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The Grail Quest of the Templar Research Institute is rooted in four fundamental traditions, which culminate in a fifth, namely that of The Knights of the Round Table. The four fundamental traditions upon which the TRI Grail Quest is based are as follows:
Like parenthood, Knighthood is a state of being attained by the individual concerned. And just as there is a variety of ways in which parenthood may be expressed, so too there are a variety of ways in which Knighthood may be expressed. Thus, whereas several other forms of Knighthood expressed as a drive toward the acquisition of worldly power and possessions, the motivation behind Templar Knighthood was to serve by protecting those on their way to the Holy Land. In fact, if it is one thing which distinguished the Templars from other forms of medieval Knighthood, it was their devotion to the integration of the mundane and spiritual aspects of life, for they knew that it is only in meeting the mundane and spiritual needs of the individual that one renders true service. Fundamentally, Templars were Soldier-Monks and, in this sense, they were one of the purest expressions of Spiritual Knighthood. They were Knights who practiced Spiritual Chivalry. THE EQUALITY OF WOMEN
Who were the Troubadours? They were poets of southern France, northern Spain, and northern Italy, who wrote in the Language of Oc (Occitain) from the end of the 11th Century to the end of the 13th. The word "troubadour" is a French derivation of the Occitanian "trobador" which basically meant "poet" and having its roots in the verb "trobar" - to find, to invent. The "troubadour" was, therefore, one who invented new poems, new verse forms for his elaborate lyrics. He might just as easily have been a wandering minstrel or a great prince like Richard Coeur de Lion (Richard the Lionheart) whose mother, Eleanor of Aquitaine, and whose sister, Marie of Champagne, were very much involved in the promotion of this new art form - Courtly Love. Around the ladies of the court the Troubadours created an atmosphere for the cultivation of true love - stripped of all hope of consummation - an atmosphere of love for its own sake. Nothing heretofore had even vaguely approached this conception of love for its own sake. Interestingly, the cause of the ruin of the Troubadours is to be found in the struggle which erupted between the Church in Rome and the Albigensian heretics - the Cathars - who, among other philosophical divergences from Church Doctrine, also accepted women on an equal footing as men. Such an egalitarian philosophy the Church could not abide and, as a consequence, it was branded as "heresy". Because the bulk of the support for the Troubadours was to be found among the "heretics", when the Church launched its crusade against the Albigensian "heretics" in 1209, the base support for the Troubadours was likewise under siege. The Church won - the "heretics" and the Troubadours lost. OF THE FEMININE ASPECTS OF DIVINITY
The phenomenon known as "Courtly Love" first made its appearance in the elaborate court poetry of the Troubadours of southern France at the end of the 11th Century. The romantic nature of courtly love is such that the "lover" is always at the service of his "beloved", whom he considers it a privilege to serve. Love, whether rewarded or not, is considered to be the source of all virtue and nobility. There is reverence in courtly love because the "lover" is considered to be in the service of the "God of Love", worshipping his Lady-Saint. If we accept current views on psychological projection, then it could be safely argued that the "Lady-Saint" whom the lover worships in the name of love, is none other than the idealized female side of himself. She is that queenly representative of the Divine Mother who alone is capable of bestowing Knighthood upon the aspirant in his attempt at liberating himself from the bondage of his animal nature. A decisive influence in the transmission of the "ethics of Courtly Love" was Eleanor of Aquitaine, Grand Daughter of the Troubadour Duke William IX of Aquitaine. She inspired some of the best poetry of Bernart de Ventadorn. Her daughter, Marie, Countess of Champagne, encouraged the writing of the most famous courtly love romance of the 12th Century - the Lancelot of Chrétien de Troyes - and possibly also the important textbook on the subject by Andreas Capellanus. In fact, Chrétien tells us at the very beginning of Lancelot that it was Marie who supplied both the content and the method of approach for the poem. Given the fact that Chrétien de Troyes was the first to graft the concept of courtly love to the old, originally Celtic (Gaullic) narratives of the Arthurian legend, the influence of Eleanor and her daughter, Marie, in promoting the ideals of Courtly Love is considerable. Courtly Love exerted a vital influence on medieval English literature as is evident in "Ancrene Riwle" (1180-1200) in which Christ is allegorically portrayed as an adoring suitor petitioning his disdainful lady, the Human Soul. In another work, Sir Garwain and The Green Knight, the author goes as far as to have his hero reject the opportunity of a liaison with another man's wife on the grounds of his moral scruples. In his Arthurian compilation - Morte d'Arthur - Sir Thomas Malory does not change the outlines of the courtly love narratives handed down to him from the 12th and 13th Centuries but, in harmony with the sentiments of the time, makes them conform to the idealized institution of marriage itself.
