Ordo

Templi
Orientis
This information Packet
developed by the Master of the
Pelican Camp of
Baton Rouge
was designed to provide textual introduction on the subject of

Eucharistic Magick
in the spiritual methodology of Aleister Crowley

PELICAN-OTO.ORG
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 Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
This packet was designed to serve as an introduction to Eucharistic Magick for
educational purposes. The implementation of a sacrament for ritual consumption is as antique
as the religious tradition. According to some, the bloody sacrifice is the substance of all
religion, and therefore its symbolical performance would be the earliest ritual, whether it be
breaking bread or the consumption of the flesh and blood of your kills to absorb their power.
The tradition is not uniquely preserved in this day by the Roman Catholic Church's
necrophiliac thanksgiving, there are other traditions that maintain this regular action including
our own: Thelema.
Aleister Crowley included the daily consumption of the Eucharist as one of the few
rituals that a Thelemite – one who does their Will – routinely practices. This instruction comes
from his appreciation of the bible's mystery tradition, his appreciation of trans-cultural religious
motifs and his Nietzschean predilection to materialize spirituality, to return Aesthetics to the
physical senses, taste to the tongue.
This packet includes selections from various writings of Aleister Crowley, reproduced
by the kind permission of OTO, along with A Short Eucharist, a ritual devised by a Bishop of
our tradition to mirror the Gnostic Mass and serve a similar purpose. The Gnostic Mass is not
included in this packet despite being Crowley's most known ritual (and an Eucharistic one at
that) because of its length, but it is easily found online.

Love is the law, love under will.

TABLE OF CONTENTS
3. De Cultu, from Liber Aleph
4. A Discourse on the Sixth Article by T Polyphilus
12. A Short Eucharist by T Polyphilus
18. Mass of the Phoenix (from The Book of Lies)
19. Commentaries on The Mass of the Phoenix (also from The Book of Lies)
20. A recipe for Cakes of Light by the Master of Pelican Camp

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 De Cultu1
Now, o my Son, that thou mayst be well guarded against thy ghostly
Enemies, do thou work constantly by the Means prescribed in our Holy Books. 2
Neglect never the fourfold Adorations of the Sun in his four Stations, for
thereby thou doest affirm thy Place in Nature and her Harmonies.
Neglect not the Performance of the Ritual of the Pentagram, and of the
Assumption of the Form of Hoor-pa-Kraat.
Neglect not the daily Miracle of the Mass, either by the Rite of the Gnostic
Catholic Church, or that of the Phoenix.3
Neglect not the Performance of the Mass of the Holy Ghost, as Nature
herself prompteth thee.4
Travel also much in the Empyrean in the Body of Light, seeking ever
Abodes more fiery and lucid.
Finally, exercise constantly the Eight Limbs of Yoga. And so shalt thou
come to the End.

1 De Cultu means Of the Cult. Cult is not only the term for a religious sect, it is also the
root word of culture and cultivate. Through these practices religions cultivate a
culture of belief (by fostering a common experience and methodology for communion
with Gnosis) and of identity. Without culture there is no identity and by this an
individual can come to understand the identity of our cult, our religion and culture.
2 The Holy Books are a selection of Crowley's writings to whom he credited a
superhuman authorship. In these elegant evocative verses we find a depth and style
that is not elsewhere present in his corpus. Also we find numerous ritual elaborations
and magico-mystical instructions. Some relevant excerpts from The Holy Books are
reproduced in text-boxes throughout this document.
3 Italics mine. This is the verse that concerns this educational packet. The “Miracle of
the Mass” is from the “Creed of the Thelemites” that is recited at the beginning of the
Gnostic Mass, as is the Nicene Creed in the Roman Catholic Mass. Our article reads,
“And, forasmuch as meat and drink are transmuted in us daily into spiritual substance,
I believe in the Miracle of the Mass.” An essay on it is included on the next page.
4 This is different.

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 A Discourse on the Sixth Article
T Polyphilus
In every celebration of the Gnostic Mass before the priestess and priest have even
appeared, the members of the congregation join together, saying
And forasmuch as meat and drink
are transmuted in us daily
into spiritual substance
I believe in the Miracle of the Mass.

