The Symbolism of the Holy Grail

 

 

Sea-horses glistening in the summer
As far as Bran could stretch his glance.
Rivers pour forth their streams of honey,
In the land of Manannan MacLír.

The Voyage of Bran

 

“One day I am sweet, another day I am sour”, said the clown.

Words spoken by Manannan Mac Lír

Introduction

In the present chapter, we present some aspects of the Grail symbolism in its more esoteric aspects. Among these, we include its connection with the Sacred Heart and with the Vadavamukha, the Fire of Doomsday. We do not cover the more standard aspects of the cycle, except insofar as those details, pertain to the specific aspects of the myth being discussed. The reader interested in the more commonplace aspects of the myth can readily find them in the many sources available.

Our objective here is one of elucidating the true purpose and meaning of the Holy Grail symbolism, rather than exploring its more arcane aspects or even establishing its close connections with Hinduism and Buddhism, as well as other such mystic doctrines from the Orient, where the myth actually originated, in the dawn of time.

One should always keep in mind that sacred symbols work at several levels. So, the Holy Grail can simultaneously be the humble chalice where the Holy Mass is daily celebrated; the Holy Grail proper which the Arthurian knights and other heroes so ardently quested; the Sacred Heart of Jesus and /or Mary; the Vessel of Soma of the Rigvedic traditions, or the giant crater or caldera of the supervolcano which perpetrates the carnage of Doomsday. This fire the Veda names Abhvan (“Fiery Abyss”) and the Hindus call Vadavamukha, the Fiery Submarine Mare.

At a more spiritual level, the Holy Grail can refer to Atlantis itself as the Soul of the World; to the heart of the faithful which is also the abode of Brahma or Purusha, the Primordial Christ; to the Cosmic Yoni or Mandorla or Lotus whence Creation issues; to the Eucharist as symbolized by the Blood and Water which issued from the dead body of Christ, or a myriad such symbols. Hence, no single aspect of the symbolism really explains it, and all its aspects are complementary to each other.

It may come as a disillusionment to our more sanguine, younger, adventurous readers – who are ready and willing to embark on the quest of the Holy Grail – to find out that the Holy Grail is merely a symbol for something else, and no more. But, as we just said, this symbol is really the essence or image of Atlantis. And Atlantis is really the Soul of the World, the Heart, the Source of all things both profane and sacred, the Holy Grail included.

However, Atlantis – or really, the Garden of Eden, as it is known to the Jews, the Muslims and the Christians – is no lesser a prize than say, the Holy Grail itself and the Holy Blood it contains. This blood is the Elixir of Life and is hence even more important than the container itself.

Atlantis is truly the site of Paradise Lost. As such Atlantis is the site both of Hades, the Underground Paradise, and of Heaven, the Celestial Paradise. Find Atlantis, and you will automatically find Paradise and the River of the Elixir, its main feature.

Rather than a purely spiritual concept, the Terrestrial Paradise is a reality that can be quested, found, visited, explored, and dug for antiquities, and even for treasures and archaeological artifacts, if this is all one is really looking for. Find Atlantis – and the clues left us by Plato and other ancient authorities are many, once properly interpreted – and you will automatically find the site where Civilization first flourished and developed to a very high level during the last Ice Age, the one which ended some 11,600 years ago, along with the Pleistocene Age.

But do not forget to take into account that the Terrestrial Paradise was utterly destroyed by Fire and Water (the Flood) so that what was left as a visible reality is now far more hellish than truly paradisial. Most of the Atlantis sunk away under the seas, and disappeared from sight, taking under the enormous wealth in gold and gemstones of which the ancient legends so cogently speak.

In other words, be prepared to find the Tophet rather than a quiet Heaven where the angels and the heroes sing and pray in perpetual bliss or even a Hell populated by somber angels and the souls of the dead. These are the purely spiritual dimensions of Paradise and hence only exist – or co-exist, rather – in other, parallel dimensions which are only accessible to the eye of the mind, the third eye. What you can see is the terrestrial realm, the remainder of the once glorious site.

In other words, be prepared to do what King Arthur and his braves did, and visit the site of Hades itself if you really want to find the real Holy Grail that is kept there, rather than the shabby replicas which have been produced in the course of the past centuries.

To really find Atlantis – and its many treasures both spiritual and material – will take all the resources of modern technology: outer space satellites capable of scanning the seafloor; ROVs; Side-scan Sonars; Deep-Diving Subs; Oceanographic Ships; Diving Bells; Scuba Divers, and so on. And, of course, it will also take a lot of faith and trust, and know-how. Besides, it will also take all the moral courage and the wisdom of the many heroes and noble knights whose deeds we read about in the ancient mythologies of all peoples on earth, Don Quixote included.

I – The Preiddeu Annwn

One of the first known documents to recount what is indubitably an early, pre-Christian version of the quest for the Holy Grail is the Gaulish poem entitled Preiddeu Annwn (“The Spoils of Annwn”). See a different, clearer translation here. This poem is attributed to Taliesin, the semi-mythical Celtic bard and hero said to have lived during the VIth. century AD. But the earliest extant manuscript of this poem only dates from about four centuries later. However, these traditions are known to date from time immemorial, and to be an integral part of the far earlier folkloric traditions of the early Celts.

It is true that the magic cauldron whose contents are able to resurrect the dead are often mentioned in far earlier Celtic traditions such as the ones of the Mabinogion. And it is also clear that these magic cauldrons are visibly an ancestral form of the Holy Grail itself. Except that their connection with the Christian legend is rather unclear and indirect, and hence hard to prove.

However, the account of the Preiddeu Annwn is directly associated with the quest for the Holy Grail undertaken by King Arthur and his braves, in a most unequivocal way. We are also reminded of the fact that Arthur’s shield, Prydwen, was also his magic ship. In it, they embarked to Annwn, the Celtic Netherworld, their version of Paradise Lost. ^[1]

Their objective was to find a magic cauldron (the Holy Grail?), which was kept by nine maidens. But they fail in their quest, and most of them die in this distant land of obscure perils. Only seven survive and manage to return, King Arthur among them.

Such magic cauldrons were a feature of ancient Celtic beliefs. A magnificent specimen was discovered in Gundestrup, Denmark, and is accordingly called Gundestrup Cauldron. This quaint object has images of a horned god sitting in a yoga posture (padmasana), whose figure closely corresponds to the so-called proto-Shiva of the fabulous Indus Valley Civilization. We comment on this issue in detail elsewhere. So, we limit ourselves to directing the dear reader to this site here.

A Greco-Roman author, Pomponius Mela, also refers to the existence of a sorority of nine virgin priestesses on the Isle of Sein, in the region which now corresponds to England. These priestesses were oracular, and allegedly also controlled the weather, being able to invoke rain. They could change into animals and were highly feared and respected by the Celtic people.

This corpus of nine priestesses is again referred to in the Life of Merlin, a poem of the XII century, due to Geoffrey of Monmouth. They are said to reside in Avalon and are led by Morgan le Fay. This fact apparently establishes the identity of Avalon with Annwn, the netherworld.

Very probably the two places, one paradisial, the other one infernal, are two different sections of Paradise Lost, one reserved for the blessed, the other one for the damned. We also see here a close parallel with the Garden of the Hesperides and the Islands of the Blest of Greco-Roman traditions. Both places housed the Tree of Life and the Golden Apples from which the Elixir was fashioned.

The Hesperides are also the same as the Atlantides, the daughters of Atlas. They were charged with keeping access to the Golden Apples, much as their Arthurian counterparts. The Hesperides or Atlantides are usually seven. But their number varies and ranges from three or four up to seven and perhaps even more. In Greece, the number nine is associated with the Muses, perhaps the aliases and counterparts of the Hesperides themselves.

The Hesperides or Atlantides are also the personifications (or guardian sprites) of the Islands of the Blest, the remainders of sunken Atlantis. When the Lost Continent sunk away under the waters, it left behind its highlands and mountains, which became the Islands of the Blest.

The seven or nine nymphs are the lokapalas (Skt: “guardian spirits”) of these islands. Perhaps the number nine corresponds to the ten realms of Atlantis, with the tenth guardian sprite corresponding to Atlas himself. This type of animistic belief is typically Hindu (Dravida) in origin. But it also passed into Celtic traditions and was in fact quite widespread in antiquity.

The Land of the Dead

The Irish Land of the Dead closely corresponds to the Greco-Roman conception of the Isles of the Blest in essentially every details. Rather than really a hell, the Celtic otherworld in fact had two sections. One was blissful and reserved for the heroes fallen in battle and other such virtuous or heroic people. The other section was terrible and was reserved for the impious kings and villains of all sorts.

But this punishment or prize was temporary in character, and only lasted for the intervals between successive reincarnations. It seems that the commoners did not survive death, even though the concept was later changed to encompass all persons, nobles, and commoners alike.

This type of temporary Otherworld directly derives from Hindu mythology and religion. In Hinduism, Patala, their netherworld, is ruled by Yama, the King of Justice. Yama judges the souls of the dead, decreeting their recompense according to their deeds here on earth. Yama’s figure corresponds to the one of Osiris in Egyptian religion and to Sarpedon, Rhadamantus and Minos, who passed judgment on the dead in Greco-Roman traditions.

In these traditions, the felicitous section of the Otherworld was also called Elysium or Elysian Fields. This name embodies an idea not exactly of “island”, but of a marshy coastal region, apparently sunken down under the seas when they rose, at the end of the last Ice Age. Hence its connection with marshes such as the Tritonian Marshes and the Maeotian Marshes, as well as with the “Field of Reeds” (Sekhet Aaru) of Egyptian traditions.

In Hindu traditions, this sunken Paradise – which later turned into Hades – was named Patala or Atala, a name which means “no-land” or “no-bottom”, and which closely corresponds to the Celtic one of Annwn, which, as we just saw, is derived from an-dwfyn, “un-world” or “very-deep”. As we discussed further above, this word is apparently related to the Skt. dvipa, meaning “island” or “continent” and, even more exactly, a sunken coastal land like the one of Patala or Atala.

We note that Annwn is not equivalent to the purely spiritual Hell of Judeo-Christian traditions. It can actually be visited by living persons, even though it coexists with the world of the dead. As such, Annwn is the Celtic counterpart of the island of Taprobane of Hindu traditions, of which the same thing was said in antiquity. The myth of Taprobane somehow passed to Classical antiquity as one of the Isles of the Blest, and existed, in one form or another in the whole Mediterranean region.

Annwn was also often identified as Avalon, another name for the Celtic otherworld. And it was also named Flath Innis (“Island of the Heroes”), the Celtic counterpart of the Island of the Blest. In our opinion, both the Judeo-Christian Hell and Paradise are somewhat disfigured versions of the Pagan traditions which, on being transferred to the purely spiritual realm, were robbed of any reality whatsoever, losing all the contact with reality that the concept formerly enjoyed.

Some obscure Hindu traditions of great antiquity which we discuss in detail elsewhere place Patala or Atala – the visible counterpart of Atlantis – in the region of Lanka or Taprobane. And true Lanka and true Taprobane (Tamraparni) was located not in Sri Lanka, but in Java and Sumatra, in Indonesia. This is also the region of the Malay Peninsula and of Singapore, the “City of the Lions”, a name that often occurs in Celtic traditions relating to Paradise Lost.

The Connection with Taprobane

As we just said, the myth of Taprobane (Tamraparna)as the mysterious Land of the Dead somehow passed from India to Greece and Rome in the dawn of time And, as we just saw, the concept also passed into Celtic mythology, perhaps via the same esoteric channels connected with bardic traditions of most extreme antiquity. This transference certainly occurred before the times of Hesiod and Homer (circa 1,000 BC or earlier), who are quite familiar with all its details.

In the Mediterranean region, the Isles of the Blest soon became identified to the mysterious “Atlantic Islands”, known to lie far off towards the west, beyond the Atlantic Ocean proper. These “Atlantic Islands” actually owe their name not from their being located in the Atlantic Ocean, but from their direct connection with sunken Atlantis itself, of which they were said to be the physical remainders that remained above the water line.

In reality, it is this ocean that owes its name to these islands, rather than vice-versa. These “Atlantic Islands” were eagerly sought everywhere in the Outer Ocean by all the ancient explorers since the dawn of time in both the east and the west. The Celts were no exception to the rule, and legends such as the ones of the raid of Annwn or even the later ones on mythical explorers such as St. Brendan perhaps echo these ancient exploits. And so do the Celtic legends on the quest for the Holy Grail, which is in fact a mere alias of Paradise Lost itself.

Like the Atlantides or Pleiades – the seven “daughters of Atlas” and of Pleione (the Flood) – these islands were seven and included mythical islands such as Ys Brazil, Canaria, Capraria, Cassiteride, Argyre, Chryse, Man Satanaxio, Salvaggia, Gadeira, Tyle, etc.. Every island or land found in that ocean was hopefully baptized with these traditional names by their eager discoverers. ^[2]

By “daughter” the ancients understood the new avatar of the Lost Continent, of which they were the visible residues, the mountain tops of Atlantis left over when the lowlands sunk away under the ocean when sea level climbed by 130 meters or more at the end of the last Ice Age. Only the mountaintops of Atlantis remained emerse, becoming the myriad islands of Indonesia. The seven largest ones: Java, Sumatra, Borneo, Celebes, Philippines, New Guinea and Malaya (near island or peninsula) are actually the ones that people equated with the Seven Isles of the Blest.

The myth of the Seven Isles of the Blest is also closely connected with the one of St. Brendan, the Irish saint who allegedly discovered and settled them in the Middle Ages. We will return to this important legend later in the present book. Suffice it to say here that this myth is also connected to the Portuguese traditions on the Septe Cidades (“Seven Cities”) also allegedly discovered by the archbishop of Oporto, the Spanish and Portuguese counterpart of St. Brendan.

The transference of the myth of the Seven Islands of the Blest from the East Indies to the Atlantic Ocean can be explained in the most logical way when the ancient traditions on them are closely scrutinized. The ancients generally ignored the existence of the interposed Americas. They hence believed – much as Christopher himself did – that the Atlantic Ocean extended all the way to the East Indies, being coterminous with the Pacific Ocean.

The Western Paradise

In other words, the ancients generally believed that, by sailing west long enough, one would eventually reach the East Indies. This is how Columbus reasoned when he proposed to reach these lands which all well knew to be located in the Far East. And he would have succeeded, were it not for the existence of the interposed Americas.

In other words, had Columbus minded and clearly understood the ancient Celtic traditions, he would have known that the East Indies could not be reached via the west, as he intended to do. Some experts in fact affirm that Columbus was in fact a Portuguese spy, hired in order to delay the Spaniards in the quest of the route to the East Indies. And this is indeed a possibility, since Christopher Columbus ended his days in prison, as the Spaniards suspected him of treason.

Columbus was not inventing anything new concerning the earth’s sphericity, which well-known since Classical antiquity. Columbus was in fact basing himself on reports of ancient geographers such as Claudius Ptolemy, Pierre d’Ailly, Marco Polo, Sir John Mandeville and Paolo Toscanelli, among several other ancient geographers. These experts all explicitly mention that, due to the earth being spherical, beyond the furthest west lies the furthest east, and vice-versa.

The knowledge of the sphericity of the earth dates from the remotest antiquity. In fact, this knowledge is so ancient that it can only have come from Atlantis itself, the only power advanced enough to sail and explore the whole earth and come to this realization so early in time. This fact is specifically affirmed by Plato in his dialogues in the most forceful way.

