Notes of

LECTURE ON “PARSIFAL”

as given by MBM, April 5, 1928

 

A dramatization of the processes that belong to the evolving human.  Therefore like a pattern which can be understood and followed.

The story is based on an old saga; we do not know its source, but it is before the Christian tradition.  We haw it in Welsh, Germanic and French forms.  Wagner not only took it over but synchronized it, probably mediumistically, with the Larger Laws.  It shows principles at work.   We must see them from the philosophical angle.

The drama represents the Descent of the Light Spark.  Titurel is the first stage.  He understands the power of the Talisman because he is still in the high state.

As he descends and his cycle is nearly over, the guardianship of the Cup is passed to his son, Amfortas.

Titurel, Amfortas and Parsifal are the three great stages, symbolizing stages of evolution of the Light Spark: Amfortas, the descent and incarceration in all that belongs to earth, and Parsifal the movement upward, when the release has begun to be gained.  All these processes work in earth and time and space.

Titurel grows old, and the next period begins – Amfortas.  But the essential life, which is spiritual, is hampered, is wounded, when there is the limitation in matter.  This is what is known philosophically as the Dismemberment Motive.  Amfortas represents the Light Spark held and wounded by the earth conditions, for a time.  The Magic Garden represents the temptations which draw the Light Spark down into Earth.

Kundry, a symbol of the Soul.  Like Eve.  The gamut is Eve to Mary.  A day represents a new rhythm.

Gurnemanz represents the values that have already been won by the Light Spark in its human evolution.  They are never lost.  He is there in the beginning and there also at the end.  That which has been won waits Mid serves the King.

The Forest represents difficulties, through which and by means of which, and through penetration of which alone, precious things are won.

Amfortas, via cleansing, tries to heal his pain.  Kundry brings a salve which she has gone to the end of the world to find.  This represents the efforts of the psychic nature to serve that which is the self, but which cannot serve it adequately in its initial stages.  (Kundry here is lowly, bedraggled, inarticulate.)

Klingsor is the material world and the magic that belongs to it.  The soul longs for that as well as for the good of Amfortas.

The Swan, a symbol of the Spiritual Nature, which is beyond the mental.  That which is to make the return possible, or to become the Parsifal, must learn what it is; must make mistakes by which it can learn.  At first it is the earthly Fool.  Another time it becomes the Heavenly Fool.  By its ignorance it shoots down the bird.  The guardians of the spiritual nature make clear to Parsifal his wrong-doing, but it is only the heart that is sorry.  There is always recapitulation, so that the final stage (Parsifal) which is to prove the way out for the Household of the Self makes the great mistake and slays the Swan.

Herzeleide’s death signifies the Dawn, in which we find Gurnemanz.

Kundry in the Second Act, as the voluptuous woman, does the service of the psychic to Parsifal.  The Hero is only he who conquers the Dragon.  Kundry is a dragon — the seductions of the world of man in earth – not only sex, not only lust, but all those things with which the psyche becomes involved.  The Flower Maidens are the leaser seductions.

Kundry’s first appeal is via Herzeleide (the unconscious, habit, inertia, sloth).  But the seductive power of the Old is almost overcome.  Then comes the memory of what Parsifal was sub-consciously, and as the touch comes, with it comes simultaneously the wounding.  The turn has begun, in consciousness.  Before that he merely felt.  Now he knows.

Klingsor represents the masculine aspect of the same thing as Kundry in the seductive role.  And he attempts to do with Parsifal the same thing he did with Amfortas.  He does not succeed because the turn has been made.

It is philosophically necessary that Klingsor hurls the spear.  (note horizontal position.)  The sign of the Cross made with the spear.  When Klingsor fails in his design upon Parsifal his power wanes.  The power of the desires in leash to earth is stopped. Fire-Air begins.

But Parsifal must still wander far, learning.  To understand is not to have accomplished.  It is only the first step to accomplishing.  To know is merely the challenge waiting, like the Sphinx.  Are you going to do or are you going to be content with an objective knowledge?  Parsifal is always seeking the return to Monsalvat (Mount of Salvation).

