What is The Grail representing, then?

 

BILL MOYERS: 

What is The Grail representing, then?

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: 

Well, The Grail becomes the, what we call it, 

That Which is Attained and Realised by People 

Who Have Lived Their Own Lives. 

So The Story very briefly is of this — 

I’m giving it now as Wolfram gives it — 

but this is just one version. 

The Grail King was a Lovely Young Man, 

but he had not EARNED that position. 

And The Grail represents The Fulfillment 

of The Highest Spiritual Potentialities 

of The Human Consciousness. 

And he was a Lovely Young Man, 

and he rode forth from His Castle 

with The War Cry, “Amor!” 

And as he’s riding forth, a Moslem, 

a pagan warrior, a Mohammedan warrior, 

comes out of The Woods, A Knight. 

And they both level their lances at each other, 

they drive at each other, and The Lance 

of The Grail King kills The Mohammedan, 

but The Mohammedan Lance 

castrates The Grail King.

What that means is that the Christian separation of Matter and Spirit, 

of The Dynamism of Life and The Spiritual, Natural Grace 

and Supernatural Grace, has really castrated Nature. 

And The European Mind, The European Life, 

has been as it were, emasculated by this; 

True Spirituality, which would have 

come from this, has been killed. 

And then what did 

The Pagan represent? 

He was A Person from 

The Suburbs of Eden. 

He was regarded as A Nature Man, 

and on The Head of His Lance 

was written The Word, “Grail.” 

That is to say, Nature intends The Grail. 

Spiritual Life is The Bouquet of Natural Life, 

not a supernatural thing imposed upon it. 

And so The Impulses of Nature are what 

give Authenticity to Life, 

not Obeying Rules come from 

a Supernatural Authority, 

that’s the sense of The Grail.