The Gnostic Saints

From Thelemapedia
Categories: The Gnostic Saints | Thelema
Part of the Thelema & Religion series
The Gnostic Saints are listed in Liber XV, also known as the Gnostic Mass, which is the central
rite of Ordo Templi Orientis and its ecclesiastical arm, Ecclessia Gnostica Catholica. They are
found in the fifth Collect of Liber XV, titled "The Saints."
In the Catholic and Orthodox churches, a saint is a person who has been canonized (officially
recognized) after his or her death. However, in the EGC, death is not necessarily a prerequisite
for sainthood, since Aleister Crowley was certainly alive when he wrote Liber XV (he included
himself twice, in fact). The Gnostic Saints are generally considered to those who have embodied
the essential principles of Thelema and formed a line of adepts through the ages.
The only Gnostic Saint to have been officially added to the original list is William Blake, based
on a discovered writing by Aleister Crowley who described him as such. It is also considered
appropriate to include the name of deceased Grand Masters of O.T.O., such as Hymenaeus
Alpha.
From Liber XV, the entire Collect is written below. Those names in italics are commemorated in
ordinary masses, whereas the entire list is intoned for a "celebratory mass," such as when it is
performed in conjunction with a Wedding.
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Collect V: The Saints
"LORD of Life and Joy, that art the might of man, that art the essence of every true god that is
upon the surface of the Earth, continuing knowledge from generation unto generation, thou
adored of us upon heaths and in woods, on mountains and in caves, openly in the marketplaces
and secretly in the chambers of our houses, in temples of gold and ivory and marble as in these
other temples of our bodies, we worthily commemorate them worthy that did of old adore thee
and manifest thy glory unto men,
Lao-tzu, Siddhartha, Krishna, Tahuti, Mosheh, Dionysus, Mohammed, To Mega Therion,
Hermes, Pan, Priapus, Osiris, Melchizedek, Khem, Amoun, Mentu, Heracles, Orpheus,
Odysseus, Vergilius, Catullus, Martialis, Rabelais, Swinburne, Apollonius Tyanus, Simon
Magus, Manes, Pythagoras, Basilides, Valentinus, Bardesanes, Hippolytus, Merlin, Arthur,
Kamuret, Parzival, Carolus Magnus, William of Schyren, Frederick of Hohenstaufen, Roger
Bacon, Jacobus Burgundus Molensis the Martyr, Christian Rosencreutz, Ulrich von Hutten,
Paracelsus, Michael Maier, Roderic Borgia Pope Alexander the Sixth, Jacob Boehme, Francis
Bacon Lord Verulam, Andrea, Robertus de Fluctibus, Johannes Dee, Sir Edward Kelly, Thomas
Vaughan, Elias Ashmole, Molinos, Adam Weishaupt, Wolfgang von Goethe, William Blake,
Ludovicus Rex Bavariae, Richard Wagner, Alphonse Louis Constant, Friedrich Nietzsche,
Hargrave Jennings, Carl Kellner, Forlong dux, Sir Richard Payne Knight, Paul Gaugin, Sir
Richard Francis Burton, Doctor Gerard Encausse, Doctor Theodor Reuss, Sir Aleister Crowley
Oh Sons of the Lion and the Snake! With all thy saints we worthily commemorate them
worthy that were and are and are to come.
May their essence be here present, potent, puissant and paternal to perfect
this feast!"