The Gnostic Mass

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Aleister Crowley wrote Liber XV ("Book 15"), The Gnostic Mass, in 1913 in Moscow. In many ways it is similar in structure to the Mass of the Roman Catholic Church. However, the comparison ends there, as the Gnostic Mass is a celebration of the principles of Thelema. It is a eucharistic ritual, and congregants are expected to “communicate” by partaking of the sacrament, which involves consuming a Cake of Light and drinking a glass of wine, and then proclaiming, “There is no part of me that is not of the gods!”

The officers do not act as mediators between congregants and their god(s), but rather illustrate a process by which anyone may come to their own direct knowledge (gnosis) of the divine. No part of the Mass requires devotion to any individual, historical or mythological (i.e. Jesus or Aleister Crowley). The Mass does not include a sermon or any ethical instructions beyond the summary of the Law of Thelema.

Crowley writes in Confessions,

Human nature demands (in the case of most people) the satisfaction of the religious instinct, and, to very many, this may best be done by ceremonial means. I wished therefore to construct a ritual through which people might enter into ecstasy as they have always done under the influence of appropriate ritual.

Links of Interest

• The full text of Liber XV (http://www.scarletwoman.org/docs/docs_mass.html), The Gnostic Mass
• A First Look at the Gnostic Mass (http://www.scarletwoman.org/docs/docs_firstlook.html)
• The Gnostic Saints

References

Crowley, Aleister. (1979). The Confessions of Aleister Crowley. London;Boston : Routledge & Kegan Paul.