Otto Rahn, the Cathars and the Holy Grail
Château de Montségur, one of the Cathar last fortresses. The orientation of the castle from north to south indicates a solar position. It is always been considered a sacred place, long before the appearance of Catharism and Christianity itself.
Otto Rahn in Montsegur
A valiant host lives at Montsaelvaesche, and I will tell how they arc sustained. They live upon a Stone of the purest kind. It is called Lapsit Exillis […] The Stone is also called the Grail.
ParzivaI, by Wolfram von Eschenbach.
During his childhood, Otto Rahn (1904-1939) studied in-depth Wolfram von Eschenbach's Grail romance, Parzival. As the story goes, the Arthurian knight dedicates his life to searching for the Holy Grail and finally finds it hidden in the sacred mountain of Montsalvat. According to Rahn, Wolfram’s so-called Grail romance was no ordinary book but an ‘Initiation and Historical Document’ of the highest order. For instance, he concluded that the Montsalvat of legend was actually Montsegur, the solar fortress of the Cathars. He identifies, for example, Kyot (a book character), with Guyot de Provins (a historical figure), who communicated Wolfram the Grail’s legend. The Cathars had guarded the historical Grail in Montsegur and the Catholic Church, eager to possess it, carried out a bloody crusade against them.
On March 16, 1244, when the bloody Catholic crusade against the Cathars broke out, the castle was captured after a prolonged siege, and 200 unrepentant Cathars were burned alive together in what is remembered as the “Field of the Burned”. Local legend says that the night before Montsegur capitulated, four Cathar Parfaits managed to circumvent the castle's encirclement and escape with a number of treasures, including the Holy Grail. Once the Grail was found safe in one of the Sabarthez caves on Mount Bidorta, they lit a flame, announcing to the Cathars resisting in Montsegur that they had hidden the sacred object.
Like Wolfram's Parzival, Otto Rahn became a pure fool, spending the best years of his life searching for the Grail in Montsegur. For three years, he exhaustively explored the region's caves, talking to the inhabitants of each town and taking notes on everything. The result of his exhaustive foray was described in his first book, Crusade Against the Grail (Kreuzzug gegen den Greal), published in 1933.
The Grail Legend
Otto Rahn was certain that the Grail was hidden in one of the many caves in the Languedoc region.
What is the Grail? Why is it called “holy” in the Arthurian legends but never mentioned as ‘holy’ by Wolfram von Eschenbach? Is it a cup? A precious Stone? A transcendent experience? Otto Rahn’s investigations in the caves led him to the following conclusion: “Two Grails were preserved there [...] the Christian Holy Grail and the pagan Graal stone.” In the Christian tradition, the Holy Grail is identified with the sacred cup in which Christ shared the Last Supper with his disciples. It is also said that it is the cup in which Joseph of Arimathea collected the blood of Christ from the wound inflicted by the Holy Spear of the centurion Gaius Longinos when Jesus was dying on the cross.
However, the history of the Holy Grail does not have a certain origin. The Catholic Church interprets it in a Eucharistic way and transforms it into a religious and allegorical epic story, defining the medieval romantic and mystical Arthuric adventure. For Otto Rahn, the Holy Grail would not be a sacred cup, a description that appears in poems and stories of chivalry, but an emerald stone that is difficult to reach or find, which corresponds to Wolfram's description in Parzival: “And the stone was called Graal.” Wolfram's work emphasizes in Rahn the idea that the authentic Grail is the Graal stone, the lapsit exilis, the alchemical Philosopher's Stone that provides ambrosia, the eternal youth.
The Graal implies a valuable and mysterious pagan object or the lost hermetic teaching. Since the Catholic Church considered all the cults of the pagan ancestral tradition heretical, the original myth of the Graal was manipulated and stripped of its primordial legendary content. Pagan legends were assimilated by Christianity and later transformed into what would become the ancient tradition of the Grail. The symbol of the Stone was distorted and lost its original meaning.
Walter Stein claims the Grail Stone, described as ‘lapsit exilis’ by the minnesinger, was an alchemical symbol for the pineal gland situated beneath the brain—the Third Eye. And which had inspired Wolfram to write the romance of the Grail, and Richard Wagner to compose his greatest opera, Parsifal, were “universal currents of divine thought” or transcendental “Akashic” memory that activate this ‘Pineal Eye’, since it offers an vision of the hidden secrets of Time; opening “a bridge between the world of sense and the world of the spirit (Geistliche Welt).”
Initiation in the SS-Ahnenerbe
Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler was so confident of Rahn’s finding the Grail that he had prepared a an empty plinth, in the basement of the Wewelsburg castle, where it would sit.
