After the youth had drunk from the cup, he turned his gaze to me and said these words:
‘Let the Fisher-King come forward, so that he may know the grave and serious task before him, as guardian of the Grail! Let him who hath been chosen see the wedding of man and God!’
I was given the golden chalice whose beauty bears no description, whose virtue has no equal, from whose womb springs the living water, the myrrh, the hill of frankincense, the bed, the litter, the crown, the palm and apple tree, the flower of Sharon, the sapphire, the turquoise, the wall, tower and rampart. From it springs all joy, all sorrow, all love, all chastity, all virtues combined in one single unutterable, ineffable, unmentionable, impossible word. The fruits of the garden, the honeycomb and the milk of the valley. The marriage of fire and water, of good that becomes saintly through having known evil. Of past, of present, of future, in which all are but one instant, within one singular moment. The sighing of planets as they whisper their secrets to the stars whose own wisdom could never be exceeded. All this I felt as I held the grail, the holy of holies, but I did not drink from it. I was not yet purified.
I fell upon my face, thanked God and praised His holy name, but I was beckoned to rise by the boy who was no longer a boy, but a man, and yet not a man, but an angel, and yet not an angel.
He said, ‘Look! O, brother knight!’
. . . and I saw my life spread about me, like an immense spectacle of pictures. Before my eyes a world of visions appeared to pass at a considerable speed, so that I had to concentrate all my unworthy faculties, not to miss anything. It all appeared to me in a kind of backward motion. Firstly, my master, Eisik, the monastery, and then further and further, my father and mother, my earliest memories, and then I returned to the uterus sanctus; the dark womb, a germ, a speck, a root, a seed, the bud and the source of all . . . Ecce homo! I became the moon and all the planets, and the stars were my companions. I was at once inward, and outward. Diverse and singular. Had I not experienced this before?
Sound echoed now around me and I was caught in that which first moves and rules all nature in all natural things as the twelve Zodiacal gates opened up before, but I was barred from the higher worlds by the greater guardian who keeps the second portal.
‘Behold!’ He said, ‘I stand before the portal of the higher regions! Follow the white path! Follow thine destiny! With selfless devotion and sacrifice you must now break the seven seals.’
I broke the first seal and the word, like a sword came from my mouth like a creative fire.
I broke the second seal and I was the bull, the eagle, the lion and the lamb!
I broke the third seal and the trumpets sounded, and I was the thunder of the horses and the calls of their riders.
I broke the fourth seal and the blue blood mingled with the red in my veins, and I was crowned with the sun.
I broke the fifth seal, and I was the child born from out of the loins of a woman who had conquered the Moon, but I was about to be seized by the seven-headed dragon when I broke the sixth seal.
I was saved by Michael, who held the key to the vanquishing of evil and was able to fetter the dragon and throw him into the abyss.
When I broke the seventh seal, the heavens opened up in the great expanse and I saw it all. I saw a Gospel, written in the clouds. Each moment captured in the minutest detail passed now before my eyes! I cannot say how long I remained in contemplation of it, except that I was started by the young man’s voice, which spoke these words as if through thunder and lightning:
‘What you have seen written upon the tables of the law is a heavenly script. It is written in the ether and is not the same as that which is written from the oral tradition, nor is a likeness of it found as a Greek translation of Hebrew documents of antiquity. It is only found in the cloud libraries of God!
‘Who are you?’ I asked.
‘I am the incarnation of John the beloved of Christ Jesus. Before that I was Hiram Abiff, and before him Joshua. I have again been raised from the dead after three days and I too have seen it, all the wisdom of the world is contained in it in a Christened synthesis. Now my initiation is complete, never more will a man need to die before he can see into the Imago Mundi, for I have returned with the Gospel, the mystery of the Grail – the mystery of how through Christ’s sacrifice men will one day know how to transform evil to become gods…such is the mystery hidden in your grandmaster’s seal.’ He added.
But I was thinking other things! The mystery of the Grail was indeed the mystery of eternal life, but not of the body, it was the secret of the immortality of the spirit, an immortality gained through knowing the Gospel of Christ! This was the dying and becoming, the initiation from the lowest to the highest!