Speechless in The Grail Castle
When the Solution is in Plain Sight...
“True myths always teach the cure for the dilemma” - Robert Johnson
Robert Johnson’s “He”1 uses the myth of Parsifal and the Grail Castle to teach the core tenets of masculine psychology. The Fisher King, King of the Grail Castle is wounded in such a way that he can neither live nor die. He can neither touch nor drink from the Grail, the chalice from the Last Supper, because of his wound. The core symbol of generativity is in turmoil. Thus the kingdom is dry, desolate and disordered.
Prophecy has revealed “The King will be healed when the wholly innocent fool arrives at the court and asks a specific question.”
In parallel, Parsifal, whose name means “innocent fool” is raised in little known Wales, the outskirts of the Kingdom. After an inspiring encounter with 5 mature knights, he sets off on his own in hopes of becoming one.
Although it breaks his mother’s heart to lose him , she is able to accept he must go. As he departs, she leaves him with the sage, motherly advice of …
Respect all fair damsels
Go to church daily
Don’t ask questions
Parsifal’s adventures toward knighthood are manifold. He slays the fierce red knight, taking his armor (masculinity) and placing it over his mother’s homespun garment (mother complex).
Parsifal trains further under his godfather and mentor Gournamond, who instructs him that should he ever reach the illustrious Grail Castle, he must ask a very specific question.
“To whom does the Grail serve?”
The solution is in plain sight right before him.
Soon thereafter, Parsifal comes across two men in a boat. One of them, who happens to be fishing, invites him to stay the night, offering directions to his home. Following the directions, Parsifal finally reaches a moat and draw bridge, which snaps shut behind him as he crosses.
He has unknowingly stumbled into the Grail Castle. Within, he sees the Fisher King, the same fisherman he encountered, writhing in pain. Four youths take his horse and belongings and bathe him. He stands before the whole court of 400 knights and ladies, with a fireplace facing four cardinal directions at it’s center. They all know the prophecy. He fits the description. They all watch and hope.
Parsifal is overwhelmed, paralyzed by a dilemma. His mentor Gournamond has instructed him to ask “To whom does the grail serve?” while his mother implored him not to ask questions.
His armor conceals his mother’s garment, which lies deeper.
Parsifal does nothing, he simply observes. As evening falls, he is taken to his quarters. When he awakens the next morning, the castle is deserted and soon disappears.
The solution was right in front of him, he was not ready.
He spends the remainder of the myth searching for the Grail Castle. He already knows the directions, but they are are too simple to follow. It takes him 20 years to return. That is the remainder of his journey… and a topic for another time.
Software Bugs
A few years ago, I spent an entire day on small software bug. There were no LLMs trolling the internet at the time, leaving me with sole reliance on google, stack overflow and my own mind.
There’s an archetypal bug I’m becoming more and more familiar with…
Once stumped, you begin searching for similar bugs to no avail. Soon it becomes evident that the vast landscape of the internet does not offer a speck of advice for your concern.
You articulate your question in detail and … crickets.
This is a fork in the road with two possible solutions.
You’ve stumbled upon a rare and mysterious bug prior to anyone else.
The solution in front of you is so obvious that no one has bothered to document it.
In my experience, it’s alway been 2.
In this case, the word encoding was spelled “endocing”. It was buried in HTML (not code) and I couldn’t see it. I spent hours staring directly at the solution but could not orient effectively.
Resilience
I read Brené Brown’s The Gifts of Imperfection2 for a book club a few years ago. There was a discussion on resilience, described as the ability to overcome adversity.
What was the #1 predictor of resilient individuals?
Spirituality. Belief in a higher power greater than yourself.
What?!? Stunning.
I viewed myself as a very resilient individual but had a life entirely devoid of spirituality. In fact, as a part of a men’s group I was in at the time, we’d routinely acknowledge the status of four critical areas of our ongoing lives: health, passion, relationships and spirituality.
I’d always skip over spirituality, overtly stating I knew it was relevant but just wasn’t a priority at the time. Fast forward two years and I’ve learned the hard way that it’s the priority of priorities.
I was staring straight at the answer, but it meant nothing. I was not prepared to see it.
Chronic Pain
I spent 7 years as a physical therapist, inspired by my own story of chronic pain and hoping to help others navigate their own. Most therapists hate treating chronic pain as it’s messy and the outcomes are often very poor. I ultimately felt that way as well.
I entered with a vision of becoming a magician. I hoped to build a level of skill that could fix anyone or anything. Step into my world and you will walk away healed, regardless of “you” and your concern. That frame is dangerously wrong. The Grail serves me.
Chronic pain, persistent pain with no clear cause, is multi-headed monster, a hydra. It’s an emergent property within yourself. You don’t kill it.
It is best encapsulated in my opinion through the bio-psycho-social model of pain.
Who can help tame and integrate this multi-headed monster?
A physical therapist’s frame will focus on one head or a feature of one head. If they can navigate the trends, fads, insurance companies, social media, flawed incentives and meds they might tame one head. Often, the patient, therapist and referral source are in some combination of denial that the other heads exist. It is too complicated and doesn’t fit into a neat and tidy model.
A psychologist? Again, maybe you’ll ease one or two heads while ignoring the others. Sitting on a couch, chair or worse, staring at a screen with the objective of treating your chronic back pain when you can’t tolerate sitting more than 3 minutes is a dicey proposition. Pain is an expression within a living and breathing dynamic system that is underrepresented by “the mind”. It has very real physical elements.
This is an internal journey. This is an external journey.
Given the limitations of the above, alternative therapies such as yoga, acupuncture, meditation, NSDR, you name it may emerge to address what’s unaddressed. They can be both helpful and worthless, depending on the frame. Sold as a treatment or solution for ___ amount of weeks, they fail. Performed as a conscious exploration by the individual in pain, sometimes guided by a practitioner, there may be value.
Socially, chronic pain is likely to dramatically alter your life. You don’t flip a switch and acquire it. It is a progressive process. Taming the social head, requires forging a new existence. You can’t go back, only forward.
Maybe providers can team up in an integrated model and tame the monster together? It sounds good on paper. Execution often leaves a lot to be desired. Given insurance battles, costs, time, differing messages, frames, and motives what seemed like a good idea often ends in a poor outcome.
No profession exists that is adequately prepared to treat chronic pain. A clinician that’s carved there own path in spite of there own profession is often the most qualified.
Journey
The Grail was right in front of the Fisher King during the entire myth, yet he could not access it’s value.
Parsifal stumbled into the Grail Castle early in his journey. While talented, he was not prepared to ask the proper question. Don’t ask questions, was once good advice. The context had changed, but he had not.
All he had to was ask the proper question. To whom does the Grail serve? The question mattered, the answer did not.
This is how I feel. I set out nearly 15 years ago to help others in chronic pain. Parsifal spent 20 years searching for the Grail Castle.
I’ve been there, overwhelmed and unprepared. I did not know what to say. The Grail may be right in front of me, but I can’t touch it.
But, I’ve consciously accepted this is my journey. One day I hope to make it back and ask the question I couldn’t ask the first time.
“The fool is the precursor to the redeemer” - Carl Jung
Johnson, R. A. He: Understanding masculine psychology Harper Perennial, 1974.
Brown, B. (2010). The gifts of imperfection: Let go of who you think you're supposed to be and embrace who you are. Hazelden Publishing.