The book Crusade Against the Grail sold poorly, but it would not go unnoticed by the leaders of the Third Reich. Reichsminister Alfred Rosemberg, the mind behind the Nazi Gnosis, as an intellectual, felt admiration for Rahn’s book. He considered that all the events in the Albigensian crusade referred to an eternal struggle between darkness and light. The Cathar heretics, Rosemberg pointed out, were martyrs in the great tragedy between good and evil: “In the history of the Albigenses, the Waldensians, the Cathars, the Reformed, the Lutherans, lies an extraordinary setting of an epic fight.”
The book also earned Rahn a powerful patron: Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler, leader of the notorious Schutzstaffel or Waffen SS, who had a well-documented obsession with mysticism and the occult. In the Wewelsburg Castle, Himmler built the “Grail Room” in which he intended to store the relics, as well as a “General's Room” surrounded by 12 columns in reference to the Knights of the Round Table. Himmler thought that once in possession of the Grail (or Graal), he could achieve the final victory for Germany.
Himmler offered Rahn to fund his future research with the condition of writing another book in 1937. Rahn agreed almost immediately: “What was he supposed to do, turn him down?”, he confessed to a friend. He almost immediately received the mission to head to Iceland to investigate traces of Hyperborea. Rahn seemed to have fulfilled his duties reasonably well, since, in 1936, Himmler had him formally join the SS Ahnenerbe. He was appointed Colonel (Oberstrumfiihrer) and assigned to a new trip to the Pyrenees region in search of the Grail.
Lucifer's Court
War in heaven, Illustration by Gustave Doré (left). Massacre at Béziers, Albigesian cruzade (right). “The Grail, hidden by the Cathars, was a jewel fallen from the Crown of Lucifer [Earendel], broken in his combat in the heavens, when Hyperborea and Atlantis were destroyed” - Miguel Serrano.
The following year, Rahn delivered his next book, Lucifer's Court (Luzifers Hofgesind), subtitled as “Journey of the Good Spirits in Europe.” Many concepts of Esoteric Nazism are clarified in this book. The Cathars were worshipers of Christos-Lucifer or Earendel, the Lightbringer, an angel that Judeo-Christianity declared as the demon and enemy of “God”. In this religiosity, Lucifer is a fallen angel who helps humanity to be free from the prison of matter, the dominion of Jehovah-Satan. Judeo-Christianity involved the adulteration of the Aryan Gnosis and the misrepresentation of the Apollonian-Luciferic mystery.
According to Rahn, It was not the hosts of Lucifer that penetrated Montsegur during the Albigensian Crusade, but those of Satan prepared to seize the Graal, the stone that fell from the broken crown of Earendel, during the primordial battle of good and evil, between Spirits of Light and Darkness. The Graal has the virtue of allowing fallen Aryan-hyperborean spirits to maintain the link with the world of the gods, illuminating them from the shadows of the Demiurge’s cave-world. The Divine Stone would be an object from the legendary Thule, capital of Hyperborea, or even Atlantis, ancestors of the Indo-Europeans.
National socialism had the purpose of recovering the Graal (Gnosis) that awakens the Vril, “the blood's memory”; “For the true Luciferians are those who preserve the ancient wisdom.” Lucifer's Court was recognized in Nazi occultism and soon became the Bible of the Nazi Party. Himmler was so excited about the book that he ordered 100 luxury parchment prints and even presented the finest leather-bound copy to Hitler as a birthday gift. Himmler ordered his officers to read Lucifer’s Court, assigning it the value of “transcendent gospel.” Unfortunately for Rahn, it was now, while he was at the peak of professional success, that his personal life began to unravel with dire consequences.
Endura
Otto Rahn walking in deep loneliness, next to his lamp, illuminating the dark labyrinths of the many caves in the Languedoc.
On March 13, 1939, Otto Rahn’s body was found in the Wilden Kaiser mountains near Kufstein. He had died of cold and hunger on the top of the mountain. It is assumed that he committed “Endura” near the anniversary of the fall of Montsegur, a Cathar form of ritual suicide. I was a tragic yet fitting ending for a man who had dedicated much of his life to the mysterious gnostic sect.
How was it possible that Otto Rahn, while at the peak of his professional success, had decided to commit suicide? All kinds of speculations have been elaborated. As a Gnostic, Otto Rahn opposed the coming war and opposing it amounted to treason. However, even the accusation could have easily been ignored by Himmler. Therefore, it is possible that something else was involved. Rahn was a heavy drinker, presumably homosexual and had Jewish ancestry. Yet Himmler knew all about Rahn's personal life, and was willing to ignore it as long as he continued producing books and doing research.
It has been said that Rahn's trip to the Laguedoc in 1937 was to ensure that the Nazis will not discover the Graal's hideout. Again, it is just speculation. Himmler, however, was frustrated by Rahn's failure or reluctance to deliver the Holy Grail. By certain circumstances that are not yet been specified, Rahn fled south to the town of Söll in the Austrian Alps to die there. The Cathars were not afraid of death, and the Cathar Parfaits occasionally practiced endura. Otto Rahn comments on this: “His doctrine allowed, like that of the Druids, suicide; however, it demanded that one end his life not out of tiredness of living, fear or pain, but in a state of perfect detachment from matter”.
