"For you, the Grail."
It’s time to choose wisely.
[This article has a 10/10 Woo Rating].
"If you want to find the secrets of the universe, think in terms of energy, frequency and vibration."
-Nikola Tesla
Even by current standards, I’ve had a weird couple of weeks. It all started ten days ago on the morning of a trip to Portugal with my in-laws. My family was getting ahead of the jetlag for the kids by going to bed early and getting up early. I woke before dark filled with an even stronger version of my usual post-sleeping urge to write.
I have spent the last few months fixated on the concepts of energetic dissociation and integration, specifically around the role of money. Most of my recent conversations have focused on what is emerging right now to try and solve that problem, and the role of technology in particular. This isn’t just a philosophical question anymore, it’s existentially important. As someone working at the intersection of tech, finance and spirituality I’m already having daily conversations about what “consciousness tech” might look like.
This was the topic of the article that was pouring out of me before dawn. The thought occurred to me this time-shifting was giving me an even clearer channel into my most productively creative time. I looked at my laptop’s clock and chuckled, it was 3.33am. For those not as into the woo, that’s known as Angel’s Hour: a sign of creativity and encouragement on your path. My only other encounter with this synchronicity was about a week after I founded The Leading Edge. Without even being aware of the concept of Angel’s Hour, I woke up convinced it was 3.33am. I turned over my phone on the nightstand and it was. I then Googled the significance of that time. I was so weirded-out by the experience, that it took me a while to get back to sleep that night.
As I took off for Portugal later that evening, the only thing I could think about was the role of technology in the evolution of consciousness.
“Por tu, o gral”
Last Tuesday, my wife’s parents arranged a tour of the palaces in Sintra near Lisbon. One of them, Quinta da Regaleira, is filled with symbolism taken from the Freemasons and Knights Templar.
In the palace grounds there is an “initiation well” that descends nine levels, apparently taking inspiration from Dante’s nine circles of hell. Upon descent to the bottom, a series of tunnels takes you back out into the light of the gardens.
The experience symbolizes a death and rebirth, reflecting the ancient initiation rituals of members of the Knights Templar.1 The Templar’s role as bankers for pilgrims during the crusades led to wealth and power. They were also associated with a gnostic approach to Christianity: that direct experience was the path to divinity, not dogma. This unsurprisingly attracted the wrath of the Catholic church who persecuted them to the point of extinction. In 1153, the Portuguese king at the time, Afonso Henriques, gave the Templar order refuge. In return, the legend goes that the Templars brought their greatest treasure, the Holy Grail, to Portugal. My tour guides told me the romantic tale that the name Portugal comes from “Por tu o Gral” or “for you, the grail.”
I told this story to my friend and fellow Leading Edge member Kathleen Aldworth Foster. She’s an author and researcher on the topic of Freemasonry and the Templars.2 She sent me an article on the Templar history in Portugal. That night I read it over dinner to my in-laws. Coincidentally, they were traveling onwards to the historical headquarters of the Knights Templar in Tomar later that trip.
Tomar is the site of a circular church, a rotunda. The article’s author Freddie Silva makes the eyebrow-raising claim that this structure was actually home to an initiation chamber that concentrated the Earth’s electromagnetic pathways. This can produce an out-of-body shamanic initiation and death and rebirth experience. According to this legend, the Holy Grail is actually a technology for the evolution of consciousness based on the principles of sacred geometry. It’s also of note that tomar is the Portuguese word you would use to describe taking a drink.
Silva notes that the sacred sites the Templars conquered tended to be dedicated to the goddess Isis or her regional equivalent. This brought to mind Peter Kingsley’s well-researched theory that the West has a hidden history of initiation practices based around goddess encounters. These typically took place through darkness exposure, “incubation,” in sacred temples.3 Why are there these strong associations with the divine feminine? It makes me wonder if these sites were bringing the dissociated “masculine” energy of leaders and initiates back into relationship with the integrative “feminine” energy of the Earth itself.
These stories, as obviously bizarre and anecdotal as they are, further confirm my intuition (and Tesla’s belief) that energy, vibration and harmonization will hold the key to understanding the future of consciousness tech.4
If this sacred geometry technology is so transformational and healing, why isn’t it everywhere? Why has it historically been confined to secret societies? I don’t know. But there are some interesting clues and warnings.
We Chose Poorly
Coincidentally (!), the very same early morning before I learned about the rotunda in Tomar, I was continuing work on my article about technology used for spiritual initiation. I was drawn to an anecdote from the Law of One channeled material. The advanced non-human intelligence Ra claim that they visited the Ancient Egyptians six thousand years ago (hence the association between the name they take, Ra, and the Egyptian Sun God). Ra also claims they materialized the Great Pyramid at Giza from “intelligent energy,” or consciousness itself, as a technology for healing and initiation purposes. Ra designed the pyramid to balance the in-streamings of cosmic light energy. Then, predictably, humans abused the technology for power and manipulation.
It was therefore interesting to note that some researchers recently claimed to have discovered a vast underground complex beneath the Great Pyramid using radar technology5 . I’ll believe it when I see more robust evidence.