There is the return and the symbol of At-one-ment in Act III.  The process is nearing its end.  Kundry is now the Servant, serving Gurnemanz, till the time comes when she can serve Parsifal.  Kundry and Gurnemanz know Parsifal when he arrives before he announces himself.  So in the Household of the Self, when the spiritualized aspects take their place, the other aspects will know their leader and do him reverence.  Parsifal’s armour is now black because it represents the negation of earth-water.

The Spear is the power that emanates from Cosmic regions, energizing the evolution of man.

Parsifal must be cleansed of earth-water, and the servant aspects in the Household of the Self do that service for the Self.  It is more than a baptismal rite; it is a later stage.  The new armor is put upon him.

Parsifal’s kiss releases Kundry from the dominance of the lower desires.  The higher self, “He Who Is to Come”, releases the psyche from the desires of earth, by going through it, and is finally able to use the powers belonging to the Spiritual Worlds.

The Spear is that which alone can heal the Old Self.  Klingsor dies.  The Graal and the Spear together bring life.  The new glow in the Graal.

The Work of the Self is always done in a temple, hidden in a forest; but in a condition far beyond the conditions bound to the things of earth.  The final act of the consciousness of the human spirit is when in consciousness and developed powers it takes mastery of the Household of the Self — when a new well-being takes place.  The need of the Desire World is over.  From one angle this is Death and Resurrection, but a resurrection of the Consciousness of man from its domination by material things to its mastery of spiritual things.  Then, and only then, is it in service to the Temple.

 

 

Some words on the symbolism of the swan

by MBM

excerpt from her series of two lectures

on animal and garment symbolism

given April 28 and May 5, 1933

 

In the Norse tradition and in the Oriental tradition the swans play a great motif.  The great white bird that flies high, the swan has been for ages the symbol of supreme spirit ….sometimes supreme spirit in a group, sometimes collectively, sometimes individually.

We have it individually in the story of Parsifal killing the swan.  His stupidity, his ignorance, the world and life made for the killing of spirit.  It was not that Parsifal shot down the swan in the woods, etc.  That is the vestments.  The law itself means that, as we go through the thickets and forests of this lower life we have, all of us, shot down the swan, – killed it, and we are spewed forth from the holy places until, with much suffering, searching and labors we come to the place where we begin to understand.

Then we meet some of the tests, some of which are in Parsifal, release the soul, which must tempt man – Kundry — and go back and serve the great Pattern.  There is the story of the swan as the individual spirit.

In the Eastern tradition it is said that there were seven great swans.  Those seven great swans are the same as the seven of the candlestick which the Jew has in his home, – but localized, and forgetting its significance.  The seven stars that circle around the pole.  Or, when the Eastern tradition brings it down to earth: the seven leaders, the seven Manus, – those are the seven white swans.

In the sense of swan-ness, or spirit, one perhaps can get it best from Veda: the swans go on the path of the sun — go through the ether by means of their magical powers.  The ways are laid out of this world, when they have conquered Maya the sense world, including the psychic.  When you have passed over beyond that you are a swan, and you follow the path of the sun.  The powers of spirit are beyond the powers of earth, hence they are magical.

Another bit from the Rig Veda: “In the ether he is the swan of the sun.”  Sun represents spirit, – one who has conquered Maya, follows the path in the ether (not our physical ether) of the sun.

 

 

Parsifal

Single lecture from series

Wisdom Lore of Ancient Peoples

MBM   April 12, 1949

 

The story of Parsifal is based on mythical, pre-Christian legends.  These began to be written down in the eleventh century.  A stream from the North.  Debate as to where it was, but is of the bardic stream.  The King Arthur legends were built up on strata much later than the eleventh and twelfth centuries.

