Lampeter Wales August 8-13, 1998 Conference
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NEW YORK OPEN CENTER PRESENTS IN ASSOCIATION WITH GNOSIS MAGAZINE LAMPETER WALES AUGUST 8-13, 1998 CONFERENCE A.N week of ceLnc STUOIGS ON Tt>e wesT COAST of AUQUST 22-29, 1998 m he Quest for image in contemporary the Holy Grail culture and has T is an eternal remained a profound symbol of the search for motif of Western spiritual meaning and transcen- life since the work of dence and speaks to the Chretien de Troyes deepest yearnings of and Wolfram von the psyche. The first 'A. Eschenbach in the references to Arthur Middle Ages. Parsifal's and hints of the Grail quest continues to be a appear in the stories, early histories challenge to the understanding after and legends of Wales, perhaps the hundreds of years, and urges the most mysterious and least familiar of modern reader to reach a spiritual the Celtic countries to Americans. comprehension suitable to our time. The cauldron of regeneration and the Sung in the castle halls of the 13th figure of the warrior King Arthur first century, its echoes increasingly haunt emerge in world literature in the early psychology and literature. From the collections of Welsh mythic tales. It pre-Raphaelite painters to T.S. Eliot's seems fitting, then, to present an The Waste Land to more recent major international conference on the theme films, the Grail theme continues to of The Holy Grail in the beautiful hills speak to us. What special relevance and valleys of Welsh-speaking West does the quest for the Grail have for Wales. Following in the tradition of the present day? What unique mythic our two unforgettable summer con- potency does it possess that has ferences in Bohemia on Alchemy and enabled it to endure so long? the Rosicrucian Enlightenment, we Join us for a profound week in the will bring together scholars, writers, enchanting tranquillity of rural artists and visionaries to explore this Wales. This conference suggests that most evocative and elusive of themes. humanity is still inwardly in search The Holy Grail persists as a powerful of the Holy Grail and its meaning. Cover: Frederick Judd Waugh, The Knight of the Holy Grail, 1912. National Museum of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC. sessioMS THE ARTHUR OF THE WELSH SIGNED DAVIES, PH.D. ihis talk examines the way that Arthur is portrayed poetry, prose tales (including the Mabinogion), Saints' in Welsh texts before Geoffrey of Monmouth - in Lives and the Triads of the island of Britain. THE WASTELAND & THE WOUNDED KING JOHN MATTHEWS ne of the central themes in the literature of the by a thousand years. Working from the principle that OGrail deals with the idea of the guardian of the we are all wounded beings, this presentation explores Grail who suffers from a wound that will only be cured the literature of the Grail myth and demonstrates how when the destined seeker comes to bring healing. And, an understanding of this material can help us identify, while the king suffers, the land over which he rules acknowledge and come to terms with our own con- suffers also, becoming a wasted land - a far reaching temporary wounds. theme which predates our modern ecological concerns THE CAULDRONS OF REGENERATION MIRANDA GREEN, PH.D. uring the last millennium B.C. cauldrons were instruments of death and resurrection. A possible Dapparently the focus of repeated ceremonial link between allusions to sacred cauldrons in the activity, involving their deliberate deposition in early vernacular myths and their presence in the watery contexts. The medieval mythic texts of Wales archaeological contexts is proposed, and models are and Ireland contain references to cauldrons as cited to explain such connections. THE GRAIL OF THE GOLDEN AGE GEOFFREY ASHE hile the Grail stories are Christian, their to a recurring pattern of human aspiration, related to WChristianity is outside the mainstream. They the myth of the vanished Golden Age. Many reformers embody a "Sense of Something Else": a belief in a and revolutionaries have been inspired not by ideas of mystery eluding the official church, known once, then progress, but by the dream of reinstating some long- lost sight of, but perhaps recoverable. This corresponds lost glory. THE HEAD IN THE DISH: ANCESTRAL VENGEANCE & CHRISTIAN REDEMPTION IN THE GRAIL CORPUS CAITLIN MATTHEWS rom the Head in the Dish in Peredur and ancient consciousness in the light of the voice of need and the Fconcepts of tribal honor and ancestral revenge, to Grail question. Today, we continue to ask the same the Grail of later medieval legend with its themes of needful question: Whom does the Grail serve? Does spiritual chivalry and redemption, this talk traces the the power to bring healing to the human heart and to song of the Grail from its Celtic roots to its Christian the wasteland of our Earth still lie between the border- manifestations. We consider