Parsifal Unvelied: The Holy Relic

The Holy Relic

When the hindmost notes of those delectable chants expire in the mystery, and when all the august knights of divine aspect have taken their places abreast the sacred tables, an imposing silence is kept…

A stupendous vision, completely naked, was advancing with a whiteness of entranced and fatal spikenards…

An exotic mystery…

The voice of the aged Titurel is heard in the profound background as if emerging from a dark tomb…

He imperatively commands his son to reveal the Holy Grail so that he can contemplate it for the last time.

Amfortas resists him and says, 

 “No! Leave it unrevealed! May no one, no one know the burning pain caused by the holy sight that gives you delight…!

“What is the spear-wound, all its raging smart, compared to the pain, the infernal agony of being condemned to serve this task…?

“Woeful my birth-right, defiled by sinning; I, only sinner, am the guardian who holds the holy relic for sinless others…

“Entreating its holy blessings on the pure souls, on my brothers… 

“Chastisement! Merciless chastisement from, ah! the almighty God of mercy, who I offended terribly!

“For Him, for the Lord, for his all-holy greeting my stricken heart is yearning vehemently …

“Only in deepest repentance, only in deepest innermost contrition, my soul can reach Him…

“The time is near, a light beam sinks upon the holiest shrine: the covering falls… 

“The divine blood within that pure holiest cup now glows and shines with a powerfully splendorous, tender light…

“Transfixed by rapturous and joyful pain the fount of that heavenly blood, I feel it flowing in my heart…

“The furious surge of my own guilty blood, my vile blood now defiled by shame, recoils before it; to the world of sin and lust how wildly now it is gushing.

“The wound has opened again, my blood now is streaming forth, here, through the spear-wound, a wound like His, inflicted by the spear that wounded the redeemer, the spear that inflicted the sacred wound, through which with bleeding tears the Holy One wept for the sins of men, in compassion’s divine holiest yearning…

“And now here from my wound, in my sacred office, the guardian of divine, godliest treasure, of redemption’s balm the keeper, my fevered sinful blood flows forth, ever renewed by the tide of my yearnings that, ah! no repentance ever stills…!

“Have mercy! Have mercy! Thou, the All-merciful! Ah, have mercy! Take back my birth-right, heal my wound, end my affliction, that holy I perish; pure, whole, and healed for Thee…!

“In this anguished, painful, joyful, and weeping bloody flame, within which is born the mystery of an enchantment that destroys and nourishes my life, I do not know who I am; yet, I forebode something terribly divine…

“I do not know who I am, in this fatal snare of my own existence that contemplates with mystical bewilderment in frightful vertigines, foamy fish, and a font of time that I uselessly hoard to satiate this unquenchable thirst that torments me…

“I question myself with an unknown voice that rather seems an alien and grave voice from a vain world of darkness and infinite bitterness…

“Only my wretched haughty reasoning remains, meager sinful shadow..!”

After these words, Amfortas sinks back unconscious and the Holy Grail is revealed…

Ancient traditions that are lost within the night of the innumerable centuries state that when this most excellent, sublime cavalier grasped the sacred chalice—a perfect symbol of the feminine yoni—a dense, dusky glimmer (the sexual mist of the Hebrew tabernacle) delectably spread everywhere, enveloping the marvelous hall of the sanctuary.

This reminds us of the Sahaja Maithuna in the supreme moment… The mysteries of lingam-yoni are terribly divine…

A very pure, dazzling ray of light falls from the heights, from heaven, from Urania, upon the chalice, and makes it now glow ever more intensely, with an infinite and inextinguishably brilliant crimson…

Knowing how to use the phallic cross, Amfortas, with a transfigured countenance, raises the Grail aloft, and waves it gently round to every side, consecrating the bread and the wine of transubstantiation.

Delectably, lovingly, and adoringly, the choruses resound…

Amfortas sets down the sacred Grail within the shrine again, and its glow gradually fades, as the dense, dusky sexual glimmer disappears anew…

The bread and wine are distributed on the tables. The knights seat themselves at the feast. Parsifal, however, remains standing apart, motionless in ecstasy. Finally, his ecstasy ceases on hearing Amfortas’ cry of agony. Hence, the young man suffers a mortal spasm. Gurnemanz believes Parsifal is besotted and unconscious to what is happening. Therefore, he comes up to him in an ill humor and shaking him by the arm, brutally pushes him out of the sacred precinct, while the voices of the youth, children and knights who sing the sanctification with faith and divine love are decreasing.