The story centers upon two sacred symbols: the Cup and the Sword.  This is an ever-recurring theme, more in the nature of folklore — the story of the Fool, the mystical Fool.  The story of one who was of a royal birth but was brought up apart from his heritage; knew nothing of the world and nothing of his parentage.  Makes a pilgrimage to the source of his father’s kingdom.  That story is found everywhere.

Parsifal is the typical Fool-hero.  There have been groups known as the Fools of God. Sometimes “Fools” at the court of kings took that role because they carried a secret teaching, and could best hide it in that disguise.

A (or the) mystical power in the living of Jesus is caught in that opera.  A sacrament; a transforming experience in your life.  Parsifal is, in a sense, the name of a third stage that pertains to all of us.  Parsifal’s is, in a sense, our story, – our own unspoken longing, throbbing realization that there are spiritual mysteries which our ordinary, mundane life does not admit.  Parsifal is the third in a series of what we might call stages of man: Titurel, Amfortas, and Parsifal.

Titurel built the temple for the Grail, but it was through spiritual food.  He knew it was necessary to eat spiritual food in order to live.  When you know that, you are a knight of the Holy Grail.  Titurel is the higher self.  He is succeeded by Amfortas, his son.

Amfortas is the royal line of Titurel.  But Amfortas has become, in the course of his ruling, vulnerable to the lure of earth.  The example of every man.  But not quite.  Because Amfortas began to suffer with the wound, since he succumbed when he should not have.  He had a sensitivity that burned in him with a pressing demand at cleansing.

Amfortas could not escape the karmic action of his defection.  The spear is the sword that wounded Jesus in the side, thrust by the Roman soldier.  That spear is the only spear which can heal Amfortas, because it was the spear which he betrayed, and which he, through his weakness — and your weakness — has gone into the hands of the enemy, Klingsor.  It may be a desertion of morals.  Klingsor is the epitome of that which draws men into the power of earth, as against the power of heaven.

The underlying theme is: that man is a son of God — a seed who has gone down to grow; and that his objective is to return.  Therefore, anything which keeps him in earth is counter to his role, and therefore, in the language of the Piscean Age, an evil.  The state of the world today.  Amfortas cannot be healed while the spear is in the hands of Klingsor.

Kundry is the symbol of the soul.  She has two aspects: the psyche and the mystical soul that turns up.  You must play the role of the psyche until a certain stage is reached.  As your souls are turned up there is a conflict within them.  Weaker . . . . that which would draw you up.

Monsalvat: the place where it is possible to rise to higher states.

Gurnemanz symbolizes the stability, loyalty, faith, which has a part in all of us.  Not strong, perhaps, but which is there, and must play its role.

The unawakened consciousness of Parsifal in the first act.  The swan, in the Norse tradition, is a symbol for the spiritual body.  It is a betrayal to try to bring that down to earth.

There had been a prophecy that a “fool” should come to heal Amfortas.  The Knights call upon Amfortas to unveil the Cup, for their spiritual food.  The agony of Amfortas.  There is an occult connection between him and that Cup.

Parsifal is Amfortas at a later stage.  Whether you have become Amfortas I do not know.  But when you become Amfortas you travail, and are on your way to the critical temptation which Klingsor prepares.

Klingsor must work through Kundry.  She must tempt Parsifal, as in the scene with the Flower Maidens — the lovely things of earth.  The soul in you does the same (through) money, power, pleasure, intellection, facts, possessions, (or position?).

Kundry makes the approach of his mother.  That was the one living force in the life of Parsifal that he remembers.  She tells him of his part, – of his father.  Then, suddenly, he remembers the wound.  The realization floods upon him.  He pushes Kundry away.  With the spear thrust by Klingsor, horizontally, he makes the sign of the cross, the sign of the Christ life.

The power of Klingsor has been overcome.  And always will be, by that sign; but not by that sign made ignorantly.  A vast power by those who know.  The power is in the spear which is in the hands of the one who is to be the Knight.  In the same way, you all must win a spear.