Certainly this statement will bear close inspection. This declaration seems to outline a
context for the celebration of the Mass itself. As with other articles of the Creed,
this one alludes to long history and earlier traditions. Certainly, we are aware of the
Christian Mass and its prevalence in the West. But it was not created ex nihilo; it has
roots in earlier religious practice.
Pagan antiquity enjoyed diverse practices of group meals with a religious significance.
In many cases, these were connected with a ceremony of sacrifice, such as the Greek
thyein addressed to the Olympian gods. There were guild meals that were sacramental in
nature: Under the original sense of sacrament as an oath. Roman funerary societies
would hold banquets in honor of the dead, where the spirits of the deceased were
understood to attend, receiving offerings from the living who sought to partake
In their virtues and legacies.
In the old Graeco-Roman cult meals, Gods were viewed alternately as guests and hosts.
The historical and archeological records demonstrate that such gods as Serapis,
Hercules, and Anubis would spread a table for their invited worshippers. Meanwhile,
there is evidence for ceremonies at which the human celebrants and attendees would
request the presence of Pluto, Aesculapius, Attis, Jupiter, Juno, or Minerva, to honor and
grace the banquet as the chief guest.
The great Mystery cults of Hellenic antiquity all had, as a rule, a sacramental meal
called an agape celebrated just prior to their ceremonies of initiation. This custom was
common to the Mysteries of Eleusis the Attic Mysteries, the Samothracian Mysteries,
and the Dionysiac Mysteries of Thrace and Phrygia. Other precedents for the Christian
Mass can be found in early Jewish ceremonies, such as the prayer services held in
synagogues; and the domestic ceremony of Kiddush, in which an evening meal would be
blessed. Some scholars have concluded that the earliest Christians met in the form of a
Chaburah, a Jewish convivial society gathering weekly with a religious intent.
The seemingly earliest records of the Christian custom that would later be characterized
as the Mass or Eucharist are in Paul’s first epistle to the Corinthians, where he instructs

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his correspondents regarding “the Lord’s supper.” He is at some pains to identify this
supper with the sacrificial cult of ancient Israel, and to distinguish it from the pagan
Mystery cults. But the more he emphasizes that distinction, the more he illustrates the
parallels: Paul writes--
The cup of blessing which we bless,
is it not the communion of the blood of Christ?
The bread which we break,
is it not the communion of the body of Christ? ...
But I say, that the things which the Gentiles sacrifice,
they sacrifice to devils, and not to God:
and I would not that ye should have fellowship with devils.
Ye cannot drink the cup of the Lord, and the cup of devils:
ye cannot be partakers of the Lord’s table, and the table of devils.

And Paul offers a description of a narrative that he “received of the Lord” and “delivered
unto” the Corinthians: How Jesus “in same night in which he was betrayed” spoke
certain words over the bread and the wine that he shared with those who were with him.
Of the bread: “This is my body,” and of the wine: “This is the new testament in my
blood.” And to this day, many Christians use those words to perform their “Lord’s
supper,” their “Eucharist” or their “Mass.”
Many textual critics of the Bible have concluded that this “institution narrative” setting
forth a ritual is a late interpolation into the First Letter to the Corinthians. There are four
other similar narratives in the Christian Bible, and the earliest and most basic version

from Liber VII, Cap 4, v.17-25

A Holy Book. This excerpt describes a Eucharistic ceremony in the style of Bacchus or Comus.

Shall not mine incantations bring around me the wonderful company of the
wood-gods, their bodies glistening with the ointment of moonlight and honey
and myrrh? Worshipful are ye, O my lovers; let us forward to the dimmest hollow!
There we will feast upon mandrake and upon moly! There the lovely One shall
spread us His holy banquet. In the brown cakes of corn we shall taste the food of
the world, and be strong. In the ruddy and awful cup of death we shall drink the
blood of the world, and be drunken! Ohé! the song to Iao, the song to Iao! Come,
let us sing to thee, Iacchus invisible, Iacchus triumphant, Iacchus indicible!
Iacchus, O Iacchus, O Iacchus, be near us! Then was the countenance of all time
darkened, and the true light shone forth.
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seems to be that of the Gospel of Mark, where, as in all them, Jesus speaks of the bread:
“This is my body,” and of the cup: “This is my blood.”
Biblical scholar Robert Price sums up the situation:
[T]he whole thing must have begun as, or been directly derived from, a
liturgical text. For Jesus, clearly the celebrant, to offer the elements of bread
and wine, and to present each with an interpretive word, “This is... This is...”
clearly bespeaks liturgy. We must suppose Mark derived the Words of
Institution from his own church’s liturgy (descended, originally ... from a
Mystery rite like that of Osiris). Thus, the depiction of the Last Supper began
as an etiological legend, an ideal prototype for all the Lord’s Suppers to come,
though as in all such cases, the order is just the reverse: the practice begat the
story.

