Nevertheless, it does not necessarily follow that Wagner wished only to parody the eucharistic rite.  He wanted to create a ceremonial which should be beautiful, solemn, and moving; which should be an appropriate accompaniment to the adoration of a mystical relic; which should, in a large sense, be neither Catholic, Protestant, nor Buddhistic; which should symbolize a conception of atonement older than Christianity, older than Buddhism, older than all records of the human imagination.  Of this more anon.  As was his custom, Wagner drew from whatever source seemed to him good and fruitful; and though he doubtless thought himself at liberty to receive suggestions from the Roman Catholic ritual, as well as the German Lutheran, it is even possible that he had also before his mind scenes from Christian Masonry.  This possibility was once suggested by Mr. F. C. Burnand, who took the idea from the last scene of the first act only, and does not seem to have known how many connections the Grail legend had with mediaeval Freemasonry or Templarism.  There are more elements associated with the old Knights Templars and their rites in Wagner’s drama than I am able to discuss.  To do so I should have to be an initiate and have more space at my disposal than I have here.  I can only make a few suggestions:  In the old Welsh tale of Peredur, which is a tale of the quest of a magical talisman, the substitute for the grail is a dish containing a bloody head.  That head in time, as the legend passed through the imaginations of poets and romances, became the head of John the Baptist, and there was a belief in the Middle Ages that the Knights Templars worshipped a bloody head.  The head of John the Baptist enters dimly into Wagner’s drama in the conceit that Kundry is a reincarnation of Herodias, who is doomed to make atonement, not for having danced the head off the prophet’s shoulders, but for having reviled Christ as he was staggering up Calvary under the load of the cross.  But this is pursuing speculations into regions that are shadowy and vague.  Let it suffice for this branch of our study that Mr. Burnand has given expression to the theory that the scene of the adoration of the grail and the Love Feast may also have a relationship with the ceremony of installation in the Masonic orders of chivalry, in which a cup of brotherly love is presented to the Grand Commander, who drinks and asks the Sir Knights to pledge him in the cup “in commemoration of the Last Supper of our Grand Heavenly Captain, with his twelve disciples, whom he commanded thus to remember him.”  Here, says Mr. Burnand, there is no pretence to sacrifice.  Participation in the wine is a symbol of a particular and peculiarly close intercommunion of brotherhood.