The third act.  Gurnemanz is now an old man; still faithful.  Kundry is waiting for the Christ.  In everyone.  Parsifal sprays the water on her head; a mystical baptism.  She is now the soul turned upward, the servant of the higher, as the soul must ever be.  Because he resisted her as the woman of earth.

Gurnemanz, Parsifal, Kundry knew their roles, out of rightness with the Pattern.  Parsifal touches the wound with his spear.  Parsifal replaces Amfortas.

(A final word by MBM to her students planning to attend the opera.)  It needs a sensitized heart and soul and higher mind.  Go to it as to a sacrament.  Treat it as a ritual.  It points to some of the agony and the ecstasy which the mystic knows.

 

 

Condensed Story from the Libretto of the Opera Parsifal

 

In the first scene we are in the wild region on the borders of Monsalvat.  There in the heart of a dense forest is the temple raised by the piety of Titurel in honor of the Holy Grail, the wondrous cup from which according to the Arthurian legends, the Savior drank at the last supper.  The angels are supposed to have given the cup into the keeping of Titurel after he had fought with Klingsor, the great enemy of the Good.

With a company of true knights, Titurel has guarded the Grail, and then as he has grown old has entrusted it into the keeping of his son, Amphortas.

But Amphortas has been lured into the enchanted gardens of his foe, Klingsor.  Lured by the beautiful flower maidens many of the knights have fallen from grace and become the slaves of Klingsor.

Amphortas himself, though armed with the blessed spear, which had been thrust into Christ’s body has succumbed to the allurements of Kundry, a strange creature, half witch, half penitent.  Having yielded to his passion, has lost his power, and been wounded by Klingsor with the blessed spear, who now holds it.  Now the wound remains open and uncured.  It cannot close until a Saver comes and with the point of the same lance makes it well again.  The Saver will come in the guise of a Guileless fool, a being pure and ignorant of evil.

Now we see Gurnemanz, one of the knights waking two of the Grail warders.  Amphortas is expected on his way to the daily bath where he vainly seeks relief from the agony caused by his wound.

Kundry comes, galloping madly through the air.  She brings balsam for Amphortas.  For in her remorseful moods she acts as servant for the knights.  Amphortas takes it though he hopes for nothing until “the Fool” who, “by pity ‘lightened” shall heal him.

Gurnemanz relates how the Grail and the Spear has then come into the possession of Amforta’s father Titurel.

At this moment Parsifal appears, preceded by a Swan.which he has shot while hunting.  He is an untutored youth, and his mother Herzeleide has brought him up ignorant of his high birth (his father was King Gamuret) and sent him to wander in the deserts.

Gurnemanz rebukes him for killing the swan, but he answers: “I knew not that it was wrong.”  A suspicion enters the mind of Gurnemanz that he may be the Guileless Fool.  He invites the youth to accompany him to the temple of the Grail, where the knights are to hold one of their Love-Feasts.

Parsifal and his guide walk through the wild woods until they reach the door of the temple.  They see the knights enter and take their places before a long table on which cups are placed.  Amphortas is borne in on a litter preceded by youths carrying a veiled shrine.  Titorel, now aged asks Amphortas to order the unveiling of the Holy Grail, but Amphortas declines, feeling unworthy.  The choir boys sing       By pity ‘lightened

       The  guileless Fool –

     Wait for him,

       My chosen tool.

     And Amphortas obeys.  The holy cup is uncovered, and the light fades.  A shaft of light causes the cup to glow.  The Knights who have knelt before it drink from their goblets wine, and partake of the bread.  But Amphortas does not join in the Love-Feast.  Nor does Parsifal though he is invited to do so.  Through all that happens he stands motionless, once only for a moment pressing his hand to his heart as Amphortas groans in agony.  The grail is reverently borne out.  Amphortas and the knights withdraw, and Gurnemanz remains alone with Parsifal.  He asks him “Why standest thou there?  Wist thou what thou sawest?”  But Parsifal doesn’t answer, and Gurnemanz says “Thou art, then, nothing but a Fool” and thrusts him out bidding him to leave their swans for the future alone.”

