The Yonic Symbol, the Grail and a Templar Secret

The Yonic Symbol, the Grailanda Templar Secret1.This paper presents the results of my investigations into the yonic symbol. Althoughthe symbol has traditionally been associated with the pagan Goddess or Great Mother, Ifound it in one of the early Christianised Arthurian tales as well as some other material.2.The study followed my sense of some relationship between a number of ideas that Ihad come across about 12 to 20 years ago. In 1997 I put some of these ideas on paper but itwas not until 2006 that I began to prepare the grail text for analysis. Following a hiatus,momentum was regained and the analysis began in late 2008.3.This paper is much amended thanks to feedback received from a family member. Anarticle by Damian Prestbury fundamentally changed the way I see the results of my analysis.And my ideas have developed as my investigations have progressed. The great thing aboutscribd is that a writer doesn’t have to say thats the end.Brian Collier, April 2010copyright © 2010 by Brian C Collier, all rights reservedanyone may use extracts from this paper provided the usual acknowledgments are made

Translated by Sebastian Evans in 1898 from the Old French, published by James

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Clarke & Co. of Cambridge. The text is available on-line athttp://historymedren.about.com/od/holygrail/The_Holy_Grail.htm.The Crone: Woman of Age, Wisdom, and Power, Barbara G. Walker, HarperCollins,

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1988.Concise Oxford Dictionary Tenth Edition, revised.

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“...A Neopagan religion and a form of modern witchcraft.”

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WiccaIntroduction4.This is an analysis of “The High History of the Holy Grail” which I believe is the

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story of Perceval. I bought this book about 20 years ago and read it many times. Each timemy sense that there was something of the feminine divine hidden within its pages increased,something elusive perhaps related to Celtic Christianity and/or the pagan goddess.5.In 1997 I came across a book by Barbara G Walker which described the yonic

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symbol. According to this writer, the yonic symbol comprises a female trinity of Virgin,Mother and Crone or Creator, Preserver and Destroyer. She describes these as the tripleaspects of the Great Mother, whose worship predated recognition of fatherhood and patriarchal religions. The yonic symbol seems to take various forms but for my purpose I amusing what this writer called the "delta or triangle, a basic female symbol throughout theancient world...." (ibid). The word “yoni”means vulva and originally comes from Sanskrit

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where it meant womb, female genitals. In the analysis I use the term female trinityinterchangeably with yonic symbol because the former seems to be more readily understood.6.This trinity comprises a two and a one, as shown below:Virgin CroneMother The “two”, i.e. the virgin and the crone, are opposites and the “one”, the mother, unites theother two. She was the virgin and, in the natural order of things, will become the crone. Thevirgin, mother and crone are called aspects. Barbara Walker gives many other sets of aspectsof the Great Mother or goddess in "The Crone".7.For me a fundamental question was why I hadn’t heard of this symbol before. I foundit odd that I knew of the phallic symbol but not its female equivalent. I found the same wastrue of most people I asked. The exception was someone who had taken an interest in Wicca.

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For example ‘Jung: Selected Writings’, Anthony Storr, Fontana Press, 1983, and

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‘Jung Man and Myth’, Vincent Brome, Paladin Books, 1980.See for example “A Guided Tour of the Collected Works of C. G. Jung”, Robert H.

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Hopke, Shambala, 1992From now on I am deliberately using this term instead of the more usual grail in an

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attempt to dissociate my analysis from the many meanings and connotations the latter hasattracted..The Grail Legend, E. Jung & M-L v Franz, Hodder and Stoughton, 1971

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Ch 17, Arthurian Literature in the Middle Ages, ed R S Loomis, OUP, 1959

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I was also surprised that I could find no trace of this symbol in the work of C G Jung. Jung

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had identified both the Maiden (or Virgin) and the Mother as archetypes in the collectiveunconscious but I could find no trace of the Crone in his work. Without the Crone the yonic

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symbol is not evident.8.I decided in 2008 to undertake an analysis of the grail story in an attempt to find theyonic symbol and to identify its significance. In retrospect, I am surprised that I had such aspecific aim in mind. I only found the symbol when, having exhausted other possibilities, Idecided to analyse the stories of the female characters in the book. Many of them were in the background, did not have names and their stories were fragmented. The next step was toestablish continuity between the fragments, this clarified what were vague background figuresand their roles. It quickly became evident that the various Damsels, Ladies and Queensincluded a number of Maidens and Mothers. This was the turning point. When I applied thesefindings to the analysis of the graal quests it transpired that three significant female characterswere associated with each knight, two were the Maiden and the Mother thus revealing thecrone. She was not old and ugly as the crone is often represented, but she had other keysignature characteristics that Barbara G Walker had associated with her, characterised bywisdom, secret knowledge and the power this gave her. The primary aim of this paper is todocument my analysis and to identify the significance of the yonic symbol in this story.However, as my investigations have progressed I have found myself trying to put this storyinto its mediaeval context.9.According to Sebastian Evans, the text he translated as “The High History of the HolyGrail” was the original book of the Graal entitled "The Graal, the Book of the Holy Vessel"

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and written not long before 1220. He claims that this version of the Legend is “the first andmost authentic”. Marie Louise von Franz calls the Perlesvaus a very singular work but deniesEvans’ claim that his translation is the original version. Evans based his translation on the

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first volume of

Perceval le Gallois ou le conte du Graal

, edited by Potvin from MS 11,145,Brussels, fragments bound up in MS 113, Berne, and folios 110-280 of the Peniarth MS.However, this translation does not appear to be related to the additions to Chretien’s Percevaldescribed by A W Thompson. Although it bears considerable similarities to the outline of the

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translation by Jenkins and Nitze from MS O, Hatton 82, the Bodelian, this story comprisesonly 11 branches (Ch 20, Loomis) whereas Evans’ extends to 35. The differences include,significantly, the name of the chapel to which Arthur made his quest - St Austin’s instead of StAugustine’s. Further, Arthur met Dindrane on his return to court instead of outside the launde