Month: August 2021

“If knightly deeds, with shield and lance, can win fame for one’s Earthly self, yet also Paradise for one’s soul, then the chivalric life has been my one desire.” ….You are Parsifal! Your name means: Pierce-through-the-heart!…..Wolfram von Eschenback, 1205

The grail saga first appeared in print In 1190, when Irish poet Chretien wrote Perceval or the Story of the Grail.  Understand, however, the story is much older, and was carried for centuries across Europe by wandering troubadours, the rock stars of their day. Real spirituality moves through music, and troubadours were some of the greatest performers not under Vatican supervison. For centuries, the Vatican claimed a monopoly on musical composition. And what many fail to realize is some of the first secular composers were also cannabis users. Some were involved in a movement called “The Society of Smokers,” whose song lyrics involved lines like “I love my smoke.” History has failed to identify what that smoke was, and it’s often mistaken for a reference to opium when it is obviously cannabis they were crooning about.

As this illustration shows, troubadours were not typically solo acts. The best players always prefer to work with other good players (on different instruments) because spirituality moves through telepathy, and the quality of your combo along with the quality of your audience greatly enhances the quality of your performance.

The Commedia dell’arte style of improvisational theater sprang later on from these troubadours, so it’s likely some were doing jazz in the Middle Ages. Improvisation is a doorway to spirituality, but the mainstream tends to despise its powers, preferring total control, lest more slip off the leash. No doubt that’s why they were so opposed to the Cathars, and also opposed to jazz when it emerged in New Orleans. And it was obvious there was a cannabis connection to Congo Square as well as the Cathars, although that’s been mostly wiped out of history.

Wolfram von Eschenback was a knight, composer, singer and lyre player in Germany, and also one of the first to put the grail story on paper. Since Wolfram was illiterate, the song had to be dictated. Wolfram was also the Bob Dylan of his era.

One glaring and notable detail in his grail story is the total absence of Jesus Christ. And that’s because the grail story did not start with Christians, but originated much earlier in ancient Scythia. The story was embellished by the Manichaeans, who were virtually extinguished from Europe in the 6th century by an ethnic cleansing perpetrated by the Vatican. Although all texts and records of the Manichaeans were disappeared, the culture went underground, and continued on only through the efforts of troubadours like Eschenback.

Scythian culture was immensely savage, and had to be tamed as it evolved through Zoroastrianism and Manichaeism. The tempering was accomplished through the rise of a concept called chivalry. Armored knights had a responsibility to behave in a decent manner, and that was especially true when upholding the rights of the weaker sex. Chivalry ran on love power.

The quest for the grail is the knight’s rite of passage, in which he is transformed into a fully empathetic being, something accomplished by learning the secrets of the grail.

Around 1100, the Cathars appear across Europe, creating cities and villages, mostly in France and Germany. Their name meant “pure ones” in Greek. But when the Pope of Rome realized the Cathars were the dreaded Manichaeans rising from the grave, he launched the first crusade in Catholic history to demolish all their cities and towns while murdering all the occupants. No matter if a few Catholics lived there too, the Pope wanted everyone exposed eliminated. The Inquisition followed to clean up any traces. The only surviving history of any Cathars are edited confessions extracted through torture before death, none of which can be trusted as real. But it’s the same story for anything about Manichaeans. The only documents detailing their history come from persecutors.

One thing you’ll notice about cannabis as it secretly marches through history, the world’s most persecuted plant. Wherever you find cannabis use, you’ll find songs written about it, a line that stretches back through the ages to ancient Scythia and continues through early jazz, rock and hip hop. And that’s because real spirituality moves through music, and not through repressions.

The smoker smokes through smoke,
A smoky speculation.
While others smoke in thought,
The smoker smokes through smoke,
Because smoke pleases him greatly
As he meditates.
The smoker smokes through smoke,
A smoky speculation.

Fumeux fume by Solage, circa 1370

The Zoroastrian Magi were responsible for a great awakening in science and spirituality. My theory is this was fueled by Improvisational Ritual Theater. The Magi rituals were greatly influenced by the Scythian Enarree, who were a hubridization of gay draq queens and asthetic priests, and the Scythian ideas about energy flowed like a mighty river through everything that followed, and this river can be rafted by following the spread of OM/Amen, which spread the core principles of the Scythian culture, including the fumigation of cannabis to divine the will of the gods.

Sadly, when a great reformer arose who sought to elevate the Magi religion by blending it with Buddhism and Christianity, the Magi conspired to have him killed. Mani was wiped off the face of the earth even though he was the most popular religious leader after Buddha, and was considered the incarnation of Buddha in China and India.

Mani was jailed until he expired, and then decapitated, and all his followers who didn’t recant and join some other religion were put to the sword to prevent the flow of his ideas. A thousand films about the fictional Jesus, but not one movie about Mani, who was the real Jesus.

