What follows is exactly what would would happen if we allowed the womynpriests movement to have their way. Keleigh Friedrich of the Sacramento News and Review got an assignment and ended up a divinity. That job has good benefits, huh?. Well no. Actually, what Keleigh did is jeopardize her soul. Keleigh attended a “Gnostic Mass” [Read Satanic], and boy did she get into her assignment. Comments and emphases mine.

A long-haired Wiccan woman [here we go!] and various men still grapple esoteric mysteries when a robed man appears to ask me if I’d prefer wine or water for the Eucharist. I figure if I’m going to do this, I might as well do it right: wine. I follow 20 other attendees (including Robert’s 7-year-old son) [Jesus said “But if anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a large millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.”] into a backyard temple, where we sit in chairs lined against the north and south walls facing a candlelit room. [Where is a millstone when you need one?]

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.

The Priestess (played by a bewitching Thelemite named Anna) opens the tomb and reveals the Priest. She brings him to life, purifies him with a mixture of water and salt, and crowns him. [Sounds like a margarita] Kneeling, she begins the consecration of his lance. Very gently, very slowly, she runs her hands up and down the shaft, invoking the Lord. Up and down, up and down, 11 times. [Hey, Hey, Hey. I am not Eliot Spitzer. I’m not into that kind of thing!]

I’m transfixed. I’m a bit uncomfortable. I’m … turned on. [No wonder]

The Priest and Priestess then trade roles, with him leading her to a high altar in the east and raising her up, both literally and metaphorically. The ceremony concludes with the consummation of the sacrament. One by one each congregant, accompanied by a drum beat, approaches the altar, accepts a “Cake of Light,”[A what?!?] and drinks a goblet of wine or water. The drum stops, the individual turns to the audience, crosses arms over chest, and proclaims, “There is no part of me that is not of the gods.” [Clearly there is no mandatory drug test for attendees. Maybe only madatory drugs]

I am one of the last to go. I approach the altar with veiled self-consciousness and, placing a wafer on my tongue, face the Priestess. Her eyes glow in the candlelight. For a moment, I feel as though I am indeed gazing at a mystical embodiment of feminine power fit for adoration. Then the nervousness returns and, after downing the goblet of wine, I turn to the shadowed, candle-flickering room. The drum halts, and I declare my divinity [read stupidity].

As corny as it feels, I believe it.

I ask you, what gaineth a reporter to cover a story and lose her soul? Keleigh my dear, you are an idiot and you are jeopardizing your soul. I know it is corny, but I believe it.