humanity's evolving lands of ancestral hatred and mature service? FAERY TRADITION, THE CRUSADER KINGDOMS &. THE HOLY GRAIL GARETH KNIGHT he faery tradition that stems from the Celtic lands Aphrodite. Their castle is only a few miles from the Tof the British Isles passes through Brittany in Celtic place where Eleanor of Aquitaine and her daughter France and has left an important center of influence in Marie Champagne (patroness of Chretien de Troves) medieval Poitou where it found expression in the legend established the Courts of Love. This talk examines the of the Faery Melusine. This is the realm of the Lusignan hidden influences that may have contributed to the family who founded a dynasty in Cyprus, island of Holy Grail tradition that stems from these sources. WHAT AILS THEE? A SEARCH FOR GRAIL CHRISTIANITY CHRISTOPHER BAMFORD any streams - Celtic and Druidic, Persian and so that now they have become transformative jewels in M Islamic, Arthurian, alchemical, Cathar and Western esoterism's crown: the image of the Grail Christian - flow together and coalesce in the mysterious itself. At the heart of the Grail path, however, lies a initiatory cycles of the Grail. The images, poetry and radical and new approach to the human future: Grail stories through which the Grail seeker must travel Christianity. This talk explores the deeper meaning of allow these elements to be memorized and transmitted the Grail's Christie axis. THE GRAIL &. THE KNIGHTS TEMPLAR PAUL BEMBRIDGE, M.PHIL. rrihe earliest Grail texts, especially those of Chretien But what were these mysteries, and whom did they JL and Wolfram, locate the Grail mysteries within a serve? Apart from the Templar context, the Grail has Templar context. There is a royal family and an order of claimants amongst Celts and Christians, Arab and Jew. knighthood, we gather, which is committed to the But which were the authentic transmission routes? And preservation and transmission of certain "mysteries." to what extent can these varying claims be reconciled? THE GNOSTIC VISION OF THE GRAIL NICHOLAS GOODRICK-CLARKE, D. PHIL. "The Grail is the only object in this world which comes the inflowing of the Divine into our human order has from another world." also inspired T.S. Eliot and John Cowper Powys. The agan Celtic lore, Christian mysteries, medieval Welsh writer Arthur Machen, a member of the P romances and chivalry all blend in Wolfram von Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, reworked old Eschenbach's famous poem Parzival (1210), together Grail prophecies into Gnostic visions described in with alchemy and magic. The Grail as a conduit for this talk. WORKSHOPS IN THE GARDEN OF THE GRAIL CHRISTOPHER BAMFORD he Grail Stories did not arise in a vacuum. Many at the Cathedral School of Chartres a group of scholars T other manifestations of a new consciousness and philosophers gave Hermetic Platonism a new appeared at the same time and must be seen as part of form. In the north, women mystics began to incarnate the larger picture. In the south of France, the Cathars the Christian message in a radical, embodied way. This and Troubadors sought to create a new culture of love; workshop examines this "free spririt" that created the at the same time alchemy was being transformed, and context from which the Grail stories emerged. WHY THE GRAIL Now? GEOFFREY ASHE s one of the most knowledgeable writers and and legends. In this workshop, he opens the floor to A scholars on the theme of Arthur and the participants to express how and why the Grail speaks Grail, Geoffrey Ashe has long contemplated the to them today and offers his own reflections and contemporary appeal and significance of these stories insights on the subject. THE CHESS GAME OF QUEENLY SOVEREIGNTY GARETH KNIGHT n medieval times Jerusalem was regarded as the applied to Queen Isabella of Jerusalem (1172-1205) Icenter of the world, thus its sovereignty took on cos- and the four dynastic husbands of her short life: mic importance. Using the basis of the symbolic chess Humphrey IV of Tbron, Conrad of Montserrat, Henry game that appears in Celtic legend, we will II of Champagne, and Amairic of Lusignan and Cyprus. meditate on some of the inner dynamics that may be RELICS OF THE GRAIL TRISTAN GRAY HULSE umerous images come to mind when we consider the Supper cup and associated it with the martyrdom and Nterm "The Holy Grail." For some it is synonymous head-relics of John the Baptist. Rival claimants to the with the cup used by Jesus Christ at the Last Supper, status of the Grail cup appeared around Europe in the Rather fewer would associate this cup with the high middle ages, some of which survive to the present. medieval legend of Joseph of Arimathea collecting This workshop explores the nature of these relic cults, Christ's blood on Calvary, while others would connect offering an overview of the Grail-related relics them- this with the "traditions" of Glastonbury Abbey.