And it was also taught by Crates of Mallos, a geographer of Plato’s time who in fact built the first known globe of the earth. Crates, a great expert on Homer, placed the two Ethiopias of Homer one in the known world (Oikumene), the other in the southern continent (Terra Australis). This earth antipodal he dubbed Antoeci or Antichthon (“Counter-earth”).

But he placed both Ethiopias in the Far East. These white “Ethiopians”, generally blond and blue-eyed, as asserted by Pliny and Solinus, are in fact the Aryan Hindus, which the early Greeks knew as “Pious Ethiopians” or Eusebes (“Pious”).

As we just said, some of these Ethiopians (Hindus) were dark-skinned. But some were blond and blue-eyed, just like the Celts and the Vikings. Now, this Southern Ethiopia or Antichthon was in fact the Terra Australis Incognita which figured in the ancient maps, the one of Ptolemy included.

This mysterious land or continent – the earth’s fourth part (Terrae Quarta Pars) – was also called Taprobane by Pliny and Solinus (Hist. Nat. 6:81; Collect.53:1), who also mention these “blue-eyed, long-lived Ethiopians” in the passages just cited.

These ancient authors also explicitly affirm that Taprobane was the mysterious Otherworld and in fact the same as the Antichthon just mentioned. This Taprobane inhabited by blond people should not be confused with Sri Lanka, as is so often done by the less informed experts. It is located in the Southern Hemisphere and is separated from Asia (and India) by the ocean (Indian).

Its inhabitants are the Pious Ethiopians (or Long-lived Ethiopians or Eusebes) who used to converse and banquet with the gods, as reported by Homer among others. And their land lay so close to China (the Seres of Serica), that its coasts could be seen from Taprobane, according to Pliny and Solinus. All the ancients made of Taprobane a southern land or island, in contrast to puny Sri Lanka which really lies in the northern hemisphere, that is, on the wrong side of the world (see map here).

This Otherworld of continental proportions – variously called Antichthon, Terra Australis, Meridianus Continens, Antoecia, or Taprobane – was no fiction, as so often affirmed. It figured in many ancient maps down to the Age of Navigation, when it was found not to exist anymore. This continent is not also Australia or Antarctica either, but Atlantis itself. Small wonder then that the Dutch, who first explored this region of the world searching for it named the islands they found Zeeland (“Sea-Land”), the same meaning also attributed to its western aliases such as Ys and Vineta.

In one way or another, the ancient traditions on the sunken continent of Atlantis reached Alexandria and were used by librarians such as Ptolemy and Eratosthenes in order to create their world maps where the Sunken Continent figured explicitly. And it is precisely this mysterious land that Homer equates with Phaeacia and Pliny and Solinus with Taprobane, later confused with Sri Lanka.

 

Annwn, Avalon and Emain Abbalach

There is a somewhat distant isle,

Around which sea-horses glisten.

A fair course against the white surge.

Four pillars uphold it…

A beauty of a wondrous land,

Whose aspects are lovely,

Whose view is a fair country,

Incomparable is its haze and hue.

The Voyage of Bran Mac Febal

 

The Celtic Otherworld, Annwn, was said: “to lie so far to the west that not even Manawyddan ap Llyr [a sea god] could find it, for you could only reach Annwn by dying yourself”. Furthermore, Annwn was also separated from this world by some sort of an impassable barrier. We see in this Western Paradise a copy of the Western Paradise of Buddha Amitabha, adapted to Celtic traditions. And we believe that this impassable barrier in the west was the Americas.

The curious poem linked above – unfortunately too long to quote or comment on here – tells of a voyage (immram) to Paradise, the Island of Women, by Bran Mac Febal and his companions. There they spend a joyous year but then decided to return to Ireland, only to discover that many centuries had elapsed since they had departed.

This Celtic poem is somewhat obscure. But it tells of a land beneath the waters of the ocean, visibly located in another, parallel dimension. And this submerged land is quite obviously the same as Atlantis itself, the Paradise Sunken which the Celts called “Land-Under-Waves” or “Avalon”, etc..

In the course of the voyage, Manannan the son of Lír – the Lord of the Ocean – appears to Bran and his men, riding his chariot over the waves, much as if it was dry land. Lír, also a marine god, seems to be an alias of Poseidon. Hence, Mannanan his son would logically correspond to Atlas, the son of Poseidon, according to Plato’s account. And Atlas is the lord of Atlantis, much as Mannanan is the lord of Emain Abbalach.

In Celtic mythology, the underworld was also called Mag Mell (“plain of joy”) or Tir na n-Og (“land of youth”) or yet, “Land-Under-the-Waves”. Rather than hell, this place was pleasurable as Paradise. It was described as either an island or as a sunken land at the bottom of the sea. There resided the Fomorians, whose name means “bottom of the sea” (fo-moré). It was ruled by King Tethra, a Fomorian who became the lord of the Dead after dying in a battle against the Tuatha Dé Danaan.

We note that most ancient traditions normally placed the Islands of the Blest towards the west. Such was the case of the Western Paradise of Buddha Amitabha which we comment on elsewhere. And such was also the case of the Isles of the Blest of Greco-Roman traditions. These fabled islands were also called Elysium or Elysian Fields by the Greeks and their successors, the Romans and, later, the Western World in general.

Josephus specifically identifies the Islands of the Blest or Elysium with the Chryse Chersonesos (or Aurea Chersonesus), which is the name the Greeks and Romans actually gave to Indonesia. And these mythical islands became identified with the “Atlantic Islands” in the Middle Ages and later, in the Age of Navigation.

Though placed in the west and believed to lie in the Atlantic Ocean itself, this was the result of the mistake we just pointed out. Like Christopher Columbus ad several other geographers and explorers of that epoch, the Atlantic Ocean was believed to extend all the way to the East Indies (Indonesia), where these fabulous islands were known to be located. In time, this error was realized, and the East Indies were reached via the east, instead.

But it was already too late, and the “Atlantic Islands” – the insular remains of Atlantis itself – had already become relegated to the never-never-land of fiction and purely spiritual realities, since no one was ever able to clearly locate them, Columbus included.

We also observe that the ancient Celts often confused – perhaps purposefully, in order to better preserve their initiatic secrets – their own Islands of the Blest (Flath Innis) and their Land-Under-the Waves with mytical Paradises such as the Greek Elysium.

The Celtic views on this matter are reviewed in this site here, which reproduces the excellent book by J. A. MacCulloch, The Religion of the Ancient Celts (London, 1911). We believe that no one who studies these sacred Celtic traditions closely enough will fail to realize that the “Land-Under-the Waves” is really no other than Atlantis itself.

Besides, its location “beyond the ocean” places it in the farthest west and beyond, and hence in the farthest east which lies beyond it. The idea that the Land-Under-the-Waves could be reached within a day or so of navigation is connected with the myth of the sun crossing the ocean in a single day in his ship – the Solar Cup – in order to start the new day in Taprobane (Lanka) in good time.

The heroes are themselves avatars of the sun and often travel in his very cup, much as did Hercules when he embarked to the Garden of the Hesperides, placed in the farthest occident. Small wonder then that they took so little time to travel to the distant Indies, where this land really lies. And since the real objective of myths is really the one of perplexing and confounding the profanes, it is no surprise that such paradoxes are never explained to them by the initiates in the know.

Manannan Mac Lír, “Land-Under-Waves” and Atlantis

A curious parallel exists between the Celtic otherworld (or netherworld) and the Hindu one of Taprobane. As brilliantly described by Manannan Mac Lír, its lord, in the epic of Bran just linked, the Land-Under-the-Waves co-exists in a parallel dimension with the real world. We live a reality and they live another one, in another world and another dimension.

The ancient Hindus – and after them, their direct heirs, the Greeks and the Romans and others as well, – believed the same thing about Taprobane, which they identified with the Otherworld, the Elysium or Isles of the Blest. In fact, the Hindus believe(d) that the three realms of space – Heaven, Earth, Hell – actually co-exist in different dimensions in the region of Taprobane, which they identify with Lanka, the golden realm of Rama.

This belief, which dates from the Ramayana, is widely believed, even today, in the whole region of the South Seas. During the Great War of the great epic, Lanka was destroyed and sunk down under the sea. But is somehow managed to survive in parallel dimensions, partly as Paradise and partly as Hades or Hell. Ravana (Bali) became Yama, the ruler of the Otherworld and his sunken realm periodically reappears, much as happens with the Celtic Paradise.

It also seems that Bali-Ravana is an alias of Shiva. As such, he is really the ruler of the three realms of space, being figured as the Trimurti or Trinity: Brahma, Shiva and Vishnu. Shiva is a triple god (Trikaya) and incorporates three functions: Creator, Preserver, and Destroyer. In his triple functions, Shiva is also the ruler of the three realms of space. The same thing can be said of his other aspects, for they are all one and the same.

It is also interesting to note that Manannan is apparently an alias of Shiva. He is often said to be a triple deity, just like his Hindu archetype. According to the site just linked, “Manannan… is believed to have three legs and his form of locomotion was to roll in a circular motion on his three legs like a wheel in order to get from place to place.  His symbol, the Triskele represents his three legs in a circle, and can be seen in illustrations on certain Manx coins”.

Manannan is also symbolized by the trident. The trident is the characteristic attribute of marine gods such as Poseidon, Neptune and, above all, Shiva, in his character as Apam Napat, “the Son of the Waves”. The trident apparently alludes to Mt. Trikuta (“trident” in Sanskrit). Mt. Trikuta is the Holy Mountain of Lanka and is also the same as Mt. Atlas or Meru, the Pillar of heaven. ^[3]

And its three peaks probably represent the triple craters of the Krakatoa volcano, which existed before its explosion and collapse in the great eruption of 1883. Mt. Trikuta is also directly connected with the OM symbolism, it is often taken to represent. And Poseidon or Neptune is, we recall, the very father of Atlas and the very founder of Atlantis, according to Plato.

Another independent confirmation of the Hindu origin of the myth of Manannan Mac Lír is afforded by his name. Lir – or Lear, etc. – means “sea”. It is a poetic term that literally means “flood” (cf. lighe, linne , lìon, etc.). So, Mac Lír’s name literally means “son of the sea”. And this is precisely the translation of the Sanskrit Apam Napat, also translated as “son of the waters” (or of the flood, etc.). Apam Napat is a Vedic god, an alias of Shiva in his igneous aspect (as Agni).

We note the curious coincidence of the name of Lir (or Lear, etc.) with the idea of “flood” and “deluge” (diluvium). This IE radix, lu or li, is also connected with the Skt. pralaya, which is actually the name they give to the Universal Dissolution caused by Fire and Water (the Flood). And this is in turn connected with the Pleiades (or Atlantides), the mythical daughters of Atlas.

The Hindus call the Pleiades by the name of Krittikas (“dividers of the eras”). And this epithet is due to the fact that they mark the transition from the geological era of Atlantis (the Ice Age) to the present one, the Interglacial. The Krittikas are the foster mothers of Skanda-Karttikeya, himself an alias of Apam Napat, the “Fire-in-the-Waters”.

The figure of Manannan Mac Lír riding the waves and the one of Kalkin riding the Vadavamukha also bring to mind the figure of Baal Haddad, “the Rider of the Clouds” doing the same in the Phoenician accounts of the Flood. And Baal is Bala or Bali, whose connection with Hercules and Atlas we already mooted out.

The “cloud” in question here is the “pillar of fire and smoke” released by the giant volcanism of the Krakatoa, the very one which triggered the catastrophic end of the Pleistocene Ice Age and the destruction of Paradise by the agencies of Fire and Water. Small wonder then that the god who manifests himself through these agencies is known by epithets such as “Lord of the Waters” or “Lord of Fire” (Apam Napat, Agni, etc.).

In the Bible, Jahveh inherited both the epithet and the myth of Baal Haddad. As with Baal Haddad, Jahveh’s voice is manifested in the thunder. And Jahveh is likewise called “rider of the clouds” or “rider of the tempest” (cf. Isa. 19:1; Psa. 18:10; 68:4; 68:33; 99:1, etc.). Note that in some of these biblical passages, the horse is often replaced by the cherub. And the cherubs are the biblical counterparts of the griffins and karibus of other traditions, themselves aliases of the Vadamukha itself.

It is hence clear that the “flood” in question here is the Universal Flood, the one which transformed the site of Paradise in the Land-Under-Waves, the sunken kingdom of Manannan Mac Lír. All in all, it is easy to see that these myths are all linked, and unequivocally pertain to the myth of Atlantis and its destruction in the Universal Flood.

This event took place some 11,600 years ago, the exact date given by Plato in his two famous dialogues on Atlantis, the Timaeus and the Critias, another uncanny coincidence that cannot reasonably be ascribed to chance alone. The forms may vary, and so do the names of the deities in question. But the essence is invariably the same and leaves no room for doubting a pristine factual source from which all these different traditions originally derived.

Apam Napat is also worshipped by the Persians who addressed him as “Apam Napat, possessing swift horses” and as: “Apam Napat, the swift-horsed, the tall and shining lord, the lord of the females”. And Apam Napat is also often called “Fire-in-the-Waters” in the Veda.

Apam Napat’s connection with horses is reminiscent of Manannan, the Son of the Sea and of Poseidon, whose horses can also gallop over the waves very much as Pegasus was able to fly long distances without ever touching the ground. The name of “Splendid Mane” – actually a female horse or mare – is closely evocative of the Vadavamukha, which Kalkin rides when he comes down to destroy the world with fire and water, both of which he rules, much as do Shiva and Poseidon.

Splendid Mane, the horse (or mare) of Manannan Mac Lír, is also called Each Uisge (“Water Mare”) or Aughisky or, yet, Kelpie. These submarine horses or mares are often dangerous. They will carry their unfortunate victims into the waters, and then devour them. They will also woe young maidens or young men depending on their sex. They look like ordinary horses but can be recognized by the water weeds and kelps in their hair.

The myth of Each Uisge is closely reminiscent of the one of the Vadavamukha, the Submarine Mare. Even the detail of the sargassos in its mane is visibly derived from the South Seas, as this type of seaweed is missing in the frigid Irish seas. Each Uisge is a marine monster. But it is often sighted near Loch Ness which, as everybody knows, is the abode of Nessie, the famous sea serpent of Irish legends. And this is again an ancient tradition imported from the South Seas of Indonesia. ^[4]

All in all, these ancient connections with the East and the Vedic Indo-Europeans are telltale of the Celtic origin in this region of the world. Moreover, the connection of Manannan with Apam Napat, the “Fire-in-the-Waters” is also revealing of his identity with Kalkin, the White Horseman and of his horse or mare Aonbharr (“of the splendid mane”), “as swift as the naked cold wind of spring, and which can gallop across the sea, as if on dry land”.

Hesiod (Theog. 746) notes the presence of Atlas at the doors of Hades, again in the far west, as we just commented above. And Atlas is the elder avatar of Hercules and is himself the avatar of Poseidon, his father. According to Hesiod, there, in Hades or Tartarus, the day changes over, by convention, much as was the case of Lanka or Taprobane, in the ancient Hindu traditions, and of Annwn or Flath Innis in the Celtic ones.

Aeschylus does the same in both his Prometheus Bound (349) and his Hippolytus (746). In fact, he also affirms that “the ocean’s lord no more to sailors grants a passage o’er the deep purple main”. The “ocean’s lord” is Poseidon, a personification of the sea itself.