This genocide repeated centuries later when the Pope of Rome launched the.first Crusade, one that lasted almost a century because they had to keep going back to kill every sprout.

The genocidal extermination of the Cathars was fueled by two things: The Crusaders were allowed to seize all property and assets by the families they killed, and they didn’t even have to be Cathars, they only had to live in a village that contained some Cathars. So a great migration from Italy into Southern France took place. The kicker in the Pope’s plan, however, was that if you joined the Crusade to kill and steal land, you were given direct and immediate entry into heaven upon your death, no stopping in Purgatory.

This was an offer that could not be refused for many impoverished warriors in Italy, and it minted many rich barons almost overnight.

The Enaree became known many centuries later as the Perfecti. They were vegans, could hold no property, swear no oaths, and could not have sex.

Strange the inner circle of the Cathars also became known as the Perfecti, and only strange because this fact occurs nowhere in our history books. Women as well as men could become Perfecti through a oath-taking ceremony. All others could eat cheese and meat, marry and have families. The others were expected to take care of the Perfecti, providing free food and shelter in exchange for song, poetry and art.

Most everything we know about Mani is wrong because everything real was destroyed and what survived was the propaganda of Augustine the Hippo, who spent nine years as a follower of Mani and then suddenly switched sides to the Vatican.  When this sort of propaganda is installed as the only source of truth through a genocide that stretched for millennia, it is usually a sign that something very important was being erased.

But erasing Mani didn’t work because it created the Bogomils in the Balkans, and then the Cathars in France. The remnants of the culture survives only in the myth of the holy grail, the central myth going back to the Enarree. A golden cup fell from the sky and only the true king could pick it up because it was hotter than a red-hot stove. And if my work ever gets popular the world might see another emergence of the Enarree and improvisational theater as the best way to do ceremonies with zero dogma attached beyond don’t hurt anybody.

There is an astronomical disparity between the two: while there are millions of depictions of Jesus spanning two millennia of global history, there are less than 100 known surviving historical artworks explicitly depicting the prophet Mani.

Mani was an artist himself and explicitly used a “Book of Pictures” (Arzhang) to teach his faith. However, centuries of brutal, systematic persecution by the Roman Empire, the Sasanian Persian Empire, Islamic caliphates, and Chinese imperial dynasties successfully wiped out almost all Manichaean art.

Historical records indicate Mani was not crucified; he died in 274/277 CE from exhaustion and heavy chaining after 26 days in a Sasanian prison. While Manichaeans poetically referred to his death as his “crucifixion” to parallel Jesus’ story, his followers preferred to depict him in glory as the “Buddha of Light” rather than showing him being tortured.

The Only Surviving Statue: The Statue of Mani at Cao’an Temple (Fujian, China): Carved around 1339 CE into a living cliff face inside the Cao’an Temple, this is the only known intact historical statue of Mani in existence. To escape imperial persecution, the local Chinese Manichaeans disguised the statue as a Buddhist monument, rendering Mani as the “Buddha of Light” (Moni Guangfo). Instead of having the traditional curly hair of a standard Buddha, this granite statue features unique Manichaean identifiers: straight hair draped over his shoulders, a distinct beard, and palms facing upward resting on his lap.

Surviving Paintings and Drawings (Approx. 25–35 Pieces): The remaining visual representations of Mani are scattered across rare manuscript fragments, hanging scrolls, and cosmological diagrams:

1. The Southern Chinese Silk Paintings (approx. 8 scrolls): Discovered in the 21st century, these rare 12th-to-15th-century hanging scrolls were preserved in Japanese temples and private collections. They include: An explicit, standalone Icon of Mani depicting him seated on a lotus throne. Narrative scrolls depicting his life, such as Mani’s Parents, The Birth of Mani, and Episodes from Mani’s Missionary Work.

The Manichaean Diagram of the Universe (1 scroll): A massive 14th-century Chinese painting depicting the complex layers of Manichaean cosmology. It includes a specific portrait detail commonly referred to as “Mani as Observer” or “Mani as the Buddha of Light”.

3. Turpan Manuscript Illusions and Wall Paintings (approx. 10–20 fragments): Recovered from the ruins of Gaochang (modern Xinjiang, China) by early 20th-century expeditions, these 8th-to-9th-century illuminated fragments are now preserved largely in the Berlin Asian Art Museum. Several include tiny miniature paintings of Mani wearing white robes and a unique tall tiara, surrounded by his Perfecti.

4. Non-Manichaean Miniature Art (Fewer than 5): A small handful of later Islamic and Persian Shahnameh (Book of Kings) manuscript illustrations depicting Mani, usually focusing on his legendary reputation as a master painter or his execution by the Sasanian state.