I.
This erudite
interdisciplinary research report is the first volume of a trilogy on the
history of the Grail from Zarathustra, founder of the ancient Persian
civilisation more than 6.000 years ago, to Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925), founder
of what he called “a science of the Grail, or anthroposophy”. Based on Wolfram
von Eschenbach’s Grail romance Parzival
and his epos Willehalm it reveals a
new, ground-breaking biography of this 9th century founder of the
House of Orange in the South of France. For as a paladin of Charlemagne and the
supreme commander the Carolingian army in the southern flank of the empire, this
William of Orange halted the invasion of the marauding Moors from Spain,
thereby setting the stage for the inauguration of Parzival as king of the Grail
on free Christian soil, an event in which he himself played the role of
spiritus rector. This was a historic event of great spiritual significance for the
whole of mankind on earth and can be viewed as a repetition of the
constellation in the heavens described in the Gospel of Matthew as the Star of
Bethlehem heralding through the Three Kings or Magi from the East the birth of
the Jesus child as portrayed in the Gospel of Matthew.
But
Willehalm of Orange as a knight of the sword and one of the last defenders of
Celtic or Grail Christianity not only halted the Islamic advance into Europe through
his exemplary embodiment of the knightly virtues of courage, justice and
loyalty, for which he was canonised by Pope Alexander II in 1066 as patron
saint of the knights. For, while captive in Spain he managed to convert a Muslim
princess Arabel, who later became his second wife Giburc, to an advanced form of Celtic
or Grail Christianity that was able to forge a direct link to the ancient mysteries
of the East that he had absorbed as a favorite student of the great spiritual
teacher Alcuin of York, who was engaged by Charlemagne to educate the ruling
classes of his vast empire. It was this
cosmic form of Johannean Christianity, which had led the Three Kings to travel
to Palestine to herald the prophesied birth of the Jesus child, with which Arabel
as a postgraduate of the palace school of Harun al Raschid in Bagdad could
identify and connect, realizing that it was not at all a question of giving up or
subduing her own religion, but rather of embracing this advanced form of
esoteric Christianity as its necessary supplement. This spiritual union, as it were, between East
and West, forged this time by Willehalm as a knight of the Word is the real
underlying motive for their marriage, which of course did not remain without
grave consequences for it triggered two great battles near Arles in the South
of France between the armies of Arabel’s next of kin and the forces of
Willehalm and his family, events which still have not been recorded in history.
These
few glimpse into this aspect of Werner Greub’s Grail research may give an
indication as to how an answer can be found to what Dusan Tesic Lužanski has called “the third
wave of Islamization in Europe.” For it should by now be evident that,
in so far as Islamization is a religious phenomenon, that answers beyond this
field, be they of a political or military nature, will not suffice. An answer
can only come here from a concerted effort of modern knights of the word,
inspired by this newfound biography of this model knight of the Sword, who gave
up the sword in order to become a knight of the Word in the service of a New
Christianity or science of the Grail as championed by anthroposophist Rudolf
Steiner and his true advocates, loyal students and benign followers, wherever
they are and whoever they may be. How and
by whom this could be done will be indicated briefly in the next appendix.
How
the Grail Sites Were Found, ISBN 978-90-73932-27-2, A-4 format,
420 p. can be ordered from your local bookstore or by contacting the Willehalm Institute Press Foundation at info@willehalm.nl.
II.
WILLEHALM
ORDER OF
KNIGHTS OF THE WORD (I.S.N.)
The
first book edition of How the Grail Sites
Were Found was presented on May 3, 2013, by the publisher as part of the
festivities connected with an international book and art exhibition in
Amsterdam City Hall organized by the Willehalm Foundation entitled The Virtues—Towards a New Courtesy.
The book is dedicated
to the new Dutch King William-Alexander of Orange and the Dutch Council of High
Nobility as part of a petition that was formally submitted on May 28, 2014,
to the said king, who according to the constitution is the only one entitled to
institute a new order. Now still under consideration by the Dutch Chancellery of
Dutch Orders, it entails a request to establish a Willehalm Order of Knights of the Word as a supplement to the
Military Willemsorde, which is duly named after the medieval William of Orange (see
his image carrying the Star of Bethlehem on his helm in battle with 15 Moorish
kings) and of which his current namesake is the Grand Master. (Update: The notion that King William- Alexander has the power to institute such a new Order turned out to be mistaken, this is the sole prerogative of the government. The petition was rejected by the Chancellery on November 25 2016 on the grounds that it saw no necessity for instituting such an order. Nevertheless on March 19, 2017 a revised English version was put on the internet.)
The proposed mission of this new
chivalric order of the Word named after the patron saint of the knights has in
the meantime been enlarged from helping to develop a new world economic order
to furthering and protecting the New Christianity, both of which were
introduced by Rudolf Steiner during the first quarter of the 20th
century as the economic and spiritual basis for his anthroposophy.
This
knightly endeavor is in line with the seven
statutory objectives of the Willehalm Foundation, three of which are:
1. To
perform and publish research concerning the life and work of Willehalm as, on
the one hand, the supreme commander of the Carolingian army in the Spanish Mark
in the 9th century and, on the other hand, after his retirement from active
duty, as the spiritus rector of the Grail events, so as to be able to properly
evaluate his hitherto underrated role in the history of the Christian Occident
with respect to matters of defence and security as well as spirituality and religion;
2. To
perform research in order to demonstrate how the Willehalm impulse emerged at
the beginning of the 20th century in Central Europe in a new form in
the anthroposophy founded by Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925), also called science of
the Grail, with her social component, the idea of the threefold social organism:
freedom in the cultural life, equality in the rights sphere and brotherhood in
the economy. Also known as social organics, i.e. in the form of a science of
world economy understood as the harmonious interaction between the production
factors nature, work and capital to achieve fair, just prices by means of
economic associations.
3. To also translate, publish, present and
further the works of non-anthroposophical writers and fighters for freedom and
justice [such as Slobodan Mitric], who in the spirit of the Willehalm impulse
are also striving to bring to the fore, on the one hand, the true, the good and
the beautiful in mankind and human society and, on the other hand, to expose
and withstand the false, the bad and the ugly for what it is, or in Manichaean
sense to transform it.
