A serpent cult in ancient
Mesopotamia is the true source of the mythology that evolved into
the Holy Grail, The Philosopher's Stone and the Elixir of Life,
according to two historical and scientific researchers
The Real Holy Grail Has
Nothing To Do With The Da Vinci Code or Jesus
by Philip Gardiner
In truth the Grail did not
emerge strongly into the popular culture until around the 12th and
13th centuries with the familiar poems and stories written by
Chretien de Troyes, Wolfram von Echenbach and others, but traces of
its idea in Celtic cauldrons and various legends can and have been
found. It is believed basically and originally to be the cup that
caught the blood of Christ as he hung from the cross or was even
used by him at the last supper. The most recent beliefs are in stark
contrast to this and yet still back up the Christ mythos and even
various royalist propaganda as we shall see. Ever since the
publication of The Holy Blood and The Holy Grail by the
authors, Baigent, Leigh and Lincoln in the early '80s we have had a
constant barrage of "bloodline" theories thrown at us, culminating
in The Da Vinci Code hysteria we see today. This recent
concept gives us the idea that the original word or words used for
the Grail; san graal in reality means 'Holy Blood'. However, Walter
Skeat (1835-1912 AD) was one of the greatest investigators of the
roots of the English language and in his English Etymology, he
points out that the etymology of the Holy Grail:
' . . . was very early
falsified by an intentional change from San Greal (Holy Dish) to
Sang Real (Royal Blood.)'
Skeat claims that the word
was a corruption of the Low Latin, cratella, a "small bowl," or
"crater" which actually and originally meant a bowl in which things
were mixed, from the Greek kpa - "I mix."
Of course, before the
evidence in The Serpent Grail is released then this etymology
makes little or no sense, but as we shall see, all shall become
clear. But, there was more than the actual etymology of the '80s
theory that we needed to look at, in-order to "prove it to be
incorrect" as we believed it was. In the first place and most
strongly we have shown in the new book that Christ, as a literal
man, and in all likely-hood all those surrounding him, may never
have in fact existed and were created elements of a much older
mystical language of enlightenment. Therefore both existing theories
on the Holy Grail would fall. There can be no chalice used by Christ
at the Last Supper or a vessel which caught his blood. There can
also be no "children" of Christ spawning the Merovingian lineage.
There is in fact no
Bloodline at all and Christ is in reality an ancient serpent
archetypal deity, as too are St. John, Horus, Aesculapius and a
thousand others. In-order to disprove the bloodline theory we also
have to look at the infamous Priory of Sion nonsense. For those who
know nothing of this Priory, it is simply a re-creation of a
supposed secret organisation said to protect the bloodline of Christ
by the fraudster Pierre Plantard. Indeed we even got hold of his
early "Newsletters" and found that they were nothing more than a
kind of 'neighbourhood watch'. We shall reveal in our new version of
The Shining Ones (due Sept 2006) that the whole thing was a
complete fraud to bolster the ego of Mr Plantard and make money for
the local hotelier at Rennes.
Three levels of our Grail
re-analysis
So, with all this in mind we needed to completely re-appraise the
whole mythos of the Grail and what we were to find was startling.
There is the obvious tradition that the Grail is a journey, a method
of self improvement and we looked into all the texts we could find
with this Gnostic viewpoint in mind. We found that this was
completely correct and that Grail literature was in reality hiding
the Gnostic traditions of the "mixing of the opposites". This is in
essence where the split personalities of the "mind" are re-joined
repetitively in-order to "make the perfect man" - symbolised by
alchemists as the Androgyne or Hermaphrodite (Hermes and Aphrodite,
man and woman united within us). The process is of course much
deeper than this and would take too long to explain in full, suffice
it to say that this mixing procedure occurred in the "brain" and
therefore the skull, and was envisaged in colours symbolically as
red and white. This brain or skull location became apparent in other
cultures from where the European Gnostic ideas had also arisen, one
of these being the Tantric Skull cups of India and even in the story
of Christ as he spills his sacrificial blood at Golgotha - the place
of the skull. In essence the whole mystical process was virtually
the same the world over and is commonly known today as the Kundalini.
