By Douglas Gabriel
The legendary story of the Holy Grail starts in heaven with the sin of Lucifer whose pride made him refuse to bow down to Adam and Eve after God the Father had created them. Lucifer believed he could create a better man and woman. He sat on the throne of God and claimed to be as great as God the Father. Lucifer was one of the brightest of angels and his light was great, but it still paled next to the light of the throne of God. Lucifer was so jealous and prideful that his hubris drove him away from the presence of God and into the darkest corners of heaven where he fashioned great stones of light for his crown and a mighty sword to strike down his enemies.
When Lucifer came before the throne of God again, the Archangel Michael was on the right side of God with a flaming sword of power and a spear of might. The Archangel Gabriel stood on the left side of God standing in front of the newly created human beings hiding behind the throne. In his hand, Gabriel held the Lily of Heaven, like a pure grail-vessel of beauty and grace. Lucifer had become a dragon of darkness and his hatred filled him until he directly attacked the throne of God. The Archangel Michael struck the crown of Lucifer from his prideful head and the central green stone of the crown was dislodged and fell like a meteorite from the presence of God.
Michael then used his spear to cut a huge gash into the outer wall of heaven to let the stone and Lucifer fall from heaven into the outer darkness. As he fell, the Old Dragon of Lies swept one third of the human souls up with his tail and pulled them down into the darkness with him. The dragon fell like a meteor to the earth pulling humans, like falling stars, behind him.
The stone of Lucifer's crown fell into the deepest part of the earth, Palestine. It was found and brought to the King of Tyre, who polished it into a bowl that looked like a heavenly emerald. This bowl was given to King Solomon by the King of Tyre to place in the holy of holies of Solomon's Temple. Joseph of Arimathea used this bowl to gather the blood (and water) of Jesus of Nazareth during and after the crucifixion. When the blood of the Son of God touched the stone of Lucifer's crown (Solomon's Bowl), the redemption of Lucifer began.
The blood of the gods (divine consciousness) had spread to all humans and merged with their blood (spiritual-consciousness) transforming the human being into a potentially immortal, divine being. And Lucifer, having Jesus Christ's "human-divine" blood pour into his "jewel of the crown" emerald bowl, finally bowed before a human (Jesus of Nazareth) and recognized his sin of pride which caused his fall from paradise.
When the blood/body of Christ united with the earth, humanity was given the blood of the gods that can transform the kingdom of Lucifer (earth) into the sacred Grail Castle. These secrets are referred to as the Mysteries of the Holy Blood Relics and the Quest for the Holy Grail. If a seeking aspirant (grail knight) understands the living imagination of the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus, he has entered the Grail Castle where the grail maidens (the three Marys) display their devotion to the grail and ask the important question - Who does the grail serve?
Each seeker can quest for the grail and use this "Way" to find the entrance to the Grail Castle so they might awaken and ask the "grail question," hopefully being morally developed enough to understand the answer.
Every element involved in the fall from paradise and the crucifixion of Jesus are important tools for the questing knight and lady of the grail. In the first stage of seeking, we are all soldiers of the divine trying to right the wrong and conquer the dragons and wild animals that exist below the virtue of our heart's morality. We need the sword of Michael to strike pride from our haughty heads and let the jewel of the crown become a humble, simple stone that falls into the compassion and love of the heart. We also need the fiery spear of heaven that can hold the demons and dragons at bay without killing them.
We need to use the spear to keep the distance between our higher Michaelic/angelic forces and the lower forces derived from the seven deadly sins of vice and immorality. The spear also cuts open the prideful wall of the mind so that consciousness can find its home in the heart instead of cold, earth-bound thinking centered in the head. We must not separate the sword of wisdom and the spear of love but use them together as spiritual weapons to conquer the dragon of selfishness that rules the lower self.
We are also the Archangel Gabriel in this heavenly grail imagination. Gabriel is the archangel of the moon as Michael is the archangel of the sun. Gabriel rules procreation, birth, and the blood forces of the female body that are embodied in the image of Gabriel holding a lily - a pure six-sided chalice that represents the female womb of birth and procreation. Gabriel appears to Mary as the messenger of God who brings the blessings of the Holy Spirit to deliver the Son of God to her pure soul.