The earliest description of this Christian practice outside of the Bible texts is in several
documents ranging from the beginning through the middle of the second century of the
Christian era. Since the dating of these and of the Biblical source texts are alike
unreliable, we cannot be sure which came first. But in the anonymous Didache, there is
a ritual order for a ceremony of the Eucharist which is lacking the formulae “This is my
body” and “This is my blood.” In the Apology of Justin Martyr, there is a ritual that is
explained as having been based on gospel texts, to wit:
that Jesus took bread, gave thanks, and said, ‘This do ye in remembrance of
me; this is my body.’ And he took the cup likewise and said, ‘This is my blood,’
and gave it to them alone. This very thing the evil demons imitated in the
mysteries of Mithras, and commanded to be done. For, as you know, or can
discover, bread and a cup of water are set out in the rites of initiation with the
repetition of certain words.

When Ignatius wrote his Epistle to the Smyrnians in about one hundred twelve, he used
the terms “Eucharist” and “Agape” interchangeably. Eventually, however, these became
distinct in Christian custom. The Agape or “love feast” was an evening banquet, and the
Eucharist or “thank-offering” was a morning ceremony. We cannot be sure about other
distinctions between the two, since the Council of Carthage in the early fifth century
officially suppressed the Agape, leaving only the Eucharist.
The use of the word “Mass” to refer to the Eucharist is a product of the Roman Rite and
its liturgy. Conservative scholars tend to agree on the origin of the word: it comes from
the Latin missa, with the meaning “dismissal,” originally used to describe ceremonies
held just before the Eucharist, at the end of which (that is, just prior to the Eucharist),
those not permitted to partake of the sacrament would be dismissed with the words Ite
missa est, or “Go away, this is the dismissal.” Eventually, the term came to be applied to

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the entire service, but it was not in general use as a synonym for the Eucharist until the
sixth century of the Christian era.
An alternative explanation of the word missa or “Mass” is presented in the writings of
our Gnostic Saint Forlong Dux, who remarks
The missa might be the “cake” (from massein, “to knead”); or more probably
the word is the Hebrew massah, for the “unleavened cake” of the Passover.
In Egypt the mest cakes offered to Osiris were similar emblems of the god of
corn and bread. They were also offered to Mithra, with the sacred Haoma
drink. The mass in fact is a “mass” of paste.

Another Christian eucharistic ceremony that deserves our attention is the Fraction du
Pain, or “Breaking of Bread,” celebrated in the French Gnostic Church of Jules Doinel.
This service was a late nineteenth-century attempt to revive the practices of Medieval
Cathar heretics. It was conducted in a mixture of Latin, Greek and French, and although
the Fraction du Pain bears little more similarity to our own Gnostic Mass than most
Christian services do, it is to Doinel’s church that we must look for the modern roots of
our own ecclesiastical body.
The purpose of the Christian Eucharist or the Mass has been subject to various credal
and theological perspectives. In the earliest writings, the emphasis is on giving thanks
For the creation of the world and the salvation of humanity. There is also the explicit
idea of commemorating the death of Jesus, and a further notion that the ceremony’s
repetition throughout the Church actualizes a sacred group-identity or egregore.
The idea that the elements of bread and wine are materially transmuted into the body
and blood of the savior in a Miracle of the Mass – this idea was a late addition to the
other Eucharistic concepts. It emerged more readily at first in the East than in the West.
In the middle of the eighth century, John of Damascus produced a definitive statement of
the thesis of such transformation in his work De Fide Orthodoxa, or “On the Orthodox
Faith.” Gradually, the notion gathered acceptance in the Western Church, finally being
affirmed by the Pope after the fourth Lateran Council in 1215. The doctrine assumed its
fully realized form in the Summa Theologica written by Thomas Aquinas as the
thirteenth-century acme of scholasticism. This formulation was based on the philosophy
of Aristotle, distinguishing between essential substances on the one hand, and their
superficial accidents on the other. So, according to Aquinas, the imperceptible substance
of the bread and wine are transformed in the Eucharist to the body and blood of Jesus
Christ; while the sensible accidents of the bread and wine remain. The Council of Trent
later adopted this concept as standard Church doctrine.
It should go without saying that not all Christians were persuaded. In various instances
of late medieval heresy, and especially in the intellectual conflicts of the Reformation,

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The Catholic doctrine of Transubstantiation was contested and often rejected. Modern
Christians take at least six different positions with respect to the mechanism (if any)
underlying their Eucharist. In his Devil’s Dictionary, Ambrose Bierce defined Eucharist
thus:
A sacred feast of the religious sect of Theophagi. A dispute once unhappily
arose among the members of this sect as to what it was that they ate. In this
controversy some five hundred thousand have been slain, and the question is
still unsettled.

