Greater feast

From Free Encyclopedia of Thelema

A Greater Feast is the Thelemic celebration of the death of an individual or individuals. Its designation as greater is derived from the understanding that Death is the crowning achivement of a life and reunites the Had of the Thelemite with the body of the goddess, Nuit.

It is listed as one of the "feasts of the times" mentioned in the calendar verse of Chapter II of the Book of the Law.

Methods of celebration

The methods of celebrating a Greater Feast are as numerous as the souls who inavariably will have one. Crowley mentions in The Law is for All that the Feast should be "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." He also composed Liber CVI(106): Concerning Death to be read to the dying or the recently dead much in the same way as the Tibetan Book of the Dead is used by practitioners of Tibetan-style Mahayana Buddhism.

Greater feasts of the Saints

In addition to celebrations of Greater Feasts that occur to individual members of the Thelemic community, a Thelemite may also celebrate the anniversaries of Greater Feasts for notable historical figures who have made significant contributions to Thelema.

Such figures may include, but are not especially limited to:

• The Gnostic Saints
• Past Outer Heads of the OTO
• Members of the Order of the Lion and the Eagle.

Calendar of Greater Feast Anniversary Dates

Below is a calendar of dates which mark the anniversaries of the Greater Feasts for many individuals who meet the above criteria.

• March 22 – The Greater Feast of Saint Wolfgang von Goethe
• April 9 – The Greater Feasts of Saints Rabelais and Francis Bacon Lord Verulam
• April 10 - The Greater Feast of Saint Swinburne
• April 23 – The Greater Feast of Saint Richard Payne Knight
• May 8 - The Greater Feast of Dame Helena Petrovna Blavatsky
• May 9 – The Greater Feast of Saint Paul Gaugin
• May 18 - The Greater Feast of Saint Elias Ashmole
• May 31 – The Greater Feast of Saint Alphonse Louis Constant
• June 7 - The Greater Feast of Co-Founder of OTO, Saint Carl Kellner
• June 8 – The Greater Feast of Prophet and Saint Mohammed
• June 13 - The Greater Feast of Saint Ludovicus Rex Bavariae
• June 27 - The Greater Feast of Saint Andrea
• July 12 – The Greater Feast of Frater Superior and Saint Grady McMurtry
• July 29 - The Greater Feast of Sir Paschal Beverly Randolph
• August 12 – The Greater Feast of Saint William Blake
• August 18 – The Greater Feast of Saint Roderic Borgia Pope Alexander the Sixth
• August 25 - The Greater Feast of Saint Friedrich Nietzsche
• August 29 – The Greater Feast of Saint Ulrich von Hutten
• September 8 – The Greater Feast of Saint Robertus de Fluctibus
• September 24 – The Greater Feast of Saint Paracelsus
• October 2 - The Greater Feast of Dame Emma Hardinge Britten
• October 16 - The Greater Feast of Dame Ida Craddock
• October 19 - The Greater Feast of Saint Sir Richard Francis Burton
• October 25 - The Greater Feasts of Saint Gerard Encausse and Frater Superior Saint Karl Germer
• October 28 – The Greater Feast of Co-Founder of the OTO Saint Theodor Reuss
• November 17 - The Greater Feast of Saint Jacob Boehme
• November 18 – The Greater Feast of Saint Adam Weishaupt
• December 2 – The Greater Feast of the Prophet, Saint and Frater Superior, To Mega Therion, Sir Aleister Crowley
• December 13 - The Greater Feast of Saint Frederick of Hohenstaufen
• December 28 – The Greater Feast of Saint Molinos
• January 28 - The Greater Feast of Saint Carolus Magnus
• February 13 – The Greater Feast of Saint Richard Wagner
• March 4 (varies)– The Greater Feast of the Prophet and Saint Siddhartha (Parinirvana Day – The second full moon day of the Lunar Calendar)
• March 18 – The Greater Feast of Saint Jacobus Burgundus Molensis the Martyr

References

• Crowley, Aleister (1996). The Law is for All. Thelema Media
• Crowley, Aleister (1990). The Equinox: The Review of Scientific Illuminism: The Official Organ of the O.T.O. Number 10. Weiser Books