Gabriel held back and protected two thirds of the human beings while Lucifer was pulling one third down into darkness with him as he fell from heaven. Gabriel also held back and protected two very special souls who would later become the vehicles for Mary and Jesus when they incarnated on the earth, the one and only time they would incarnate in a physical human body. These bodies would become the "new Adam and Eve" under the cross, the "new Tree of Life."
One of the reasons Lucifer could not except God's creation of the human being was because Lucifer knew that one day, every human being could complete the quest and become not only redeemed and able to return to paradise at will, but also because humans would one day become the masters of Lucifer and the other dragons/demons who still believe in dark power. Humans, when the holy grail is attained, will outstrip Lucifer's attempts to return to heaven. Lucifer's pride made him turn away from witnessing the crucifixion of Christ. Lucifer still denies that Christ has redeemed his fallen jewel of the crown, and the whole earth, and all human beings.
Lucifer can no longer find the grail himself because of his pride, jealousy, and hatred. He can only see that some humans have attained the grail and ascended back to heaven. Someday, the legends say, Lucifer will be completely redeemed by the Wisdom of Sophia and the mercy of the Holy Spirit.
Upon close examination, we see that the same spiritual "tools" were present at the crucifixion and the fall from paradise. The sword of wisdom was present in the wisdom of Mary (the three Marys) who mustered the strength to endure witnessing the passion, pain, and death of Jesus knowing that he was the Son of God. This wisdom could only be fully held in the heart of the mother of Jesus.
It took both the wisdom and strength of Michael and Gabriel combined to "hold all these things in her heart." Mary was so transformed by her experience that she ascended (Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary) bodily into paradise after her Dormition (three days of sleep). Wisdom became love and the holy grail was attained as Mary ascended into heaven before the followers of Christ.
Mary, the mother of Jesus, also used her body as the holy grail to birth the "holy blood" of Jesus, the purest spirit who had not incarnated in a human body before (or after). Mary transformed into the "living grail" whose blood became the vehicle for the divine to incarnate. Mary birthed the spirit of the sun, the solar deity, for the redemption of all humanity through the most cruel and vile death that was transformed into a divine gift to human spiritual evolution. Mary was over-lighted by Gabriel to bring forth the most perfect human body possible. Thus, through the process she became a "virgin soul" who was the perfect example of a soul questing for the holy grail and finding it by reuniting with the divine - our paradisical home.
The Archangel Michael was said to be the only angelic hierarchy who could bare to witness the crucifixion and death of the Son of God. It was Michael who guided the hand of Longinus to pierce the heart of Jesus with his spear. Longinus was supposedly blind and would have needed guidance to lance Jesus in the heart to demonstrate that he was already dead and did not need to have the Sanhedrin break his legs to expedite his death by suffocation.
It was a merciful and loving deed that Longinus did to open the heart of a god to bleed for all humanity's redemption. Upon piercing the outer chamber of Christ's heart, blood and water (plasma) gushed forth and struck Longinus in the eyes, healing him of his blindness. Thereupon Longinus called out that 'this surely must be the Son of God.'
At the moment of piercing Christ's sacred heart, an eclipse happened along with a great storm and an earthquake. The earthquake allowed the blood of Christ to enter deep into the earth. Longinus' spear broke in half and the spearhead separated from the staff and heated up to red hot. It looked as if the broken spear had cut a gash into the earth so that the blood of Christ might enter. Longinus fell from his horse in amazement and then saw that the Spear of Phinehas, the Sanhedrin's banner of authority, had also broken and fallen to the ground. This was the same spear used to behead John the Baptist for Salome and Herod.
Thus, the spear of the Roman centurion becomes the Lance of Love as the evil Spear of Phinehas is vanquished and, at the same time, it was reported that the veil that hides the Temple's Holy of Holies had been rent from top to bottom so that the Ark of the Covenant was no longer hidden from the eyes of the believers. Christ's deed redeemed Lucifer's War in Heaven and humanity's Fall from Paradise.
The Holy Lance of Antioch had been forgotten in history, hidden for hundreds of years, as though it were being protected for a special time and place to appear in the future.
