; the Seal even sees aspects of Christianity as an outgrowth from Judaism. However, this was not seen as a blessing at all. One reason the Church might have wanted to sweep this thing under the carpet would have been the overtly esoteric flavour of the Seal. After all, the rather tamer Apocalypse (the Book of Revelation) almost didn’t make it into the New Testament canon for that reason. In addition, open access to the seemingly oracular Genesis Seal might have risked unlocking the flood-gates to widespread personal forms of worship that did not depend on a Church hierarchy sanctioned by Apostolic Succession. The Church might even have recognised the Genesis Seal as a primary source of Catharism, which was not so much an entirely new religion as a heretical form of (Gnostic) Christianity that incorporated re-incarnation, and in which everyone was a potential Christ. These are all possibilities that might become more plausible if the Genesis Seal can be shown to be the source and inspiration for the Cathars’ Grail treasure.
Chrétien of Troyes was the first person ever to write about a Grail by name – he called it a Graal. His epic poem, in which the Grail hero is called Perceval, remained unfinished at the time of Chrétien’s death in 1190. In the Grail Quest literature there are many uses of sexual metaphor and innuendo. Some of these depend on the word rechem (a womb or maiden) in the middle of the G2 Square. Some are clearly based on the image of human male genitals in the 4x7 matrix obtained from just Genesis 1:1. And there are episodes that clearly envisage two or more aspects of the Genesis Seal superimposed on one-another to generate a composite meaning.
In Chrétien’s story, the Grail is kept in the castle of an aged, sickly lord who suffers constantly from an old wound to his thigh. The Grail is the only thing that can sustain him in his agony. The lord’s son is an avid fisherman, whom Percival chances to see in a boat on a river, as he is riding by on a long journey. The young knight asks the angler for directions and is instead offered lodging for the night at the Grail castle.
As Percival approaches the castle, preparations are already in hand for a banquet, to which the knight is enthusiastically invited. He is even asked to sit on a couch or bed with the lord of the castle, with whom he makes conversation. Then, in the English translation by William W. Kibler, we read:
As they were conversing in this way, a squire entered by the door. He was carrying a sword hanging by straps from his neck; he handed it to the noble lord, who unsheathed it halfway so that it could clearly be seen where it had been made, for it was engraved upon the blade. He also saw that it was made of such good steel that it could not be broken except in one singularly perilous circumstance known only to him who had forged and tempered it. The squire who had brought it said: ‘Sire, your niece, the beautiful maiden with the long tresses, sent you this gift; you can never have beheld a finer sword, in its length and weight, than this one here. You may bestow it upon whomsoever you choose; but my lady would be most pleased if it were given to someone who would use it well, for the man who forged it made only three and he will die before being able to make another sword after this one.’
Immediately, the lord invested the stranger among them with the sword by placing its straps, a great treasure in themselves, over his shoulders.
To understand these few lines, we need to be familiar with both the G1 and G2 aspects of the Genesis Seal. In G1, the headline image is a large, symmetrical Y-shape that is placed over the vertical diagonal of the Square. During the reorganisation that occurs in the G1 to G2 transformation, one of the letters that moves takes up a position in the middle of a horizontal cherev (a sword). The sword will be seen later in Figure 27. The same letter is also the lower element of the ‘V’ shaped rechem (a maiden). In Chrétien’s description, he makes two points that are superficially independent, but are closely related in the context of the G1 to G2 transformation. One is the suggestion that the sword may not be broken except in one perilous circumstance. The other is that the man who forged it…will die before being able to make another sword after this one. Chrétien would have seen the symbolic relationship between the G1 image of a Y and the crucifixion of Christ. It is only by Christ’s death that the transformation occurs that brings together the parts (3 letters) that forge the sword. And in a Gnostic allegory, Perceval too bears the sword over his shoulders (like the 614th commandment that is over the shoulders of the crucified man (see post#827)). Notice, also, that the sword is a gift from a maiden (rechem), the beautiful niece of the tragic lord.