The doctrinal position of Pious

Silence simply maintains that the from Liber Samekh
elements of bread and wine become a ritual by AC to invoke the Angel
the body and blood in a manner that
is beyond any rational explanation. Thee I invoke, the Bornless One …
This perspective is essentially the Thou art IA-BESZ ("the Truth in Matter")
pre-Scholastic transubstantial idea, Thou art IA-APOPHRASZ ("the Truth in Motion")
and it is mostly espoused by the
Eastern Orthodox churches. He hails him as BESZ, the Matter that destroys
and devours Godhead, for the purpose of the
The doctrine of Consubstantiation is
Incarnation of any God.
found among Lutherans, who hold
He hails Him as APOPHRASZ, the Motion that
that there is a substantial
destroys and devours Godhead, for the purpose of
transformation of the elements, but
the Incarnation of any God.
that substance is only changed for the
The combined action of these two DEVILS is to
duration of the ceremony:
allow the God upon whom they prey to enter into
Unconsumed hosts and wine revert to
enjoyment of existence through the Sacrament of
their original substance.
dividual "Life" (Bread - the flesh of BESZ) and
The teaching of Spiritual Presence "Love" (Wine - the blood or venom of
maintains that communicants receive AOPHRASZ).
the actual body and blood in a
spiritual manner by faith. The presence of the savior is neither substantial nor merely
symbolic. This doctrine is common to Methodists and Presbyterians, among others.
The theory of Symbolism proposes that the material elements are only symbols of the
body and blood of Jesus. Most Baptists subscribe to this interpretation of their Lord’s
Supper.
Finally, there are many Christian groups and traditions who have suspended the
Eucharist altogether, for whom it is not a “perpetual ordinance,” nor a rite required by
Christian faith, and so they offer no further teaching on the correct method of
understanding a ceremony which they neither offer nor practice. Such groups include the

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Quakers and the Salvation Army.
The Thelemic and Magical theory of the Eucharist, on the other hand, has its
authoritative formulation in Chapter Twenty of Magick in Theory and Practice, where
Crowley writes:
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. ... A Eucharist of some sort should most
assuredly be consummated daily by every Magician, and he should regard it
as the main sustenance of his magical life. It is of more importance than any
other magical ceremony, because it is a complete circle. The whole of the
force expended is completely reabsorbed; yet the virtue is that vast gain
represented by the abyss between Man and God.
The Magician becomes filled with God, fed upon God, intoxicated with God.
Little by little his body will become purified by the internal lustration of God;
day by day his mortal frame, shedding its earthly elements, will become in
very truth the Temple of the Holy Ghost. Day by day matter is replaced by
spirit, the human by the divine; ultimately the change will be complete;
God manifest in flesh will be his name.

So Crowley emphasizes a factor not present in the Christian theories: The gradual and
cumulative transmutation of the communicant through the repetitive act of Eucharistic
communion. And this idea relates to that Mystery of Metabolism referenced in the
language of our Creed, that forasmuch as meat and drink are transmuted in us daily
The Miracle of the Mass is comprehensible. As the Freudian classicist Norman O.
Brown has observed,
The transubstantiation is in the eating: “Just as, in His days on earth, bread
and wine taken by him as food were metabolized into His flesh and blood at
digestion.” By eating we become his body; eating makes it so. Manducando
Christi corpus fiunt Christi corpus.

Similarly, whoever eats the body of any god becomes that god.
A related occult doctrine of the Eucharist, which is consistent with the expression of our
Creed, can be found in the letters of our Saint Alphonse Louis Constant, where he writes
to his disciple Baron Spedalieri,
All living beings are contained in moulds of light. This mould determines the

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 appearance of the substance which fills it. It is thus that, by a veritable
transubstantiation, bread becomes flesh, and wine blood. Then when the
mould rejects an exhausted substance (which is called dying) the wonder
ceases and the corpse again becomes bread or fruit.

Thus the spiritualization of matter in metabolism always realizes the particular god or
genius whose will is expressed in the individual’s existence. And this concept of
Eucharistic magick is the blurry line between the Miracle of the Mass, and saying “Will”
before the main meal of each day.
Moving from theory to practice, we find the standard for Thelemites concisely expressed
in the chapter “On Discipline” from The Book of Wisdom or Folly, where Crowley
commands:
Neglect not the daily Miracle of the Mass, either by the Rite of the Gnostic
Catholic Church, or that of the Phoenix.

