Course XXVI - Teaching 6: King Arthur, The Holy Grail, the Round Table and its Knights

In full Christian flourishing, the Esoteric Schools first were the heritage of Initiated Knights, and later, of Military Orders.
The Hellenic and Roman esotericism, which had watered abundantly the principles of Christendom through Neoplatonism, entirely disappeared.
When in 500, philosophical schools were prohibited by Justinian, the esoteric masters went to Persia and there prepared the seed that would become the Islamic religion and manifold esoteric schools as well.
But during the First Crusades, Christian Knights contacted again the Moslem Esoteric Schools.
These teachings were assimilated over all by Norman Knights, very religious men who joined a fervent Christian faith to doctrines of their Druid, Gallic and Iberian ancestors. As early as in 1100 they made flourish a Christian esoteric knighthood.
Legends about the errant Knight, Holy Grail, and Knights of the King Arthur’s Round Table come from those times.
These esoteric groups are not Christian as a whole but in essence, and live separately; later Military Orders and Esoteric Schools are formed.
When the Initiated Knights entered the brotherhood, they took solemn oath of fidelity until death, of opposition to any injustice and of perpetual defense of the poor, destitute and helpless.
This oath was the first public ceremony of the neophyte.
Promise is a divine gift and just the Gods can promise to men; but for a human being it is difficult to promise, because by nature the strongest will fails; so it was said: “You shall not swear”. But when a man swears, since oath is divine, implicitly he is obliged to transform his human nature into divine nature.
Since Divine Wisdom cannot be food for ordinary men, the secret became indispensable to impede that unskilled hands could lift the Divine Veil.
The Bible says, “As soon as you see the face of God, you die”, because the study of the Eternal Wisdom entail to possess a proper spiritual development that a person must acquire, little by little, under the Initiates’ guide. Also, in the ceremony of oath, the neophyte sees the face of his companions for the first time, and the vision of the Face is symbol of that hidden wisdom, just revealed to some few. When the new adept swears, he enters the Great Spiritual Current –Spiritual, Mental and Psychical– produced by the Esoteric Order, and his violent expulsion from this Great Current where he voluntarily is would be harmful.
To get to this first step in the Ceremonial, the adept has forced the door of the sanctuary, because nothing can be achieved without efforts.
The assistant brings a horn with wine, which must be of a deer. This horn is symbol of the lower nature, while the wine is the creational power in its lower aspect.
Noah drinks the juice of grapes, falls sound asleep and his sons make fun of him. Man has to enter the innermost depths of the lower nature and of the subconscious to know those forces that move and lead all things.
The Initiate instructs the neophyte to extend his arm over the horn, and at a time he extends his own arm; the two right hands together, wounded by the sword, let drop their blood to mix with the wine. Blood is invaluable. All physical substances are in it, along with the entire power and the entire poison of life; it is the only substance in direct contact with the astral ether, in such a way that is coagulated as soon as the vital power stops animating it and, as it were, materializes. Blood is, then, symbol of the lower nature that, by self-sacrifice, blends with the lower nature to redeem and raise it toward its liberation. Properly, this is the redemption made by Christ who sheds his own blood on the Cross, repeated every day in the Chalice during the Mass.
But it is Will that can make this redemption driven by love. The strong will of the cold steel sword that has made the incision.
Later, alternately, Initiate and Neophyte sip the precious liquor. Mankind may return to its pristine spiritual glory by this indispensable fusion of higher parts with lower parts. Again the mystery of the Holy Eucharist finds here its explanation: the close union and inseparability of Spirit and Matter. The neophyte tied to the Order by his oath, at the same time ties the Order to him. Love and union match values and pairs of opposites, and efforts made by one are rewarded by the gift of the other. After the oath, the keeper of the keys comes and breaks the horn.
When the Initiated Knight gives the robe to members of the Order, he touches with his sword the right shoulder of men and the left shoulder of women, which symbolizes transmutation by purification, and gives them a rose. This open flower represents vortex of astral forces in active and developed state. Members wear white, orange and black robes. White robes were for Pages and Maidens, because they must be really pure and innocent to tread on the mud of the world. Orange robes for Squires and Young Ladies, symbolizing pride and glory of the Order. Black robes for Knights and Ladies, meaning they are dead to the world and just live in the Eternal.
Men, their robes up to their knees, wear them over their armors, for spirituality must not interrupt the action. Women wear robes up to their feet, which represent modesty and discretion.
