Baptism in the Thelemic Tradition

Rodney Orpheus & Cathryn Orchard

Water is one of the basic elements of life, and consequently also one of the most basic and widely-used elements in religious rites. Within the Thelemic tradition, Ecclesia Gnostica Catholica (the Gnostic Catholic Church) incorporates the element of water as a fundamental part of its ritual workings. A font of water is placed within the temple of the Gnostic Mass, the central rite of E.G.C., and the rite of baptism with water is celebrated. Most people in the Western world are familiar with baptism in the context of Christianity, but the practice is a great deal older.

In Egypt, in ancient Heliopolis (the “City of the Sun”) the Pharaoh, who was the living manifestation of god on earth, would enter one of his private temples ‘the House of the Morning’ at sunrise each day to be sprinkled with water. This act was a symbolic unification with the sun-god Ra, who was believed to be reborn at dawn via the waters after his journey through the night; just as human beings were reborn via the waters of the amniotic fluid. In a depiction at the temple complex in Karnak, the Pharaoh Rameses II is shown having water poured over him by the gods Thoth and Horus. As Professor Richard Gabriel notes in Gods of our Fathers: the memory of Egypt in Judaism & Christianity (2001):

…the water is depicted not with the hieroglyph for water, but with the ankh, the hieroglyph that is the symbol for life.

Illustration: The baptism of Rameses II by Thoth and Horus

thus affirming that the essential notion is not simply of purification but also of rebirth. Gabriel further explains that:

Egyptian baptism was meant to prepare the recipient to enter into the presence of the god or …to prepare the recipient to receive the god within him. Thus it was that through baptism one was “reborn” or made god-like or made worthy of union with the god.

Most Christians generally believe that baptism is necessary in order to purify the recipient from sin, but Jesus, who himself was supposedly without sin, insisted on visiting John the Baptist before he could begin his ministry. The Gospel of Matthew 3:16 relates:

And Jesus, when he was baptised, went up straightway out of the water: and, lo, the heavens were opened unto him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and lighting upon him.

So again we see that baptism is used to prepare the candidate for the reception of divinity, and this story of Matthew is quite possibly a reference to earlier Egyptian rites in order to show his contemporaries that Jesus was truly a manifestation of god, as were the Pharaohs.

The early Christian writer Cyril of Jerusalem makes this concept of rebirth into godhood plain in his Catechetical Lecture 20 (On the Mysteries Of Baptism):

4. After these things, you were led to the holy pool of Divine Baptism, as Christ was carried from the Cross to the Sepulchre which is before our eyes. …And at the self-same moment you were both dying and being born; and that Water of salvation was at once your grave and your mother.

…

6. Let no one then suppose that Baptism is merely the grace of remission of sins …we know full well, that as it purges our sins, and ministers to us the gift of the Holy Ghost, so also it is the counterpart of the sufferings of Christ.

In other words, baptism in the Christian tradition is both a purification and a symbolic re-enactment of the mysteries of death & rebirth to allow the divine to enter into the candidate, just as it was to the Egyptians.

This rite of baptism was so important that early Christians would baptise new members in local springs and streams, frequently those which may have been previously considered sacred springs by pagan worshippers; but as churches became larger and more stable this custom was replaced by the construction of baptismal fonts – from the Latin word fons (fontis) meaning a fountain. It should thus be remembered that a font is symbolically a spring or fountain within the church, i.e. living flowing water, not static water – hence why is it normally a fixed pedestal, whence the sacred spring flows forth.

However tempting as it may be to see baptism as an original Egyptian rite transmitted to us via Christianity, it’s important to note that baptism rituals were also practised by cultures with no discernible relationship to Egyptian or Judeo-Christian religious systems. Prescott (1843) describes a pre-Christian Mexican baptismal ritual that astounded the conquistadors with its similarity to those they knew; and 12th century Norse chronicler Snorri Sturlason describes baptism among pagan Scandinavians in his histories. So we can see the near-universal importance of baptism with water across all of humanity.