This is an Eastern tradition of attaining enlightenment and means
coiled serpent. It is the method of raising up twin serpents through
a specific psychological process until one is completely illuminated
- obtained the Grail.
In each case, from around
the world, this process related to the serpent or snake or dragon,
each one being for this mythical purpose the same thing. It can be
seen clearly today in the infamous image of the Caduceus upon
medical insignia, ambulances, hospitals and elsewhere. It can also
be seen in the powerful representation of the Uraeus serpent, which
emerges from the forehead of the Egyptian pharaohs. Now what we
discovered during the course of our research was the amazing
occurrence of the serpent in myth, folklore and religion across the
entire world and in every period. We can see its origins even as far
back as ancient Africa where even today the serpent is pinned to a
tree or cross as a sacrifice for the community. This is a
continuance of a system, which stretches back in time for thousands
of years. It is a symbolic element but it also has a practical
level, as we shall see. Even as late as the 16th century there were
German coins caller Thalers with Christ on the cross on one side and
a snake on a cross on the reverse. The image was said to depict the
"all-healer."
We can also see the serpent
influence in the Bible as early as Adam and Eve. Believe it or not,
Eve actually means female serpent, coming from the root hawwah or
hevviah, and is derived from, amongst others, the goddess Ninlil the
Sumerian serpent deity also associated with the goddess Asherah, who
was seen in the Temple of Jerusalem as a tree entwined with
serpents. Even the constellation "serpens" was called "little eve"
by certain Arabs. Adam was fabled to be the father of Seth, who was
called the "Son of Serpents". The serpent was not bringing mankind
down at all - he was making Adam and Eve like "God", he was
bestowing the ultimate knowledge. This is Gnostic language for the
very knowledge to be found within oneself via the union of the male
and female opposites and a whole process of psychological growth
imaged as the Kundalini. We even see the ultimate image of Godhead
or enlightenment in the aura or halo seen around the heads of
saints. This image we show derived from the hooded cobra of India as
a symbol of immortality and divine serpentine wisdom.
In Malta we uncovered
elongated skulls of certain priests dating right back to the Temple
building era. These skulls were created using planks of wood on the
heads of babies, in-order to make the individual appear serpent
headed, with long drawn eyes and stretched skin. These people were
known as serpent priests and the elongation of the skulls made the
glands in the brain secrete certain mind or conscious altering
inducing hormones, beneficial to the enlightenment experience and
altered states of consciousness. Of course Malta itself is overrun
with serpent folklore, the latest being that of St. Paul. This is a
story created in the 13th century whereby St. Paul is said to have
shipwrecked on Malta and subdued the vicious serpents and then to
have gone on and healed people with his new found serpentine power.
Of course none of this
happened, but you can't knock the Christians for their marketing
skills. Having now, we believe, sufficiently proven the fact of
worldwide serpent worship, and basically reinforced what certain
Victorian scholars had failed to bring full weight to because of
Christian fear, we moved on and into each and everyone of these
traditions. In each case the serpent or snake was a symbol of wisdom
and immortality. The wisdom element of the serpent could now be
explained via the "awakening" of the "coiled serpent" or Kundalini
process, but this did not entirely explain the immortality aspect of
the serpent symbolism. For an explanation of this we had to turn to
science, and it was really here that the whole process had started
in the first place.
The Elixir
Before I had ever thought about writing a book on the Grail, Elixir
or Philosophers Stone, I had released The Shining Ones and
had just finished doing lots of publicity and radio. I was now, at
this stage, looking around for something else to have a go at. Well,
one night I lay in bed reading some fusty old book about alchemy. I
know others might have different ideas about what to do in bed, but
this is my normal nightly routine - I am a real life Casanova. It
was about 1:00 am and I was having a cup of tea, when my wife, who
was reading her medical journals, said something about snake venom
and T-cells. It didn't make any sense so I asked her to elucidate.
She explained that scientists had found that certain elements of
snake venom had been recently found to help T-cell replication.
T-cells she said were the things that helped our immune system -
keeping us alive.
