WGON: I just read your Kafka excerpt. I'm a pretty well-read guy but never any Kafka. As I was reading that, it was like having deja vu. I know I've heard a very similar story before.

There is an alchemical treatise that built on the Rosicrucian Manifestos from the early 1600s ("Chymical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreuz" to be exact). I don't recall the name of it nor the author, but I suspect Kafka is making an almost parable-like retort to that particular treatise. If I weren't headed to bed shortly I'd rummage through my library to find it, but I'm 95% certain that this Kafka piece is exactly that. In the original Alchemical treatise, the seeker at the gate overcomes the gate guards after some years & is enlightened after some travails. Or some such thing - read this stuff years ago & my memory is hazy.

I've seen similar narrative in some obscure Grail romance but can't recall which (too damned many of them, but it's in the vein of Fisher King stories). It irks the shit out of me that I can't remember the titles on this stuff.