Maybe, if it isn’t all total nonsense, these energetic technologies gifted by Ra later spread through the ancient world, from Egypt to Jerusalem into Portugal. But why the secrecy?
In Ra’s worldview, the first law of the universe is the importance of the preservation of free will. The purpose of our existence is to learn lessons that evolve our consciousness. Ra describes how giving the Egyptians the technology of the Great Pyramid actually infringed upon their free will. Ra intervened too directly and powerfully, which bypassed their natural spiritual development. This created a karmic debt that drove Ra to return and try to undo the damage in the 1980s.
Metaphorical or not, this story illustrates the risk that consciousness tech gives us the answers before we’ve learned the lessons ourselves. This is already happening, probably at a staggering scale. I have personally had more than ten people send me “A.I. Oracles” that claim to answer all my questions about myself and my spiritual destiny. If these offer us the wrong answers they will mislead us on the path. These early versions, optimised for the old social media engagement model, flatter you into thinking the work of your conscious evolution has already been done. And even if they eventually offer us the right answers they will deny us our birthright of learning the lessons on our own.
A key question for new technology
When we’re using technology, other practitioners or psychedelics we urgently need to consider the impact on our free will. Who is doing the work? When Jung was asked about psychedelics he warned us to “beware unearned wisdom.” Then afterwards, who is interpreting the results for you? How embodied and integrated is the wisdom received?
The distractive potential of tech is well understood. But as we move into an era of increasingly advanced consciousness tech, the risk is that we accidentally outsource the development of our souls.
Personally, the idea of Earth as a school for evolution of consciousness has made me resilient to adversity but also receptive to the idea that my reality is highly conversational and responsive. This heightens my sense of free will, rather than diminishing it. As we all understand, students knowing they’re in college doesn’t exactly guarantee they’ll get perfect results. The value is knowing what the curriculum is and the rules are, but not in having the test answers handed to you.
I suspect the most immediate benefit of technology generally, and artificial intelligence specifically, is that it will save us from the meaningless suffering of unconsciousness by reducing the drudgery of inhuman work. This might allow more of us to pursue the meaningful suffering of the deliberate evolution of consciousness. Knowledge work increasingly becomes wisdom work. I haven’t seen it in a pitch deck and it’s probably not the answer most of us want to hear. Even though I suspect it’s closer to the right one.
At around the same time that Tomar was being built, the Arthurian Grail Legend was being written. It’s yet another variant on the core human story, the Hero’s Journey. This isn’t just a narrative: it specifically describes how to harmonize with reality through a death and rebirth.6 Campbell said that the Grail represents “the fulfillment of the highest spiritual potentialities of the human consciousness.” The Grail quest ends with the question “whom does the grail serve?” In Ra’s worldview the purpose of our existence is to choose our form of service: doing what we love in service of love. It’s becoming increasingly clear to me that energetic attunement is key to making the right choices that lead you to the harmonization point. And that niche is as unique as you are. Campell noted that the Knights of the Round Table each set forth separately in quest of the Grail, entering the forest at the place it seemed darkest for them personally. So, as we enter an entirely new era for technology in the evolution of consciousness, I am wary of anything that claims to help make that choice for you.
“This, I believe, is the great Western truth: that each of us is a completely unique creature and that, if we are ever to give any gift to the world, it will have to come out of our own experience and fulfillment of our own potentialities, not someone else’s.”
-Joseph Campbell
For you, the grail.
I have been fascinated by the topic since I watched a rather cheesy but enjoyable series on Mysteries of the Knights Templar on Gaia last year
Kathleen is the author of the historical fiction book DONERAILE COURT: THE STORY OF THE LADY FREEMASON
Kingsley is something of a Leading Edge favourite. His book Catafalque is dark and wonderful, as is A Story Waiting to Pierce You, specifically on this topic. I also recommend this remarkable interview The Great Taboo: A Story Waiting to Happen.
A friend sent me this captivating lecture on the topic on light and vibration as a universal code.
I count this as one of the core insights of my life, and I explained why for Epsilon Theory in The Story that Changes the World
Your observation on " Earth as a school for evolution of consciousness" resonates (pun intended) with me. I'm a fan of the book Journey of Souls, and I find a lot of logic in the simulation theory of Thomas Campbell. I've got an essay in the queue coming out in a couple of weeks that explores the idea that we instantiate here on Earth to learn, grow, and mature our souls. It's not a one-and-done, hope we were born into the right religion, pray we said the magic words with enough faith to avoid hell sort of thing.
"In Ra’s worldview the purpose of our existence is to choose our form of service: doing what we love in service of love. It’s becoming increasingly clear to me that energetic attunement is key to making the right choices that lead you to the harmonization point. And that niche is as unique as you are."
Growing up, I felt like an oddball, following curiosity to many fields at the local libraries, becoming a missionary (Hong Kong), spending 10 years learning to become a nurse anesthesiologist, and now taking what I've learned and building 1 minute left->right hemispheric practices.
The unique niche, marching to one's own drummer, being pulled to develop and apply talents from love, and enjoying working purposefully everyday resonates.
Thanks for the inspiration and validation.