Aeschylus is in fact saying that the ocean does not allow passage in the west to the site of Atlantis and the East Indies, where Taprobane was in fact located. In other words, Aeschylus knew, in his quality of an initiate, that there was an Outer Continent closing the way to the Far East, much as Plato also affirmed in his Timaeus.

Glastonbury, the Site of Avalon?

Many places contend for the honor of being identified to Avalon, Glastonbury in particular. But how could Glastonbury ever have been Avalon, if Avalon is held to lay “beyond the ocean” and, moreover to be sunken and flooded much as Atlantis itself once was?

This mythical Paradise is also called Emain Abbalach, “the Land of the Apple Trees”. The name of Glastonbury has been interpreted to mean “the glassy burial tomb”. However, Glastonbury is not the only contender for the glory. Other researchers support the Scilly Isles off Cornwall’s coast; the Isle of Man and Iona, a small island off the west coast of Ireland, and so forth.

Avalon is actually the counterpart of the Islands of the Blest of the Celtic traditions, where these blissful islands were called Flath Innis (“Island of the Heroes”). One of the earliest references to Avalon is found in an Irish text that links a place called Emain Aballach with the god Manannan Mac Lír. Manannan’s name is often linked to the Isle of Man.

Hence, this island is sometimes identified with Emain Aballach itself. In the traditional story, the wounded King Arthur was taken away in a boat to the mysterious Isle of Avalon by Morgan le Fay, his sister, immediately after the battle of Camlan, in order to receive medical attention and in order to be cured from his mortal wounds by means of the Elixir.

In his writings, Geoffrey of Monmouth referred to the island of Avalon both as Insula Afallonis and as Insula Pomorum (“Isle of the Apples”). These apples are of course the same as the golden apples of the Hesperides, which also conferred immortality according to Greek myths.

This name was in time shortened to Avalon. However, it is significant that the Welsh versions of the manuscript render the name as Ynys Afallach (“the Island of Afallach”) and the Irish ones as Emain Aballach, apparently meaning the same thing.

The priests in Glastonbury vigorously encourage the tradition that identifies the place with Avalon. The real reason may be the desire to encourage and maintain a lucrative tourism and pilgrimage industry to the place that has been in force for centuries now. In 1191 the local friars allegedly discovered the tomb where King Arthur and Queen Guinevere were buried. Their bones were reinterred at the abbey before anyone had the chance to check the accuracy of the find. And the abbots never disclosed how they made the identification.

Hardly would Glastonbury be the site of Avalon. For one thing, it is not beyond the ocean, the usually claimed location of the paradisial island. Nor do we have the Golden Apples growing there, unfortunately. It is clear that Glastonbury is merely a replica of the paradisial site, the very one of the Isles of the Blest and the Garden of the Hesperides.

Now, the Hesperides or Atlantides are, as we already stated above, the seven daughters of Atlas, who take care of the Golden Apples which grow there for their father. Said otherwise, Avalon is really no other than Atlantis itself. Better yet, Avalon is the same as Annwn and as Lost Atlantis, destroyed and turned into the gloomy Islands of the Blest.

Said otherwise, Avalon is the very site of Hades, the Land of the Dead. Such is the reason Arthur’s body was taken there by Morgan le Fay, in order to be resurrected. There Arthur is to lead a carefree life in the company of the many other such heroes who people the place, according to the universal traditions.

Glastonbury’s name, “the glassy burial tomb” (glas-tomb-bury) is in fact a usual metaphor for the site of Atlantis-Eden. Destroyed by fire and water, the place became a wilderness, a giant tomb or cemetery covered by ashes and molten glass (silicic volcanic lava).

This “cemetery” or “burning ground” is often mentioned in Hindu myths concerning Shiva and Shakti and other such bhutas who often haunt these fearful places, in Vetala-loka. These places are also often mentioned in the Amerindian traditions, for instance, those of the Mayas on Tollán Zuiva (“Seven Graveyards”) and those of the Aztecs on Mictlán. And these islands are also the “Atlantic Islands” which we discuss in more detail elsewhere.

An important clue to the identification of the mysterious island of Avalon is contained in a book written by James Bonwick in 1894 entitled: Irish Druids and Old Irish Religions, which we quote: “The Welsh Avalon, or the Island of Apples, the everlasting source of the Elixir of Life, the home of Arthur and other mythological heroes, lay beyond Cardigan Bay, the Annwn of the old sun, in the direction of Ireland.”. This location is purely exoteric, and hence unimportant.

What really matters here is the identification with Annwn. Annwn, which we already discussed further above, is really the same as Hades and the Isles of the Blest, said to lie somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean. Even more exactly, Annwn – and hence Avalon – lay beyond the ocean, in the region of Taprobane, in the Far East.

The “ocean” in question here is not really the Atlantic, but the Pacific, the true “ocean” of Plato’s dialogues on Atlantis. The ancients generally ignored the existence of America, and hence thought, like Columbus and others, that the Atlantic Ocean was coterminous with the Pacific and hence extended all the way to the East Indies and the site of Taprobane, their “Atlantic Island”.

 

II – The Symbolism of Decapitated Heads

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

One of the most strange tales of the Arthurian Cycle concerns the myth of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Curiously enough, the poem begins with a Historical Prologue mentioning the fall of Troy and the moving out to Europe of princes such as Aeneas, Brutus, Tirius and Romulus, who found the local civilizations. This event is mentioned objectively, as a historical fact. ^[5]

These personages may actually be as purely mythical as Arthur himself seems to have been. But the fact itself seems to be an allegory of the real events attending the fall of Atlantis and its sinking underseas. As is known, Troy, like Atlantis itself sunk down after its fall and incending by the Greeks, in the course of the Great War. This parallel fate is of course too close to be due to chance alone, as everyone can see. This curious Historical Prologue deserves to be quoted here:

The siege and assault having ceased at Troy
as its blazing battlements blackened to ash,
the man who had planned and plotted that treason
[Ulisses] had trial enough for the truest traitor!
Then Aeneas the prince and his honored line
plundered provinces and held in their power
nearly all the wealth of the western isles.
Thus Romulus swiftly arriving at Rome
sets up that city and in swelling pride
gives it his name, the name it now bears;
and in Tuscany Tirius raises up towns,
and in Lombardy Langoberde settles the land,
and far past the French coast Felix Brutus
founds Britain on broad hills, and so bright hopes
begin, where wonders, wars, misfortune
and troubled times have been, where bliss

and blind confusion have come and gone again.

From the founding of Britain by this brave prince,
bold men have bred there, burning for war,
stirring up turmoil through the turning years.
More wonders in the world have been witnessed here
than anywhere else from that age forward.
But of all who were crowned kings over Britain
the most honor was Arthur’s, as old tales tell.
So I mean to make known a marvel on earth,
an astonishing sight, as some men would call it,
an extraordinary exploit among Arthur’s wonders.
Listen to this lay for a little while
and as townsmen tell it, so this tale will trip
along, a story pinned in patterns steadfast,

steady, strong:  aligned in linking letters
as folk have loved so long…

 

The Astronomical Symbolism and the Connections with Atlantis

The theme which interests us here is not really the fall of Atlantis or even its close connection with the peopling of the British Isles, which we comment on elsewhere in this chapter. Here we aim to concentrate on the symbolism of beheading and its connection with the Holy Grail, with which it shares a series of parallels that we now adduce. But we start by pointing out the direct connections with the motif of the Lost Continent as the ultimate source of the symbolism in question here.

Returning to the poem just quoted. Its symbolism is most curious. It is studied, among others, by Heinrich Zimmer, the great German mythologist and symbolist in his quaint The King and the Corpse (Joseph Campbell, ed., Bollingen Foundation, New York, 1957, pg. 67).

According to the text of the poem, on the night of Christmas – the ancient date of the Winter Solstice when the New Year began, in olden times and the longest night in the whole year, in the northern hemisphere – the Green Night appeared in the court of King Arthur, during the course of one of their interminable banquets and feasts.

As I have mathematically demonstrated in detail elsewhere, the calendar date when the Winter Solstice actually coincided with the one of the New Year dates back exactly 11,600 years ago. And this is the very date of the demise of Atlantis, according to Plato. Real or not, this is hence the exact date of the actual start of the modern calendar presently in use nowadays.

Said otherwise, either the calendar we adopt today (Gregorian) started at that remote date in time or else someone in remote antiquity had the detailed astronomical knowledge required to calculate back (retrodict) that date, more or less along the lines we ourselves adopted in our calculation, and which entails a knowledge not only of the Precession of the Equinoxes but also of the Stellar and the Solar Year to an accuracy of a few milliseconds only.

Both alternatives imply advanced astronomical knowledge which spells out the name of Atlantis, as no known civilization could possibly have been its source. So, the poem is apparently again referring to the reality of Atlantis in an esoteric way that only the initiates themselves would fully understand. Moreover, in contrast to what most people think, the date of Christmas (Dec. 25) is not really Christian but Pagan in origin.

It derives from the myth of the Dies Natalis Solis Invicti (Latin for: “Day of the Birth of the Invincible Sun”) which was commemorated at exactly that date, since remotest antiquity. And it commemorated solar gods or heroes such as Mithras (Iranian), Mitra (Vedic Hindu), Attis, Osiris, Serapis, Tammuz, Adonis, Phaëthon, Helios, etc.. In fact, the myth of the fall of the Sun and its rebirth, unvanquished, can be found even in the Americas, for instance, among the Incas of Peru and Mayas and the Aztecs of Mexico.

Since this fact can only be explained by diffusion from a common source, the only possible alternative is that this diffusion actually occurred before the end of the Ice Age, or very soon after, before the continental glaciers had melted away, leading to the rise of sea level and the closure of the Beringian Bridge, which rendered possible these intercontinental contacts between the two worlds.

As is clear, this leads us back to Atlantis itself as the only possible source of this widespread myth. And this symbolism of the New Year has to do nothing to do with the sun, the solstice or even the Solar Hero, but really with the eras and with Atlantis itself. The sun never really falls down (fortunately) except in a symbolic way. The “sun” in question here is the volcano, the terrestrial image of the sun itself, its celestial counterpart, as we explain elsewhere.

Atlantis is merely an alias of Eden (Paradise) and, of course, of Troy itself, just as referred to by the Pearl Poet in this quaint but difficult initiatic poem. The fall of Atlantis-Eden in the great cataclysm was the actual source of the myth of the Eras of Mankind. Paradise – and indeed the whole earth – was utterly destroyed, and Mankind was reset back to the Stone Age as the result of the Great War of devas and asuras.

But it managed to resurrect, much as would the Solar Hero, after being dead for three (and a half) days, as is invariably the case. And this event is one commemorated the world over in festivals such as the one of Christmas, of the New Year, the Cosmogonic Hierogamy, and so on.

In all of these festivals, the King invariably represents the Solar Hero who dies and is reborn (the people), whereas the Whore represents the Earth, old and tired, but revivified and “revirginized” by the cataclysm. The old earth dies, and so does the old humanity, to be reborn and regenerated by the cataclysm (the Flood), exactly as ritually acted out in sacraments such as Baptism itself.

This event is also commemorated in rituals and traditions such as the ones of Communion, where the body of the sacrificed god is ritually consumed, in order to give birth to the New Mankind, born out of the remains of the old one. And it is again symbolized by traditions such as the ones concerning the beheading of the old god which gives birth to the new one.

This tradition is closely related to the widespread custom of head-hunting and ritual anthropophagy practiced by essentially all ancient peoples on earth, from the shores of Oceania to the distant Americas and, above all, in Celtic And Germanic Europe in particular.

This rather shocking custom is also related to the one represented in the strange ritual of the beheading of the Green Knight of the poem in question here. It is also the one told in a similar pseudo-historical tradition concerning the decapitation of St. John the Baptist. As we shall see next, St. John is “the precursor of Christ”.

As such, St. John specifically symbolizes the Old Year and the Old Era and, hence, its own Solar God or Hero of many names who dies and is replaced by the god of the era which ensues, the present one. John’s decapitation was demanded by the Whore herself (Herodiades) and was performed by the old king, here mythically impersonated by King Herod.

Herod could not possibly have ordered this murder, since he was long dead by then. In fact, King Herod the Great died in 5 BC, and hence could not even have ordered the killing of the Jewish infants narrated in the Bible. Actually, this pseud-historic event was taken directly from evangels in the infancy of Krishna and Balarama, the Hindu archetypes and counterparts of Jesus and John.

We also note that these events are all-important allegories having to do with the real meaning and message of Mystery Religions such as Hinduism, Buddhism, Osirianism, Mithraicism and even Judaism and Christianity.

The Gnostics, the Johanites and the Mirror of Maya

The Gnostics – “those who know”, as their name indicates (in Greek) – are those diehards who cling to the old god superseded by the new one. The old god becomes the new devil, and all things are reversed as if reflected in a mirror, the Mirror of Maya (Illusion). Such is really the reason why these so-called “heretics” are so barbarously persecuted by their replacers. And such is also the reason behind the serial “revivals” of all sorts, the Enlightenment and the Renaissance included.

This doctrine of the “Eternal Return” is actually the very essence and kernel of Hinduism and the doctrine of the avatars of dying-resurrecting gods such as Vishnu and Shiva and, of course, their Judeo-Christian counterparts, Jesus and John.

This issue is a very complex and very obscure theological doctrine that we explain in detail elsewhere, and whose discussion does not really fit here for several good reasons. The interested reader is hence directed to our more specialized, more detailed works on the sensitive science variously called “History of Religions” or “Comparative Religion”, etc.. ^[6]

However, we also note that the fact that each and every religion so closely parallels the former ones does not automatically prove that they are forgeries either spiritual or even historical. As the Hindus and Buddhists have it, Time and History endlessly repeat themselves, so that each and every event occurs over and over again, ad eternum.

And this fact is even mentioned by ancient philosophers such as Heraclitus, Pythagoras, Plato and Socrates, to mention just a few. This is the doctrine of the Magnus Annus (“Great Year”) – also called “Cyclical Time” of the Stoics and the Pythagoreans. This doctrine derives directly from Hinduism and is in fact the very essence of the Mystery Religions of all times, modern ones included.

In particular, the Gnostics such as the Cathars, the Bogomils, the Templars, the Manichaeans, the Bapts, etc., were Johanites whose doctrines were close of kin to more modern succedaneums such as Free-Masonry and Rosicrucianism.

Such is also the case of other forms of Paganism, for instance, Celtic. Their cult of the decapitated head relates to the one of the Johanites who in fact worship the decapitated head of John the Baptist as an alias of the Green Knight and the Old Year (or era).

Variants of such “talking heads” were widespread in antiquity. The myth dates back to the traditions of Crystal Skulls so popular in pre-Columbian America (Mayas and Aztecs in particular). And it also connects with the myth of the “Skull Mountain” (Mt. Calvary, etc.) which I comment on in some detail on my Atlantis site.

The Fallen Sun also represents Adam and Christ and a series of such Fallen Angels, of whom Lucifer and Atlas are perhaps the most famous instances. But this myth dates back to Vedic times (Atlantean), and derives from the myth of Angiras (or Dadhyanch), the true archetype of all such angels. In fact, the Greek word “Angelos” from which the English derived via Latin is itself derived from this Sanskrit word (angiras > angilas > angelos), as several experts have recognized.

