Titurel

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Mosaic of Wolfram von Eschenbach from 1903 in the underground station Richard-Wagner-Platz, Berlin, originally in the hotel "Bayernhof" (Potsdamer Straße), relocated in 1975.

Titurel is, also according to the Titurel fragment preserved by Wolfram von Eschenbach, the progenitor of the guardians of the Grail, but already at the beginning of the narrative he hands over the rule of the Grail to his son Frimutel and then does not appear again. Wolfram's fragments tell the love story of Sigune and Schionatulander in stanza form, the tragic end of which can then be found in Wolfram's Parzival. The "Younger Titurel", written around 1270 by Albrecht von Scharfenberg, with over 6300 seven-line stanzas ("Titurelstrophe"), brings an extensive expansion of the theme and already links it to the Lohengrin saga and Prester John, the legendary Christian patriarch, presbyter, and king. Albrecht wrote the epic in Wolfram's mask and only reveals himself as "Albrecht" in the 5883rd stanza.

According to Rudolf Steiner, Titurel was a high initiate and also inspired the legend of Floris and Blancheflour, which is significant for the Rosicrucian initiation. The spiritual disciples initiated by Titurel were all called "Parzival" in a certain sense.

„The saga of the Holy Grail says that the bowl with the collected blood of Golgotha is brought to Europe by Angels. Titurel receives this bowl. He receives it floating above the European lands, and only after centuries did Titurel descend with it from spiritual heights to earth and found the mystery site of the Holy Grail on the Mountain of Salvation (Montsalvat). He could only do this after some people were ripe to receive the secret of the Grail. Anyone who was ready for this initiation was called a Parzival.

Charlemagne, who came from the Orient - he was the re-embodiment of a high Indian adept - was an instrument of the spiritual individuality symbolised by the name Titurel. Floris and Blancheflur, called Rose and Lily, are called Charlemagne's parents in spiritual relation. They stood acting above this mystery.[1]

A "Parzival" had purified his soul of all earthly desires and self-seeking by long meditations and concentrations. He was a Cathar and as such came to King Titurel. By exerting all the powers he had acquired through the long exercises, he succeeded in bringing out his higher self. He stood face to face with himself.“ (Lit.:GA 266a, p. 506f)

„Titurel, it was said, had brought him down from the clouds, where the angels held him suspended - while Arabism and purely external factual narratives prevailed -, Titurel had brought him down, the Holy Grail, to the terrestrial sphere. But the materialistic age did not begin to ask for it. Lonely people, isolated people, people in "dullness", not exactly in wisdom, like Parzival, were the ones who set out on paths to the Holy Grail, but they basically did not understand how to ask the appropriate question either. And the spiritual path of materialism, which began in the first third of the 14th century, was preceded by the other path of materialism, which was basically already turning towards the East, towards the physical Jerusalem. And this tragedy was experienced by modern humanity, which had to and still has to go through this tragedy in order to grasp itself inwardly in this tragedy and become a real questioner. Modern humanity has had to experience this tragedy, that the light which once came to it from the East was not recognised as spiritual light, that the spiritual light was pushed back and instead the physical land, the physical materiality of the Orient was sought. The physical Orient began to be sought in the Middle Ages, after the spiritual Orient had been put aside at the end of antiquity.

This is the European situation, and our present situation is still in this European situation. For we are still, if we understand the true innermost call of humanity, seekers after the Holy Grail, and should be, seekers after the Holy Grail.“ (Lit.:GA 204, p. 90)

„Christianity emerged from the strongest mixture of peoples, the Galileans, from those who were completely alien, outside of all blood community. The Redeemer is the one who, with his kingdom, is no longer at all founded on the old blood community, who establishes that kingdom which lies beyond all blood community. The sublimated blood, the blood that is purified, springs forth from the sacrificial death, the purification process. The blood that generates desires and cravings must run, be sacrificed, flow.

The sacred vessel with the purified blood was brought to Europe to the Tempeleisen on Montsalvat. Titurel, the ancestor, received the Grail, before it had been longed for. Now the overcoming of the blood had taken place. The purely physical aspect of the blood had been overcome by the spiritual.

Only if one does not regard the blood merely as composed of chemical components, as the materialist does, can one understand what took place on Golgotha. It is highly remarkable that Richard Wagner was only able to find the pious mood for "Parsifal" because he knew that it was not only about the death of the Redeemer, but about the blood that had been purified, that was something different from ordinary blood. He himself speaks of the connection of the Redeemer's blood with the whole of humanity: "If we now found the capacity for conscious suffering to be peculiarly inherent in the blood of the so-called white race, we must now recognise in the blood of the Redeemer the epitome of consciously willing suffering itself, which pours through the whole human species as divine compassion, as the original source of it.

Furthermore, Richard Wagner says: "The blood in the veins of the Redeemer might thus have flowed from the utmost effort of the will wanting redemption for the salvation of the human race, which has succumbed in its noblest races, as a divine sublimate of the species itself."

Because the Redeemer came forth from the greatest mixture of peoples, his blood was the sublimate of all human blood, human blood in the purified form.“ (Lit.:GA 97, p. 265f)

„The sacred jasper bowl of the Grail, which Christ used when he broke the bread, into which Joseph of Arimathea collected the blood from the wound of Jesus, and which thus contained the secret of Golgotha, was - so the legend goes - taken into custody by Angels until they were able to lower it onto the prepared people after Titurel had built the Castle of the Holy Grail. Spirtual beings held the images of the world in which the secrets of Golgotha lived. They did not lower the content of the images, because that was not possible, but they did lower the emotional content in human minds when the time came. This implantation of the emotional content of the old knowledge can only be a stimulus, but the most powerful stimulus, so that in our age a new and full understanding of the Mystery of Golgotha may develop out of the consciousness soul in the light of Michael's activity. Anthroposophy strives for this new understanding.“ (Lit.:GA 26, p. 211)

Literature
References to the work of Rudolf Steiner follow Rudolf Steiner's Collected Works (CW or GA), Rudolf Steiner Verlag, Dornach/Switzerland, unless otherwise stated.
Email: verlag@steinerverlag.com URL: www.steinerverlag.com.
Index to the Complete Works of Rudolf Steiner - Aelzina Books
A complete list by Volume Number and a full list of known English translations you may also find at Rudolf Steiner's Collected Works
Rudolf Steiner Archive - The largest online collection of Rudolf Steiner's books, lectures and articles in English.
Rudolf Steiner Audio - Recorded and Read by Dale Brunsvold
steinerbooks.org - Anthroposophic Press Inc. (USA)
Rudolf Steiner Handbook - Christian Karl's proven standard work for orientation in Rudolf Steiner's Collected Works for free download as PDF.

References

  1. ↑ Another record notes here: "They effectively presided over the mysteries into which Parzival later penetrated."
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