Greater Feast
A Greater Feast is mentioned in the Book of the Law, Chapter II, 41 as one of the “feasts of the times”1).
“A feast for fire and a feast for water; a feast for life and a greater feast for death!”—Liber AL vel Legis, Book of the Law, Chapter II, 41
“The feast for life is at a birth; and the feast for death at a death. It is of the utmost importance to make funerals merry, so as to train people to take the proper view of death. The fear of death is one of the great weapons of tyrants, as well as their scourge; and it distorts our whole outlook upon the Universe.”—New Comment on II.41
“With abrupt vigour the subject swings over to the triumph of the Masters. Aiwass bids us rise up and awake. He prescribes ways of worship. We are to invoke with joy and beauty. He begins by making a list of rituals and feasts; and in the course of this he works himself up into a state of rapture so that these rites at first clearly defined in order, gather force, wave upon wave, quicker and quicker, until at last he proclaims all times and places as proper for feasts. At the end he exclaims once more that all such pleasures are free from any taint of hidden poison. We are to make the present perfect, without the least fear that we are making trouble for ourselves in the future. True, our bodies are dissolved; but this brings us into full timeless rapture. We enjoy all that may be, as we could not even at the best while forced to measure our Magick in terms of the body and mind. It may be that events cease to occur, that they become one single event, a constant state of joy.”—Djeridensis Comment on II.34–44
In Liber XV Eccliesiæ Gnosticæ Catholicæ Canon Missæ, the Gnostic Mass of Ecclesia Gnostica Catholica, Greater Feast is mentioned in IV Of the Ceremony of the Opening of the Veil as the Deacon recites the list of feasts from the Book of the Law. The final two Collects recited by the Deacon in V Of the Office Of the Collects Which Are Eleven in Number are labelled Death and The End.
“Death
The DEACON: Term of all that liveth, whose name is inscrutable, be favourable unto us in thine hour.
The PEOPLE: So mote it be.
The End
The DEACON: Unto them from whose eyes the veil of life hath fallen may there be granted the accomplishment of their true Wills; whether they will absorption in the Infinite, or to be united with their chosen and preferred, or to be in contemplation, or to be at peace, or to achieve the labour and heroism of incarnation on this planet or another, or in any Star, or aught else, unto them may there be granted the accomplishment of their wills; yea, the accomplishment of their wills. ΑΥΜΓΝ, ΑΥΜΓΝ, ΑΥΜΓΝ.
The PEOPLE: So mote it be.”—Liber XV, Eccliesiæ Gnosticæ Catholicæ Canon Missæ
“Here is the Calendar of our Church […] 'a feast for life and a greater feast for death!' […] It all depends on your own acceptance of this new law, and you are not asked to believe anything, to accept a string of foolish fables beneath the intellectual level of a Bushman and the moral level of a drug-fiend. All you have to do is to be yourself, to do your will, and to rejoice.—Liber DCCCXXXVII, The Law of Liberty
“Let it be thy will and the will of all them that tend upon the sick, to comfort and to fortify them with these words following. […] Again She saith: I give unimaginable joys upon earth, certainty, not faith, while in life, upon death. This thou hast known. Time that eateth his children hath not power on them that would not be children of Time. To them that think themselves immortal, that dwell alway in eternity, conscious of Nuit, throned upon the chariot of the sun, there is no death that men call death. […] Is not Hadit the flame that burns in every heart of man, and in the core of every star? Is not He Life, and the giver of Life? And is not therefore the knowledge of Him the knowledge of Death? For it hath been shown unto thee in many other places how Death and Love be twins. Now art thou the hunter, and Death rideth beside thee with his horse and spear as thou chasest thy Will through the forests of Eternity, whose trees are the hair of Nuit thy mistress! Thrill with the joy of life and death! Know, hunter mighty and swift, the quarry turns to bay! Thou hast but to make one sharp thrust, and thou hast won. The Virgin of Eternity lies supine at thy mercy, and thou art Pan! Thy death shall be the seal of the promise of our agelong love. Hast thou not striven to the inmost in thee? Death is the crown of all. Harden! Hold up thyself! Lift thine head! breathe not so deep—die!”—Liber CVI Concerning Death
“Cardinal sacraments are those by which the Church distinguishes its members from the profane, and distinguishes among its members. There are only five of these: Baptism, Confirmation, Ordination, Last Rites, and the Eucharist of the Gnostic Mass. They correspond to water, fire, air, earth and spirit, respectively. Cardinal sacraments are also the ones that might be viewed by the Church as requiring episcopal and/or sacerdotal participation to be valid. This stipulation makes obvious sense in the cases of both the Eucharist of the Gnostic Mass, and the sacraments that affect affiliation and status in the Church. Last Rites is a trickier instance. Since we don’t hold any doctrine that penalizes those who die without Last Rites, the responsibility and concern for their cardinality lies not with the adherent, but with the Church. While non-clergy might effectively administer to the spiritual needs of the dying, they could not absolve the Church of the responsibility for action from its clergy, if needed or desired by a dying member.”—T Polyphilus on Cardinal Sacraments
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