Next, we read:
As they were speaking of one thing or another, a squire came forth from a chamber carrying a white lance by the middle of its shaft; he passed between the fire and those seated upon the bed. Everyone in the hall saw the white lance with its white point from whose tip there issued a drop of blood, and this red drop flowed down to the squire’s hand. The youth who had come there that night observed this marvel but refrained from asking how it came about, for he recalled the admonishment given by the gentleman who had knighted him, who taught and instructed him not to talk too much; he was afraid that if he asked they would consider him uncouth, and therefore he did not ask.
The key to Chrétien’s disguised purpose here is close at hand. The same triangle of letters in the G2 Square that spell rechem (a maiden) may be read as romach (a spear). Except that I do not believe Chrétien had a literal spear in mind. If we re-read this passage, exchanging the colours – red for white, and white for red – it becomes a clear innuendo for what is euphemistically known as a hand-job. The chief clue is in the way that a spear (shaft) has become substituted for a maiden.
Immediately after, we read:
Then two other squires entered holding in their hands candelabra of pure gold, crafted with enamel inlays. The young men carrying the candelabra were extremely handsome. In each of the candelabra there were at least ten candles burning. A maiden accompanying the two men was carrying a grail with her two hands; she was beautiful, noble and richly attired. After she had entered the hall carrying the grail the room was so brightly illuminated that the candles lost their brilliance like stars and the moon when the sun rises. After her came another maiden, carrying a silver carving platter. The grail which was introduced first, was of fine pure gold. Set in the grail were precious stones of many kinds, the best and costliest to be found in earth or sea: the grail’s stones were finer than any others in the world, without any doubt. The grail passed by like the lance; they passed in front of the bed and into another chamber. The young knight watched them pass but did not dare ask who was served from the grail, for in his heart he always held the wise gentleman’s advice. Yet I fear that this may be to his misfortune, for I have heard it said that at times it is just as wrong to keep too silent as to talk too much. Whether for good or for ill he did not ask or inquire anything of them.
In the entire history of the Arthurian Legend genre, this paragraph is the first ever mention of a Grail, by name. It isn’t even a Holy Grail; that particular slant followed quickly after Chrétien’s version, in a Church-sponsored, knee-jerk re-write by Robert de Boron. I shall get around to that version soon.
The complete paragraph above is quoted to show that Chrétien’s Grail is introduced as just one, understated item in a procession. The Grail’s composition is touched upon, but its exact form is left undescribed. It is, of course, notable that the Grail is borne by a maiden, whereas the candelabra are carried by young men. The exact form of the true pre-cursor to those candelabra may be deduced from their context in the Genesis Seal. Figure 26 demonstrates the true form of the Golden Menorah first fashioned for use in biblical temples. Clearly, this is not the form that is generally adopted in modern Judaism; yet it perfectly honours its biblical provenance. This image even has the word for ‘light’ associated with two of its branches. The reason candelabra are carried by men may be because the candelabrum in the G1 Square is superimposed over the crucified man (the light of the world).
The presence of this menorah in the Genesis Seal would also help to account for the same artefact being listed in the inventory of Templar treasures.
In Robert de Boron’s Church-sponsored Holy Grail, we again see a superimposition of the G1 and G2 squares. In this version, the Grail is a chalice used by Jesus at the Last Supper, offering wine to the Apostles as a symbol of his blood. It then becomes the receptacle in which Joseph of Arimathea collected the real blood of Christ at Golgotha. So, from the G1 Square (Figure 26) we take the form of a chalice, which is also the image of the crucified man, as a blood sacrifice. In Figure 27, we see the G2 Square with particular letters highlighted. Already familiar are the letters of rechem, in the same ‘V’ formation as the outstretched arms of the crucified man in G1. Completing a 3x3 square in G2, an upper letter lamed combines with two letters of rechem to form the word lechem (bread). Comparing G2 with G1, this bread (symbol of Christ’s body) is seen directly over the rim of the chalice. Finally in G2, above all of those components is the emergent word yayin (wine), pouring downwards towards the chalice.
It is plain to see that Robert de Boron and Chrétien were basing their respective Grails on the same story-board, which is the Genesis Seal.
Yet another version of a Grail was invented twenty years after Chrétien’s death, by Wolfram von Eschenbach, a German knight. Wolfram is rather contemptuous of Chrétien, suggesting in the introduction to his Parzival that his predecessor had not made best use of his source. In the Foreword to the well-received English translation of Wolfram’s Parzival, Professor A.T. Hatto writes:
Chrétien’s poem [Perceval] is the earliest extant narrative of the Grail, though he tells us that his patron Philip, Count of Flanders, had lent him its ‘book’, presumably in one or other respect a source, but a work of absolutely unknown content.