It is interesting to note that Wolfram von Eschenbach’s reference that the Holy Grail was carved from an emerald that fell from Lucifer’s brow during the Fall is really a euphemistic allegory of the fact that the angel was decapitated, and that his head itself was what really became the Holy Grail.

A similar tradition is obscurely told in the Rig Veda itself and in later Hindu mythology derived from it and other Vedic sources. According to these, the decapitated head of Angiras-Dadhyanch fell down to earth and was turned into the vajra by Indra. The vajra is the actual archetype of the Cross (has its shape +). And it is also the alias of the Vadamukha, as we already argued above.

Apparently, the same thing also happened to Christ himself, as we explain elsewhere in the present work. In this case, Joseph of Arimathea would have decapitated Christ’s dead body, and used his skull in order to collect the Holy Blood, the Elixir. And he also apparently used the other skull there – the one of Adam which many Christian traditions affirm to have been found inside the hole dug out to plant Christ’s Cross – in order to collect the other Elixirpouring from the dead body.

Shocking though this might seem to some people, this custom is generally suggested in sacred traditions such as the ones of the Green Knight. Such a hypothesis is of course never explicitly mentioned in the Grail legends or even less in the Christian traditions.

But it is suggested many alternative traditions, the Hindu ones in particular. And it would nicely account for the fact that we actually have two Holy Grails, one filled with White Soma (“water” or “sweat” or “semen”, the masculine essence) and the other one with Red Soma (“blood” or “menstruum”, the feminine essence). This tradition obviously came from India, where it is far older, and actually dates from Vedic antiquity, as we already argued.

The Green Knight and the Green Man

The figure of the medieval Green Knight is closely associated with the one of the Green Man in Britain. The close parallelism of the two figures has been noted by several authors, including Sir James G. Frazer, the erudite author of the most famous treatise on Comparative Religion, The Golden Bough.

The myth and images of the Green Man are much older than the celebrated account of the Pearl Poet himself. In fact, the first images of the Green Man seem to be Roman, and to date back to the Roman conquest of Gaul by Julius Caesar in 50 BC or so. Some of these Roman heads – already completely foliated and turned into vegetation gods – are squashed sideways, as if supporting an enormous load. They often figure in Christian churches and apparently represent atlantes.

Now, this is a curious image that suggests a direct connection with Atlas himself and his bearing of the world and /or the celestial sphere. And Atlas is of course a male personification of Atlantis, of which he was allegedly the first king, to believe Plato himself. Said otherwise, this quaint symbolism suggests tha the Green Man represents Atlantis as the inventor of agriculture and the source of most if not all crops and domestic animals from which abundance sprouts.

Thousands of such images were carved in churches and cemeteries during the roman period and, later, in the Middle Ages. But their symbolism was never explained, and we must hence guess it, as we are now doing.

We also guess that the reason for this silence derives from their connection with the secret of the Mysteries, which are never explained to the profanes anywhere on earth and are only disclosed to the initiates themselves. But these are invariably sworn to secrecy, and hence never talk. Besides, just in case, this secrecy – kept for unending millennia – was also enforced by even more coercive methods, such as condemning to death those impious persons who dared to try to break the law and their oath.

The Green Man is also an alias of the Corn God whom Sir Frazer explains as an alias of the Eucharist itself. This ritual was also connected with the death and rebirth of Adonis and the other sun gods or heroes, all of whom were invariably associated with agriculture and the first fruits.

And this is also associated with the ritual decapitation of the King or the Tree Spirit practiced in ancient Europe and elsewhere. As usual, this ritual is derived from similar ones such as the Egyptian Heb Sed and, above all, from the Rajasuya of the Hindu traditions described by Sir Frazer and Mircea Eliade, among several other authorities.

As we explain elsewhere, all these rituals – which are essentially universal – actually represent the death of Atlantis itself. And they take a great many forms and variations, some of which can be seen in Sir Frazer’s monumental treatise which, despite its formidable vastness is far from exhaustive.

The figure of the Corn Man – or Green Man, or Corn God, etc. – is found both in the Old and the New World, a fact that attests to its hoary antiquity. And this dualism also proves a Pleistocene origin, as we just argued, a fact that unequivocally attests to a connection with Atlantis as the source of the myth. How else? Where else?

We also note that the death and resurrection of the Corn God also change into the one of the Corn Mother, likewise associated with the source of agriculture and of abundance: Mani in Brazil (Manioc Mother); Saning Sars in Indonesia, Hainuwele in Polynesia, and so on. Sir Frazer also comments on the myth of the Corn Mother in detail, and the interested reader is again directed to his exhaustive work (see. also the myth of the Corn God and the Corn-Spirit and the Green Man in his monumental treatise hailed by many as the most important book ever written on Comparative Mythology. The readers are also urged to do their own searches on the site just linked.

As we show in great detail elsewhere, the myth of the Corn Mother – or Corn Father, in another, masculine version – originated in the East Indies whence it spread to the whole world very early in time (during the Pleistocene). This demonstration includes the very origin there of words such as “cereals” and Ceres (the Cereal Goddess of the ancient Romans). ^[7]

 

III – Geoffrey of Monmouth and His Vita Merlini

In his Vita Merlini, Geoffrey of Monmouth describes how Merlin and Taliesin took the mortally wounded body of King Arthur by boat to the Insula Pomorum quae Fortunata (“The Island of the Apples or Fortunate”). This is the Latin name of the Isles of the Blest, and renders the Greek Makaron Nesoi meaning exactly the same.

These islands are also called Makrobion Nesoi, meaning “the Isles of the Long-Lived”. These are the “Long-lived Ethiopians” or “Pious Ethiopians” (Eusebes) of the Greek traditions which I comment in detail in other works of mine. These Ethiopians – which are described as blond and blue-eyed by Pliny and Solinus, and as the most beautiful and noble of humans by Herodotus – are said to live in Taprobane, that is, in Indonesia.

These Pious Ethiopians are also called Seres (“people of the silk”) in Greco-Roman traditions. And they are in fact the same as the Tocharians and other such “blue-eyed Chinese”. Long deemed a sheer fable and a gross invention of Pliny and other geographers, this person is now known to be a reality, after their remarkably well-preserved mummies were found by the hundreds in the region of the Takla Makan Desert, in the Tarim Basin region of Xingiang (West China).

These tall, blond, Aryanoid people were the true ancestors of the Celts, as we argue in great detail elsewhere in other documents of ours. Rather than really Chinese, these Tocharians – whose name means “red” due to the ruddy color of their hair – were originally from Taprobane itself, precisely as told by Pliny and Solinus. When their land sunk away under the sea (Atlantis), the survivors passed into Southeast Asia, then China and Inner Mongolia.

Pushed out by the no-nonsense Chinese Mongols, who deemed them barbarians (Yüeh-chi), the Tocharians finally established themselves in the Tarim Basin region, whence they later spread, through the Silk Road, to the north and west Asia and, finally, to Europe itself, eventually reaching Gaul and Britain, among other regions of Europe.

According to Geoffrey of Monmouth, Merlin and Taliesin were received by Morgan le Fay, who placed Arthur’s dead body (or almost?) on a golden bed. She uncovered Arthur’s wound and said that no problem, she would be able to cure it and restore Arthur to good health in good time.

The close relationship between Morgan and Arthur has always puzzled researchers. But it is no different from the one of Gradlon and Dahut, his evil daughter. The two figures in fact derive from Hindu myths on Shiva, the pious god permanently engaged in tapas (devotion) and Kali, always bent on seducing him in order to engage in their love sex. Shiva and Kali are really personifications – or rather deifications of the two supervolcanoes of Indonesia, the Toba and the Krakatoa.

Their orgy – which frequently figures in Hindu traditions (Yab-Yum) – is really an allegory of the two volcanoes acting in unison in order to destroy the world. Their “dance” is the Death Dance which represents the earthquakes and tsunamis caused by this giant volcanism. This bacchanal in fact closely corresponds to the drunken orgy promoted by Princess Dahut, who probably there seduced her own father, much as did Dawn with Brahma and Parvati with Shiva.

One late legend or tradition – dated from the mid-13^th. century AD – affirms that St. Joseph of Arimathea brought the chalice of the Last Supper to England, along with two phials full of the water and blood he collected when Jesus was nailed to the Cross. This chalice was apparently dropped inside the Chalice Well, which became a sacred site of pilgrimage soon after.

Other legends tell that the Glastonbury thorn (Crataegus monogyna) sprang from the staff of St. Joseph of Arimathea, here apparently confused with Christ’s father, also called Joseph, whose staff flourished on a certain occasion. It is not impossible that Joseph of Arimathea the “uncle” of Jesus is really the same as St. Joseph, his putative father. Such confusions are usual in myths of all sorts.

These legends concerning the bringing of the Holy Grail to England are of course highly encouraged by the local abbots, who thus profit from both the pilgrim’s commerce and the tourism of the curious who want to see for themselves. A couple of recent bestselling books purport to establish the historical reality of these traditions. But they are all visibly created to exploit the good faith of the more gullible public who avidly consume this sort of pseudo-historical trash.

The Many Names of Avalon

The many names of Avalon are also telltale of its direct connection with Atlantis as the site of Paradise Lost. These are listed in the excellent article by Mary Branin, “a Pagan/Wiccan and student of Celtic/Irish history, religion and genealogy, as well as Old European Goddess worship”. Celtic religion is on the rise, and is fast growing to make a resurgence in force. Her seminal list includes the following ones, to which we have added a few others for completeness’ sake:

• Caer Sidi, the castle of Arianrhod. Arawn, ruler of the Underworld dwells there;

• Caer Ochren, castle of Cerridwen;

• Caer Manwyddan, sea castle of the god Manawyddan (or Manannan);

• Caer Pedryfan, where nine goddesses guard the cauldron;

• Caer Feddwyd, where troubled souls engage in great feasting to forget troubled past lives;

• Caer Rigor, a place of Otherworld hospitality;

• Caer Goludd, Fortress of Frustration and Riches, a place where rewards can be won after great trials;

• Emhain Abhlach, Apple Orchard in the Land of Promise;

• Mag Mell, “the Pleasant Plain”;

• Mag Mór, “the Great Plain”;

• Tech Duinn, House of Donn;

• Tír fa Tonn, “Land under Waves”;

• Tír n’Aill, “the Other-world”;

• Tír na m-Beo, ” the Land of the Living “;

• Tir na n-Og, Land of Youth;

• Tir na mBan, Land of Women;

• Tir n’Aill, Land of the Otherplace;

• Tir na mBeo, Land of the Living;

• Tir fo Thuinn, Land under the Wave;

• Tir Sorcha, Luminous Land

• Tir Taingin, Land of Eternal Youth;

• Tir Tairngiri, Land of Promise and Ever Young.

To this list, we must also add Annwn, the Celtic otherworld which we comment on further above in the present document. And also names such as Caer Sidi (“Whirling City”) Caer Ys (“Sunken City”), Ynis Wydr (“Island of Glass”) and Flath-Inis (“Island of the Heroes”), which are other, alternative, names of Paradise in Celtic traditions. And this Paradise is, as we just argued, no other than Atlantis-Eden itself.

We must note that the Celtic religion was suppressed when it became replaced by Christianity. It was not recorded in writing, but only orally, by the bards themselves. With their dispparition, the ancient sacred traditions also essentially disappeared as such. And they only survived as fairytales, told by the nannies to the children. But even then the essence of the ancient sacred traditions of Paradise Lost did not altogether disappear and survived in a readily recognizable form.

These heroes who live there, in Paradise, are the “lions” who fill the traditions of both the Celts and the Far East, as we already argued. A host of other Celtic names of Paradise could further be found in their sacred books. As the illustrious author says in her charming article – which should be closely studied and meditated on for all those interested in finding Atlantis:

The Celtic word, immrama, refers to a literal spiritual voyage to the Otherworlds – particularly the Underworld, known as Annwn (Welsh), where the dead await rebirth. It is a place of renewal and new beginnings, ruled by deities such as Cerridwen and Arawn (or Cernunnos). In addition to the Underworld, Celtic cosmology includes a Middle- and Upperworld. The three worlds are further subdivided – perhaps as far as our imagination can stretch – with the Circle of Annwn including the following caers (or “castles”), many of them associated with distant or submerged islands in the sea.

All realms and dimensions intersect, and we travel back and forth between Gwynedd and Abred, experiencing all over many lifetimes, before finally reaching the vortex of Ceugnant, the Center. Besides being the Land of the Living (or Dead), the sea is the realm of the Unconscious, involving the inner/outer world of the shaman. The otherworldly sea voyage is a journey toward wholeness, back to the Origin, though it is not without its perils…

In psychological terms, as Jean Markale has eloquently explained, the submerged town is the maternal womb – that of our present human life, as well as the Primal Womb of all life. In Celtic thought, death is but a journey to a new birth. In later stories, the underwater palace is a Grail Castle, where the Lady of the Grail (Cerridwen) stirs the Cauldron of Rebirth… a distant isle: “Around which sea-horses glisten / A fair course against the white-swelling surge”…

Avalon, Taprobane and the Island of the Women

The manuscript of La Folie Tristan now kept at Oxford’s Library tells the story that Morgana, the Queen of Avalon lived in a glass chamber which somehow focused the rays of the sun, and apparently also acted as both a greenhouse and a cure-all. Other Celtic traditions refer to this place as Caer Wydr (“glass castle”) or Ynis Wydr (“glass island”).

Manannan – the son of the sea god and visible alias of Atlas – inhabits a palace called Emain Aballach in the submarine netherworld. His realm is called Tir Taingin, “the land of eternal youth”. He rides a fabulous horse called “Splendid Mane”, able to gallop over the waters of the sea. We believe that this horse is an alias of Pegasus itself. And Pegasus, “the horse of the fountain [of the Flood]” in fact derives his myth from Rigvedic archetypes such as Vena and Tarkshya.

Even more exactly, this horse or mare is the Vadavamukha, the submarine volcano we already commented on above as being an allegory of the Submarine Mare itself. This fearful ghostly horse will be ridden by Kalkin, the tenth avatar of Vishnu, when he comes down to end the present era.

In the saga entitled The Voyage of Bran Mac Febal, already quoted further above, a beautiful girl appears to the hero, bearing in her hands an apple-tree branch with blossoms and inviting him to visit the Island of the Women, the site of Paradise, Emain Aballach. Charmed by the golden (or silvery) branch, the hero embarks in search of Paradise, which he succeeds in reaching, after crossing the wide ocean, perhaps helped by Mannanan Mac Lír, the Lord of the Seas himself.

This apple branch probably came from the Tree of the Golden Apples, and apparently also confers immortality, maybe bearing the golden apples themselves. In the course of Bran’s voyage to Emain Aballach, Manannan, the king of the place, actually appears to the hero, riding the waves in his chariot as if they were dry ground, the vast plains of Paradise Sunken itself. ^[8]

A passage in this saga (v. 16) tells what seems to be the actual avatar of Kalkin, perhaps here identified to Manannan himself: “At sunrise, there will come /A fair man illumining level lands; /He rides upon the fair sea-washed plain, / He stirs the ocean till it is blood”. Kalkin is an alias of Yama, the just lord of Patala (Hades), who is often described as a fair person.