Rather than limiting the individual to desiring contact with a Divinity external to oneself, the fundamental tenet of Gnosticism is that there is an inherent unity between God and Man. Accordingly, it is the responsibility of each individual to discover, and to experience within himself or herself, this inherent unity with the Divine, for until and unless one becomes enlightened by the fact of this oneness, one will not be able to bring the light of understanding to the transformation of oneself, let alone to the transformation of the world in which one lives. THE QUEST FOR THE HOLY GRAIL
The need for new subject matter in the late 12th Century led the romantic poets into developing a whole new subset of the Arthurian cycle - The Quest for The Holy Grail. In this Quest, one or more Knights of the Round Table set out on a perilous quest for the Grail (Graal). Of the Twelve Knights of the Round Table only three are in any way successful in their quest. These are Parsifal (Percival), Bors, and Galahad, representing respectively three attributes of Soul which are indispensable to success in this Quest. These three attributes of Soul are "Incorruptibility", "Aspiration", and "Surrender". Christian Tradition holds that the Grail is the cup from which Jesus drank at the Last Supper and which received the blood of the Lord when his side was pierced with a lance by a Roman Centurion while he was still on the cross. Tradition has it that this cup was first taken to the south of France in the company of Mary Magdalene (whose remains are reputed to be enshrined at the Church of Ste. Maxima in Provence) and Joseph of Arimathea who eventually took it to Glastonbury in England.
On the other hand, Celtic Tradition holds that the Grail is but one of four eternal treasures sent to earth for the eternal glory of man. These four eternal treasures are: (i) the Invincible Sword known as Excalibur: (ii) an Unerring Lance; (iii) the Stone of Destiny on which one must stand in order to be crowned King, and on which one's name must be written before one can be called to Kingship; and (iv) the Cup or Cauldron of Plenty. These four eternal treasures have psychological correlates which may be identified as (i) the Sword of Reason; (ii) the Lance of Intuition; (iii) the Stone of Remembrance; and (iv) the Cup of Compassion. Wolfram von Eschenbach's "Parzival" defines the chivalric life in terms of heroism and spirituality, as a combined search for heavenly as well as earthly paradise. In it one finds featured the concepts of "practical mysticism" as propounded by Bernard de Clairvaux. It was Bernard de Clairvaux who was profoundly involved in the creation of The RULE which governed the life of a Templar. In his conception of Man's relationship to the Divine, Bernard de Clairvaux differed from Hildegard of Bingen, who was a brilliant musician, physician, pharmacologist, and a prototype for modern-day "Feminism". While Hildegard took the optimistic position that the human has the capacity to rise to the level of angels, Bernard insisted that a mystical experience which brings the individual into direct contact with the Divine, resulting in a blessed state of beatific exaltation, is not only possible but should be desired by all devout Christians. Spiritual Chivalry seeks to exploit this "capacity to rise to the level of angels" so that each participant may come to that "mystical which brings the individual into direct contact with the Divine". One thus attains The Grail! In order to be accepted as a Knight of the Round Table, the candidate must have accomplished three things:
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