All wear white robes of circular borders, since “circle” means “manifested God”.
Also they wear a circular hood, indicating Spiritual Power. In the beginning of the Christian Church, when it was purely spiritual, Popes wore white hood; but when they acquired material power, they substituted it for a crown of gold. In the antiquity, the crown was for kings like visible and material power, and the hood for High Priests, like invisible and spiritual power. On the left side of the robe, on the level of the heart, there was a red cross, meaning that the adept was able to control the lower elements.
During the ceremony, after the oath taken by the neophyte, the assistants raised the hood that covered his face, and this way they were visible before the new member.
Pages and Maidens, besides their hoods, wear a little circular cap whose color was the same of the robes, which represented submission.
Squires and Young Ladies bear a helmet with a golden butterfly in its center, which gets out of the cocoon, meaning the soul whose aspiration is the knowledge of everything.
Knights and Ladies also wear a helmet and, in the center of it, there is the head of a golden serpent of forked and protruded tongue, for the straight serpent is symbol of Supreme Wisdom, with a cross above.
Their clothes indicate intrinsic and personal powers of the adept, while their attributes manifested his active powers. There were four basic attributes: ring, sword, necklace and seal, related to the four basic powers of a human being, deposited in the physical body, in the solar plexus, in the splenic center, in the throat center and in the pineal gland, respectively.
Also, they made use of brown and white horses like their vehicles. In the evolution of lower beings, a horse reached the highest level of development and is a link of union between the animal kingdom and the human kingdom. It represented the instinctive nature, controlled and subjugated by the will of man. Lower nature should not be destroyed, but led and guided.
In the Order, a brown horse meant instinct controlled but sensible to lower attractions continuously dragging it toward the world. The Squire has controlled his passions, but continuously returned to men in order to help them. A white horse means instinct that has been entirely controlled. The Knight keeps this horse just for his personal use or for works that are seemingly Divine according to Humanity. Here we may cite the apparition of Saint James the Apostle in the battlefield to defend and lead to victory the hosts of Ramiro against the Moors of Secret and Initiatic Orders of those days: The warrior appeared in white rob at the combat with attributes of Knights of Secret and Initiatic Orders of the time, riding a white horse, and holding a shining armor, a flaming sword and a banner with a red cross. This Great Being, mistaken by the Spaniards for a saint man, was just an Initiated Knight who appeared riding his horse and well-equipped to lead them to victory, as if he were a demigod.
Ring, sword, necklace and seal are related to the four main Tarot’s figures. Ring is related to diamonds (gold, in Spanish cards), sword to swords, necklace to cups and seal to clubs.
Ring is related to solar plexus and means power to control, that is, self-control and control of elements, forces of nature and the rest of men that did not reach the same level of spiritual progress. The brilliant and gold represent the power of the sun and of its rays over the entire planet.
The sword is related to the splenic plexus and means force, and also fear that has been overcome; the individual being is finally liberated by his power that he uses like cold and sharp steel on his environment.
In Psalm 44, the Psalmist sings to the beauty of the King and does not forget to advice, “Gird thy sword upon thy thigh”, as if he explained that this force lies on the splenic plexus.
The round necklace, on which the name of every member of the Order is written, expresses the power of vibration, word and rhythm, and is related to the throat plexus that, properly developed, enables the student to perceive voices and astral sounds.
The seal, totally of gold, with the sign of Ank carved in it, represents the creational power, like fire, root point of the mind, the farthest reaches of the Spirit with the manifested substance.
These attributes do not belong to all members of the Order: the seal is only of the Great Master; and just the Initiate possesses the creational power, the transmutation power. The adept reached the Initiation alone, without any external help, like the image of God reflected in Himself.
The ring is of Knights and Ladies; its high magnetism indicates that these men and women have solved the internal problem of diversity. They know that just one force rules over human and universal destinies, and voluntarily lead this force to achieve their aspirations.
The sword was also of Squires and Young Ladies; they just passed forcefully from the world of the psyche to the world of the soul. Just a brave person can cross the circle of fear and possess the force that is latent in the sacrum plexus of every individual.
All members of the Order wear necklace, which symbolized psychic power within the reach of all those who are properly skilled and trained.
The necklace is related to cups, representing the female matrix and material aspect of things. The seal, with clubs, represents the male lingam and creational and spiritual aspect of things. The sword represents the union of spirit and matter, and the result of club and cup. The ring, with diamonds (gold), represents control of the mind and of manifested things.