The Gnostic Mass
Artwork by bishop
copyright 2002ev
Used by permission
On the Origin of Our Evaluations
Frederick Nietszche
We can analyze our body spatially, and then we gain precisely the same image of it as we have of the stellar system, and the distinction between the organic and inorganic is no longer noticeable. Formerly, one explained the motions of the stars as effected produced by entities conscious of a purpose. One no longer needs this explanation, and in regard to bodily motions and changes, too, one has long since abandoned the belief in an explanation by means of a consciousness that determines purposes. By far the greater number of motions have nothing whatever to do with consciousness; nor with sensation. Sensations and thoughts are something extremely insignificant and a rare in relation to the countless number of events that occur every moment.
On the other hand, we perceive that a purposiveness rules over the smallest events that is beyond our understanding: planning, selectivity, co-ordination, reparation, etc. In short, we discover an activity that would have to be ascribed to a far higher a more comprehensive intellect than we know of. We learn to think less highly of all that is conscious; we unlearn responsibility for ourselves, since we as conscious, purposive creatures, are on the smallest part of us. Of the number influences operating at every moment, e.g., air, electricity, we sense almost nothing: there could well be forces that, although we never sense them, continually influence us. Pleasure and pain are very rare and scarce appearances compared with the countless stimuli that a cell or organ exercises upon another cell or organ.
We are in the phase of modesty of consciousness. Ultimately, we understand the conscious ego itself only as a tool in the service of a higher, comprehensive intellect; and then we are able to ask whether all conscious willing, all conscious purposes, all evaluations are not perhaps only means through which something essentially different from what appears in consciousness is to be achieved. We think: it is a question of our pleasure and displeasure--but pleasure and displeasure could be mean through which we have to achieve something that lies outside our consciousness.--It must be shown to what extent everything remains on the surface; how an action and the image of an action differ, how little one knows of what precedes an action; how fantastic are our feelings of "freedom of will," "cause and effect"; how thoughts and images are, like words, only signs of thoughts; the inexplicability of every action; the superficiality of all praise and blame, how essential fiction and conceits are in which we dwell consciously; how all our words refer to fictions (our affects, too), and how the bond between man and man depends on the transmission and elaboration of these fictions; while fundamentally the real bond (through procreation) goes its unknown way. Does this belief in common fictions really change men? Or is the entire realm of ideas and evaluations itself only an expression of unknown changes? Are there really will, purposes, thoughts, values? Is the whole of conscious life perhaps only a reflected image? And even when evaluation seems to determine the nature of a man, fundamentally something quite different is happening! In short: supposing the purposiveness in the work of nature could be explained without the assumption of an ego that posits purposes: could our positing of purposes, our willing, etc. not perhaps be also only a language of signs for something altogether different, namely something that does not will and is unconscious? Only the faintest reflection of that natural expediency in the organic but not different from it?
Put briefly: perhaps the entire evolution of the spirit is a question of the body; it is the history of the development of a higher body that emerges into our sensibility. the organ is is rising to yet higher levels. our lust for knowledge of nature is a means through which the body desires to perfect itself. or rather: hundred of thousands of experiments are made to change the nourishment, the mode of living and dwelling of the body; consciousness and evaluations in the body, all kinds of pleasure and displeasure, are signs of these changes and experiments. In the long run, it is not a question of man at all: he is to be overcome.
Masses
The ceremonies of the ancient
Greek-Pagan mysteries are a forerunner of the latter Gnostic and Christian
Eucharist. With the onset of the
Piscean Age, The Pagan mystery cults
based their Eucharistic ceremonies on death and resurrection of the Solar God
with the object enabling the initiate to vicariously or symbolically take part
in this death and resurrection and so attain eternal life. Generally, an animal
was selected to represent the Dying God and then ritually killed. Sometimes the
animal's blood was poured over the initiate(s) and in other cases, it was
imbibed; a form of the Bloody Sacrifice. The
flesh was also eaten in a ceremonial meal; all clearly suggesting the life force
of the god being absorbed in the human body.
The
Master Therion delineates this quite well in MITP:
One of the simplest and most
complete of Magick ceremonies is the Eucharist.
It consists in taking common things, transmuting them into things divine,
and consuming them. So far, it is a
type of every magick ceremony, for the reabsorption of the force is a kind of
consumption; but it has a more restricted application, as follows.