That book could well have been a copy of the Hebrew creation account or, more likely, a very particular commentary on it.
(Subsequent quotations are also taken from this excellent A. T. Hatto translation)
Wolfram claimed as his own source the prime version of the tale, written in the heathenish script and given to him by one Kyot, the Provençal, who had discovered it: lying all neglected in a corner of Toledo. He had had to learn the characters’ A B C beforehand without the art of necromancy. It helped him that he was a baptized Christian – otherwise this tale would still be unknown. No infidel art would avail us to reveal the nature of the Gral and how one came to know its secrets.
Toledo at that time was a hot-bed of Kabbalah creativity. It will not go unnoticed that I adapted these words in my own opening paragraph of this post.
Wolfram’s Grail (he calls it a Gral) also makes its debut during a banquet at a Grail Castle, called Montsalvat. Some authorities equate this castle with Montsegur, the Pyrenean hilltop fortress where, in 1243/4, the Cathars made their last concerted stand against the Albigensian Crusade. It was from here, so the story goes, that four Cathar Parfaits (Perfects) were let down the most precipitous side of the mountain on ropes, at night, carrying their Grail treasure to who knows where. Richard Wagner alludes to Montsegur through the Pyrenean setting of his opera Parsifal. Wolfram even invented an order of knights he calls the Templeisen, whose role it was to guard the Grail. He evidently recognised the same role in the Knights Templar of Troyes. However, it is not clear whether, in Wolfram’s mind, the Templars were guards of protection or of imprisonment.
His version of the Grail is described as a lapis exilis, a stone from the stars and a veritable cornucopia of all good things. Bread and wine (G2) are especially in evidence at his version of the Grail banquet. Yet again, this ‘stone from the stars’ may be explained by the superimposition of the G1 and G2 aspects of the Genesis Seal. The stone derives from the presence of the ‘stone’ tablet – the 2-letter luach - in the central 2x2 zone of G1. Then, in G2, the same concise zone contains the number 35113, which is a Star of David number and a splendid Star-of-stars-of-stars-of-stars (see Post#827). Significantly Wolfram could have recognised this amazing decimal number whereas Chrétien, a generation earlier, could not. That is because the decimal system of arithmetic was introduced into Europe in 1202, by Leonardo Pisano Bigollo, better known as Fibonacci. And if Wolfram knew about the spectacular Star number at the centre of the G2 Square, he would undoubtedly have known about the same square’s lesser star-of-stars perimeter (see that same post).
In Wolfram’s version of the banquet he, too, begins the procession with a page carrying a spear oozing blood, though without the lewd conotations. This is again followed by two candelabra, but carried by two maidens (rechem). The Grail comes next, carried by the Princess Repanse de Schoye, of whom Wolfram writes: Such was the nature of the Gral that she who had the care of it was required to be of perfect chastity and to have renounced all false things.
There were 400 knights plus other guests at Wolfram’s banquet; and the Grail delivered into every outstretched hand whatever sustenance was desired. Every cup was instantly filled with any preferred beverage, by the miraculous Gral. Wolfram concludes: ‘There never was such a thing!’ many will be tempted to say. But they would be misled by their ill-temper, for the Gral was the very fruit of bliss, a cornucopia of the sweets of this world and such that it scarcely fell short of what they tell us of the Heavenly Kingdom. No less can be said of the Genesis Seal, which is the archetype of all legitimate Grails.
Wolfram goes on to say:
While [Parzival] was musing…a page approached carrying a sword whose sheath was worth a thousand marks and whose hilt was a ruby. Whilst its blade could have been a source of marvels. His lordship bestowed it on his guest.
‘Sir,’ he said, ‘I took this into the thick of battle on many a field before God crippled my body. Let it make amends for my lack of hospitality you have suffered here. You will wear it to good effect always. Whenever you put it to the test in battle it will stand you in good stead.’