When Aleister Crowley was writing the Gnostic Mass circa 1913 (later used by Gerald Gardner as a foundation for his early witchcraft rituals in the 1950s) he included a font within the temple furnishings, acknowledging the importance of having the waters of a sacred spring within the rite. He also noted towards the end of the ritual:

The PEOPLE communicate as did the PRIEST, uttering the same words in an attitude of Resurrection : “There is no part of me that is not of the Gods.” The exceptions to this part of the ceremony are when it is of the nature of a celebration, in which case none but the PRIEST communicate; or …part of the ceremony of baptism, when only the child baptised partakes…

thus clearly indicating that he felt that the newly-founded Gnostic Catholic Church should contain a ceremony of baptism, and that this ceremony should include the Gnostic Mass as a subsection.

Some years later, in 1921, Crowley made some diary notes toward how this baptism ritual should work:

Ideas about our baptismal ceremony

  1. All born free — quote Law.
  2. [illegible]
  3. CCXX about children.
  4. Object of rite.
  5. Address to mother, who abandons the Child & goes out.
  6. Address to Godfathers and Godmothers, who swear to defend child’s freedom and initiate it.
  7. They swear this.
  8. The Creed.
  9. “I will” to this.
  10. I will do my own will, etc.
  11. Grant, etc.
  12. Consecrates Water and wine.
  13. Name child.
  14. Baptize with Water.
  15. Baptize with wine.
  16. Reception
  17. Pater Noster. / exhortation and applause.

We can see the conception of rebirth here once more, in that the Mother leaves the Child to the spiritual care of the Godparents, the Child is then named, baptised with water (and with wine, which is somewhat of an innovation) and received as a new member of the Church.

“CCXX about children” is a reference to verses spoken by the goddess Nuit in Crowley’s Book of the Law:

I 5. Help me, o warrior lord of Thebes, in my unveiling before the Children of men!

I 12. Come forth, o children, under the stars, & take your fill of love!

I 15. Now ye shall know that the chosen priest & apostle of infinite space is the prince-priest the Beast; and in his woman called the Scarlet Woman is all power given. They shall gather my children into their fold: they shall bring the glory of the stars into the hearts of men.

The word “Children” is here used in a very broad sense: Nuit refers to “my children”, and we are all Children of the goddess – regardless of our physical age in this body.

Crowley commented on verse 12 that it was:

The Key of the worship of Nu. The uniting of consciousness with infinite space by the exercise of love, pastoral or pagan love.

Just as the Pharaoh became divine by being united with our local star, the sun; and Jesus united with the Holy Spirit descending in the form of a dove; so does Thelemic baptism unite all of us Children of the New Aeon with the divine starry essence of the goddess of infinite space.

Bishops of E.G.C. Tau Helena & Tau Apiryon (2004) wrote:

Thelema rejects the idea of original sin. So, for us, baptism represents a symbolic birth into the Thelemic community. The child heeds the call of Nuit, who declares, “Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.” The child enters the portals of Her Church, where he or she is welcomed into the community of worshippers, leaving the profane world and its materialistic obsessions behind.

For Thelemites, baptism into E.G.C. is thus a rebirth into the Gnostic church, and, as as Gabriel described in the Egyptian mysteries, a preparation to enter into the presence of the gods – in this case the godhood invoked within the Gnostic Mass.

References:

  • Baring-Gould, S. The Origin and Development of Religious Belief. London: Rivingtons, 1869.
  • Crowley, Aleister. “The Old and New Commentaries to Liber AL.” http://www.hermetic.com/220/crowley-comments.html.
  • Gabriel, Richard A. Gods of Our Fathers: The Memory of Egypt in Judaism and Christianity. Greenwood Press, 2001.
  • Helena and Tau Apiryon. “The Invisible Basilica: Liber XV: The Gnostic Mass: Annotations and Commentary,” July 10, 2004. http://www.hermetic.com/sabazius/gmnotes.htm#children.
  • Lewis, Abram. Paganism Surviving in Christianity. New York: G. P. Putnam’s sons, 1892.
  • Peterson, John B. “Baptismal Font – Original Catholic Encyclopedia.” http://oce.catholic.com/index.php?title=Baptismal_Font.
  • Prescott, William. History of the conquest of Mexico, with a preliminary view of the ancient Mexican civilization, and the life of the conqueror, Hernando Cortés. New York: Harper, 1843.
  • Schaff, Philip, and Henry Wace, eds. Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers. Vol. 7. 2. Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1894. http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/310120.htm.
  • White, Jon Ewbank Manchip. Everyday Life in Ancient Egypt. Courier Dover Publications, 2002.