As we just said, Kalkin rides the Vadavamukha, described as a white horse or mare. The Vadava is the giant submarine volcano, the Krakatoa, whose ghastly light is perhaps the most fearful aspect of the apparition, just as mentioned in the poem just quoted here. And the volcano will also really “stir the ocean till it is blood” and cause it to invade the land, and kill people en masse, just as it did in the past, many times over.

These paradisial islands of the Celts are located in the far west and are many and of a very large size (v. 25): “There are thrice fifty distant isles / In the ocean to the west of us / Larger than Erin twice /Is each of them, or thrice”. Erin is Ireland. And these huge islands in the far west are of course the ones of Indonesia, itself the insular remains of sunken Atlantis.

The branch held by the girl in the poem just quoted also evokes the golden laurels used by Aeneas and other heroes and poets when they descend to the site of Hades. As we explain elsewhere, this golden branch is really a visual pun and directly refers to Taprobane, whose name may also be interpreted in Sanskrit and Dravida as meaning “golden branch” or “golden leaf” (tamra-parna).

The myth of this golden branch is exhaustively investigated by Sir James G. Frazer in his Golden Bough who, however, was unable to solve the puzzle, as he himself admits in his excellent treatise on Comparative Mythology and Religion. This book is a masterpiece, one which was never again matched in the profundity of its comparisons.

Too bad that the great researchers were never able to discover the meaning of the Golden Bough, let alone the location of Paradise to which it is the actual key. But his exhaustive study of the problem of course helped a lot of other researchers, including myself in particular.

The Island of Women is another name or epithet of Emain Aballach. This epithet suggests the nature of the pleasures be enjoyed there, along with an eternally long, blissful life. This saga also evokes the story of Ulysses, held captive in Ogygia by Calypso, the wily daughter of Atlas. Ogygia, the “island at the navel of the sea” where Atlas holds his Pillars of Heaven, is a visible Homeric metaphor for Atlantis itself. And it is also an alias and archetype of Emain Aballach

After spending some time in the paradisial place, the heroes finally get bored and become homesick, and want to return to Ireland.

But they discover that many centuries had already elapsed and that they cannot disembark, for one of them who does so instantly grows very old and turns to cinders. This story evokes the one of Ulysses, long detained by Calypso, the charming nymph, in the island of Ogyia. Calypso is the “daughter” of Atlas and perhaps the female avatar of the mighty Titan.

And, as we argue elsewhere, Ogygia, in the very “navel of the sea” is really Atlantis itself. Its curious name “navel of the sea” evokes the idea of the Vadava, which is located in the center of the earth and serves as the source of the (ambrosial) waters which impart immortality. Pegasus – whose name means “the horse of the fountain” is yet an allegory of the Vadava, as we just said. All in all, these figures all symbolize the volcano (Krakatoa) which is the source of the waters of the Flood.

In Avalon, as in the Isles of the Blest of Greco-Roman traditions, the land produced of itself an abundance of fruits and crops, which insured a perpetual abundance. There no sickness ever afflicted anyone, and all remained young and beautiful for eternity. No war and no harm or deceit ever plagued the place, and the climate was ever mild and pleasant.

Such was also the case with the Isles of the Blest and the insular paradises (dvipas) of the Hindu ones, for instance, Sukhavati. The identity of these places cannot be doubted. The same also holds for the Hindu and Buddhist traditions, which are essentially identical. When everything is considered, it is also clear that these paradisial islands are in fact the same as the Taprobane.

Taprobane (Tamraparna) is the site of Paradise according to Hindu traditions which, somehow, passed into Greece and Rome at a very early epoch. Even more exactly, Taprobane is their Hades or Dvipa (Sunken Paradise), the Hindu counterpart of the Island of the Blest. And Taprobane was also the model of the Western Paradise of Buddha Amitabha, called Sukhavati (Skt. for: “Abounding in Delights”). All the details match so that their basic identity can hardly be questioned.

As we already argued further above, these traditions – being absolutely identical in both the Old World and the New – can only date from the Ice Age itself or shortly after, before the Beringian Bridge became permanently closed. And they also seem to refer to a real place which cannot be other than Atlantis itself. Flavius Josephus also affirms the reality of the Isles of the Blest (Wars, II:8:11) as well as their identity with Hades and Paradise.

Given that believing the reality of a single Paradise is already quite difficult, imagine having to believe the reality of several such, one per each tradition: Celtic, Judeo-Christian, Greco-Roman, Mesopotamian, Egyptian, Amerindian, and so forth. This view is required per the usual academic view that all or most civilizations such as the ones just named evolved in essential isolation from each other, regardless of any possible similitude.

The only viable, logical alternative is attributing all these multifarious Paradises to a single, common source whence it diffused to the many cultures the world over. Any other views result in the paradoxes or the absurdities just pointed out. And this source can only date from soon after the end of the Ice Age, and hence from the times of Atlantis itself, as we just saw.

The book just linked has a passage on the Celtic belief in the Otherworld that deserves to be quoted here, we think:

The origin of the Celtic Elysium belief may be found in universal myths of a golden age long ago in some distant Elysian region, where men had lived with the gods. Into that region, brave mortals might still penetrate, though it was lost to mankind as a whole. In some mythologies this Elysium is the land whither men go after death. Possibly the Celtic myth of man’s early intercourse with the gods in a lost region took two forms. In one it was a joyful subterranean region whither the Celt hoped to go after death. On the other it was not recoverable, nor was it the land of the dead, but favored mortals might reach it in life. The Celtic Elysium belief, as known through the tales just cited, is always of this second kind. We surmise, however, that the land of the dead was a joyous underworld ruled over by a god of fertility and of the dead, and from that region, men had originally come forth…

When the Celts reached the coast this divine western land would necessarily be located in a far-off island, seen perhaps on the horizon. Hence it would also be regarded as connected with the sea god, Manannan, or by whatsoever name he was called. The distant Elysium, whether on land or across the sea, was conceived in identical terms, and hence also whenever the hollow hills or síd were regarded as an abode of the gods, they also were described just as Elysium was. The idea of a world under the waters is common to many mythologies, and, generally speaking, it originated in the animistic belief that every part of nature has its indwelling spirits. Hence the spirits or gods of the waters were thought of as dwelling below the waters. Tales of supernatural beings appearing out of the waters, the custom of throwing offerings therein, and the belief that human beings were carried below the surface or could live in the region beneath the waves, are all connected with this animistic idea.

Among the Celts, this water-world assumed many aspects of Elysium, and it has names in common with it, e.g. it is called Mag Mell [“Pleasant Plain”]. Hence, in many popular tales, it is hardly differentiated from the island Elysium; oversea and under-waves are often synonymous. Hence, too, the belief that such water worlds as I-Bresail, or Welsh fairy-lands, or sunken cities off the Breton coast, rise periodically to the surface, and would remain there permanently, like an island Elysium, if some mortal would fulfill certain conditions. The Celtic belief in Tír fa Tonn is closely connected with the current belief in submerged towns or lands, found in the greatest detail on the Breton coast. Here there are many such legends, but most prominent are those which tell how the town of Is was submerged because of the wickedness of its people, or of Dahut, its king’s daughter, who sometimes still seeks the love of mortals. It is occasionally seen below the waves or even on their surface.

This passage is of extreme practical importance when properly considered. The Celts, like many peoples, firmly believed in the reality of a netherworld sunken under the waves of the Ocean, on its far side. Some people [the author just linked among them] believe that Tír fa Tonn [“Land-Under-the-Waves”] and Ys originated from the fact that certain lands in fact sunk away in the western coasts of Europe, for instance in the region of Holland and of Denmark.

But this belief is naive. If so, why would the Celts invariably locate their sunken Paradise beyond the Ocean, in the region where the sun sets? Why would the Greeks and the Romans – living so far off the west coast of Europe wher no such events took place – share the same beliefs as the Celts and the Germans? How come these local events reached the even more distant regions of the East Indies (Taprobane, etc.) and even the even remoter ones of America?

Far more likely – now that we know for sure that the Celts and other such “reds” really came from the Far East – these myths of origin were brought from there when the Celts emigrated to Europe, later passing to their islands and the coastal lands of Western Europe. Elysium, like Tír fa Tonn, the “Land-Under- the-Waves” is really no other than Atlantis itself sunken under the waves with all its gold and gemstones, perfumes, and incenses

These features, by the way, are utterly missing in the North Sea region where the Celts and the Germans settled, when they came from the Far East, driven out by the cataclysm which caused their former homeland to disappear under the waves. And such was particularly the case during the Ice Age, when the whole region was buried under the mile-thick glaciers which then covered most of the now temperate regions of the entire globe.

Above all, the North Sea region is essentially destitute of volcanoes such as the ones which originated myths such as the ones of the Celtic cauldron or its later counterpart, the Holy Grail. So, how could the legend have developed locally, if this crucial feature is so sorely absent?

The three main properties of the Celtic cauldron and the Holy Grail itself – immortality, inexhaustibility, and regeneration – are all three associated with volcanism. Volcanoes are now known to be essentially immortal, in contrast to what was widely believed down to a few years ago.

Volcanoes may be dormant or quiescent for thousands and even millions of years and suddenly come back to life, often with unimaginable fury. Volcanoes are also the source of inexhaustible fertility, a fact invariably associated with Paradise. And this inexhaustibility of the associated soil results from the cinders and dust (tephra) deposited by the volcanoes on the soil, perpetually renewing its minerals, removed by agriculture.

Volcanoes also permanently regenerate themselves, being literally reborn out of their own cinders, very much as was the case with the Phoenix, which also did so, after dying in a great conflagration. Consider, for instance, the case of the Krakatoa volcano.

When the Krakatoa really erupted for the last time, back in 1883, it collapsed, and essentially disappeared under the waters of the sea, within Sunda Strait. Soon after it reappeared as a new island, which started to grow back, and has now reached a considerable altitude.

And this new avatar of the volcano was promptly dubbed Anak Krakatau (“son of the Krakatoa”) by the ever-knowledgeable natives. It is from this type of event that the myth of the dying-resurrecting god of whom Jesus Christ is the most famous example. Small wonder then that Jesus is also associated with the Holy Grail and the Celtic cauldron, its archetype which is also the source of the fertility of the region of Paradise, which became the Terre Gaste (or Waste Land) when the Grail disappeared and could not be found anymore.

The Symbolism of the Sacred Heart

Even though we are sure of the fact that the majority of our readers will certainly consist of Jews and Christians of one denomination or another, we do hope they will mostly be open-minded enough to be able to boldly inquire about the real meaning of sacred symbols such as the Sacred Hearts of Christ and Mary, or the Mogen David, so prominent in their traditions both ancient and modern. [Click on images to enlarge.]

After all, these images are sacred symbols. And symbols, sacred or not, are in fact mysteries or riddles posed to us by our forefathers for the purpose of being deciphered in one way or another. Rather than wanting to defile these sacred symbols, we want to show their esoteric meaning, one that is far deeper than even the most pious of the Christian mystics would believe.

We also recall what we said further above. Myths work at several simultaneous levels so that one particular meaning does not preclude the others. God acts in unfathomable ways which far transcend human intelligence and sensual perception. So, He may have actually incarnated in such a way that made his own body a close replica or image of Paradise itself.

Christ’s fate is known to exactly parallel the one of Adam, just as Mary parallels Eve, her own archetype. Except that they both revert the pristine events such as the Fall and the Flood, causing their effacing much as if Time itself started to run in reverse, undoing the pristine misdeeds.

Said otherwise, we actually have two Christs as well as two Marys. One pair corresponds to the human personages who actually lived in Palestine (or elsewhere?), according to the holy books such as the Gospels and the Bible. But we also have their divine counterparts or aliases, who lived in Paradise, and who corresponds to Adam and Eve, our mythical forefathers.

By his death, Christ redeems the sin of Adam, much as Mary redeems the one of Eve by her escape from Hades, helped by Christ. This, at the Terrestrial level. At the spiritual level, the spiritual Christ, the Cosmocrator, redeems Lucifer, the angelic counterpart of Adam after the Fall. Likewise, the spiritual Mary redeems the fallen spiritual Eve, Lilith. Real or not, this is a spiritual reality that no one is able to disprove, since it is purely metaphysical in essence.

And it is of these metaphysical symbols that we want to speak now, in the text which follows next. God’s image from Heaven, where he abides, is reflected on Earth and on Hell, forming the triunity we all know about. So, we actually have the triple natures just mentioned one divine or celestial, one human or terrestrial, and the other one demonic or infernal.

The human level corresponds to the microcosmos; the terrestrial one to the cosmos or earth; whereas the spiritual one corresponds to the macrocosmic level. And it is to the cosmic level – the Terrestrial or Mundane one – that we now address our quest for the inner sense of the quaint symbolism of the Sacred Heart.

First off, we note that, at this level, the sacred symbolisms such as the ones in question here are really universal, and belong to all times and all places. The form chosen is only a sheer allegory or metaphor and may vary from place to place and from time to time.

We note that individual peoples, nations and cultures strive to demark their own individuality by means of symbols and traditions such as language, race, culture, religion, customs, laws, and so forth. Hence, it should come as no surprise that they also endeavor to forge their own symbolisms both religious and profane in as novel a way as is humanly possible.

But the meaning is invariably the same and invariably belongs to Paradise, under one name or another. And these symbols mostly refer to the terrible events associated with the Origin Sin, the Angelic War, the Flood, Salvation, Incarnation, Doomsday and the Resurrection of the Dead which will, according to a universal tradition dating from remotest epochs, take place in the last days of the present era, perhaps earlier than anyone would expect, if we believe the cogent signs.

Since the sacred symbols we are now analyzing are absolutely universal, it is to be expected that they have aliases and counterparts in the other religions, perhaps also in connection with the same paradisial events in question here. These events exist in a parallel dimension, and take place eternally, over and over and over again.

In other words, these events have occurred in the past, are occurring in the present, and will occur in the future again and again, as all pristine traditions both ancient and present invariably hold. In this context, it is perhaps well to quote here Albert Béguin (La Quête du Saint Graal, Paris, 1958; my translation from French):

The Grail represents, all at once and substantially, the Christ dying for men, the vessel of the Last Supper and, finally, the chalice of the Holy Mass, containing the real blood of the Savior. The table upon which the vessel rests is then, according to the three plans, the stone of the Saint Sepulcher, the Table of the Twelve Apostles, and, finally, the Altar where the daily sacrifice is celebrated. These three realities, the Crucifixion, the Supper, and the Eucharist, are inseparable, and the ceremony of the Holy Grail is merely their revelation. They impart, through Holy Communion, the knowledge of the true person of Christ and the participation in his Salutary Sacrifice.

Jung, in his turn, explains that the Holy Grail symbolizes “the internal plenitude that Man has always sought to attain”. In other words, it is as if Man has lost an essential part of himself that is missing, and which he can only find in Paradise when he finds it.

Such is perhaps the reason why so many people of all times and places have been fascinated by the quest of Atlantis which, in their hearts, they well know to be the real site of Paradise Lost where the Holy Grail lies hiding, just as the Celtic traditions repeatedly tell us.

And such is also the oft-repeated alchemical message: VITRIOL: Visita Interiora Terrae, Rectificandoque Invenies Occultum Lapidem (“Visit the interior of the earth, and rectifying you will find the hidden stone”). As the ancient Celts are well known, we have to visit Hades, Annwn, the hidden site of Paradise Destroyed, before we can find the Holy Grail and the Elixir of Life it contains in an inexhaustible quantity which suffices for all of us.