In the obituary of the official Nazi newspaper Boiláscher Beobatcherse, it was published: “Rahn died frozen practising the Cathar state of endura; his face had an expression of deep peace. We mourn for this dead comrade, SS-decent man and creator of outstanding historical-academic works.” Himmler kept Rahn's works in print until the war's end, even when paper in Germany was increasingly scarce. In 1944, a mysteriously and anonymously figure paid the large outstanding debt that Rahn owed him.
Heinrich Himmler in Montserrat
October 23, 1940. Himmler scans Montserrat in search of the Grail.
The Spear of Destiny, the Stone of Scone, the Ark of the Covenant and, of course, the Holy Grail, were Heinrich Himmler's favorite “relics” to wage an “esoteric war” against the Jewish Synarchy’s religious influence. After Otto Rahn's death, he continued the search for the Holy Grail, but these events are also lost in the mists of legend; in countless speculations and theories. In one of the chapters of Lucifer’s Court, entitled “Puigcerdá in Catalonia”, Rhan explained that “Montsalvat”, could actually be Montserrat of the Pyrenees, the mountain after Richard Wagner had published his latest opera, Parsifal.
Montserrat had entered the German imagination through great thinkers such as Wilhelm von Humboldt and Goethe, who, imbued with the ideals of Romanticism, had marvelled at its sublime nature. It is also known as the mysterious place where Leonardo da Vinci was initiated. Unlike Montsegur, Montserrat has countless caves and a strong telluric current, making it known as the “magical mountain”.
By 1940, the war had begun in Europe more than a year ago, but Himmler's interest in the occult did not dissipate during the conflict. In October, the Reichsführer-SS spent four days in Spain to prepare for the meeting between Franco and Hitler in Hendaye. On the same day, he went to the Abbey of Montserrat, where his sources from the Ahnenerbe assured that he would find the Grail and mobilize his entire clique to search for the relic, which should not surprise us since a hundred years earlier, Napoleon's troops had destroyed the monastery looking for “something unknown”. However, the expedition found nothing of merit on the mountain. The next day, Himmler returned to Berlin on a military plane.
Skorzeny and the Cathar Prophecy
On March 16, 1944, a small German plane appeared in the sky, and 'painted' a huge Celtic Cross in the sky. It was the 700 year anniversary of the fall of Montsegur.
There were more Nazi expeditions to try to get the Cathar treasure. It is known that, in June 1943, a group of German scientists explored for months in Ussat and Ornolac. These experts consisted of historians, archaeologists and geologists. Despite keeping the notes that Rahn had left with the exact location of the treasure, they did not obtain any results, and Himmler was getting desperate. Had the treasure existed or not? If it did exist, it had to be located in the area of Montsegur, as Otto Rahn originally proposed. He needed someone capable of approaching the problem, and one man came to mind, SS Colonel Otto Skorzeny.
Skorzeny had a unique approach to problem-solving. He had been an engineer by profession and was also a gifted linguist. He became famous by performing the successful, daring mountain top rescue of Mussolini at the end of the war, without firing a single shot, a feat which was considered impossible. If he did not find the treasure of Montsegur, no one could do it. This hypothesis, developed by Colonel Howard Buechner's in the book The Emerald Cup - Ark of Gold, describes that Skorzeny went to Montsegur accompanied by a select group of military personnel of his highest confidence and camped at the foot of the Cathar fortress.
After quickly visiting the Rahn caves, he concluded that previous expeditions had looked in the wrong place. In his opinion, the treasure should be hidden in an inaccessible place, so he returned to Montsegur. Applying strictly military criteria, he followed the flight path that the four Cathars who escaped from Montsegur with the treasure would have made in a straight line. Several kilometers away, the expedition found the treasure in a dark grotto near the sacred mountain of Tabor.
It was March 16, 1944. Precisely that day, seven centuries ago, the fortress of Montsegur had fallen. The date was doubly relevant, as the last Cathar had predicted an ancient prophecy: “At the end of 700 years, the laurel shall be green again on the ashes of the martyrs”. At noon a group of pilgrims arrived at the fortress to commemorate the anniversary. Skorzeny allowed them to visit the place and asked them to “look at the sky.” Shortly after, a high-flying German plane appeared in the sky and ‘painted’ a huge Celtic Cross in the sky. For Skorzeny, it was the sign that his mission was about to end, but for the pilgrims of Montsegur, it was beyond a coincidence; it was a miracle.
The next day, an official delegation made up of Alfred Rosenberg, and Colonel Wolfram Sievers of the Ahnenerbe arrived to congratulate Skorzeny. The Cathar treasure was, reputedly, taken to Germany, to the Merkers tower, and it is speculated that the Grail could be buried in grounds surrounding the Wewelsburg Castle.