Act II

It opens in the Keep of Klingsor’s castle.  Klingsor who is a magician knows that Parsifal is a menace to his power.  Warned of his approach he wakes Kundry and summons her from the depths to do his bidding.  Half obedient, half rebellious, Kundry rises shrieking as though in pain.  Klingsor commands her to seduce Parsifal and to ruin him.  He describes the advance of the Fool who is already scattering the defenders of the castle with his sword (the sword of innocence).  Now we see an enchanted garden – the sirens rush in – Parsifal scales the wall and faces them and they are filled with delight.  Arrayed as flowers they woo him, invite him to ‘play with them’.  But he resists them, putting them gently aside.  But now Kundry, resplendent and transfigured, comes in.  She tells Parsifal about his history, his father, the King and his mother Herzeleide.  She appeals to him in the name of his mother and embraces him.  Now Parsifal at last knows passion.  It runs through his veins like a flame, and at the same time like a miracle he knows what Amphortas has suffered.  The wound seems to have opened his own breast and in anguish he cries: “I saw thy wound a-bleeding.  It bleeds now in myself”.

He prays to God and doesn’t yield to Kundry.  He begs her to repent and lead him back to Amphortas whom he now wants to heal.

Kundry calls to Klingsor who comes brandishing the Spear which he hurls at Parsifal.  Another miracle; the Spear halts in mid-air.  The Fool grasps it and the weapon makes the sign of the cross.  Instantly Klingsor is annihilated.  His castle crumbles into dust.  The flowers wither.  Kundry falls senseless.

Act III

The healing and redemption of Amphortas.

Now again on Montsalvat.  Years have passed.  Through all this time Parsifal has wandered through the world, guarding, but never wielding the ‘most holy spear’.

It is Good Friday.  Gurnemanz appears and finds Kundry lying seemingly lifeless.  On being aroused she murmurs: “Service, Service.”  For through the downfall of Klingsor and the example of Parsifal she has been touched with grace and while she awaits her release from sin and pain she has reconsecrated herself to the service of the Grail Knights.

Gurnemanz now beholds a Knight in black Armor carrying a long spear.  The knight makes no answer when he tells him that he is in a holy place and no man with weapons enters there and asks him if he knows what holy day this is.

Then the black knight kneels in prayer and Gurnemanz knows him to be the Fool.  With joy he recognizes the holy spear and then Parsifal tells him of his adventures and wanderings.  Gurnemanz welcomes him as the messenger who is to heal Amphortas and restore the blessings of the Holy Grail to the knights.

Old Titurel has just perished for want of it.

Parsifal reproaches himself for the blindness which has kept him wandering so long.  Then Kundry with deep humility helps Gurnemanz to relieve him of his armor, and brings water wherewith she washes his feet.  Then Gurnemanz anoints his head.  Parsifal baptizes Kundry, exhorting her to trust in the Savior.  Parsifal sings praises of the landscape and Gurnemanz says it is Good Friday’s Spell, my Lord.

Bells are heard in the distance, calling the Knights of the Grail to the Temple.  Kundryand Gurnemanz array Parsifal in the mail and mantle of the Grail Knights and ask him to follow them.  They move to the interior of the Temple, this time no table is set, the Knights wear mourning garb.  The body of old Titurel is carried in.  Amphortas comes preceded by the veiled shrine.  The knights sing in honor of the Cup and in remembrance of Titurel.  Amphortas bewails the unworthiness which have forced him to deny the blessings of the Grail to his Sire.  He prays to be released.  The Knights cry to him to perform the office through which the Grail would be revealed to them, but in an agony of pain Amphortas refuses, and begs them to slay him.

Parsifal has entered unperceived with Kundry and Gurnemanz.  He advances with the blessed Spear and quietly touches the gaping wound of Amphortas.  “Be whole, unsullied, and absolved.  For I now govern in thy place.”

