Cup, Stone, Bloodline, Experience — the Grail is all of these, and none of them.
The Holy Grail is the most potent and multivalent symbol in the Western Mystery Tradition. It has never been fixed to a single definition — and this is precisely its power. The Grail shape-shifts across the traditions, appearing as whatever the seeker most needs to find, and whatever the age most needs to remember.
[The Grail is] a wondrous thing, hidden in the flower garden of the king, where the elect of all nations are called. —Wolfram von Eschenbach, Parzival
The Four Faces of the Grail
The Cup
The most familiar image: the chalice of the Last Supper, the vessel that caught Christ's blood at the Crucifixion. As Cup, the Grail is the receptive feminine principle — the container of divine grace. It is the Holy Vessel, the alchemical vas hermeticum, the womb of spiritual rebirth.
The Stone
In Wolfram von Eschenbach's Parzival, the Grail is the Lapsit Exillis — the Stone that fell from Heaven. Here the Grail becomes the Philosopher's Stone of the alchemists, the lapis exilis, the rejected cornerstone. It is the jewel from Lucifer's crown, now become the vessel of redemption.
The Bloodline
The Sang Réal — the Royal Blood. The Grail as living lineage, the continuation of a sacred transmission from Christ through the ages. Not merely a physical bloodline but a spiritual DNA — the chain of initiatic succession.
The Experience
Perhaps the deepest reading: the Grail as direct mystical experience itself. Not an object to be found but a state to be attained.
"What is the Grail? — Thou must discover that for thyself."