One of the most valuable and original works on the Grail yet to appear in any language.' - John Matthews, author of The Mystic Grail

The definitive work on the historical background to the Grail Romances of the mediaeval age.' - Trevor Ravenscroft, author of The Spear of Destiny

Much plagiarized and its contents distorted over the years, Stein's seminal work is a classic of original scholarly and spiritual research. In studying the central Grail narrative of Parzival by Wolfram von Eschenbach, Stein takes a twofold approach. On the one hand he searches historical records in order to identify actual people and events hidden behind the Grail epic's veil of romance, and on the other hand he deciphers Eschenbach's hidden spiritual messages, showing Parzival to be an esoteric document containing mighty pictures of the human being's inner path of development.

Stein reveals the period of the ninth century to be of more than historical and academic interest. It is the karmic ground out of which the destiny of modern times grows - the mighty battle that must take place between the powers of the Grail and the sinister anti-Grail forces at large today.

DR W.J. STEIN, born in 1891, was a personal pupil of the Austrian philosopher and spiritual initiate Rudolf Steiner. In 1919 Steiner called him to be a teacher at the Waldorf School in Stuttgart and asked him to teach German Literature and History, despite the fact that Stein's doctorate was in Philosophy and his training in Mathematics and Physics. It was through Stein's efforts to master this new material that he was able to bring a fresh approach to the Parzival epic. With the help of unconventional methods of research and the teaching of reincarnation and karma, he developed groundbreaking new insights into the mystery of the Grail.