The face of Amphortas lights up with rapture.  Parsifal who is now King, commands the Grail bearers to unveil the shrine.  All kneel in adoration as the cup glows red.  Titurel rises from his bier as Parsifal takes the grail and waves it gently too and fro.  From the dome a white dove descends hovering over the King’s head.  The voices of the boy singers are heard proclaiming the consummation of the mission entrusted to Parsifal.

 

 

PARSIFAL

 

Parsifal is a great drama of the Christian Mysteries.  The spontaneous turning to its message at the time of Easter is testimony to the stirring of the deeps in those who feel or know its spiritual drama.

The victory of Spirit.  The archetype of Christ – an intermediate for us.  Monsalvat – the way of the ascent, of finding salvation.  Temple – center – nucleus of the nucleolus of the mountain.  Temple of the Graal, the sacred talisman of Christ.  In Parsifal we touch a mystery of the great Christian drama.  Knights – guard the Graal.

Titurel – story of the Great Self, the spiritual Self – cannot function on earth – is succeeded by son, Amfortas.

Graal – refreshes and strengthens the Knights.

Amfortas – the story of the human self – not yet strong or wise – nor with insight – succumbs to the temptation of thinking that the treasures of Earth are greater than those of Heaven.

Kundry – story of the soul – the soul of each one of us is dependent upon the mind of us.  Until mind is strong enough to know and maintain the way of cognition of the Graal, Kundry must go the way of earth and the drama is worked through to the bitter core – the allurements of earth.  The Amfortas in you may not have suffered sufficient pain yet.

Amfortas and Kundry both suffered the pain of the open wound.  Wound – the conscious anguish of the choice of earth.  Kundry, as against the guardianship of the Graal, thus the wound that won’t heal.

Gurnamanz – the old knight – faithful – gathering the young lads who will grow up to become knights.

Swan – the ancient Norse symbol of spirit.

Titurel – Amfortas – Parsifal – three stages of one being

Kundry – the soul in every man waiting for the coming hero-man to release her.  Not the end, only a stage between man and spirit.  Kundry is to find the salve to heal Amfortas.

Insistence of the knights that they shall have the Graal.  “Have you ever seen the Graal unveiled?  Do you know what you have seen?”  Gurnamanz to Parsifal.  “No”, answers Parsifal.  Gurnamanz thrusts Parsifal out.  We thrust ourselves out because being so little in ourselves.

Klingsor – the worldly wise who has blinded your eyesight.  The soul in earth is not the soul in its native sphere.  It is the intermediate between earth and heaven – between body and Nous.  Kundry reluctant to obey Klingsor but must.

Herzelelde – the mother of Parsifal who brought him up to have no knowledge of weapons except his bow and arrow.

Flower maidens – the pleasures of earth – as against the Way of real delight, power, knowledge.

Role of Kundry – to tempt Parsifal.  She speaks to him of Herzelelde, the only vulnerable area – tells him how his mother died.  Kundry must battle for Klingsor – why?

Mother – that which is dear to us – the old, the treasure, old sorrows, bitter, sweet pains that are past and which we rehearse and relive, and in which we spend so much time, making it better and worse than it was.  We seek the pseudo-comfort of the mother because we won’t venture out into the unknown.  We hover with Kundry on the edge of the abyss.

Parsifal – Die Wunde!  The climax – the crisis,  the great riddle of the struggle with earth, for the sake of heaven.  The usual sense that earth must be given up – the either, or.  Analogy – root, plant – leaving earth behind.  Parsifal denies the rule of Kundry – 1st desperate cry of Kundry because she is falling.

Klingsor comes with the spear taken from Amfortas.

Spear – symbol of battle, the victory sign, will in operation.  The sword and the cup – not of earth but of spirit (Nous)

Parsifal calls on the Light – there his allegiance is given.  The sword will come back to him who will make his allegiance to the Light.  Then one increases rapidly.  When we make decisions swiftly, we know things we would otherwise not know.

