The term Chapel Perilous first appeared in Sir Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur[1] as the setting for an adventure in which sorceress Hellawes unsuccessfully attempts to seduce Sir Lancelot. T. S. Eliot used it symbolically in The Waste Land (1922). Dorothy Hewett took "The Chapel Perilous" as the title for her autobiographical play, in which she uses "the framework of the Arthurian legend, Sir Lancelot, to create a theatrical quest of romantic and epic proportions".[2]
The term as used in literature is explicated in detail by Jessie L. Weston in her book From Ritual to Romance (1920).[3] It is also defined by Thomas C. Foster (in a discussion of the five elements of a quest) as "the dangerous enclosure that is known in the study of traditional quest romances."[4] He cites the plot of the book "Crying of Lot 49" as an example.
"Chapel Perilous" is also an occult term referring to a psychological state in which an individual cannot be certain if they have been aided or hindered by some force outside the realm of the natural world, or if what appeared to be supernatural interference was a product of their own imagination. It was first used as an occult term by the late writer and philosopher Robert Anton Wilson (1932–2007) in his book Cosmic Trigger. According to Wilson, being in this state leads the subject to become either stone paranoid or an agnostic. In his opinion there is no third way.