The next day, having left the Grail castle, Parzeval chances to meet his own cousin Sigune, and learns the secret of his new sword:
‘If you know its secret magic you will be able to fight without fear. Its edges run true. It was fashioned by the hand of high-born Trebuchet. Beside Karnant there is a spring from which the King takes his name of “Lac”. The sword will stay whole for only one blow, but at the second it will fall apart. If you will then take it back, it will be made whole again in the same stream, only you must take the water where it leaps from under the rock before the ray of dawn lights on it. The name of the spring is “Lac”. If the fragments of that sword are not scattered beyond recovery and someone pieces them together again, as soon as they are wetted by this water, the weld and the edges will be made one again, and far stronger than ever before, and its pattern will not have lost its sheen.’
Here, we see a fresh interpretation of the Genesis Seal story-board, from the same characteristics that Chrétien had described as the forging of the final sword by a man who would die before being able to repeat the feat. In the G2 Square, the letters of a horizontal cherev (a sword) come together where they had been apart in G1. Where they assemble (see Figure 27), they are placed symmetrically across where the stem of the crucified man had been before. In the G2 Square, however, the newly ‘forged’ sword lies across the Lamed River that has assembled as a result of the same internal reorganisation. In G1, the water had appeared less organised (a lake), with the word achu (a bulrush) seen overlapping where the sword would soon be forged. Note Wolfram’s unusual ploy of linking the words for ‘stream’ and ‘lake’. It is very easy to see, in the same attributes of the Genesis Seal, the inspiration for the historically later Sword Excalibur and the Lady (rechem) of the Lake.
In describing the unhealing wound of the Grail King, Wolfram is much more explicit than Chrétien had been. Wolfram writes:
‘One day – his nearest and dearest did not at all approve – the King rode out alone to seek adventure under Love’s compulsion and joying in her encouragement. Jousting, he was wounded by a poisoned lance so seriously that he never recovered, your dear uncle – through the scrotum. The man who was fighting there and rode that joust was a heathen born of Ethnise, where the Tigris flows out from Paradise. This pagan was convinced that his valour would earn him the Gral. His name was engraved on his lance. He sought chivalric encounters in distant countries, crossing seas and lands with no other thought than to win the Gral. As a result of his prowess, our happiness vanished. Yet your uncle’s prowess must be commended too. He carried the lance-head away with him in his body, and when the noble youth returned to his familiars his tragic plight was clear to see. He had slain that heathen on the field – let us not waste our tears on him.
‘When the King returned to us so pale, and drained of all his strength, a physician probed his wound till he found the lance-head and a length of bamboo shaft which was also buried there. The physician recovered them both. I fell on my knees in prayer and vowed to Almighty God that I would practice chivalry no more, in the hope that to His own glory He would help my brother in his need. I also foreswore meat, bread and wine, and indeed promised that I would never again relish anything else that had blood. I tell you, dear nephew, parting with my sword was another source of sorrow to my people. “Who is to be protector of the Gral’s secrets?” they asked, while bright eyes wept.
‘They lost no time in carrying the King into the presence of the Gral for any aid God would give him. But when the King set eyes on it, it came as a second affliction to him that he might not die. Nor was it fitting he should after I had dedicated myself to a life of such wretchedness, and the dominion of our noble lineage had been reduced to such frailty.
‘The King’s wound had festered. None of the various books of medicine we consulted furnished a remedy to reward our trouble. All that was known of antidotes to asp, ecidemon, ehcontius, lisis, jecis and meatris – these vicious serpents carry their venom hot – and other poisonous snakes, all that the learned doctors extract from herbs by the art of physic – let me be brief – were of no avail: it was God Himself who was frustrating us. We called in the aid of Gehon, Phison, Tigris and Euphrates, and so near to Paradise from which the four rivers flow that their fragrance was still unspent, in the hope that some herb might flow down in it that would end our sorrow. But this was all lost effort, and our sufferings were renewed. Yet we made many other attempts. We obtained that same twig to which the Sibyl referred Aeneas, to ward off the hazards of Hell and Phlegethon’s fumes, not to name other rivers flowing there. We devoted time to possessing ourselves of that twig as a remedy, in case the sinister lance that slays our happiness had been envenomed or tempered in Hellfire: but it was not so with that lance’.