The second sort of Mass mentioned here was the first that Crowley composed for use by
Thelemites. It originally appeared in The Book of Lies as chapter forty-four. The Mass
of the Phoenix is a solo ritual to take place at sunset, a version of what Crowley would
later call “The Eucharist of five elements.” In chapter sixty-two, he explains these
elements as representatives of the five senses, and he describes how the ceremony aims
to make the magician “free—unconditioned—the Absolute.”
The Mass of the Phoenix became the centerpiece of Crowley’s first Thelemic Eucharist
for groups, a ceremony known only as the “Ritual Ordained for Public Service.” In this
ritual, the priest performed the Mass of the Phoenix assisted by an acolyte and a violin-
playing priestess. The priest was also bound to a cross, from which he preached to the
attendees. This ritual was performed at least a couple of times. But it was soon rendered
obsolete by the Gnostic Mass, which Crowley authored and OHO Theodor Reuss
authorized “For the use of O.T.O., The central ceremony of its public and private
celebration.” And it is this later “Eucharist of two elements” (Elements of meat and
drink) That has become the paragon of the Miracle of the Mass for Thelemites.
I want to suggest to you that the Gnostic Mass has three very different purposes which it
simultaneously fulfills, so that its Miracle is likewise threefold, balancing a triad.
The purposes have individual, local, and universal domains, and I characterize them as
Magical, Communal, and Doctrinal, and each is in some sense secret. The Magical
effect for the individual is the one that Crowley explains in Magick in Theory and
Practice: The communicant is gradually made divine, being brought swallow by
swallow towards Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel and to the
ultimate attainment that lies beyond. And this effect is secret in the sense that it is utterly
ineffable.

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The Communal effect for a local group has to do with the shared knowledge, and the
recognition among us, that we each aspire to the ineffable with a shared means,
supporting each other in the way of our going to the East for nourishment and ecstasy of
the spirit. As Northrop Frye points out in his study of William Blake, the bread and wine
signify the key social tasks of harvest and vintage, where “the wine-press and the mill
may represent “Not only the disintegration of form, but the reuniting of nature,” and the
reuniting of divided individuals in community. And this effect is secret in the sense that
only those who participate can perceive “The great communion feast in which “human
life is reintegrated into its real form.”
The Doctrinal effect that applies universally involves the role of the Gnostic Mass, like
the O.T.O. initiations, in adumbrating the Supreme Secret of the Sovereign Sanctuary.
That Secret is traditionally held to concern sexual magick. To quote Norman O. Brown
once more:
Eating is the form of the fall. The woman gave me and I did eat. Eating is the
form of sex. Copulation is oral copulation; When the Aranda ask each other
“Have you eaten?” they mean, “Have you had intercourse?” ... Eating is the
form of war. Human blood is the life and delightful food of the warrior. Eating
is the form of redemption. Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink
his blood, ye have no life in you. We must eat again of the tree of knowledge,
in order to fall into innocence.

And all of these secret transmutations, each of these mysterious alchemies, happens in
us. The candlelight and incense, the invocations and music, the officers and
congregation, the cakes and wine, are all within the indivisible life-experience of the
communicant at the Mass. And so too their effects, threefold or more, transpire in each
of us as we participate.
Transmutation is inevitable. Our cells constantly exchange the matter that they organize.
They themselves die and are replaced. Generation succeeds generation in the life of
humanity. The Eucharist addresses the character of that transmutation: That the
innermost secret substance might be refined, dross becoming pure, lead becoming gold.
May we each labor for that nourishment and rest in that ecstasy daily.
In the name of CHAOS, Amen.

More writings of T Polyphilus can be found on hermetic.com/dionysos

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 A Short Eucharist
By T Polyphilus, Ep. Gn., 1 May 2008 e.v.

