From the Grandmaster
The Order of the Trapezoid has long been an object of mystery and fascination to those who encounter it. While first-hand experience of our Work is the only way to truly understand it, this website nevertheless attempts to offer a glimpse into the Order’s methods and philosophies for those who are curious or find resonance with what we stand for and practice.
Work within the Order resolves around two closely related pursuits: the Grail Quest and seeking after Rûna (the hidden Mystery behind all things).
While often portrayed as a cup or dish in popular conceptions that merely serve as a “blind” distracting from its real nature, the description in Wolfram von Eschenbach’s Parzival of the Grail as a stone that fell from the heavens provides much inspiration to our Quests. This stone, reflecting medieval lore on the magical properties of gemstones, was said to be green and engraved with “heathen writing” that enabled those who know how to interact with it to learn great secrets concerning existence and self-transformation. (In this sense, the Grail-as-gemstone perhaps presages H.P. Lovecraft’s Shining Trapezohedron in his story “The Haunter of the Dark,” which was one of five literary inspirations cited by Anton LaVey for the creation of the Order of the Trapezoid).
Inseparable from the Quest for the Grail (that is, toward the psyche made perfect through conscious refinement and exercise of the Will) is the pursuit of Rûna. Rûna is the ultimate Mystery, never fully knowable. Rûna is intimately connected to the Runes, the 24 keys (or 16, 33, or 18 depending on the system and time period) used as a means of comprehending the Self and its relationship to the cosmos. However, Rûna—the hidden Mystery always lurking just beyond that which is known—transcends the Runes as the causal principle behind them and serves to draw us ever onward along the Quest.
The interests of the Order are many, and this is often a source of confusion or frustration to those who insist on a simple explanation of what the Order is and does. But, all pursuits of the Order, and the worthy Knights and Dames who comprise it, tie back in some way to these two fundamentals.
By ever pursuing the deeper meaning behind these core ideals, we are ultimately transformed by the act of faithfully Seeking in and of itself. Quaerendo invenietis!
Walhalla!
Toby Chappell
Grandmaster, Order of the Trapezoid
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