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The tide of evil which had been slowly rising now engulfed King Arthur and his Table Round. The fellowship of knights was split in three parts, one part following the King, one part following Lancelot, and one following Sir Modred, who long had treacherÂously planned and fought with secret slander and malice to bring about the destruction of the King.
In the final battle King Arthur, knowing well whose spite has laid waste his fair Court, seeks out the traitor, Sir Modred, and deals him a death blow; yet Modred, in the intensity of his hatred, raises himself up in the very throes of death, and cleaves Arthur's helmet, so that the King sinks dying to the ground. Knowing that his death was near, the King took thought to return his sword, Excalibur, to the Lady who had given it to him: the faery Lady of the Lake. Calling to him Sir Bedivere, he gave him the sword and commanded that he take it to the mystic lake and throw it into the water, and then return and tell him what he had seen. Bedivere, however, could not bear the thought of destroying so beautiful a sword and one hallowed, moreover, by use of the Great King, so that he hid it among the grasses at the lake's edge and returned. When Arthur asked him what he had seen he could only reply that he heard nothing but the roaring of the wind and saw nothing but the lashing of the waves. Arthur therefore rebuked him for having failed to carry out his instructions and sent him back again; and again his heart failed him, and again he returned to say, as before, that he had seen and heard nothing but wind and wave. A third time, then, Arthur commanded that he throw the sword into the Lake and to fulfil this act of obedience on his honor as a knight; when seeing there was no alternative, Bedevere did as he was bid. Mustering up his courage he threw the great sword far out into the Lake, when an arm arose out of the water, taking the sword by its hilt, and holding it aloft and brandishing it thrice, so that it shone like a burning light, and disappeared.
When Bedevere returned to Arthur and told him what he had seen the King knew that at last his order had been obeyed, and he asked that they carry him down to the shores of the Lake. The faithful knights did this, and when they neared the shore, behold, a barge approached over the waters, and in it sat the Three Beautiful Queens, Faith, Hope and Love, who, when they saw the dying King, uttered a cry of sorrow that seemed to rise and echo amongst the very stars. And they cried: "Dear brother, you have tarried too long with thy wound." They bade him prepare for the homeward journey, back to the Fairy Isle of Avalon.
As the mystic ship disappeared from sight, amid the soft chanting of angelic voices, Arthur bade farewell to his last few faithful disciples, saying: "The old order passeth, making way for the new; and God fulfils Himself in many ways."
Thus Arthur passes over to be King in other realms. After the healing of his grievous wound he will return again.
Many great World Teachers have chosen Christmas, or the Winter Solstice season, as the time most propitious to begin their earth mission. It was in this same day season that Arthur passed away from the earth, in that ending of life which is its beginning in a higher world. As the poet sings of that fateful night, "It was the time when the light of heaven reached its lowest orb in the rolling year."
To the esotericist the passing of the Great King of the Grail cycles is more than the death of a military and secular leader, however, exalted, however noble and illumined. This passing marks the conclusion of a Mystery epoch.
Therefore the last battle in which King Arthur is slain is a type of the Biblical Armageddon, the end of an age. It is the battle of the True with the False:
The Round Table was the "image of the mighty world," or archetypal pattern which God made and pronounced good. Twelve books recount its history. It lasted twelve years, and crashed with the exposure of the love of Lancelot and Guinevere. Arthur himself is the type of the Teacher for the Age in whom the Spirit of the Age dwells, who is forced by the failure of his disciples to withdraw from the earth and to await another cycle in the evolution of the world-soul to return and complete his work. To the Welsh Arthur stands for the star Arcturus in the constellation Bootes, which is called the Chariot of Arthur and is reminiscent of the Biblical Chariot of Elijah in which the prophet ascended living into heaven. "The seven clear stars of Arcturus" are "Arthur's Table Round," so called because they roll through such a round in the heavens, describing a circle around the Pole Star.
A Mystery Temple built on the earth plane usually continues its physical existence for about five hundred years. The School which is responsible for the Temple continues to work, but it may transfer its activities to another place where the evolutionary conditions are such as require its presence. The School at Glastonbury founded by Joseph of Arimathea was.completing a five-hundred-year cycle at the time of the passing of Arthur. Tragic as it was, yet the karmic harvest must be reaped in its proper hour, and the seeds sown anew. The mystery of the relationship between the "White Abbey" (Glastonbury) and the Castle Carbonek has yet to be solved.
From five hundred A.D., which was the opening era of the Piscean Age, the focus of power shifted to the city of Rome and to the Bishop of Rome; as indeed we see in the story that among the hordes of European peoples who overran Rome after Constantine moved the capital of the Roman Empire to Con stantinople, was this same King Arthur, who, according to the legend, was crowned Emperor in Rome itself by the Pope — not because he had repudiated the Holy School at Glastonbury but because he looked upon himself as Constantine's successor and was therefore crowned in the "State Church" of the Empire at Rome.
In these pages we have confined our attention to the purely esoteric interpretation of the legends, but we may observe in passing that the rise of the Church of Rome, and its Bishop usurping supreme power, is hinted in these legends as the real underlying cause of the loss of the Holy Grail.
In The High History of the Holy Grail, which dates to the thirteenth century, we read that after Percival had found the Castle of the Holy Grail and restored its wounded King to health, he sent the lesser hallows away to the hermits of the forest, who built holy churches and houses above them "in the lands and in the islands." But he himself took the Holy Grail to the city of Sarras. This can only mean that several Schools or Temples were built, not only at various places in the British Isles, but on the continent of Europe; and one of these is unquestionably that "House of the Holy Spirit" founded by him who was in a former life Lazarus, known to later history by the symbolical name of Christian Rose Cross who founded the Order of Rosicrucians.
Again in The High History of the Holy Grail we read: "The Grail appeared at the Sacring of the Mass, in five several manners that none ought to tell ... and King Arthur beheld the changes; the last thereof was the change into a chalice." And the author adds that until this (Arthur's) time the chalice-type of Grail was not known anywhere. It is the chalice which we see in the Marte d' Arthur. The four Hallows represent the four elements: Fire, Air, Water and Earth-Spear, Cup, Sword and Dish-with a fifth signifying the Fiery Aether.
The School founded by Lazarus, however, is not the same as the Holy Grail of Glastonbury or the House of the Fisherman King in Rome. The Order of the Rose Cross includes all that has ever been known and taught in the mystic congregations, and is second to none in its reverence of Jesus of Nazareth; yet it has a tradition and a technique of its own as well and is not to be confused with the Mystery School of the Holy Grail as that was known in medieval Europe, through having all things in common with Joseph himself-for Lazarus was also a member of Joseph's party which brought the Grail to Europe.
Of this final stage of the Mystery School of the Holy Grail we shall learn in the Quest of Sir Galahad; and its correlation with the Order of the Rose Cross will be further shown in the discussion of Wagner's music-drama Parsifal.
— Corinne Heline
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