The lapis is of course the lapis ex illis (or ex coelis), the emerald which fell from Lucifer’s brow during the Fall. It is also the Philosopher’s Stone which produces no gold but in fact, the far more precious Elixir that imparts eternal life, and the Panacea which heals all sores.

Curiously enough, all it takes to find the Grail and to set Nature back on its trend, healing the Fisher King from his wound is to ask the question: “Where is the Grail?” or, better yet, “What is the Grail?”. On the first try, Perceval fails to make the question and loses the chance of saving the world.

But he asks the question in the second try, and the lame monarch rises, healed and hale, and all of Nature is instantly regenerated. Of course, Parsifal was a stupid fool, as his name indicates. But he was intelligent enough to learn and improve, and so he eventually succeeded. However, believe it or not, most of us are far more stupid than Parsifal, and never learn to ask the question.

We are conditioned, like Parsifal, never to ask impertinent questions such as these, and so we never ask them. So, we spend our lives blindly staring at symbols such as the Sacred Heart, the Cross, the Holy Grail, the Yoni-Lingam, the Virgin Birth and so on, and never dare to ask: “What is this?”.

And even when a few of us break the rule and inquires our elders, the invariable answer we get is: “This is a mystery which cannot be answered”. But is this true? If these mysteries and these symbols are incomprehensible to all, who managed to create them? For what purpose?

And if they mean nothing really, why do we worship these symbols and cherish them so much? Stop and think, and dare ask yourself: “What is the Grail?”. “Is it Atlantis?”. “Paradise?”. If so, “Where is the Grail?”. “Is it in the Orient or in the Occident?”. Is it real or is it purely fabulous, as most people think? And if it is real, why don’t we all look for it, and attempt to find it?

Returning to the symbolism of the Sacred Heart. The fact that we actually have two Sacred Hearts – one associated with Mary and the other with Jesus – is also apparently linked to certain traditions which actually allude to the existence of two Holy Grails.

Among the many obscure which allude to this fact, one of the first in the manuscript is due to Robert de Boron (Joseph d’Arimathie, c. 1200 AD). Another anonymous document entitled The Life of Joseph of Arimathea, affirms: “And when Our Lord was removed from the Cross, Joseph collected his blood in two vessels”.

The earliest version of the story is told in the Historia de Rebus Britannicus, authored by Maelgwyn of Avalon (fl. ca. 540 AD): “Joseph has with himself, in his sarcophagus, two flasks, one of silver, the other one white, filled with the blood and the sweat of Jesus, the prophet”.

It seems that the two phials of Joseph of Arimathea contained, one on the blood and the other on the water which issued from the wounded body of Christ, and which Joseph collected. Note that St. John says (I John 5:6): “This is he that came by water and blood, even Jesus Christ; not by water only, but by water and blood” (our emphasis).

It seems to me that the two principles somehow represent the androgynous nature of Christ. Water and blood in fact represent the two sexes, with blood symbolizing menstruum (the feminine principle) and water symbolizing semen (the masculine principle).

But it may also be that the two principles really represent the two races with blood (red) symbolizing the Dravidas (or Kshatriyas = warrior caste) whose heraldic color is red, and water (white) the Aryans (or brahmans = priestly caste), whose heraldic color is white.

We also note the fact that the ancient Hindu traditions also spoke of two Somas (Elixirs), one golden or red (like wine, etc.) and the other one white (like water, milk, etc.). This may again symbolize the two races or castes, with the Dravidas (agricultors) characterized by wine (a crop) and the Aryo-Semites (shepherds) by milk (a product of pastoral activity).

As we have argued in another article, American Indians such as the Navajos and the Pueblos consume peyote as some sort of a sacrifice akin to Holy Communion. Their rites – which far predate the Conquest and missionary work – are also very similar to the Christina ones of the Mass. So, there seems to be indubitable that their rituals are in fact connected with the ones of the Old World, and must hence date from a hoary antiquity, probably coeval with Atlantis itself, as we already argued. If so, the ritual of Holy Communion commemorates far more than the death of the historical Christ, as it predates the date of his death by many millennia.

We also believe that the association of the two Holy Grail with the Sacred Hearts of both Mary and Jesus which we argued above is connected with the dualism in question here. Mary symbolizes the feminine moiety of Christ, whereas Jesus represents his male moiety itself. This fact would nicely explain the dualism of the two Sacred Hearts, the two Holy Grails, the two Elixirs, the two races of Atlantis, and so forth.

At another level – for myths invariably work at many such – the dualism in question here also symbolizes the two Atlantis which we have identified with the Virgin Mother and her miraculous Son. The Virgin Mother is the first Atlantis, the one which preceded the second one, its replacement.

During the last Ice Age, the Toba volcano erupted on a colossal scale. This event happened at about 75 kya [kiloyears ago] and caused one of the direst cataclysms ever in the course of human existence. Humanity almost went extinct, and only a couple of thousand people survived on a global scale. The Toba volcano is located in Sumatra, the very site of Atlantis and, hence, of Paradise.

After a few millennia, the site recovered, and humans returned to the region, continuing the process of developing human civilization for the next sixty thousand years or so. The first time – when civilization was developed on its own is associated with the “Virgin Mother” since it was not “seeded” so to say, by any other nation on earth.

The second time is called the “Son”, because it originated from the Great Mother, even if unaided by any other helper. In time, the son too would be destroyed, this time by the Krakatoa volcanism of 11,600 years ago, the cataclysm we know as the Universal Flood. Once again, humanity barely escaped extinction, precisely as told in the sacred traditions of essentially all nations on earth.

As a result of the terrible cataclysm, Civilization was disrupted globally and humans really became “as rare and as precious as the gold of Ophir”. Humanity was thrown back to the Stone Age, and we had to make a fresh start. Only the “seeds” of certain essential arts were saved: humanity itself, the seeds of the domestic plants and animals which had been developed formerly by the Mother, and the moral seeds of religion, laws, social customs, language, writing, and so on.

It is for this reason that the invention of agriculture is invariably attributed to the Great Mother: Isis, Ceres, Demeter, Mater Matuta, etc.. Even Mary has often ascribed this crucial role, witness the images of Mary dressed in a robe decored by corn spikes, just like the one of Isis herself.

[Author’s Side Note: Sacred hearts = Yoni-lingam. Heart = Center = Paradise = Grail = Heart of Christ. Heart = Inverted Triangle = Yoni. Hence fissure. – Coupe = Heart (Sufi) – HOLY LANCE HOLY GRAIL = LINGA YONI – LAME KING = KRONOS SATURN YAMA. Arthur – two holy hearts; two soma VESSELS = blood and water – two phials of Joseph of Arimathea – Peyote + Eucharist – Whore of Revelation – Golden and clear soma Devil + Christ]

The Holy Grail and the Vessel-of-Plenty

Several early documents speak of the Holy Grail as some sort of “vessel-of-plenty”. In Chrétien’s version, the Holy Grail was made of pure gold and ornamented with precious stones of various colors. It passed, carried by a virgin, across the room where the personages were dining. Its shine was so intense that it caused the candles which lit the room to fade away.

Chrétien does not specifically affirm that the Holy Grail supplied the foodstuffs. But this is suggested by the context and by other, similar contemporary documents. Besides, the very name of the gréal or grazale suggests a connection with foodstuffs and viands, in which they were served. Moreover, the mythical Holy Grail seems to be connected with one of the Tables of the Sun which, according to Herodotus and others, offered free food for the poor in Ethiopia.

In later versions of the Grail cycle, the object is specifically identified as the dish or plate used by Christ and the Apostles in the Last Supper. And it is probable that this plate was magical, and produced the required food of its own, more or less like the mythical Table of the Sun.

In some versions of the Perceval Cycle, the Holy Grail is specifically affirmed to have nourishing properties. Joseph of Arimathea is said to have been nourished by the Holy Grail during his long stay in jail, and even later when he was freed and fled away. In Chrétien’s account, Perceval is informed that the Holy Grail contained the host which would serve as the food for the old king. In the Queste du Saint Graal, the Holy Grail makes a miraculous apparition on the Feast of Pentecost, at the moment when King Arthur and his knights sit down for supper:

A thundering roar echoed, accompanied by a blinding flash of light. Then the Holy Grail entered, without being carried by anyone. It was covered by a white samit, and the whole room was filled with a pleasant aroma. As it passed before the tables, each of the plates of the seated persons became filled with the food they desired to eat.

Here, the Holy Grail has fully achieved its role as the “vessel-of-plenty” (purna kumbha or ghata pallava) of the ancient Hindu traditions. These sacred vessels represent the volcano as the giver of plenty. In the ghata pallava they are symbolized by the rice, coconut leaves and mango tree leaves that fill the vessel.

And these crop plants symbolize the invention of agriculture which occurred in Paradise (Atlantis), and which was a direct consequence of the volcano itself and the inexhaustible fertilization of the soil it propitiated, in contrast to other soils, which fast become infertile and exhausted.

The purna kumbha is also specifically filled with the Elixir, so that the correspondence with the Holy Grail – likewise filled, since the Holy Blood of Christ is the Elixir – could not be any better. But its identification with thundering noises and lightning flashes also evokes the connection with the volcano, the true source of plenty.

As we argue in a parallel document (The Etymologies of the Arthurian Onomastics), the true etymology of the word “graal” or “grail” is actually: “Skull Mountain”. This name corresponds to the one of Mt. Calvary (or Golgotha), the Holy Mountain of Christian and Muslim traditions. And this title is also connected with the Krakatoa Volcano, also the Holy Mountain of Paradise. The connection of the Grail with the burning of perfumes and incenses is also connected with the destruction of Paradise and specifically with the Moluccas, the “Land of Perfumes” of the ancient traditions.

In the Diû Krône, the Holy Grail is described as a recipient containing magic bread, which is used to feed the Fisher King. It also contains a toblier (tumbler) inside which are three drops of the holy blood of Christ. Here the connection with the later traditions has been already achieved, as the blood of Christ is the true Eucharist.

In the Lancelot-Graal, in the Queste and in the Perlevaus – all three sacred and mystic rather than profane – the identification with the vessel of the Eucharist has become complete. The Grail is called le Saint Vaissel. The cult of the vessel becomes the Holy Mass, and the Grail becomes the chalice or ciborium (ciborium = “food-bearer”) which bears the Eucharist.

The saga of Bran Mac Febal which we have been quoting also alludes to the Vessel of Plenty in a short but important passage (v. 62). When the heroes land on the Island of the Women, every pleasure was granted them, the prodigal women included.

But they also enjoyed the prodigious abundance of the place and, as they banqueted: “the food that was put on every dish vanished not from them”. Moreover, the dishes and the drinks had the flavor and taste each one of the guests desired. What this means is that these plates were magic, like the Holy Grail, and were an inexhaustible source of food that never left their users to go hungry.

As is clear, we have, in this passage, an early Celtic reference to magic dishes whose mythology would later be integrated into the one of the Holy Grail. And these passages were incorporated almost verbatim in the Grail Cycle when Christianity eventually replaced Celtic Paganism. This type of religious syncretism is very common wherever Christianity or some other religion has been forced on the natives. In this way, myths survive and are refurbished over and over again, becoming ageless and essentially immortal.

The Virgin Mary and the Holy Vessel

A further aspect of the Grail legend that perhaps deserves to be mentioned is the connection of the Virgin Mary with the Holy Vessel itself. This connection is very literal and is far more than a simple metaphor of the fact that she actually carried Jesus Christ in her quality of his mother. In her litany, Mary is invoked as “Mother” and “Mystical Rose” but also as: “Spiritual Vessel”; “Vessel of Honor”; “Singular Vessel of Devotion”.

Some versions such as this one here even refer to Mary specifically as the “Holy Grail”. And some of her mystic names closely evoke a connection with Paradise: “Mother of the Golden Light, Mystical Rose; Enclosed Garden, Burning Bush, Fountain of the Garden, Tower of David, Palace of Ivory, House of Gold, Gate of Heaven, Ladder of Heaven, Resplendent Like the Sun, Keeper of the Portal”, etc.. These titles are the same as the ones of the Great Mother of Pagan traditions. And the Great Mother of both gods and humans is really no other than Atlantis-Eden itself.

Space does not allow an exegesis of these mystic names here. So, we limit ourselves to noting the connection with the Holy Grail itself. One should note that, like Christ, Mary has both a human character and a cosmic one, as a replica of the world and, even more exactly, of Paradise. “Mother” and “Son” are the two aspects of Paradise (Atlantis), one in the first time, and destroyed by the Toba supereruption of 75 kya [kiloyears ago] and the second one, after its reconstruction, in 11,6 kya.

We comment on this theme in more detail elsewhere, and will not delve into it here. Suffice it to say that Mary is the same as the Great Mother of the ancient Pagan traditions, much as Jesus Christ is her replica and replacement which also figures in the ancient traditions as Horus, Tammuz, Adonis, Agdistis, Attis, Matsya, and so on. But here is not the place to cover this type of material.

So, we limit ourselves to quoting the beautiful hymn to Mary composed by Adam of St. Victor, which dates from the same epoch as the one in which the Grail Cycle:

Salve Mater Salvatoris, [Hail Mother of the Saviour,

Vas Electum, Vas Honoris, Vessel Elected, Vessel of Honor,

Vas Caelestis Gratiae Vessel of the Celestial Grace,

Ab eternum Vas Provisum, Vessel full for eternity,

Vas Insigne, Vas Excisum, Vessel Exalted, Vessel Carved

Manu Sapientiae. By the hand of Wisdom herself.]

Note the emphasis in the identification of Mary with the Vessel which is no other than the Vessel-of-Plenty, the Holy Grail itself. In fact, we have two Holy Grails, as we comment next. One is filled with blood, the feminine essence (menstruum), and the other one with water (semen), the masculine essence. And these two vessels also correspond to the two Sacred Hearts, the Sacred Heart of Mary and the Sacred Heart of Jesus, as we already argued further above.

The Two Holy Grails and the Two Sacred Hearts

As we argued above, the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary, so central to Christian mysticism, in fact, symbolize something else than hearts proper. Sacred symbols are never obvious. And neither are they direct. It is true that the Sacred Hearts represent the two Sacred Vessels, the two Holy Grails. But what does the Holy Grail in fact symbolize?

Gods have, as heroes and other mythical personages, two different aspects, one human, the other one divine or supernatural or cosmic. And it is their cosmic nature that really interests us here, their connection with Paradise, the true Cosmos of which all sacred traditions on earth speak. Whether they ever existed as historical human personages is a question that transcends our scope, and which is better left for historians to investigate.

With this proviso, we now inquire about the true meaning of the symbolism of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary. First of all, we again note that the heart is the container of blood in the human body. As such, it is the perfect symbolic equivalent of the grail and vice-versa. But these are again symbols, as we just said. And they of course symbolize the two volcanoes of Atlantis-Eden, the Toba and the Krakatoa, as we already argued above.

We well realize that people prefer mysteries to answers; questions to solutions that they can in fact understand and quietly ruminate, in the solitude of their bedrooms, when they turn off the TV and quietly await for sleep to come and appease their inquisitive minds. Besides, it is hard, if not impossible to realize the impact that the global destruction that terminated the Pleistocene some twelve thousand years ago had in the minds of the people who witnessed the tragedy and survived to tell it to posterity.

