Gnostic Mass?

Christianity's arch enemy and arch heresy, Gnosticism, is making a comeback. A reporter from the Sacramento News & Review recently attended a Gnostic Mass and reported on his experience. Said the reporter:

Anyone familiar with the Catholic Mass will notice similarities. The Gnostic symbolism, however, leans more toward taboo than tradition. A deacon opens the ceremony standing between a small altar of incense and a font, proclaims the Law of Thelema, and recites the Gnostic creed, ending with a resounding om. A guy in the audience beats out a primal rhythm on a hand drum as the Priestess and two acolytes, called “children,” enter from a side room and walk a serpentine pattern of figure eights until stopping before a veiled “tomb” situated in the west.

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Comments

[Shma]

This is scary. I can't believe the person that wrote the article would take part in such a satanic service.

[Jim W]

That is a sickening description of depravity. And to think a 7 year old was involved. How low can humanity sink before Christ returns?

[Isaac Aurelian]

It is funny that you would think this is Satanic as it is based both off of (a) modern Catholic mass and (b) Gnostic teachings which were historically the foundation for modern Catholicism anyhow! Your prejudice simply belies your ignorance on this subject. What about this is satanic or depraved? Only a person who felt so insecure about themselves would jump to such conclusions. These are people just like you and I, and you take your children to consume the flesh & blood of your savior, no? Might this not look like cannibalism or something ridiculous to an outsider who had little idea (like you apparently do about their services and symbolism?)

[Jim W]

Isaac, you are so wrong on so many levels...Since I'm not Catholic, I don't know if it is based on modern Catholic Mass, but if it is, that doesn't mean that modern Catholic Mass is actually Biblical. And as wrong as much of Catholiscm is, Gnosticsm is utterly wrong and I very much doubt your claim that
"Gnostic teachings which were historically the foundation for modern Catholicism". I have no doubt that some things were incorporated, but the basis?
Read the article again. The writer commented that she was "turned on". An act that supposedly was worshiping our Lord and Savior who was brutally beaten and tortured and ultimately died for us "turns her on"? Get real! Yes, that's depraved! And finally, only Catholics (as far as I know) treat the bread and wine (juice) as actual flesh and blood. Protestants use the elements as a remembrance. We don't see the bread and juice as actual flesh and blood. We "do this in remembrance of Me". It's symbolic only. Sorry, no cannibalism, here. Move along.

[Walter Five]

Actually, the Gnostic Mass is very similar to the sacremental practices of several Christian Sects recounted in the Panarion of Epiphaneus, notably the Ebionites (and Barborites if memory serves). Yes, those are identified by Epiphaneus as Gnostic Sects, but they originate from a time before the Council of Nicea, in pre-orthodoxy, the days when (for example) belief in the Resurrection was not even neccesarily a tennent of faith in order to be a Christian (as strange as that must sound to some Fundamentalists).

The O.T.O.'s religious organ, the Ecclesia Catholica Gnostica enjoys the same Apostolic Succession as the Roman Catholic Church.

Issac, you are wrong-- According to his biographer Richard Kazynski, A. Crowley wrote the Gnostic Mass immediately after attending the Russian Orthodox Mass in Moscow, so it is probably not based upon the Catholic Mass, but on the Russian Orthodox Mass. The positioning of the Priest's hand in Ficus ("the fig") with the thumb of the right hand placed between the index and middle finger is a very telling detail. Crowley may not have been overly familiar with the Catholic Mass at all, he was raised Protestant among the very strict Plymouth Bretheren.

And by the way, Jim W., Thelemites believe in transubstantiation, in the Gnostic Creed they say "And in as much as meat and drink are transformed into spiritual substance, I believe in the miracle of the Mass."

[Dale Gehris]

Gnostic Mass? That's like having to do math without numbers. On second thought: sign me up!