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.
March 14, 2008 at 1:55 pm
It is ever the Devil’s way to imitate the true and good. And he always seems to interject sexual perversion into his works.
A simple question for Keleigh would be “Did this anti-liturgy increase your faith, hope, or love?” If not, what did it increase in you?–erotic desire, female empowerment? These are not gifts of the Holy Spirit.
What a sad, sad group of people. Jesus says, “Better a millstone…” He’s saying there is something worse than the millstone for these people.
March 14, 2008 at 8:24 pm
What’s that sacrament they are trying to ‘consummate’? Thank heaven for the presence of Mother Church. All those great Fathers who battled this devilry in the early years.
March 14, 2008 at 10:30 pm
Wow! You folks must be no fun whatsoever at orgies.
Well, you’ve definitely got a mean evangelization machine. But who doesn’t? Not so much lean, though.
Anyhoo, I think I’ll fend off the womynpriests movement without your help, but thanks for the offer.
March 15, 2008 at 9:15 pm
It seems the most effective means of drawing people away are the ones that look and feel close to the real deal.
March 16, 2008 at 1:05 am
this sort of thing was happening in the culture at the time of the early Church… read the Book of Revelation to see that one of the letters was to the city where this exact type of ritual was happening. There really is nothing new under the sun.
March 16, 2008 at 5:56 pm
Yep, you’ve hit on the crux in the differences between the EGC and RCC.
Here’s the other thing: the Gnostic Mass isn’t intended to celebrate the same rite as the RCC mass, or any of the Orthodox masses. The EGC is celebrating a particular rite of resurrection, where the RCC mass celebrates a particular sacrifice. That’s why they’re, you know, different and stuff.
March 16, 2008 at 5:59 pm
“I declare my divinity [read stupidity].”
Does that mean you consider Jesus stupid for declaring his divinity?
March 16, 2008 at 9:37 pm
Yea yea, choice is evil; the original misnomer eve got blasphemed by. I suppose you would all crusade your children back off to be slaughtered if “mother church” (Abaddon?) deemed it necessary. As times change awareness is supposed to grow. If you follow technology, we are no longer using the abbacus as a primary calculating tool, but if it was written in the bible, or if mother church officially interpreted it as such, you would probably cling to that outdated ideal too…
Look folks, nature is right in front of you, but for some strange reason you buy into the belief that obeying the urge will ultimately lead to the damnation of your immortal soul…. If you TRULY believe that this is true, then life is noting but a sick joke, devoid of any real experiental value, and you are ALWAYS one short step away from falling into darkness…
You have the choice to believe in your innate wisdom over what the others want you to believe.
Caveat Emptor!
March 16, 2008 at 11:13 pm
Where to begin? You begin with Keleigh attended a “Gnostic Mass” [Read Satanic] As an ordained Priest in the EGC I can assure you at no point does the mass worship Satan.
First off, the RCC Mass and Gnostic Mass are two different rituals. As maxomai pointed out in his/her comment.
Next I laugh at the comparing a seven year old at a Gnostic Mass as “causing a little one to sin.” I believe the Roman Catholic Church has lost a few million dollars due to pedephiles clergy.
Next, the mixture of water and salt is representative of the ocean where life sprang from and the womb, not a margarita (which I do enjoy).
I don’t get the connection between consuming a cake of light (our communion element representing the body of the divine), drinking a goblet of wine (representing the blood of the divine) then proclaiming our divinity with drugs? Communion with bread and wine predates Christianity.
Your line and I declare my divinity [read stupidity] only shows your ignorance. Didn’t Jesus say, “The kingdom of Heaven is within you”? Or is he stupid too?
In your final sentence you say, Keleigh my dear, you are an idiot and you are jeopardizing your soul. One has more of a chance of “jeopardizing your soul” submitting to an organization that tells you what God want’s then one that proclaims, DO WHAT THOU WILT SHALL BE THE WHOLE OF THE LAW!
March 16, 2008 at 11:37 pm
“As an ordained Priest in the EGC I can assure you at no point does the mass worship Satan.”
“I am no Nazi, I was only Wehrmacht”
Stupid is as stupid does.
March 17, 2008 at 1:20 am
“When a thief meets a saint, all he sees are pockets.”
March 17, 2008 at 10:34 pm
Satan is not even mentioned in the Gnostic Mass. The “[Read Satanic]” is an especially stupid comment here because there are plenty of ways to criticize Gnosticism from the perspective of Roman Catholic theology besides cheap name-calling. The church fathers did so for centuries and I would venture to say that Gnosticism is one of the most thoroughly attacked heresies in Roman Catholic history. But of course, bringing up any of those arguments might require you to do a little actual research. It’s so much easier to just resort to “nyah nyah.”
Stupid is as stupid does, indeed.
I realize that there are plenty of Christians who think “Satanic” is a perfectly reasonable description of any non-Christian faith and Thelema certainly fits the bill there. The thing is, it strikes me as awfully silly to refer to the majority of people in the world as “Satanists” when most don’t even believe that Satan exists.
March 20, 2008 at 10:26 pm
Quite an interesting crowd CMR is drawing in its comment section these days. I thought Halloween was in October?
Loved the post.
March 24, 2008 at 7:13 am
Is that the best you can come up with Rob?