INTRODUCTION

Being a baby boomer born to a World War II Vet during the Korean War, I came of age demonstrating in moratoria and marching for peace against the backdrop of the Vietnam War. As I grew steadily older, during all those other wars in all those other places – and now, again, my country is embroiled in war – what I couldn’t help noticing is that similar to change, which is a constant fixture of life, war is also a constant for humanity. It certainly has been for my entire lifetime thus far.

Years ago I set out to discover the truth about the Feminine because I had difficulty swallowing the Judeo-Christian feminine-invalidating values with which I had been raised. I could not believe (or live with) the idea that half the world was inferior because it was female. Nor did I have to. I discovered the civilization of the Goddess during which time women were respected, revered and honored, and lived in partnership with men. The results of my journey led me to write The Goddess Oracle: A Way to Wholeness through the Goddess and Ritual. I also discovered the answer to a question I was very keen on: Is war a fatal flaw of humanity? What I didn’t know then was that the answer to my question would play a part in my creating the Oracle of the Grail Code.

Like almost everyone, I read The Da Vinci Code. I had no choice. Prior to reading it, people who knew of my work with the Goddess and women’s spirituality would grab hold of me in the grapefruit section, whisper urgently while cutting my hair, and crawl out from behind their cash registers to tell me that I, especially, had to read it. So when my local library notified me, at long last, that they had a copy waiting for me, I made the drive all the way into town just to pick it up.

I was delighted with what I read. Not because the book’s controversial content was news to me, but because it was news for the mainstream. At last the truth comes out in a bestselling work of fiction: Mary Magdalene was not the whore the Church had represented her to be. The Templars and the Priory of Sion were the guardians of a powerful world-shaking secret, the Grail Bloodline; descendants of the sexual union of Jesus and Mary Magdalene.  Inspired by The Da Vinci Code, I began to devour books on the Legends of the Grail: its mythology, Bloodline, spiritual movements and fellowships, and psychology. Then I was surprised and delighted to notice the idea for a new book and deck taking shape, entitled Oracle of the Grail Code, which would synthesize all of the above.

THE HOLY GRAIL

Hot on the trail of the Grail, I discovered that there is no one Grail story, but a bunch of legends from a variety of different authors from different localities, woven together from three main streams of thought, between 1190 and 1235. The first thread came from Chrétien de Troyes and, although French, he represented the Celtic stream. The second came from the Cistercian brotherhood and employed the main themes of Christianity. The last to set his mark upon the Holy Grail was Wolfram von Eschenbach, and he threaded his loom with the hermetic teachings of Alchemy.

The Grail story begins with a prologue about an otherworldly lost paradise, named Logres. It was a time when the handmaidens of the Goddess guarded the sacred wells and springs. It was their task to serve those who traveled with water from their golden cups and food from their golden bowls. Peace and plenty were characteristics of the land and the court of the Rich Fisher King, until black-hearted King Amangons raped one of the sacred maidens and filched her golden cup.

This heinous crime was followed by more behavior of the same kind, until Logres was left without sacred serving maidens and all the wells and springs dried up creating the Wasteland. This resulted in the disappearance of the abundant court of the Rich Fisher King, which echoed the bounty of the land.

I was stopped in my tracks when my research led me into a bit of a quandary. What was clear to me and Emma Jung, co-author of The Grail Legend, was that the Grail Quest is a path of spiritual initiation, of wholeness and individuation. No turmoil here. However, the trouble for me arose when that path of spiritual initiation was defined.

Almost all of the books I had read for research on Oracle of the Grail Code spoke of the spiritual path being one of denial of the senses, especially of physical pleasure, the need for absolute celibacy, an aesthetic style of life, lots of discipline, and an over abundance of never-ending, very hard work. That point of view of the way of spirituality reminded me of the Greek Philosophers, Buddhism and Christianity. ‘This again,’ I thought. But then, a voice deep within me said, ‘There is another path, and it is about working from love, which is the Feminine way.’

My mind reeled. Of course, I thought. There are two paths here, one for men and one for women. . .

Excerpted from Oracle of the Grail Code
© Amy Sophia Marashinsky

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