Notice the direct reference to the same four rivers of Genesis 2:10-14 that are pre-ordained by the G2 Square, having been foreseen in G1 (see my Post#288). As for the Grail King’s wound, all the components are to be found in Figure 28.
Here, identical 4x7 matrices obtained from Genesis 1:1 show how the lance head (a) coincides with the scrotum (c), while having the venomous serpent (b) interposed. In much the same way, all the esoteric elements of Wolfram’s Parzival can be traced to the Genesis Seal story-board.
In Figure 28(b), the top and bottom links may be removed to leave a shape that is not unlike the Lamed River of the G2 Square, that passes through the ‘womb’ there. Apart from the obvious coital symbolism, parts (b) and (c) are also reminiscent of two, consecutive biblical verses, starting with Genesis 2:25, in which identical Hebrew adjectives describe the man and woman as ‘naked’ and the serpent as ‘cunning’.
The Mediaeval Grail Quest literature was not just a form of entertainment. It was, in fact, quite subversive and critical of the Church’s actions in response to the Cathars of the Languedoc. Chrétien of Troyes was a trouvere, counterpart of and perhaps sympathetic to the Cathar troubadours. His literary treatment of courtly love (like that of Wolfram) was a close parallel to the Occitanean concept of ‘minne’, which was held up in contrast to the misguided principles of orthodox Christian love and of sexual procreation. The Cathars thought of themselves as Christian, but with a strongly Gnostic-Dualist bias that the Church could not tolerate.
The Knights Templar are, as always, a distinct enigma. Their origin in Troyes and the support they enjoyed from Abbott Bernard of Clairvaux suggests they were formed to act on behalf of the Church. Bernard was also an active agent of the Church in opposition to the Cathars. Wolfram von Eschenbach, a contemporary of the Templars, evidently saw them as guardians of the ‘Grail’, the mysterious treasure of the Cathars. It is not unlikely that the Templars started out as guardians over the Grail secret. A generation later they became ‘gamekeeper turned poacher’, screwing unprecedented concessions and sanctions from Pope Innocent II. The fact that the Genesis Seal reveals images of the Ark of the Covenant and the 7-branch Menorah makes it prime suspect to account for the myth of the Templar treasure. The fact that the Seal also accounts for several versions of the (Holy) Grail makes it a strong candidate to have also been the treasure of the Cathars. And the fact that Troyes was, at that time, a centre of excellence in the study of biblical Hebrew texts makes that the place where the Genesis Seal was most likely to be discovered.
My own story-board hypothesis puts the Genesis Seal in the frame as a smoking gun. It independently serves to link all the right players in a web of double- and triple-stranded connections. That is a lot more convincing than some of the legal evidence that sent men to the gallows in 20th Century England. Let us not forget that the same mediaeval period and places were the stage on which Kabbalah took on a grander appearance recalling, from my post#289, the way the Genesis Seal reflects an important tenet of the Mystical Kabbalah.
I now feel obliged to say something about the controversial modern Magdalene hypothesis for the Grail. Like most thinking people, I see the Grail as a concept rather than a real historical object. One form of it can be as valid as another. Yet there is something truly uncanny about the Magdalene version, because it places the womb (rechem) at centre-stage. One does not need to accept this as a literal truth to see how extraordinary it is that major themes in this post also came together in a pseudo-historical investigation and a blockbuster best-selling novel. I am referring, of course, to The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail by Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh and Henry Lincoln; and The DaVinci Code by Dan Brown. The similarity even extends to the symbolic ‘V’ of ‘a womb’, which is the very configuration this word takes in the G2 view of the Genesis Seal. None of this makes the ‘Holy Blood’ version of history any more valid than it was without the Genesis Seal. But it could suggest that a historical paper-chase was once created using only a detailed knowledge of the Genesis Seal. And a plausible fiction can be even more convincing than an unsubstantiated alternative reality.
Marduk
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so now the Genesis seal is responsible for things that don't exist in the real world
well that's me convinced
that you're wasting everyones time
sorry to break it to you, no it isn't. Nothing you've posted in this thread is convincing anyone, What MRC Hans posted destroyed you utterly
well that's me convinced
that you're wasting everyones time
translation, "something you've invented is more convincing than something else you've invented"kingfisher said:
sorry to break it to you, no it isn't. Nothing you've posted in this thread is convincing anyone, What MRC Hans posted destroyed you utterly
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dafydd
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That's exactly what he did. Another interminable wall of nonsense.
