Has The Holy Grail Been Found In The Plays Of William Shakespeare?

According to Shakespeare expert Hunting’s analysis many celebrated plays, including Hamlet, Macbeth and The Tempest, contain ingeniously coded references to the ‘true’ Holy Grail—a collection of radical spiritual teachings shared by Jesus and hidden for nearly 2,000 years.

To mark the publication of his explosive new book, Shakespeare’s Holy Grail: The Ancient Secret Revealed, we spoke to Paul Hunting about his findings, and how they could not only rewrite the history books but benefit the whole of humanity. 

A. My day job is primarily that of a soul-centred life/executive coach specialising in profound transformation—often aided and abetted by my team of beautiful horses. I had used my favourite quote from Hamlet’s ‘To be or not to be’ soliloquy as a kind of kick-start to a new book I was drafting about my work. When I reviewed the draft, three words from the quote jumped out at me: hue, current, name. 

I thought I must be projecting my own background knowledge onto the page. But when I sensed an intuitive ‘voice’ urging me to ‘Ask Prospero’, I checked out The Tempest and nearly fell off my chair!

For 40 years I have been immersed in the study and practice of an ancient mystical practice called variously ‘Shabdha Yoga’, ‘Soul Transcendence’, and the spiritual science of the sound current. If you Google these terms, you see they have quite a heritage. As an integral part of our practice, we connect to the sound current by intoning the sacred name of God that is also the Sanskrit word ‘HU’, pronounced hue.

How on earth did Shakespeare know about this, let alone make puns and allusions to it in every play I subsequently looked at? The Tempest, in particular, was teeming with references to the sound current that are obvious to anyone who knows about it but totally obscured to those who do not. I had to find out why. I realised I now had a much higher purpose. And a much more challenging book to write.

A. I have spent decades studying the symbology in the Bible as well as the ancient teaching of the sound current. The decoding was not so much research as cross-referencing, validating symbols, and fine-tuning my intuitive guidance. 

A. The Holy Grail is far more significant than a mere holy relic, it’s very a very real aspect of consciousness. Sure enough it is named after the sangraal, the Royal Blood, the blood of Christ symbolised by the wine in the chalice of the Last Supper. But through Shakespeare’s astonishing wisdom I’ve come to discover those two deceptively innocuous words refer to everything that Jesus actually had to do (physically and mystically) to vanquish Satan’s absolute power over humanity and enable all mankind to choose Grace, deep lasting happiness, and spiritual liberation.

A. At the Council of Nicaea around 230 AD, the Roman emperor Constantine incepted what became called ‘Christianity’. The problem was, the essence of what Jesus did, how he did it, and what it means for mankind was too radical to be understood, let alone formed into a religion. It was therefore extirpated from the doctrine. Not only that, even speaking of it was declared heresy and carried the cruellest of punishments. 

One major way this priceless wisdom was protected from oblivion was by encrypting it not only in the deep subtext of the scripture but also as The Legend of the Holy Grail. Risking his life and works by dramatising what are deeply heretical interpretations of the Bible in his plays, Shakespeare is bringing to light the essence of all this lost wisdom.

In Shakespeare’s Holy Grail: The Ancient Secret Revealed, Shakespeare expert Paul Hunting reveals how he has found a secret code that, when unlocked, reveals the true ‘Holy Grail’—spiritual teachings of Jesus hidden for nearly 2,000 years.

If you’re looking for logical mathematical-style proof, you won’t find it. the Grail symbolises lost knowledge that is very hard to find. You need to look with your inner intuitive sense. Central to all Shakespeare’s plays is the controversial idea that it was Satan who really died on the cross. This implies that the entire doctrine built on ‘original sin’ and sin in general could befalse. Sin may be dead, but it won’t lie down too easily.

Throughout the plays there are hundreds of allusions to the chalice of the grail. In Macbeth Shakespeare gets as specific as he dares: the poisoned chalice! And then the Bard really does push his luck by using the ‘poisonous’ ingredients in the witches’ cauldron as a dare-devil metaphor for the sacred chalice of the eucharist.

If you open your inner eyes to this hypothesis, there are three clear signs (of dozens) of the Grail in the first three acts.

 The poisoned chalice In the gospel, at the Last Supper, after Jesus gave Judas the sop of bread dipped in wine, it says ‘After the sop Satan entered into him.’ The doctrine assumes Satan entered Judas - Shakespeare interprets it as Satan entered Jesus! 

One crucial aspect of this very powerful message would be that the blood of Christ shed at the crucifixion seals the new testament promise of unconditional absolution for all. It brings new life to all mankind, because it was ‘poison’ to Satan. Satan cut off the way to heaven. Jesus opened it up again for all who ask through his name, aka the sound current, the Word. 

Simplistically, Jesus took Satan’s energy field into his own body and in sacrificing Himself, he ‘killed Satan’ and freed the soul from Satan’s bondage. Although deeply mystical and mysterious, it actually makes a lot of sense. 