Kundry falls, fades out of the picture.  The soul in the self wants its freedom.  True movement is upward – false movement is downward.  She may now rest – her end accomplished.

Monsalvat – condition – certain steps must be taken in ourselves – cannot come in fullness to the place we have seen in ignorance.

Gurnamanz – continually waiting and hoping for the becoming of the hero in you.

Drama of the Evolving self – alignment and interplay of factors

Kundry awakened – asks to serve.  Service on the part of the soul.  When the growing self reaches this stage, it sees through the temptations of Earth, wanting to be done with them.

It is false to the process of growth that Earth should dominate.  One must determine it, carry through its role.

Gurnamanz approaches the knight – reproves him.  Then recognizes the spear – knows the long-awaited hour has come.  How good when the loyalty has held and something comes through.

The beautiful pattern of preparing Parsifal for the great act he is to accomplish.

Kundry – ceremonial bath – washes his feet – as disciples did.

Parsifal anointed with oil for his kingly role – he  sprinkles the head of Kundry – releasing the soul from its lower function.

Destiny of the soul – to be absorbed into spirit.

The ministry of the soul is accomplished.

Good Friday.

Walpurgis night – north German

St. Walpurgis Day is the first of May – night – night before that day the devils and witches are then particularly active and festive

Tammuz was killed while hunting wild boar

annual festival of mourning for death of young god

Myth of 7 associated with Ishtar who slew him after he had become her husband and for whose sake she descended into Hades

Ishtar – Queen of Heaven – two sides – mother of mankind – full of pity

Tammuz for whom she afterward made her descent into Hades to seek the water of life

To reach the throne of Allatu she has to pass through 7 barriers at each – a portion of her raiment is taken

Pandora was sent by Jupiter to bless man, furnished with her box containing her marriage presents into which every god had put some blessing.  She opened the box incautiously and blessings all escaped – except hope

Parsifal   many forms of legend

precious cup used for wine at last supper

used to save the Saviors blood at the cross, and afterward

cherished as the Holy Grail

taken by Joseph of Arimithea to Gaul, then to Spain, to

a Spanish sanctuary in the mountains – called Monsalvat

cherished and guarded by the knights of the Holy Grail

Isis Latter part of story

Isis sought shelter in the swamps and gave birth to son, Horus

When she found Osiris she gathered up the fragments, burying each where she found them.

With the help of Anubis, Thoth, Horus she put the body together. A great miracle of resuscitation

By the fanning of her wings and the utterance of magic words, she brought the dead king to life again

He rose from the dead and became the king of the underworld

 

 

PARSIFAL

Lecture By M.B.Mayer

 

There are three levels on which this old story may be interpreted.  We may see the story simply and directly as it is apparent – I emphasize the word apparent – in the libretto of Wagner, of a knight who made the quest and re-established the beneficent conditions on the holy Monsalvat.  That is the simplest way.

Again there is a possibility – and it is just as right as the first – to see the story as belonging to humanity that is making its way from flesh to spirit.

Thirdly it may be  seen as the story of each individual soul making its way from lower stages to higher ones, and it is this latter that I will tell you of, because having that, you can then expand it to the other two levels.

We should see first the three great stages which are marked in the leading characters of the drama – Titurel, Amfortas and Parsifal.  These three mark great stages of the steps in man’s evolution and involution.  Titurel then is the symbol of Spirit, the source from which you came.  Amfortas represents the stage when the soul is immersed in flesh and becomes caught in the expressions of the flesh.  Third, we have Parsifal, that stage when the waking soul has conquered and been able to resist the lure of the things of the flesh, and freeing himself from them enters upon a higher stage.

Now all three of these steps, significantly enough, are dramatized in the three acts of Parsifal.  Titurel, the first stage, when man (you and every soul) has not yet become involved in the things of earth.  Amfortas the son, the long stage between Titurel and Parsifal.  He is not the direct son of Titurel, for the three stages given here are cross sections out of a great number of stages, with enormous gaps.

