The Gnostic Saints

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Categories: The Gnostic Saints | Thelema

Part of the Thelema & Religion series

The Gnostic Saints are listed in Liber XV, also known as the Gnostic Mass, which is the central rite of Ordo Templi Orientis and its ecclesiastical arm, Ecclessia Gnostica Catholica. They are found in the fifth Collect of Liber XV, titled "The Saints."

In the Catholic and Orthodox churches, a saint is a person who has been canonized (officially recognized) after his or her death. However, in the EGC, death is not necessarily a prerequisite for sainthood, since Aleister Crowley was certainly alive when he wrote Liber XV (he included himself twice, in fact). The Gnostic Saints are generally considered to those who have embodied the essential principles of Thelema and formed a line of adepts through the ages.

The only Gnostic Saint to have been officially added to the original list is William Blake, based on a discovered writing by Aleister Crowley who described him as such. It is also considered appropriate to include the name of deceased Grand Masters of O.T.O., such as Hymenaeus Alpha.

From Liber XV, the entire Collect is written below. Those names in italics are commemorated in ordinary masses, whereas the entire list is intoned for a "celebratory mass," such as when it is performed in conjunction with a Wedding.

Collect V: The Saints

"LORD of Life and Joy, that art the might of man, that art the essence of every true god that is upon the surface of the Earth, continuing knowledge from generation unto generation, thou adored of us upon heaths and in woods, on mountains and in caves, openly in the marketplaces and secretly in the chambers of our houses, in temples of gold and ivory and marble as in these other temples of our bodies, we worthily commemorate them worthy that did of old adore thee and manifest thy glory unto men,

Lao-tzu, Siddhartha, Krishna, Tahuti, Mosheh, Dionysus, Mohammed, To Mega Therion, Hermes, Pan, Priapus, Osiris, Melchizedek, Khem, Amoun, Mentu, Heracles, Orpheus, Odysseus, Vergilius, Catullus, Martialis, Rabelais, Swinburne, Apollonius Tyanæus, Simon Magus, Manes, Pythagoras, Basilides, Valentinus, Bardesanes, Hippolytus, Merlin, Arthur, Kamuret, Parzival, Carolus Magnus, William of Schyren, Frederick of Hohenstaufen, Roger Bacon, Jacobus Burgundus Molensis the Martyr, Christian Rosencreutz, Ulrich von Hutten, Paracelsus, Michael Maier, Roderic Borgia Pope Alexander the Sixth, Jacob Boehme, Francis Bacon Lord Verulam, Andrea, Robertus de Fluctibus, Johannes Dee, Sir Edward Kelly, Thomas Vaughan, Elias Ashmole, Molinos, Adam Weishaupt, Wolfgang von Goethe, William Blake, Ludovicus Rex Bavariae, Richard Wagner, Alphonse Louis Constant, Friedrich Nietzsche, Hargrave Jennings, Carl Kellner, Forlong dux, Sir Richard Payne Knight, Paul Gaugin, Sir Richard Francis Burton, Doctor Gerard Encausse, Doctor Theodor Reuss, Sir Aleister Crowley

—Oh Sons of the Lion and the Snake! With all thy saints we worthily commemorate them worthy that were and are and are to come.

 May their essence be here present, potent, puissant and paternal to perfect this feast!"

Relevant Links

• The Invisible Basilica: Saints of Ecclesia Gnostica Catholica (http://www.hermetic.com/sabazius/saints.html)
• Liber XV, The Gnostic Mass (http://www.scarletwoman.org/docs/docs_mass.html)