Catharism and the Holy Grail.

[Wildchildx11]

Essentially are the legends dating from the Middle Ages is that Jesus had a daughter with Mary Magedelene who is worshipped as a Romani Folk Saint called Saint Sarah. I'm not sure if I can link to Wikipedia but the Golden Legend states where she was represented as a servent:


According to various legends, during a persecution of early Christians, commonly placed in the year 42, Lazarus, his sisters Mary and Martha, Mary Salome (the mother of the Apostles John and James), Mary Jacobe and Maximin were sent out to sea in a boat. They arrived safely on the southern shore of Gaul at the place later called Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer. Sarah, a native of Berenice Troglodytica, appears as the black Indo-Egyptian maid of one of the Three Marys, usually Mary Jacobe.[3] (The natives of Berenice Troglodytica had ancestors who once came from the Malabar Coast, through Indo-Roman trade relations, and settled in Egypt (Roman province) and intermarried with Egyptians.)

Another account has Sarah welcoming the Three Marys into Gaul. Franz de Ville (1956) writes:

One of our people who received the first Revelation was Sara the Kali. She was of noble birth and was chief of her tribe on the banks of the Rhône. She knew the secrets that had been transmitted to her... The Rom at that period practiced a polytheistic religion, and once a year they took out on their shoulders the statue of Ishtari (Astarte) and went into the sea to receive benediction there. One day Sara had visions which informed her that the Saints who had been present at the death of Jesus would come, and that she must help them. Sara saw them arrive in a boat. The sea was rough, and the boat threatened to founder. Mary Salome threw her cloak on the waves and, using it as a raft, Sarah floated towards the Saints and helped them reach land by praying.[5]

She became associated and ascribed to as being the daughter of Jesus in the modern ages with Dan Brown and other historical or psuedo-historical authors.

Legends from the Middle Ages about the holy grail basically state that the three Mary's ended up in France.

Now taking a nuanced view, in the middle ages there was the concept of the divine blood of kings and the right to rule, and the Legend was probably invented to meet the concept of a divine bloodline since the daughter of Jesus is often associated with the French monarchy. I take a different perspective, what if the Cathars actually stemmed from this hypothetical daughter of Jesus and Catharism is actually the cup that holds the holy water?

The Nazis were interested in the connection between Catharism and the Holy Grail and in the Catharism Wikipedia link it states:

The publication of the early scholarly book Crusade Against the Grail, by the young German and later SS officer, Otto Rahn in the 1930s, rekindled interest in the connection between the Cathars and the Holy Grail, especially in Germany. Rahn was convinced that the 13th-century work Parzival by Wolfram von Eschenbach was a veiled account of the Cathars. The philosopher and Nazi government official Alfred Rosenberg speaks favourably of the Cathars in The Myth of the Twentieth Century.[108]

What I'm wondering is: evidence historical or otherwise about the connection between the Holy Grail and the Cathars with the Cathar belief possibly being traced from this alleged bloodline of Jesus.

It is possible that Saint Sarah was just a Catholized version of the Hindu Goddess Kali which the gypsys invented to avoid persecution by turning her into a Saint. However, I've had intuitions of Saint Sarah, I like to think I've worked with her from time to time, and she is a figure I definately associate with. Does the fact that she is represented as Black, and dark black, represent a mystery about the Black Modanna?

Is the fact that the Cathar gnostic sect was associated with the holy grail the reason why they were genocided during the crusades, because the Church wanted to hide the possibility that the Historical Jesus had a relationship, and possibly even a daughter from Mary Magedelene. Who was Saint Sarah?

 

[Roma]

Grail legends predate Christianity.

Any new religion likes to take the traditions of older religions so that the new religion is attractive to the followers of the older traditions.

A more experiential approach to the grail can be found in Wagner's operas: Lohengrin and Parsifal.

Once at the end of a not very good performance of Parsifal I saw a tiny ball of grail light come in the top of the auditorium, spreading a beautiful energy - until the ball was smashed by the applause.

Wagner had instructed that there was to be no applause at the end of Parsifal - but what did he know?

 

[Xenophon]

Otto Rahn's "Lucifer's Court" and "Crusade Against the Grail" both have a lot to say about the Cathars and alleged Grail connections. The novel "Return to Whidbey" has a chapter devoted to this, with Rahn making a ghost-cameo appearance.

 

[Robert Ramsay]

Wagner had instructed that there was to be no applause at the end of Parsifal - but what did he know?

I'd never heard of this - so I looked it up - and, as usual, "it's a bit more complicated than that"

"Something particularly notable happened at the first performances of Parsifal, in Bayreuth, in 1882. Wagner requested that there be no curtain calls after Act II, so as not to “impinge on the impression,” as Cosima Wagner wrote in her diary. But the audience misunderstood these remarks to mean that they shouldn’t applaud at all, and total silence greeted the final curtain. Wagner said to his companions, “Now I don’t know at all. Did the audience like it or not?” He once more addressed the crowd, saying that it was now appropriate to applaud. Amid calls for the singers, Wagner had to explain that he had tried to assemble them but they were now half-undressed in the dressing room. The confusion continued at the second performance. Cosima writes: “After the first act there is a reverent silence, which has a pleasant effect. But when, after the second, the applauders are again hissed, it becomes embarrassing.” Two weeks later, he slipped into his box to watch the Flower Maidens scene. When it was over, he called out, “Bravo!”—and was hissed. Alarmingly, Wagnerians were taking Wagner more seriously than he took himself."

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[Xenophon]

I'd never heard of this - so I looked it up - and, as usual, "it's a bit more complicated than that"

"Something particularly notable happened at the first performances of Parsifal, in Bayreuth, in 1882. Wagner requested that there be no curtain calls after Act II, so as not to “impinge on the impression,” as Cosima Wagner wrote in her diary. But the audience misunderstood these remarks to mean that they shouldn’t applaud at all, and total silence greeted the final curtain. Wagner said to his companions, “Now I don’t know at all. Did the audience like it or not?” He once more addressed the crowd, saying that it was now appropriate to applaud. Amid calls for the singers, Wagner had to explain that he had tried to assemble them but they were now half-undressed in the dressing room. The confusion continued at the second performance. Cosima writes: “After the first act there is a reverent silence, which has a pleasant effect. But when, after the second, the applauders are again hissed, it becomes embarrassing.” Two weeks later, he slipped into his box to watch the Flower Maidens scene. When it was over, he called out, “Bravo!”—and was hissed. Alarmingly, Wagnerians were taking Wagner more seriously than he took himself."

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A fairly common problem when diligent people try to obey orders they don't know the rationale of. Like the boss who tells the new security guard, "Don't let anyone in" and forgets to specify which hours and personnel this applies to. He can't get into his own office and the building burns while the guard stands off the fire department with drawn Taser. (To keep this on topic, let it be noted that both guard and boss were Cathars and the building housed the Holy Grail.)