There is another figure who must be considered if we are to appreciate the significance of the story.  Kundry is that which in the Hebraic tradition is called the “mother of all living.”  She is desire.  Desire moves proverbially in two directions, down and up.  But in the analogy I so like to use because it is simple and graphic, it is like the seed which must strike its roots down, but only to come up again.  So Kundry is the dual aspect of the soul, the desires of you and me which have gone down, struck root in the earth, and yet even then hears the voice of something else, is somehow deeply moved by the Good Friday music, by the magic spell.  That is the Kundry that would go up.  But nothing can go up until it has first gone down and Kundry and Amfortas and Klingsor and Parsifal are the logical series of experiences that belong to us all.

The wonder of this drama is that it strikes so deeply into our own experience, that it goes so literally into the expression of what we have known even if we have not always been willing to acknowledge it.

Now the flower garden in the drama is no literal garden of flowers.  It represents all the allurements, the things that hold us to material matters, that give us pleasure, that make us sense bound.  And in the early stages of the soul, the Amfortas stage, we succumb as Amfortas did, to the things of the earth.  The things of the earth have indeed their place, but we are like the seed that goes down only to come up.  So Amfortas in this glorious story dramatizes that stage when we have not successfully negated the dominance of the material world, but are as it were almost at the point of being able to do so.  Kundry is desire, the passion for possessing and enjoying things of earth.

The Holy Graal is the symbol, not only in the Christian tradition, for it was found in all the races, long before the Christians came into the picture, of the magic cup – magic in the sense of beneficence, which releases man from the hold of the lower world.  In the hands of Parsifal that cup shone forth so wonderfully, again in the drama of Jesus the Christ.  Now it has become in token of his …… the symbol of a glowing cup from which He drank the last supper, when He successfully negated the things of the physical world.  With the spear which pierced his side we have two symbols, the eternal symbols of Spirit and Soul, of masculine and feminine, not sex, those talismans the evolving soul must possess.

Here we have the setting on a high plane, this high Monsalvat, the mountain of salvation, that high stage when the soul for a moment has succeeded in freeing itself from the hold of lower things.  It is the condition in our lives when we see clearly; when somehow the things that have cluttered our eyes fall away and we are in another state of understanding, of insight.  We have all been on Monsalvat.  But there are many beautiful little overplays.  In the first act, the most extraordinary one, is Parsifal’s slaying of the swan.  The swan is in many ways similar to the motive of Titurel, the high state from which we descended to come into the earth.  To come into earth is to kill the swan.  Everyone has slain his swan.  Everyone is on the way to awakening his swan, because like the seed that goes down into the dark and ignorance, to succeed again by courage and knowledge, we make our way up from the earth.

Parsifal in the first act is a fool.  In the last act he is a fool.  And between these two is the gamut of the soul’s evolution.  This is a habit from an old mystery cult, to use the same word to convey opposite ideas.  The first fool is the one who does not understand, he is ignorant of what is done.  He sees no wrong in killing the swan.  Therefore he knows not evil and there is hope for him.  I wonder how many who have read the libretto of Parsifal have thought of that.  We are so laden with

 

 

L. Arluck’s Notes on Parsifal

MBM   April 4, 1950

 

AMFORTAS – Name of those aspects in the self which should be kingly and which have become involved in the third dimension.

KUNDRY – KLINGSOR – animal soul

SPEAR   – Outgoing force – becomes perpendicular

SWAN – Symbol of white body, spiritual body, which flies high, – related to chalice itself, not the content.

FOOL – Keyword for states of disassociation from things of earth – state of unknowing – early and purified fool

TITUREL – Memory of divine relationship of the past.

PARSIFAL – At the last is the state of accomplishment which alone can heal anguish of earlier seed when it realizes how it has betrayed its responsibility.

CUP – The chalice and the swan are the form side of the spiritual life, the first area of cosmic geography.  Inside the chalice the wine or rejuvenated blood of the lower self is transmuted to life which can live on the spiritual plane – the Quest of every self – conscious soul.