Well, my mind went into
overdrive as I already even at this stage knew a lot about serpents,
dragons and their symbolic elements in the legends of Arthur and
others. I instantly knew or was "enlightened" to the fact that this
was a physical side of the symbolic immortality of the snake and so
two years of research began into the snake, its myths and now,
science. What I found following an awful lot of scientific research
and cross checking was that the unique proteins, peptides,
polypeptides and enzymes found within snake venom had in fact been
used by ancient man for thousands of years in all kinds of medical
applications and that it was even amazingly mixed with the snakes or
a hosts blood. This was the red and white mixing together to aid the
health and boost the life of the individual.
We amazingly found
that this was mixed within a "mixing bowl" or skull and then drunk
as an Elixir of Life and that this had then come down to us as one
of the elements of the Holy Grail. As snake venom is by dry weight
90% protein, the substance was also made into a "stone" or pill. We
also found that snake venom has psychoactive properties which induce
altered states of consciousness and mystical experiences, much akin
to those needed for the true enlightenment experience. It was
therefore seen physically as a method of meeting with the "gods". In
both ways then, as a serious vitamin pill and as a key to the
mystical world, the venom of the snake was a unique product.
To add to this we then found
that the same "Christ" who it was said provided the blood of
"everlasting life" in the chalice, was seen originally in early
Christian and Gnostic cults, such as the Ophites or snake
worshippers, as nothing more than a serpent himself! "Just as Moses
lifted up the brazen serpent in the wilderness, so too must Christ
be lifted up" - says the Bible and so he was. Early Christians even
had a Eucharist of the Agathodemon or "good serpent", enacted with
live snakes and a special chalice, and this became the fabled Holy
Grail we all know so well today.
In the early years of
Christianity Jesus was even imaged as a snake on a Tau cross. Going
back to ancient Africa though, we noted the similarity even here of
the crucified Christ and the serpent pinned to the tree. But what we
also found was that these same people were then actually taking the
various parts of the snake and using them for healing, with the
saliva or venom producing glands being the most treasured. Another
side effect of taking the snake venom is the genetic malformations
created by the huge amounts of protein and one of these
malformations is cranial - thereby elongating the skull, just as
those we found on Malta.
Conclusion
Although we do not have the space to explain the Philosophers Stone
in this short article, we did find that this truly represented both
the Gnostic and duality aspect of the wisdom side of the serpent and
also was used as a cover for the true mixing of the venom and blood
within alchemical texts. As the infamous grail author Wolfram von
Echenbach himself claimed that the stone and the grail were one and
the same, we indeed found this to be the case. Basically then, the
whole Grail mythos is wrong. Not just the latest "bloodline" theory,
but also the original concept of it being the literal cup which
caught the blood of Christ.
 In
fact this element of the myth is symbolic and should remain as such,
for Christ as the good serpent did provide his true Elixir of
eternal life, in both Gnostic psychological concepts such as the
Kundalini and also in the literal venom and blood of the snake. An
indication of Christ as the serpent was also found in the sloughing
of skin. Snakes regularly slough their skin and the ancients saw
this as a re-birth. This was copied with Christ entering the cave
and sloughing his shroud. Arthur, as a literary figure, was chosen
as the modern "saviour" to re-discover this chalice because he was
the Pendragon. Pen means head and therefore Arthur is the head
dragon or serpent, just as Jesus was.
What we also find in the
book is that every single royal lineage on the globe has claimed
descent from the serpent. Whether it be the Merovingian or the
Chinese Dragon Emperors - they are all claiming to be descended from
the "bloodline" of the serpent! The history of the world is
certainly not as we once thought.
Philip Gardiner and Gary
Osborn can be contacted via their own websites:
www.gardinerosborn.com,
www.philipgardiner.net,
www.serpentgrail.com,
www.theshiningones.com
The Serpent Grail by Philip Gardiner and Gary Osborn, ISBN:
1842931296 Distributed 2006 by Publishers Group West, Berkeley, CA.
The next book from both
authors will be
The Shining Ones: The World's Most Powerful Secret Society Revealed
in Sept 2006 - a revised and updated edition of the best selling The
Shining Ones by Philip Gardiner.
For more details about The
Serpent Grail, visit
New Age Journal.
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