Nonpareil
The Terrible Trivium
Bit of advice for you, Kingfisher: if you want to be taken seriously, don't open your long-winded post on "evidence supporting the existence of the Holy Grail" with a paragraph that makes you sound like you're attempting to ape H. P. Lovecraft.
Nonpareil
The Terrible Trivium
I mean, really. Compare the above quote to this excerpt from the opening of "The Call of Cthulhu".
I just can't get over that.
H. P. Lovecraft said:
I just can't get over that.
Kingfisher2926
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Marduk said:
What was it gave me away?
Maybe the word 'fiction' buried deep within the title.
Marduk
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maybe its the fact that you don't listen to criticism or take notice when people more intelligent than your posting level show you why its nonsense or that you are about the 50th person who's turned up here claiming to have found something wondrous in your own religious book of choice which proves you are right to worship the genocidal flood god, it could be that you have ignored the facts all the way through 22 pages of people trying to help you, or maybe its because you, are going to die believing that Satan is blocking the world from seeing your wondrous discovery that no one else apparently cares about
or perhaps that its obviously apparent that you've never read a real history book all the way through or maybe its all of the above which screams "FICTION" whenever you post something
yeah, that'll be it
all of the above
teh ignorance it burns
Sideroxylon
Featherless biped
I mean, really. Compare the above quote to this excerpt from the opening of "The Call of Cthulhu".
I just can't get over that.
Maybe we should be taking this thing more seriously.Kingfisher2926
Critical Thinker
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I mean, really. Compare the above quote to this excerpt from the opening of "The Call of Cthulhu".
I just can't get over that.
There is nothing new under the Sun. I may read it one day.
But if you had read my post properly you would know I was honouring Wolfram von Eschenbach, not Lovecraft.
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Kingfisher2926
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I think I'm the only one here that's NOT resorting to arguments involving faith and devotion to a supernatural revelations. Clearly, I am not the one who doesn't listen. I do respond to worthwhile posts, though there is a lot of selective deafness around.maybe its the fact that you don't listen to criticism or take notice when people more intelligent than your posting level show you why its nonsense or that you are about the 50th person who's turned up here claiming to have found something wondrous in your own religious book of choice which proves you are right to worship the genocidal flood god, it could be that you have ignored the facts all the way through 22 pages of people trying to help you, or maybe its because you, are going to die believing that Satan is blocking the world from seeing your wondrous discovery that no one else apparently cares about
or perhaps that its obviously apparent that you've never read a real history book all the way through or maybe its all of the above which screams "FICTION" whenever you post something
yeah, that'll be it
all of the above
teh ignorance it burns
dafydd
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- 35,398
No you don't, all you do is keep posting the same garbage. You are deaf to reason.
Marduk
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uhuh,
so you are lying now or you were lying then, you're a Christian, you want to pretend that you have found the evidence that proves you haven't wasted your life following a figure who doesn't exist, thats fine, but don't try peddling it as fact when only you can see the evidence,
you didn't listen to this
or this
or this
or this
or this
or this
or this
or this
or this
or this
or this
or this
or this
these are just from the first page, your potential support went rapidly down from there because you are incapable of listening.
Truth is, not a single poster at this forum supports you, are you listening to that fact, No. you just carry on regardless ignoring anything that might break you from your delusion
show me any post in this 22 page thread where anyone has said "you're right"
not a one out of scores of people, is that telling you anything
that's the second thing common to these kind of threads, its called projection bias, that's where you imagine that everyone around you is exhibiting the qualities that only you posess
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_projection#Psychopathology
all in all, your attempts here have met with total failure, no one here believes you and you haven't presented any supporting evidence at all
Nonpareil
The Terrible Trivium
I never said that you were "honoring" Lovecraft, just that the opening of your post made me think of his writing style.
But no, I didn't read it properly. I really couldn't see the point.
Marduk
Banned
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you gotta love that he's comparing his own writing with that of a famous poet though while at the same time announcing secrets that are supposedly from God
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grandiose_delusions
seems vaguely familiar
