The Grail Conspiracies

Adapted from The Grail Conspiracies, a spiritual
thriller by Michael McGaulley, and is based on his research for that 
book.  Keep in mind that The Grail Conspiracies is a work of fiction,
and some of the content has been adapted to fit the narrative.

For additional sources, see the links at the bottom of this page, or to
hyperlinks embedded within the body of the text.

From The Grail Conspiracies

I nearly missed the clue when it came: that word “disinformation” again,
but in a different context.

What if, the author suggested, all those legends of the search for the
physical Grail—the actual cup of Jesus—were in fact deliberate
disinformation?

What if, as another book put it, the Grail stories were “decoys to distract
the uninitiated or unworthy onto a search for something physical, when
in fact the core of the true Grail was a coded reference to the hidden
potentials of the human mind.”

I reread that line—a coded reference to the hidden potentials of the
human mind—not realizing then that I’d soon be hearing something very
like it from a very different source, in a different country.

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From later in The Grail Conspiracies

She paused to see how I was taking this. I nodded, saying nothing,
wanting her to continue.

“That may be the source, but it’s been obscured, even hidden. Sad but
true, awareness of that Power has been one of the best-kept secrets
over the centuries.”

“Why hidden?”

“The elites—typically priesthoods—were determined to keep the
knowledge to themselves, as a way of monopolizing power and control.
In other places and other eras, it was dangerous to speak of these
things, because they conflicted with the settled approaches of other
elites. That, as you know, is why the alchemists and others coded their
knowledge, to avoid persecution.”

“Coded? How?”

“Language itself can be coded—messages can be written in a different
alphabet, or in numerical equivalents, or in an unknown language. It can
be by means of symbols, with the Christian cross being a common
example, which—”

She began again: “We associate the cross with the religion and the
death of Jesus on the Cross. But there’s a further code within the
symbol: the cross itself is an ancient symbol for the concept of spirit
entering into matter—the vertical, the spirit, intersecting into the
horizontal, material plane.”

“I’d never heard that before.”

“Knowledge can also be encoded in the form of stories that operate on
multiple levels. The Parables of Jesus are one instance. On one level,
they’re stories about shepherds and birds and ordinary people of a
certain time and place. But they carry universal messages on a deeper
level. The Grail legend is of course another example of a story carrying
a deeper message.”

I listened, part enchanted by her personality, part enthralled by the
excitement in her eyes as she talked about these things. Enthusiasm is
infectious—and magnetizing.

She paused for a sip of beer before going on. “Beyond stories or
legends, the knowledge can be encoded in rituals, which act out the
deeper reality. Both the Catholic Mass and the rituals of the Masons
come to mind in that regard—rituals which operate on the deeper levels
of the mind as the participants act out the roles. Knowledge can even
be encoded in structures, as in the case of the pyramids and the Gothic
cathedrals.”

That triggered something I’d read from that pamphlet on the Templars,
the one I’d been given back in La Rochelle: “I read that perhaps the
Knights Templar had financed the wave of cathedral construction that
swept across Europe around the 1200's, and that those Gothic
cathedrals were encoded knowledge. What do you think? Any truth to
that?”

Something clicked behind her eyes, and she pulled back in the chair.
“Why did you ask me that?”

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From later in The Grail Conspiracies


“I believe one of your areas of interest is in coded knowledge,
particularly as it relates to the alchemists and the Knights Templar?”

He went on, now echoing some of what I had already turned up, though
adding new twists. The legends of the quest for the Holy Grail, and the
stories of the alchemists’ quest to turn base metals into gold, were
probably both intended as coded descriptions of an inner, mystical or
spiritual process that referred to developing the hidden powers of the
human mind. Put bluntly, it seems that the Great Work of Alchemy may
have been an encoded expression of a ‘technology’ for getting beyond
the usual human boundaries in order to access the higher powers.”

That idea, of alchemy being perhaps a kind of how-to or technology for
attaining altered states of consciousness echoed what Katje had said.

“Both of these quests,” he continued, “Alchemy and the Grail, were
expressed as stories—to encode the deeper realities behind the
narratives. Why encoded? First, because they wanted to pass on the
great secret—that we humans are able to tap higher powers, that there
is meaning and design, that we can take greater control of the flow of
physical reality. The initiates wanted to keep that knowledge alive, yet
had to encode it to protect themselves. After all, they and the
knowledge they possessed were dangerous to the status quo. This was
the era in which alchemists were burned at the stake, alongside witches
and other supposed heretics.”

He sipped his beer, then went on: “Second, and no less important, they
coded the knowledge in order to ensure that their secrets didn’t fall into
the hands of those who would corrupt and misuse it.”