The following is a Thelemic Eucharist for individual daily practice. Unlike Liber
XLIV (developed by the Prophet for nearly the same purpose), it does not require
celebration at sunset, although it will be most effective if enacted consistently at a
particular hour. It also accommodates multiple communicants, so it is especially suitable
for shared household use.
Like the Gnostic Mass, this ceremony incorporates eucharistic formulae of several
types, but its principal expression is in the formula of two elements.
There is a square central altar—preferably a double cube—with a lit candle on the
sunward corner. (The direction will thus vary according to the time of day chosen.) Next
to the candle, toward the center of the altar, is the incense. On the corner opposite the
candle is a small bowl of water. On the nearest corner clockwise from the candle is a
small paten with cakes of light.
On the corner opposite the paten is a covered cup, full of red wine. The
CELEBRANT stands at the corner with the water, with The Book of the Law held at the
breast.
If there are others present, they take the office of RESPONDENTS. They have
seats ranged in a circle several feet from the altar. In that case, there is also an empty
seat for the CELEBRANT, who otherwise stands throughout.
***********
CELEBRANT: Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
ALL: Love is the law, love under will.
CELEBRANT kisses the book eleven times, and places it in the center of the
altar. Note that the objects on the altar are the components of two
different hexagrams. The candle flame and bowl of water are the
ascending and descending triangles of the Hexagram of Nature. The
consecrated wine and cake are the ascending and descending triangles
of the Hexagram of Magick. To the extent that these hexagrams both
express a polarity of fire and water, the items at the center of the altar
represent two different aspects of air: the incense as aspiration, and
Liber Legis as inspiration. Earth and spirit are both reflected in the
person of the celebrant. The altar-top should now resemble the diagram.

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ALL: I do confess the Lordship of the One
Most holy Chaos, secret of the sun;
And Babalon, dam of humanity,
She in whom we all shall rest finally;
And that sublime and awful Baphomet,
The lion and the serpent burning yet;
And One Thelemic Church within whose shrine
Our Gnosis joins the human and divine,
Just as the saints of old—and present day—
Embody and emit the solar ray;
And just as matter becomes life in me
Mass is a miracle in that degree;
And there is but a single lustral birth
By which high Wisdom ratifies our worth;
So at the last, my life eternally
Was ever one, is now, and yet shall be.
AUMGN. AUMGN. AUMGN.

CELEBRANT stands in the sign of Auramoth.

CELEBRANT: For pure will, unassuaged of purpose, delivered
from the lust of result, is every way perfect.
CELEBRANT visualizes sat chakras opening from sahasrara down
to muladhara.
CELEBRANT stands in the sign of Toum-aesch-neith.
CELEBRANT: I am uplifted in thine heart; and the kisses of the
stars rain hard upon thy body.
CELEBRANT visualizes a serpent twining up the sushumna from
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 muladhara to sahsrara.
CELEBRANT lights incense.
ALL: Above, the gemmed azure is
The naked splendour of Nuit;
She bends in ecstasy to kiss
The secret ardours of Hadit.
The winged globe, the starry blue,
Are mine, O Ankh-af-na-khonsu!
CELEBRANT: Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
[RESPONDENT(S): What is thy will?]
CELEBRANT: It is my will to consummate this Eucharist.
[RESPONDENT(S): To what end?]
CELEBRANT: That I may fortify my gross and subtle bodies
thereby.
[RESPONDENT(S): To what end?]
CELEBRANT: That I may accomplish the Great Work.
ALL: Love is the law, love under will.
RESPONDENTS sit.
CELEBRANT takes up a cake of light from the paten, breaks it in
two and replaces it.
CELEBRANT: In the brown cakes of corn we shall taste the food
of the world, and be strong.
CELEBRANT makes the ficus (thumb between clenched index and
medius of right hand), and traces invoking pentagram of active
spirit over the paten.
CELEBRANT: THELEMA.
CELEBRANT kisses the ficus toward the paten.
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CELEBRANT uncovers the cup with left hand, genuflects, sprinkles
a few drops of water into the cup with the right hand, and
recovers the cup.
CELEBRANT: In the ruddy and awful cup of death we shall
drink the blood of the world, and be drunken!
CELEBRANT makes the ficus, and traces invoking pentagram of
passive spirit over the cup.
CELEBRANT: AGAPE.
CELEBRANT kisses the ficus toward the cup.
CELEBRANT stands upright, feet together, left arm at side, right
arm across body, holding the right hand at the heart with fingers
clenched and thumb extended upwards.
CELEBRANT: I. N. R. I.
Yod. Nun. Resh. Yod.
Virgo, Isis, Mighty Mother.
Scorpio, Apophis, Destroyer.
Sol, Osiris, Slain and Risen.
Isis, Apophis, Osiris, IAO.
CELEBRANT then makes the various signs named:
The sign of Osiris Slain.
The sign of the Mourning of Isis.
The sign of Apophis and Typhon.
The sign of Osiris Risen.
CELEBRANT makes the Signs of Osiris Slain and Risen.
L.V.X., Lux, the Light of the Cross.
CELEBRANT stands with hands raised overhead, palms forward.
CELEBRANT: O Thou Unity of all things: as the sun that rolleth
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 through the twelve mansions of the skies, so art Thou, O
God my God. I cannot slay Thee, for Thou art everywhere;
lo! though I lick up the Boundless Light, the Boundless, and
the Not, there still shall I find Thee, Thou Unity of Unities,
Thou Oneness, O Thou perfect Nothingness of Bliss!
[RESPONDENT(S): We adore Thee, Evoe! We adore Thee, IAO!]
ALL: AUMGN. AUMGN. AUMGN.
CELEBRANT extends open hands over the altar.
CELEBRANT: Lord of Creation, bless unto us this bread and
blood, for the accomplishment of our wills, yea, the
accomplishment of our wills.
ALL: So mote it be.
CELEBRANT uncovers the cup, genuflects, rises. He takes a portion
of the broken cake, and removes a small particle. He lifts the
cup in his left hand to hold it before his face. He takes the
particle in his right hand and drops it into the cup, while
whispering across the opening of the cup.
CELEBRANT: ABRAHADABRA!
CELEBRANT holds the cup at heart level, with right hand above it,
palm down.
CELEBRANT: All must be destroyed, that All may be begotten.
CELEBRANT takes the two pieces of the broken cake and traces
with them a downward triangle, beginning at the bottommost
point and moving clockwise, and visualizing it in red.
CELEBRANT: Mine is the descending tongue of grace.
CELEBRANT eats the cake.
CELEBRANT takes the cup and traces with it an upward triangle,
beginning at the topmost point and moving clockwise, and