If you can consider that Macbeth is a representation of Satan, one of the easiest to recognise of veiled references to the chalice of the Holy Grail is in Act 1, Scene 7.

As Macbeth (Satan) contemplates the murder of Duncan (the soul) in order to usurp his crown he says: 

Shakespeare points to the significance - not of the cup, per se, but what it contains. The ingredients in the cup of the Last Supper include the wine, symbolising the blood of the new testament shed for all for the remission of sin.

Immediately after the murder, in Act 2, Scene 3, Macbeth tells the sons of Duncan, the rightful heirs to the throne:

‘The wine of life is drawn’– is this the wine symbolising the blood in the eucharist?

‘The head, the source, the fountain of your (Royal Father’s) blood is stopped’– does this refer to the tree of life being cut off?

The scripture says that in the beginning (Genesis) the tree of life (the way to paradise) was cut off; and through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, it was re-opened (Revelation).

Thus it was the blood of Christ that brings new life to us, because, metaphorically,it was ‘poison’ to Satan. 

After he is crowned King, in Act 3, Scene 1, Macbeth begins to feel the threat his friend Banquo poses: based on the witches’ prophecy, Banquo’s kin could steal back Macbeth's crown. He now laments that:

‘They hailed him father to a line of kings. Upon my head they placed a fruitless crown. And put a barren sceptre in my gripe.’  - Through those new eyes seeing Macbeth as Satan, does this not invoke the imagery of Satan on trial being mocked with the crown of thorns and wooden sceptre given to Jesus? Following which, Satan was crucified within the body of Jesus?

This is a very new slant on the doctrine – but a slant that is totally backed up in the scripture itself.

These teachings came through Jesus but have been taught since very ancient times. They are all still deeply encoded in the Bible, but understandably misunderstood in the doctrine. Jesus himself said his works would be misunderstood. I think it’s taken over 2000 years for us, mankind, to begin to understand what really happened. Jesus abjured the entire law of Moses, as represented by Prospero in The Tempest. His teachings were too radical, too seemingly heretical at the time. So the early church kep tjust enough of it alive until mankind could evolve sufficiently to grasp the import of what Jesus really has done for us all.

A. The true self in each of us is the Christ, the anointed soul. However, Jesus held the Office of the Christ in his time. While ‘King’ is a worldly office, the word ‘Christ’ is confusingly used to denote a spiritual/mystical office. When Jesus was entitled ‘King of the Jews’ they didn’t understand it was referring to his spiritual office. In the Grail legend, this office became dubbed ‘The Fisher King’ (alluding to Jesus as the fisher of men). Since the very beginning of time,  many men and women have held the earthly Office of the Monarch. Likewise someone always holds the spiritual Office of the Christ. Before Jesus, who belonged to the order of the Essenes, this spiritual mantle was held by a long line of great masters, including, say, Hermes Trismegistus, Akhenaton, Melchizedek, Moses, and many others all the way through to today. Yes, as we speak, someone is fulfilling the Office of the Christ, aka the Fisher King.

Shakespeare expert and author Paul Hunting spent nearly a decade decoding a secret, spiritual symbolic code within three of William Shakespeare’s greatest plays. He believes his research will reveal the Immortal Bard to also be one of the world’s ‘ancient masters’.

A. The true teachings of Jesus Christ—those so-called ‘heresies’—still remain encoded in the subtext of the Bible. Shakespeare is the Rosetta Stone that can help us dig out the hidden truth.There is a lot more good news and blessing for all mankind than many people realise. 

A. The depth of his poetry has been sensed by many people but rarely fully understood. And Shakespeare, like Jesus, has become subject to a dogma fiercely protected by the Old Guard. I’m looking forward to seeing much braver productions of Shakespeare directed and acted by those who have a real grasp of the deeper meaning of his copious symbols. 

A. You said it—they are among his greatest plays. Through Macbeth we see how it might have been for Satan to be defeated by the Christ. Through Hamlet (and Ophelia) we get a glimpse of how it might have been for Jesus to be born to defeat Satan. And in The Tempest we get Shakespeare’s own denouement and revelation.

A. Perhaps begin to understand that so much of what we need to know is hidden in plain sight right under our noses. If we have the willingness to look in different ways through a different lens it will be revealed to us. In many ways my book is a workshop manual on making thought experiments that transform your life. For example you could so easily see that the Bible is really saying how God has already, unconditionally, forgiven us all for everything – even before we do it. Part of our life purpose could be learning to forgive ourselves and each other in the same way – unconditionally and continuously. A lot easier to say than to do.

A. Volume II (of, perhaps, 10) is already drafted. And I want to start a new conversation about what really is important in this world: how we can awaken our own soul, release guilt and resentment, and enjoy life a whole lot more.