CHAPEL PERILOUS: LITERATURE BECOMES PSYCHOLOGY

The Chapel Perilous

Today, The Grandma is reading about the Chapel Perilous, an element very important in the Arthurian Cycle and in Psychology. 

The Grandma doesn't know anything about Psychology and she has shared her ideas with Claire Fontaine who is a great expert in these themes. The Grandma has also studied a new lesson of her Intermediate Language Practice (Chapter 46).

More information: Possession I, II & III

The term chapel perilous first appeared in Sir Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur (1485) as the setting for an adventure in which sorceress Hellawes unsuccessfully attempts to seduce Sir Lancelot. T. S. Eliot used it symbolically in The Waste Land (1922).

Students of the Grail romances will remember that in many of the versions the hero, sometimes it is a heroine, meets with a strange and terrifying adventure in a mysterious Chapel, an adventure which, we are given to understand, is fraught with extreme peril to life. The details vary: sometimes there is a Dead Body laid on the altar; sometimes a Black Hand extinguishes the tapers; there are strange and threatening voices, and the general impression is that this is an adventure in which supernatural, and evil, forces are engaged.

The Chapel Perilous

Such an adventure befalls Gawain on his way to the Grail Castle. He is overtaken by a terrible storm, and coming to a Chapel, standing at a crossways in the middle of a forest, enters for shelter.

The altar is bare, with no cloth, or covering, nothing is thereon but a great golden candlestick with a tall taper burning within it.

Behind the altar is a window, and as Gawain looks a Hand, black and hideous, comes through the window, and extinguishes the taper, while a voice makes lamentation loud and dire, beneath which the very building rocks. Gawain's horse shies for terror, and the knight, making the sign of the Cross, rides out of the Chapel, to find the storm abated, and the great wind fallen. Thereafter the night was calm and clear.

In the Perceval section of Wauchier and Manessier we find the same adventure in a dislocated form.

The earliest mention of a Perilous Cemetery, as distinct from a Chapel, appears to be in the Chastel Orguellous section of the Perceval, a section probably derived from a very early stratum of Arthurian romantic tradition.

More information: Pinterest

The metaphorical Chapel Perilous traces back to the story, Le Morte d’Arthur, written by Sir Thomas Malory and published in 1485. In the dimly-lit chape, named Chapel Perilous by Malory, Sir Lancelot du Lake takes the liberty of purloining a sword and a scrap of shroud-silk from a dead knight, Sir Gilbert the Bastard, before encountering a beautiful sorceress, Hellawes, Lady of the Castle Nigramous. Refusing to kiss her, Lancelot avoids her seductive efforts and moves onward to the disastrous climax of his love for Queen Guinevere. Having loved Lancelot, Hellawes dies, broken-hearted. But had he given the sword to Hellawes, he would never have seen Guinevere again.

Lancelot and Hellawes

Chapel perilous is also a term referring to a psychological state in which an individual cannot be certain whether they have been aided or hindered by some force outside the realm of the natural world, or whether what appeared to be supernatural interference was a product of their own imagination.

It was used by the late writer and philosopher Robert Anton Wilson (1932–2007) in his book Cosmic Trigger (1977). According to Wilson, being in this state leads the subject to become either paranoid or an agnostic. In his opinion there is no third way.

Did Lancelot choose wisely? Was the fair damsel and sorceress, who loved him, truly evil? Was he a loyal Knight of the Round Table or a betrayer of his friend and King? Was he a bastard or a fool, or a bastard, hero, and fool, or something else, a lost soul? Did Guinevere invite Lancelot into coital shelter from the storms of life or a carnal version of Chapel Perilous? The sword and silk are obvious sexual symbols, and precursors but, all decoding aside, the questions cannot be answered in simple terms of yea and nay.

Chapel Perilous denotes a state of consciousness wherein a person seems to encounter a supernatural magnetic force, the sense of which defies classification in terms of good and evil. In any case, ordinary faith in dogma is made impossible by inescapable recognition of the infinite kaleidoscope-like processing of multidimensional Omniverse. Neither running nor hiding is an option.

More information: Tekgnostics

Knights! The gift of freedom is yours by right. 

But the home we seek resides not in some distant land. 

It's in us! And in our actions on this day! 

If this be our destiny, then so be it. 

But let history remember that as free men, we chose to make it so.
 

King Arthur