Take a substance symbolic of the whole course of nature, make it God, and
consume it.
Of the elements, the first is the
break or Cake-of-Light in the Thelemic tradition.
The Greek word for bread is ARTOS, which has a value in the Greek Qabalah
of 671, which is equivalent to the Hebrew evaluation of the word Thora, the word
for the Law and the Bride of God. As
well, this is the principal number of the A.’.A.’. Initiation ritual, Liber
Pyramidos. Thora is then the name of
the third ‘person’ of the Supernal Triad, equivalent to the Christian Holy
Ghost or feminine aspect of the Logos, which is why the Gnostic Mass is a
celebration of the Goddess.
The Greek word for cup (used in
the Gnostic Mass) is POTHRION, and it is numerically equal to 688, which is the
diameter of a circle having a circumference of 2,162, the number of miles in the
moon’s diameter. By this it may be supposed that the sublunary world is
intended, from the four elements of which the body of the Logos was compounded,
in the shape of a cross, the masculine emblem; suggesting the Sun. Then AIMA
(blood) yields 52, the number of weeks in one solar journey through the Zodiac;
connecting the idea of blood with the Sun and L.V.X.
By the Bread and the Cup,
therefore masculine and feminine powers of the Universe are symbolically
commingled together. This is then a formula of regeneration or resurrection;
immortality, the formula of the White School of Magick and not the formula of
the Black School (t be differentiated from the Black Lodge, which is an entirely
different concept) as espoused by the Christianity that emerged from these
ancient Gnostic schools. The idea of death is
replaced by the devotion of the self to the ‘beloved’…Hadit to Nuit.
For
all that, the idea is there. The Mass itself is essentially a typical White
ritual. Its purpose is to transform crude matter directly into Godhead. It is
thus a cardinal operation of Talismanic Magick. But the influence of the Black
School has corroded the idea with theological accretions, metaphysical on the
one hand, and superstitious on the other, so completely as to mask the Truth
altogether.
Studies
The Great Work of the Sanctuary
Breviary
"The joy of life consists in the exercise of one's
energies, continual growth, constant change, the enjoyment of every new
experience. To stop means simply to die. The eternal mistake of mankind is to
set up an attainable ideal."
Reflections on the IXth Degree
Liber DCL vel De Fons Aqua Vita
On the events leading up to Liber VVVvV
Carl Jung noted Synchronicity as two co-incidental events that in themselves are causally unrelated and yet occur simultaneously with meaningful experience being derived from them. And as well, he stated that someone on the spiritual path, as they reach a certain point in their development, will have 'chance' meetings with interesting people that will help them along their way.
In this regard, in the mid nineties ev, I had been speculating on the evolutionary idea that the disease of cancer was natures way of producing physical transformation into yet a higher life form. And yet I didn't know how to investigate this idea in a productive manner. A short while later, I found myself hitch-hiking from Clearwater Florida to Tampa and was picked up by a driver. I had a mundane conversation with the gentlemen driving the car; offering up no hint of my spirituality or the things I was researching. And yet, he came right out and announced he was a lab tech working on a cure for cancer and was convinced that the cure had been found and it was too simple with no possibility of money being made off of it...so the powers that be are continuing a medical sham. While this fascinated me, it had yet no meaning for my personal obstacle in researching the disease.
Probably about three years later, I was working a piano promotion in New Jersey when I spend an hour with a gentleman; answering questions on his used Baldwin piano. After this time spent, he said this to me: "I am grateful for all the time you spent with me; knowing that I would not be buying a piano from you today. And I would like to reward you for your generosity; so I'm going to tell you something that you need to know. I'm a medical artist and I know that you need to understand this word, so write it down: phosphorylation."
And yes, I went home, looked up the work and it unlocked everything that I wanted to know regarding the structure of the cell and even led me to a medical office for a visit to a doctor on a health issue that had an interesting article on a magazine table in the waiting room. It was these events, this large synchronicity that has led me to believe a chance meeting with the Secret Chiefs to convey this little tid-bit to me. And it led to the creation of this GCL document. Though I can't really be certain that I've quite figured out what they were trying to lead me to find as a year later, my mother died of cancer.
Liber Immortalitas vel Luciform
Selected Studies in Human Sexuality
Scientific Proof of Levi's Aethyr
bishop at gclvx.org
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