We have already seen in the Naassene document that the Mystery ritual
comprised a double initiation, the Lower, into the mysteries of
generation, i.e., of physical Life; the higher, into the Spiritual
Divine Life, where man is made one with God.[13]
Some years ago I offered the suggestion that the test for the primary
initiation, that into the sources of physical life, would probably
consist in a contact with the horrors of physical death, and that the
tradition of the Perilous Chapel, which survives in the Grail romances
in confused and contaminated form, was a reminiscence of the test for
this lower initiation.[14] This would fully account for the
importance ascribed to it in the Bleheris-Gawain form, and for the
asserted connection with the Grail. It was not till I came to study
the version of the Perlesvaus, with a view to determining its original
provenance, that I recognized its extreme importance for critical
purposes. The more one studies this wonderful legend the more one
discovers significance in what seem at first to be entirely
independent and unrelated details. If the reader will refer to my
Notes on the Perlesvaus, above referred to, he will find that the
result of an investigation into the evidence for locale pointed to the
conclusion that the author of the Histoire de Fulk Fitz-Warin and most
probably also the author of the Perlesvaus before him, were mistaken
in their identification, that there was no tradition of any such
Chapel in Shropshire, and consequently no tale of its foundation, such
as the author of the Histoire relates.
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