Wisdom begins with the fear of the Lord. And the “Lord” and the “Lordess” are in fact the ruling sprites of the two supervolcanoes of Paradise, the biggest of all, bar none, the Toba and the Krakatoa. Such is also the reason why they have been deemed the supreme spirits and figure centrally in all the Mystery religions ever since remotest antiquity.

For those of us who refuse to believe in supernatural causes and agents, these two ruling spirits may be disconsidered, and their actions and proceedings left blind and void of purpose. For those gifted with faith and trust – the wide majority by far – their reality cannot be contested in any way. And they may be parts of the Trinity themselves or merely angels and guardian spirits delegated by God to carry out his purposes and his theodicy.

In practice, it does not matter, and it is all part of a belief system that cannot be proved or disproved in any reliable, compelling way. It is all a matter of individual preference which thousand of years of speculation has been unable to settle to anyone’s satisfaction.

Returning to the Sacred Hearts. When we objectively examine the pictures shown above or the myriads such as figures in Catholic churches everywhere, we are struck with the fact that they must represent something physical. Otherwise, why the fire, the radiance, the crowns of thorns?

Now, this something can only portray two things at the physical level: the sun (or moon) and volcanoes. It is true that cometary and asteroidal impacts also produce the same effects (fire and radiance) and can be enormous, as the recent fall on Jupiter demonstrated to everyone’s satisfaction. But these are far rarer events and can be neglected for now.

Jesus Christ has often been compared to the Sun, much as Mary his mother has been compared to the Moon. But they have also been identified to the two Pole Stars and the two Morning Stars. And these are all images or symbols which do not have a direct impact on climate and the eras, notwithstanding certain unproven theories such as the one due to Milutin Milankovitch.

Volcanoes, instead – and supervolcanoes such as the Toba and the Krakatoa in particular – are now known for sure to have caused major climatic impacts in the geological past and are fast being recognized as the controlling agents on climatic events such as the Ice Ages, which they apparently trigger on and off, as we argue in great detail elsewhere.

So, it makes sense to consider that what the symbolism of the Sacred Heart in fact represents are volcanoes. And if so, what volcanoes specifically? We already answered that question in a positive way: the Toba and the Krakatoa. But that specific identity matter little. In fact, we have to consider the trinity which corresponds to Shiva’s trident and other such triune symbolisms, the one of the Holy Trinity and the Hindu Trimurti included. And this third element is the Mt. Dempo volcano of Sumatra, as we argue in more detail elsewhere.

Look again at images such as this one here or here or here or here. Hardly would it represent the Sun, the Moon, the Pole Star, the Morning Star. It seems to represent a pyre or a stove or a furnace. As such, it closely evokes the Athanor, the alchemical furnace. But the Athanor is itself a symbol. A symbolic representation of the volcano which accomplishes the great transmutation, converting base metals into precious ones, base iron and lead into gold: the alchemical return to the Golden Age.

The only image that makes sense in every respect is the symbolism of volcanoes, as is easy to realize now that we have given the key: the great big volcano which destroyed Paradise at the dawn of the present era. The crown of thorns is also a symbol. It symbolizes the hedge which encircles Paradise and renders it invisible to human eyes.

This thorny hedge figures in many traditions which we comment on elsewhere. The radiance represents the searing heat radiated by the giant volcanism. And the fire is the consequence of the heat that killed and desiccated the forests of Indonesia, rendering them prone to the giant fires which ensued. The soot thus liberated fell upon the continental glaciers of the Ice Age, melting them out and causing the end of this era, and the transition into the present Interglacial Era.

The symbolic meaning of the Sacred Heart is also masterfully expressed in these figures from Medieval manuscripts from Germany shown in Fig. XXX below.

 

Fig. XXX – The Symbolism of the Sacred Heart
(E Jung, ML von Franz, Lenda do Graal, pg. 47 (both); 76 (both))

 

In the first of the above figures, we see the Sacred Heart pierced by the Holy Lance. The dualism lance x heart is explicit here. The lance visibly corresponds to the linga, whereas the heart corresponds to the yoni, fissure inclusive. Said otherwise, the symbolism of the Holy Lance and the Sacred Heart (or Holy Grail) very obviously derives from the far older one of the Yoni-Lingam of Hindu symbolism.

In this figure, we also observe the four members of Christ (hands and feet) nailed to the Cross at the Four Intermediate Cardinal Directions. The Sacred Heart is wrapped in flames and four thunderbolts issue from it along the four Main Cardinal Directions. This symbolism directly evokes one of Mt. Meru and its four subsidiary peaks likewise posted at the Four Cardinal Directions. ^[9]

The figure just linked corresponds to the so-called Kalachakra mandalas which show Mt. Meru, the Holy Mountain of Paradise shown from above, in plant representation. We discuss the symbolism of these mandalas in our Atlantis site, where the interested reader may study the basics of their real meaning and their connection with the destruction of Paradise by the giant volcanism.

Anyone who pauses to meditate on the real meaning of the quaint symbolism of Kalachakra mandalas and notes their visible parallels with the one of the Sacred Heart and the Holy Grail will not fail to realize that they all represent one and the same thing: the destruction of Paradise by volcanic fire, just as we have been arguing for quite some time now.

We also note the connection of the four thunderbolts shown in the above figure with the Four Thunders and the Four Guardians (Lokapalas) of Hindu and other traditions. These Thunders also figure as apostles in the Gospels (the Boanerges Twins). But they also figure centrally in Amerindian traditions of great antiquity, for instance, the Four Bacabs of the Mayas, and several others such.

As we have already argued, their presence in the Americas proves the fact that their myth actually dates from Pleistocene times, when these pristine contacts were still possible between the Old and the New Worlds due to lower sea levels. As is now clear, this type of myth on the destruction of Paradise dates from the Ice Age and diffused to the whole world. It reappears once in a while in a refurbished form in the Marseilles Tarot, in the Hindu-Buddhic mandalas, in the Judeo-Christian myths, in Amerindian traditions on Paradise Lost, and so on and on, for they are eternal and ageless.

The second figure shown above represents essentially the same symbolism as the first, in a slightly changed form. Here, the thunderbolts have become rays radiating into the Four Cardinal Directions. The four members nailed to the Cross are again shown inside circles.

As before, the four bleeding members, pierced by four huge nails correspond to the four subsidiary peaks of Mt. Meru. They also correspond to the four volcanoes and the four passages they opened up and which lead to the interior of the Four Continents. Each volcano has a guardian sprite or god, in the animistic views of the ancients. The fifth and main one – the guardian of the central, main volcano is here explicitly identified to Christ himself and his holy heart or grail.

The third and fourth figures are closely parallel and can be discussed together. The Sacred Heart (or Grail) is again shown at the center but is here inhabited by a little angel or imp bearing a halo on which the Cross is again shown. The Cross represents the marker of the Center of the World, indicated by its coordinates: Meridian 0^o and Parallel 0^o.

These two are, as we already explained, the coordinates of Lanka. Lanka – the true archetype of Atlantis – was the origin of the earth’s coordinates and the International Dateline in antiquity, according to Hindu traditions of extreme antiquity (the Ramayana, etc.). And it was located in Sumatra, the very site of both the Krakatoa and the Toba volcanoes.

The little boy or imp shown here is apparently Jesus Christ himself. The old god died, but the new one immediately resurged from his heart, very much in the way in which Dionysus was reborn from the heart of Zagreus which Zeus had swallowed when the god had been devoured by the evil Titans and which the god somehow managed to transfer to Semele, his lover.

Christ is here bearing a scourge and a bunch of palm leaves (?). The symbolism of the scourge is the renovation of Nature that takes place at these times. The broom (?) apparently symbolizes more or less the same thing. More exactly, the palm tree is the Tree of Life, also symbolized by the cross itself. And the tree of Life is really the giant “mushroom” created by the giant volcanism.

At the top of the Cross, we have the usual inscription: INRI. This legend is usually interpreted as meaning: Iesus Nazarenus Rex Iudeorum (“Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews”). But this is really an exoteric rendition of little significance. To start with, Jesus was not the king of the Jews, and in fact, parted with them essentially for good.

According to occultists versed in such matters, the true reading of the legend on the Cross is Igne Natura Renovabitur Integra (“The whole of Nature will be renewed by Fire”). And this makes sense when we note the fiery associations of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and, above all, the fact that Jesus was allegedly baptized with Fire, whereas John, his beloved disciple baptized with Water.

In reality, the two “cousins” – or really duals and twins, according to some esoteric traditions – correspond, at the cosmic level, to the two volcanoes, the Toba and the Krakatoa. The Krakatoa is a submarine volcano and destroys by watery dispensations (tsunamis). The Toba is instead terrestrial and dispenses fire, rather than water.

One should not be misled or confused by the fact that the attributions changed from Jesus and Mary to Jesus and John. These changes of sex and of personality are frequent in myths, and really mean very little in practice. Even more exactly, we have a triunity here: Jesus, John and Mary. And this type of distribution is the one which we find just about everywhere, as we argue elsewhere.

One pristine trio consists, say, of the Ashvin Twins of the Rig Veda who share the love of Dawn (Ushas). Several such could also be quoted both in the Old and the New Worlds. The dualism of Jesus and John closely corresponds to the one of Krishna and Balarama, samkarshana, and all, as we comment in detail elsewhere. The explanation of this difficult issue does not fit here, and the interested reader is directed to our more specialized works on the fascinating issue.

The figures of Krishna and Balarama also correspond to the ones of Hercules and Atlas, who in turn correspond to the two Pillars of Hercules and /or Atlas. And these two pillars are in turn the same as the well-known markers of the site of Atlantis, the two volcanoes which we just adduced.

No matter where we turn, it is they which we find as the real source of the quaint mythology of the Holy Grail and one of the dying-resurrecting gods which some identify to the Sun and the Moon, others to the two Pole Stars, still others to the Morning and the Evening Star, and so on.

Bibliography

I – Green Man

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1) Basford, Kathleen, “The Green Man”. Ipswich, 1978.
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1) Johnson, Terry, “Hidden Heritage – Discovering Ancient Essex”.Capall Bann Publ., Berks, 1996.
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1) Pevsner, Sir Nikolaus, “The Leaves of Southwell”, Penguin Books, 1945.
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1. It is probably worth pointing out that the word “cauldron” directly evokes the idea of a volcanic caldera or crater. As we will be arguing next, this is in fact the true meaning of the Holy Grail, which we have identified with the Vadavamukha of Hindu traditions. In other words, the Celtic cauldron is a more primitive, cruder variant of the idea that later became embodied in the Holy Grail. But the word “grail” itself ultimately derives from the same base as “cauldron” or “caldera”.The linguistic evolution was more or less as follows: Greek krater (“crater”) > Latin crater or cratera > Low Latin cratale or gradale > French and Provençal grazale or graale > English “grail”. However, the Latin words caldaria (recipients for hot baths) and caldus (hot) which gave “cauldron”, etc., seem to be related to it. It seems that these words were influenced by or derived from Etruscan, itself related to Dravidian bases such as Kalderash (Gypsy tribes specialized in making cauldrons, kettles, etc.). I believe that all such words originally referred to volcanic craters and calderas, which is also probably the ultimate meaning of the word “graal”.Prydwen means “white shape” or, perhaps “shiny apparition, ghost, phantom”. The idea seems to correspond to a volcano. Even more exactly, the name apparently refers to the Vadavamukha as the White Horse of Kalkin, the forthcoming avatar of Vishnu, decreed to appear when the present era is to be ended. This eagerly awaited, but much-feared apparition closely corresponds to the one of the White Horseman of Revelation. We will return to the myth of the White Horse (or Mare) further below.The name of Prydwen may be derived from Dravida as follows: #4411 peri-tt- (“great, spacious, big”) + # 5496 ven- (“bright, white”). The first e is schwa, and is easily lost. The first root also expresses the idea of “Flood” and of a barge or ship (#4446 pir-tt) able to carry heavy loads, more or less as does Atlas on his head. Again, the base may be derived from #4425 per-tt- (“bull, cattle, mountain”), also derived from the idea of “big”. Hence, the name pridwen means something like “bright apparition” or “white ghost” an apparently refers to the Vadavamukha as the bright, fearful shape ridden by Kalkin, the White Horseman of Hindu traditions.This word is apparently related to preideu annwfyn, the spoils (cattle, cauldrons) brought over from Hades by Arthur’s men. According to experts, the name Annwn is derived from an-dwfyn, “un-world” or “very-deep”. The story of this raid apparently corresponds to the myth of Hercules bringing the cattle of Geryon from Erytheia (Hades itself) or, also, the similar, far older one of Indra and Sarama rustling the cattle of the Panis in the Rig Veda. The Rig Veda is very probably the ultimate source of all those arcane Indo-European traditions.As we argue in detail elsewhere, this myth is an allegory of the destruction of Atlantis and the bringing of the survivors (“people” = “cattle” = “spoils of the victor”) to the region of Europe by saviors such as Hercules, Aeneas, Hu Gadarn, Gradlon, etc.. The “Four-Peaked Fortress” (v. 12) evokes Mt. Meru and its four subsidiary peaks, placed at the Four Cardinal Points. The cauldron is a complex motif. It is both the Holy Grail and the volcano caldera, a word meaning “cauldron”, as we argue further below in the present chapter. And it also relates to the tripods of Greco-Roman traditions.Cf. also diuant in verse 58. This word has a lot of meanings, most of which correspond to the idea of “wasted land, perdition, wilderness”. The same also applies to llawr (or allawr) in the same verse (58), apparently expressing the idea of “altar”: “The grave of the saint is hidden (or: lost, vanished, in the Otherworld), both grave and ground (or: champion)”. The allusion in this obscure verse to “altar” (allawr) and “grave” (bet) seems to be to the two Pillars of Hercules, one a peak, the other one a volcanic caldera.We believe that the first of these two words corresponds to the Sanskrit dvipa, itself derived from the Drav. dippa or div- and meaning “island, paradise”. In reality, the name implies the idea of a sunken Paradise turned Hell. The suffix ant may in turn be derived from Dravida where we have a multitude of similar forms meaning “destruction, ruin, perdition, loss”. Hence, we literally have: div-ant = “Paradise Destroyed” or “Island Destroyed”. This is a frequent epithet of Hades and of the Vadavamukha itself.

   Moreover, the suffix -ant is the same that figures in the name of Atlantis (atl-ant-is). If this is right, we have here direct proof that Celtic Flood myths such as this one ultimately derive from Hindu ones such as that of Manu and the Fish. Besides, we also have a direct link with Hindu dvipas and the island of Atlantis. The second obscure word here translated by “altar” is also apparently derived from Dravida. In fact, we have in that tongue: čala- or *ala (“rock, bound”) + ur (“fire, burn”) > *ala-ur (“fiery rock, volcano”). These two features of Hades (Atlantis) are visibly the same as the two Pillars of Hercules and /or Atlas.

   As we argue elsewhere, one of these pillars (Calpe) was a cup, and the other one (Abila) was a dome or rock. Symbolically speaking, these two features could well be compared to an altar (a mound or dome) and a tomb (a recipient or cup = the Holy Grail). If this is right, the verse should perhaps read: “The grave of the saint is hidden in Hell (or: lost, vanished, in the Otherworld); both the grave and the altar” (bet santyn diuant abet allawr). This is the only possible sense in which this cryptic verse makes any sense at all.