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 visualizing it in blue.
CELEBRANT: Mine is the ascending tongue of prayer.
CELEBRANT drinks from the cup, and replaces it.
CELEBRANT stands in the posture of Osiris Risen.
CELEBRANT: I am clothed with the body of flesh; I am one with
the Eternal and Omnipotent God.
RESPONDENTS communicate in turn after the CELEBRANT, each
consuming a whole cake and a draught from the common cup. They
should draw the triangles and declare: “Mine is the descending tongue
of grace. Mine is the ascending tongue of prayer.” And then in the
proper posture, pronouncing: “I am clothed with the body of flesh; I am
one with the Eternal and Omnipotent God.”
CELEBRANT sits during the communion of the RESPONDENTS; and then
returns to the altar, to drain any remainder in the cup, including what
may be present of the particle of the first cake; and then inverts the cup.
CELEBRANT: It is finished.
CELEBRANT covers the cup, and replaces it.
CELEBRANT stands with hands raised, palms forward (as before),
and then clasps hands together overhead, fingers interlaced.
CELEBRANT: As the Law of Liberty is ours,
May our Minds be open unto the Light!
May our Hearts be centers of Love!
May our Bodies be Temples of Life!
Alternately, if celebrated alone, “is mine…May my Mind…May my Heart be
a centre…May my Body be a Temple….”
ALL: So mote it be.
All depart.

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 THE MASS OF THE PHOENIX
From The Book of Lies (Liber 333) chapter 44

The Magician, his breast bare, stands before an altar on which are his Burin,
Bell, Thurible, and two of the Cakes of Light. In the Sign of the Enterer he
reaches West across the Altar, and cries:
Hail Ra, that goest in thy bark Into the caverns of the Dark!
He gives the sign of Silence, and takes the Bell, and Fire, in his hands.
East of the Altar see me stand With light and musick in my hand!
He strikes Eleven times upon the Bell 333 - 55555 - 333 and places the Fire in
the Thurible.
I strike the Bell: I light the Flame; I utter the mysterious Name.
ABRAHADABRA
He strikes eleven times upon the Bell.
Now I begin to pray: Thou Child, Holy Thy name and undefiled! Thy reign is
come; Thy will is done. Here is the Bread; here is the Blood. Bring me
through midnight to the Sun! Save me from Evil and from Good! That Thy
one crown of all the Ten Even now and here be mine. AMEN.
He puts the first Cake on the Fire of the Thurible.
I burn the Incense-cake, proclaim These adorations of Thy name.
He makes them as in Liber Legis, and strikes again Eleven times upon the
Bell. With the Burin he then makes upon his breast the proper sign.
Behold this bleeding breast of mine Gashed with the sacramental sign!
He puts the second Cake to the wound.
I stanch the Blood; the wafer soaks It up, and the high priest invokes!
He eats the second Cake.
This Bread I eat. This Oath I swear As I enflame myself with prayer: "There
is no grace: there is no guilt: This is the Law: DO WHAT THOU WILT!"
He strikes Eleven times upon the Bell, and cries
ABRAHADABRA. I entered in with woe; with mirth I now go forth, and
with thanksgiving, To do my pleasure on the earth Among the legions of the
living.
He goeth forth.

