The Serpent Grail –

The truth behind The Holy Grail, The Philosopher’s Stone and the Elixir of Life.

By Philip Gardiner with Gary Osborn

Every book should tell us something. There will always be either a kernel of truth or a lead to be followed as we pick our way through the labyrinth of grail related material.  There are certain things that we learn and others that, after a life times work, I guess, we just get to know intuitively. I had a feeling about this book when I picked it up for the first time and looked at the pictures – as one does. It proved to be a find that satisfied, engaged, frustrated and informed all at the same time. 

If we see the Grail related material as a continuum between the academic, like Nicholson and Barber, and at the other more popular extreme, Dan Brown; then Philip Gardiner and Gary Osborn sit comfortably in the midway between the dry and dusty and the outright popular. Dan Brown’s work is fun for what it is – something between Von Daniken and Biggles! Thankfully, the Serpent Grail is trying to be much more and it is.  

There is another sliding scale that runs from academic to the speculative or ultimately to the downright outlandish. It is the main difficulty faced by writers who search and research things that have been forgotten, lost, or worse still, concealed by events. Where should they pitch their debate without their material appearing too off the wall or occasionally even cranky? In this respect Gardiner and Osborne succeed in deploying their progression of ideas in an order that does not give such an impression. The material is both thought provoking and, at times, stimulating. Sadly, I think the book will be tarred with the brush of being a bit of a “New Age” but that (to mix the metaphor) is the lot of many new brooms. 

Gardiner and Osborne (let us call them GandO) produce a new series of ideas, welcome in a field that can see much derivative work. They question the sacred cows and challenge the usual received wisdom.  Like others they are trying to convey a thought process that would have been unprintable 100 years ago. Fine by me! … But in order for the book to be a firm foundation for other researchers of the future it must be well documented in its text so the reader can be sure of the assertions that are being made. This may result in a page that is disjointed by footnotes or visually disrupted by quotations or numbers from a referencing system. 

Of course, there is none of that in Dan Brown; his page is, no doubt, the apple of the Publishers eye because there is nothing to detract from the readability of the book.  Academic tomes do not sell as well as popular or new age material and there’s the rub. If a book is to sell well it cannot be dry and dusty.  If a book is to form part of the academic underpinning that will convey lost knowledge (or previously constrained thoughts) it needs to be properly documented. The cross over between the two styles gives rise to a crossover genre, of which the “Holy Blood and the Holy Grail” was possibly one of the first in my generation. We must not lose sight of the fact that HBHG was a really well written read. Witness the sales first time round. 

What does the Serpent Grail leave you with as a book?  The abiding elements are the bringing together of a host of sacred Serpent related material. Each element is explained and documented in a decent bibliography, but when you look at the pages there are almost too many bits of information welded together. GandO also use some numerology and, for my liking, there is a little too much reliance on etymology. As such, there are some connections assumed and presumed and speculations that need a better degree of substantiation. GandO is, as we can see, nearly like the root of Gandolf so there must be some magical connection between “The Lord of the Rings” and this review…? 

There is one particular case in point concerning the death and resurrection of The Christ (bottom page 206) which states:           

            “…Jesus was given a mixture of wine and gall while He hung dying on the tree…What the Gospels do not tell us, however, is that the gall was snake   venom and the wine symbolised blood. Therefore, poison and blood were both given to Jesus and issued from him. It was only after the arrival of Nicodemus with aloes and myrrh, a pain relief and purgative mix, that the poisons could be expelled from the body of Jesus while he was in the tomb. It is not surprising to find these highly scientific methods being utilized to recreate the symbolic ’death’ and ‘resurrection’ myth associated with the ‘son of the Serpent’, especially when we consider that the Essenes were healers and experts in the use of herbs, healing remedies and snake venom.” 

I understand that we can only deal with likelihoods and possibilities.  One may even accept that there is evidence of the apothecary who prepared the solution for the sponge but unless it is properly explained and referenced, we have to ask “Says who?!” This is frustrating because the concept is an interesting one. I have speculated along similar lines for a number of years and seen a number of early reliefs and church decorations that have certain anomalies represented that may lead me to a similar conclusion.  My notebooks testify to that effect but I will not expect any reader to believe that unless I can prove it. Intuition and interpretation is up to the reader but if you cannot reference it, please, be careful how state your case. 

Now, that may be a little harsh but despite such concerns the work is nonetheless a sound attempt at considering the relationship between The Grail, alchemy and the serpent cults that seem to have been abroad the world from the oldest times. The Grail, the elixir of life and the Philosopher’s stone of the Alchemists are all metaphors for spiritual enlightenment.  This assessment was, for me, nearly lost among the plethora of ideas that bombarded my reading.  I would like to accept much of this book – in truth, I would like to have researched and written such a book and that is why I regret that I found this book a little difficult to read. By throwing so many ideas at us, as if to give the weight they feel they need for their hypotheses, they finish up in danger of hitting us too hard with information.  But isn’t that what we want when we buy a book of this sort?

Ultimately, I found the Serpent Grail to be well worth the effort and enjoyed the conclusions.  If you find it a difficult read - tackle it in smaller bites.  If you find it challenging – that’s good - the author’s efforts deserve that title.  The book fits into a framework of material that is currently exciting a growing number of readers, but for such work to achieve lasting acknowledgements as a reference it needs to be referenced better. 

Stephen Andrews