   The Caer Vedwit (“Fortress of Mead-Drunkenness”) is the name here given Hades. The radix ved- is the same one we meet in the name of Seithenin Veddu (“Seithenin, the drunkard”), the main one responsible for the Flood in Celtic traditions. Mead is Soma, alias the volcanic magma that destroys Paradise (Skt. madhu). This type of tradition is unequivocally Hindu in origin. The “strong door of Hades” (pybyrdor) is a feature of many myths. This place, like Atlantis, was deemed inexpugnable. So Tartarus with its bronzy gates. The Glass Fortress (caer wydyr) is another reference to the volcano (Krakatoa), whose magma is actually siliceous (vitreous). In fact, the region of Indonesia abounds with tektites, mute witnesses of a former giant cataclysm.

   Verse 32 affirms that the men there are mute, and unable to maintain a conversation, like the ones of Vineta, the Scandinavian counterpart of Annwn. The name of “God’s Peak” (v. 42) evokes the Holy Mountain everywhere, the one commented in my Atlantis site. This mountain is Mt. Sinai in the Bible, Whirling Mountain in the Americas, Mt. Meru in India and Indonesia, and so on. In reality, it is the Krakatoa volcano, which we discovered to have been the true archetype of Mt. Atlas, the Pillar of Heaven. The mountain exploded and collapsed, turning into the huge volcanic caldera that is now the Devil’s Cauldron, beneath the waters of Sunda Strait, in the region of Indonesia, precisely the site where Atlantis was formerly located.

   The name of Annwn is also curious, as it literally corresponds to the Skt. a-tala (“no-land, un-world”), and seems to be its translation into the Celtic tongue. Atala is the name of the Hindu netherworld, said to be some sort of sunken Paradise (dvipa) submerged under the waters. An- is the privative suffix in Celtic, and corresponds to the English un- and the Skt a-. In turn, the Celtic word dwfyn apparently relates to Skt dvipa, which it closely resembles. The word dvipa means “paradise, island” in Sanskrit.

   This poem makes some curious revelations, whose full exegesis does not fit here. We limit ourselves to a couple of such glosses here. Verse 20: arac drws porth vffern llugyrn lloscit. (“And before the doors of hell lamps burned”) is very curious. These “lamps” seem to be the two volcanoes of Atlantis also known as the two Pillars of Hercules which we identified to the two main volcanoes of Indonesia, the Toba and the Krakatoa. This fact is supported by the report of Hesiod and others who refer to Atlas, the Pillar of Heaven placed in front of the gates of Hades itself. (Theog. 746). Atlas and Hercules are the same as the two Pillars of Heaven and Earth.

   These pillars are also called the Pillars of Hercules. The ones of Gibraltar and the Bosphorus etc. are mere replicas, as we argue in more detail elsewhere. Though late, this poem is based on much older traditional stuff, as we argued said further above. This place is also explicitly identified with the Caer Sidi, the Revolving Castle which we identified as the Whirling Mountain of the Navajos in our Atlantis site.

   Verse 25: echwyd amuchyd kymyscetor. One translator has: “Flowing water and jet are mingled”; whereas the other one has: “where the twilight is, and also the jet-black night, and they move together”. The first translator explains the difference [follow the links], and admits he did not understand the real meaning of this obscure passage. We believe, basing ourselves on Comparative Religion, that it is a reference to the antipodal position of Annwn, so that when it is midday here, it is midnight there, and vice-versa.

   Or perhaps it corresponds to Hesiod’s description of Tartarus (Hades) in his Theogony (748): “where Night and Day draw near [each other] and greet one another as they pass the great threshold of bronze”. The correspondence could be no closer so that this seems to be the meaning of the passage in question here. Note that in this passage Hesiod also places Atlas, the son of Iapetus, in front of the gloomy place.

   This means that Tartarus – and hence Annwn – is to be identified to Atlantis itself, sunken and turned murky and infernal by the great cataclysm which also terminated the Pleistocene Ice Age some 11,600 years ago. This is the exact date quoted by Plato for Atlantis’ demise. As is clear, the traditions of Atlantis-Eden-Hades are found not only in Plato, but also in Hesiod and in Taliesin, among many other similar traditions on Paradise Lost. ↑

2. The “Atlantic Islands” – or “Islands of the Blest”, rather, for no one really wanted to discover the site of Hell itself – also corresponded to the Seven Hells and Seven Heavens which we find in essentially all traditions since remotest antiquity. This universal tradition derives, as usual, from the Hindu ones having to do with the 14 Manvataras (Eras of Mankind) of which 7 have already elapsed.According to these Hindu traditions, there were originally 14 Heavens, and no Hells. Every time an era ends, the Pillar of Heaven which supports it – and which is normally identified to Shiva Sthanu (a word meaning “Pillar of Heaven”) – crumbles, destroying the underjacent world in the process. The old earth becomes the new hell, and the old heaven the new earth.This curious myth is in fact an allegory of a supervolcanism, covering the whole region of Paradise with cinders, like a shroud. All Life on earth then chokes to death, and recovery normally takes a fairly long time (centuries or perhaps even millennia for a full restoration). Hence the connection with each era being “buried under the earth” (kata gaia kalypse) which Hesiod mentions in his quaint The Works and the Days. By the way, this early Greek work on the Four Eras of Mankind seems to have been copied verbatim from Hindu holy books such as the Puranas (“Ancient Traditions”), which date from the remotest antiquity.The same idea is also expressed in the Book of Revelation, when it speaks of the end, and mentions that “there will be a new heaven and a new earth” when the New Jerusalem resurges from the waves, pure and virginal like the Venus of Boticelli. The New Jerusalem is of course the same as Atlantis, which is also said to be fated to revive, much as will Annwn and Emain Abbalach, its Celtic counterpart. The Hindu legend just mentioned is also the visible archetype of the Greek legend of Atlas as “the Pillar of Heaven”. ↑
3. It seems that no one so far was able to find a suitable etymology for the name of Manannan. His name is connected with the one of the Island of Man, in the British Isles. In fact, the island owes its name to the god, rather than vice versa. So much so that its flag consists of a three-legged triskele, the symbol of Manannan. Since no viable etymology is available, we would like to propose a Dravidian one that we find most compelling.As we argue elsewhere, Dravida – and more exactly Dravidian languages such as Etruscan, Rhaetian, and Pelasgian – was the pristine language of the whole European region, before the advent of the Indo-Europeans. So, a Dravidian etymology is acceptable, at least until a better one is found by someone.In Dravida, mannan means “king, lord”. And am (or ame) means “water, flood”. So, mannan-am (or manann-an, etc.) means “lord of the waters” or “lord of the Flood”. These are fit epithets for a marine god who seems to be an alias of Poseidon and Neptune, as well as of Apam Napat. For that matter, we note that Neptune derives his name from the one of Apam Napat and, even more exactly, from its Dravidian version: Napat-am. ↑
4. The fact that Splendid Mane may appear in different colors and different sexes should not disturb the reader. The main issue is that it is the Submarine Mare. Its many names –Each Uisge, Aughisky, Kelpie, Glashtyn, Phooka (in Welsh, Pwca), XXX attests its antiquity in Celtic Europe. The white color expresses an infernal character (as a ghostly apparition). But so does the black one. In fact, the white color also attests a connection with Guinevere and with death (palor or paleness).A more fanciful description of the Kelpie from Aberdeen describes the horse ghost as having a huge mane formed of small fiery serpents which curl around and spit fire and brimstone. This description evokes the Gorgon Medusa, also a scary avatar of the infernal volcano itself. ↑
5. This story appears quite early in the Arthurian Cycle. The first mention occurs in the book entitled Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, whose manuscript, due to the anonymous Pearl Poet dates from the late fourteenth century. But the story is probably far older and has to do with the legend of the Green Man. Many experts consider this tale one of the finest in the entire Arthurian Cycle. ↑
6. Readers interested in this issue should particularly read Plato’s remarkable dialogue entitled Statesman, where the doctrine of the Magnus Annus and the Eternal Return is more clearly expounded. In fact, this doctrine forms the essence of Plato’s work, particularly in connection with the myth of Atlantis.Plato is of course most obscure on this issue, since it forms the core and essence of the doctrine of the Mysteries, whose esoteric contents no one clearly understood up to now, with the exception of the Initiates, who are however sworn to secrecy. On the nature of the History of Religions and Comparative Mythology I would particularly recommend the works of Sir James G. Frazer, particularly The Golden Bough. And I also recommend authors such as Mircea Eliade, René Guénon, Joseph Campbell, Heirich Zimmer, Fritjof Schuon, etc.. The reader will find a thorough bibliography of these authors, Mircea Eliade above all. Our works on this subject are too many and too difficult to usefully quote here. They embody a more or less thorough discussion of the actual sacred texts and philosophers mentioned above and several other such. ↑
7. This fact is demonstrated for instance by the name of Saning Sari, the Corn Mother of Indonesians, which gave rise to the name of Ceres, the Roman goddess of cereals. The word Saning is a corruption of Samjna, the name of the Great Mother in Hindu traditions. The word sari (or saris) is itself derived from the Dravida *sariči > ariči (“rice”), the loss of initial č- or ś- being frequent in this family of languages formerly spoken all over the South Seas region. The word ariči is in turn the source of IE words such as Port. arroz, Latin ceres (gen. cereris), cerealis, It. riso, Engl. rice, etc..How could the name of the useful cereal possibly have derived from Dravida rather than from a different language if its origin is due to another nation? It is also now known for sure that rice is the first agricultural crop ever, its origin in the Far East dating from over 14,000 years ago, as we argue in detail elsewhere. What this means is that agriculture was actually invented in this region of the world. Curiously enough, the name of Java (or Yava) means precisely “rice” or “barley” in Sanskrit, further attesting the Indonesian origin of rice. This name also designates the Yavanas (“whites, Europeans”) as the “rice people” from Java. And the death of the Rice Mother (or Rice Father) corresponds to the one of Atlantis as we already argued. ↑
8. The motif of the golden or silvery branch is recurrent in Celtic mythology. This branch is also probably the same as the Golden Bough to whose research Sir James G. Frazer dedicated his famous book. This motif has to do with the laurel branch invariably worn as a chaplet by the heroes who visit the site of Paradise: Aeneas, Dante, Orpheus, and so on. As we explain in detail elsewhere, this golden branch embodies a visual pun with Taprobane, whose name (tamra-parna) means precisely the same thing in Sanskrit and Dravida.In other words, the presence of the golden bough in Avallon is signaling the identity of the place with Taprobane, the site of Paradise Lost (and turned to Hell) in Hindu traditions. Avalon (aval = “apple”) apparently means more or less the same thing, the Apple Tree being the Celtic equivalent of the Tree of Life, just as in the Judeo-Christian traditions. And this Tree of Life produced the golden apples from which the Elixir was fashioned, according to the traditions of the Celts, the Germans and the Greeks, among other peoples.The golden or silvery branch is also mentioned in another Celtic saga known as The Voyage of Cormac Mac Airth, another legendary Irish king. A young man – later identified with Manannan – appeared to a king one day, waving a golden bough from which nine golden apples were hanging. When the apples struck each other, wonderful music was created, which made one forget all his sorrows. Cormac wants to acquire the magic bough, and the price asked is high: his wife and his two children. The king agrees, and obtains the golden bough.After a year elapsed, Cormac sorely missed his family and decided to go after them. He gets to a wonderful plain, and, after many adventures manages to find Manannan and obtain the devolution of his wife and children, together with the gift of several magic objects of a curious nature. The golden apples identify, we repeat, the wonderful plain as Avalon (Emain Aballach), the “Land of the Golden Apples” or, even more exactly, as the “Land of the Elixir”.And this land is precisely the one of Taprobane (Sumatra), as we have shown elsewhere. The Dravidian name of Taprobane or Lanka – which one must not confuse with Sri Lanka, a mere replica – is Ilam or Iram, a word which is also synonymous with “Elixir” in both Dravida and Sanskrit. The word “apple” is of obscure derivation but seems to derive from Skt. phala (“fruit”), with a prostetic a-. This is in turn derived from Drav. pala, meaning the same, but also expressing the idea of “yellow, golden”. It also seems that Avalon may be derived from a-phala-ilam, or perhaps from a-phala-alam both contracted to a-phal-am. In the first case, the etymology is “apples of the Elixir” and in the second “land of the golden apples”.We note that the names of Avallon and of Emain Aballach – which both mean “Land of the [Golden] Apple Tree” – closely correspond to the one of Taprobane both mythically and semantically. The name of Taprobane (Tamraparna, in Sanskrit) literally means “golden leaf” or “golden branch”. And this “golden branch” is precisely the Golden Bough which Sir Frazer so exhaustively discussed in his magistral treatise of this very name which was discussed further above.In fact, it may well be that these “golden apples” fabled to impart eternal life were in fact bananas (Musa sapientum or Musa paradisiaca), actually originary from the region of Taprobane itself (Lanka or Indonesia). But some experts (whom we quote elsewhere) prefer to identify them with oranges, mangoes, jackfruit, or thorn-apples (a hallucinogen), which also originated in this region of the world and subsequently spread worldwide.The Sanskrit name of Tamraparna in fact derives from Dravida (Tamaraparana, Tambapanni) and literally means “Golden Peninsula”. And this is precisely the name anciently given to the Malay Peninsula itself called Chryse Chersonesos in Greek and Aurea Chersonesus in Latin, words which mean exactly the same thing in those two Classical tongues. But the Dravidian word parana is also akin to the Sanskrit parna, and means the idea of anything that branches out: a leaf, a fruit, a bough, a branch, a wing, a peninsula or cape, an arm, etc..

   So, in these polysemic, sacred tongues, the name of Taprobane – a Greek misspelling of Tamraparna or Tambapani, etc. – can also be literally rendered as “Golden Bough” or “Golden Wing” or “Golden Apple”, the name actually associated with Paradise. The reader interested in these etymological matters is invited to read Sir Frazer’s treatise as well as our more specialized works on this highly interesting matter.

   We also evoke the fact that Greek-Roman heroes and poets such as Aeneas, Orpheus, Virgil, Dionysos, etc. who dared visit Hades also invariably wore a chaplet or crown made from a golden boughs of a wondrous nature which protected them from all harm. This feature is an iconic puzzle posed by the ancients for us to decipher as a sort of initiatic prerequisite necessary for all those desiring to undertake the quest of Paradise and, above all, the Holy Grail itself and the Elixir it is said to contain. ↑

9. That these strange ramifications actually correspond to thunderbolts can be seen in this figure of the Thunderstruck Tower of Tarot (La Maison Dieu). The symbolism here is again an illustration of the same event of the destruction of Paradise, here represented by a tower, exactly as in the Hindu symbolism, except for matters of a different perspective (side view, rather than plant).The two personages falling down from the top of the tower are usually said to be King Solomon and King Hiram of Tyre. The two are of course symbolic, and in fact stand fro the two races of Atlantis, the Dravidas and the Aryo-Semites, both degraded by the Original Sin. Their fall corresponds to the Fall of Lucifer and /or Adam, etc.. The top of the tower, a crown, also corresponds to the emerald that fell from Lucifer’s brow during the Fall. And it also corresponds to Christ himself as “the capping-stone of the Temple”, here represented by the Tower itself. Solomon’s Temple – which should not be confused with the one built by King Herod in Jerusalem – is purely symbolic, and actually corresponds to Paradise itself. ↑

 

 

[SEPT. 2004]