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 Commentary [to Liber 44]
This is the special number of Horus; it is the Hebrew blood, and the
multiplication of the 4 by the 11, the number of Magick, explains 4 in its
finest sense. But see in particular the accounts in Equinox I, vii of the
circumstances of the Equinox of the Gods.
The word "Phoenix" may be taken as including the idea of "Pelican", the
bird, which is fabled to feeds its young from the blood of its own breast. Yet
the two ideas, though cognate, are not identical, and "Phoenix" is the more
accurate symbol.
This chapter is explained in Chapter 62. It would be improper to comment
further upon a ritual which has been accepted as official by the A.'.A.'.

TWIG?
From The Book of Lies (Liber 333) chapter 62
The Phoenix hat a Bell for Sound; Fire for Sight; a Knife for Touch; two
cakes, one for taste, the other for smell.
He standeth before the Altar of the Universe at Sunset, when Earth-life fades.
He summons the Universe, and crowns it with MAGICK Light to replace the
sun of natural light.
He prays unto, and give homage to, Ro-Hoor-Khuit; to Him he then
sacrifices.
The first cake, burnt, illustrates the profit drawn from the scheme of
incarnation.
The second, mixt with his life's blood and eaten, illustrates the use of the
lower life to feed the higher life.
He then takes the Oath and becomes free-unconditioned-the Absolute.
Burning up i the Flame of his Prayer, and born again-the Phoenix!

COMMENTARY [to Ch. 62]

This chapter is itself a comment on Chapter 44.
Twig? = dost thou understand? Also the Phoenix takes twigs to kindle the fire
in which it burns itself.

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 Cakes of Light
A Commentary and Recipe from the Master of Pelican Camp on the production
of this special host as interpreted from from The Book of the Law:
For perfume mix meal & honey & thick leavings of red wine: then oil of Abramelin and
olive oil, and afterward soften & smooth down with rich fresh blood. The best blood is
of the moon, monthly: then the fresh blood of a child, or dropping from the host of
heaven: then of enemies; then of the priest or of the worshippers: last of some beast, no
matter what. This burn: of this make cakes & eat unto me.
These honey cakes are the standard for the Thelemic host. Meal is not flour, but I
prefer a finer grit (stone ground) and a mixture of wheat and spelt. Honey in abundance!
Get natural unfiltered and unboiled honey; there's a lot of bios that gets removed in
processing before it hits shelves, so find a beekeeper! Mix these two ingredients to
where the meal is just barely wholly saturated, a 1:1 ratio.
Crowley guessed “leavings” to be a crystalline residue of port called “bees-wing”
because of its appearance. I vary and say that “leavings” (a word peculiar to The Book
of the Law) =leaven+lees. Industrial wine seldom has lees, so make your own wine and
collect the yeast residue at the bottom of the jug and add this to your mixture. Industrial
“cream of tartar” is never made from red wine/grapes and is not an acceptable substitute.
For every cup of meal do one teaspoon of olive oil. Don't go “extra virgin”, get
murkier stuff. “Natural” isn't good in itself, it's good for trying to recreate an antique
morsel in a pre-industrial form. Then a half-teaspoon of Abramelin Oil (procured from a
trusted magician). Add blood, mix it in, take a clump of the dough and burn it up. An
electric stove works great for incinerating it without exposing it to gas or a coal. Grind
the burnt portion and return it to the dough. Now take this mixture and make quarter-
sized straw-thick cakes on a baking pan. Ten minutes at 400° should work.
If you're doing A Short Eucharist or Mass where you need a particula (the center
of the host) to affix to the lance tip then make thicker cakes and cook higher and shorter.
Then the center will be somewhat more doughy and easier to stick on the lance.
"Exceed by delicacy": this does not mean, by refraining from so-called animalism. One
should make every act a sacrament, full of divinest ecstasy and nourishment. There is no act
which true delicacy cannot consecrate. It is one thing to be like a sow, unconscious of the
mire, and unable to discriminate between sweet food and sour; another to take the filth
firmly and force oneself to discover the purity therein, initiating even the body to overcome
its natural repulsion and partake with the soul at this Eucharist. We 'believe in the Miracle of
the Mass' not only because meat and drink are actually "transmuted in us daily into Spiritual
Substance", but because we can make the "Body and Blood of God" from any materials
soever by Virtue of our royal and Pontifical Art of Magick.
-A.C. Commenting on The Book of the Law

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