This work consists of a series of brief notes on various performance issues around the Gnostic Mass. Part of it derives from work done a few years ago by Frater D.I.C.E. and Soror N.I.C.E.; further notes have been added by Fratres O.B. and T.S. For ease of comprehension they have been attached to the actual text of the Mass which has been broken up by the eight sections of the ritual.
This is a work in progress; additions and modifications may appear at a later date. Needless to say, none of this material has any official status in EGC or OTO and merely constitutes the opinion of the authors, based variously on a close reading of the text, experimentation, practice, and observation of practice by others. It should not be assumed that a view stated by any given person is shared by all, or indeed any, of the other contributors to these notes. Further, this work is not intended as a “commentary” on Liber XV but is concerned primarily with how the ritual is physically performed.
July-August 2003 e.v.: Further annotations and changes to earlier remarks made following an extended series of Masses (1 a day for 22 days—aarrghhh) by the Yorkshire O.T.O. groups, and subsequent discussion.
February 2005 e.v.: Further piecemeal additions, corrections and clarifications..
What these notes attempt to represent is a way (a few different ways, actually) of working the ritual, as opposed to the way. I am not concerned with promoting orthopraxis, do not wish to see it promoted, and in fact believe that there is more to be lost than gained through the promotion of orthopraxis (I distinguish orthopraxis from quality control, i.e. encouraging people to learn their words and otherwise be at least vaguely competent). It is for this reason that I do not regard it as a great loss that Crowley’s plan to get the Mass filmed (mentioned in a 1942 letter to Germer and in correspondence with Jane Wolfe who had been a screen actress) fell through, as the existence of such a film would have been a far more powerful force for orthopraxis than various “Agape Lodge traditions” which while valuable as indicating solutions to the difficulties of the text discovered by the first group to perform the ritual regularly (or, quite possibly, at all) nevertheless do not have the “authority” that a motion picture with the Beast’s imprimatur would. As such, in anything I say which appears to be making an unqualified assertion about how the Mass is, or should be, practised, some qualification such as “on my reading of this part,” “according to my preferred practice,” or simply “in my opinion” should be assumed.
T.S.