The Gnosis of The

Eucharist
by Stephan A. Hoeller

he Mass, or, as it is sometimes called, the divine

liturgy or the Eucharist, is the most solemn of all the
Christian sacraments. Through it we are led step by
step to the purpose of our earthly lives -- union with the
divine -- for at its climax the faithful are made one with God
and each other by receiving the body and blood of Christ under the earthly forms
of bread and wine.
Although these mystical aspects of the Mass have been known and proclaimed by
all the branches of Christendom that have not abandoned the ancient sacramental
system (including the Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and, with some
ambiguities, the Anglican), the rationalistic tendencies that have arisen since the
Second Vatican Council in the Roman Catholic Church are robbing the Mass of
much of its numinosity and psychospiritual utility.
Similarly, many in the occult, metaphysical, and New Age movements have little
appreciation for the magic and mystery of the time-honored sacramental system
of Christianity and within it for the supreme sacrament of the Mass. The older of
these movements bear the imprint of nineteenth-century thinking, which was
hyperintellectual, moralistic, and at times materialistic. The groups that have
sprung up since the 1960's are a bit more favorably disposed toward ritual than
their predecessors, but their appreciation of the sacraments is still small. Much of
alternative spirituality is thus in danger of losing touch with one of the most
valuable aspects of the mystico-magical heritage of the West.
To be sure, there are valid objections to ritual. Its practice has often been
accompanied by blind superstition. Still, it must be remembered that a lack of
consciousness will regularly turn meaningful and transformative practices into
superstitious ones. The fault is not with the ritual, but with the practitioner. Ritual,
provided it uses authentic symbols, is no more or less than what H.P. Blavatsky
called "concretized truth." This may be covered up by superstition, but the hidden
truth is always discernable beneath the covering. Gnostic studies of the
sacraments are intended to free the kernel of truth from the accretions of
unconsciousness and misunderstanding that have been permitted to obscure it.
In the following we shall deal with several separate approaches to the greatest of
the Christian mysteries. Some of these may contradict each other, while others
tend to complement one another, and still others will restate truths present in
other approaches.

Dogmatic and Rationalistic Views

 The non-Gnostic church after the third and
fourth centuries A.D. regarded the Eucharist
as a commemoration of the meal Jesus is
said to have shared with his apostles, where
he is said to have blessed bread and wine,
admonishing those present to do the same in
remembrance of him. Christendom made it
into dogma that Jesus mystically changed
these substances into his body and blood
and gave authority to his apostles to perform
the same sacred miracle until the end of
time. The mystery of the Eucharist was thus
transferred to the mental realm of belief,
although mythic elements continued to
subsist under the façade of dogma.
Protestant Christendom gradually came to
deny this mystically inspired any mythically
reinforced dogma. The Eucharist became a
mere memorial meal, a sign rather than a
symbol.
Today, the Roman Catholic Church is
undergoing an internal reformation whose
effects on the Mass are not unlike those
produced by the revolt of Luther and Calvin.
Twenty-five years ago one could still observe
nuns herding their small charges to the communion rail while admonishing them,
"Don't chew the Baby Jesus," while today almost all awe and reverence for the
Mass and the consecrated elements seem to have evaporated. Kneeling for
communion, receiving the sacrament on the tongue, and other ancient rules
reflecting numinous dignity have gone by the wayside. A traditionalist-inspired
pun declares that the present Mass ought to be spelled "mess," and this writer
tends to agree.
The trivialization and desacralization of the Mass are but a natural outcome of the
intellectualization of this mystery, which in essence began at the time Constantine
established the church and the church established its dogmas, while casting out
the Gnosis. The mind is the slayer of the real; numinous myth and transcendental
mystery cannot survive rationalism, whether in the form of Aristotelian theology or
in the shape of the modernism of Hans Küng and his fellows. Dogma is the murder
of mystery, even if it takes centuries for the victim to die.

The Mass As Sacred Mystery Drama

The mysteries in the pre-Christian era were elaborately devised ritual dramas
contrived to intensify the spiritual transformation of the initiate. They were usually
patterned after the mythic life, death, and resurrection of a particular deity to
whom the mystery was dedicated. The candidate was usually made to
symbolically undergo certain events in the life story of the hero. This is still
evident in the initiation rituals of Freemasonry, particularly in the sublime degree
of Master Mason, where the candidate undergoes the death and rising again of the
Masonic hero Hiram Abiff.
It does not take much imagination to see in
the Christian Mass the elements of the same
ritual drama, wherein the life, death,
resurrection, and ascension of Jesus are
symbolically reenacted by the priests and
worshippers. The fact that the Eucharist is a
mythic dramatization of the career of Jesus
has been recognized by the church for a very
long time. As Pope Innocent III stated, "The
Mass is arranged upon a plan so well
conceived that everything done by Jesus
Christ or concerning Him, from His
Incarnation to His Ascension, is there largely
contained either in words or in actions,
wonderfully presented."
The Gnostic would contend that this is
undoubtedly true, but that the reenactment
of the drama does not concern the historical
Jesus alone, but involves the Divine Man
resident in each human being. Myth is truer
and more powerful than history, and the
events in the life of Jesus are elevated to
mythic significance by the symbolic relation
of his drama to the drama of the transforming human spirit. As Joseph Campbell
said, the Mass is "a metaphor open to transcendence," and as such it is capable of
miraculous effects in transforming not only bread and wine, but the human
personality as well. The great fault of non-Gnostic Christianity has always been to
reduce myth with a meaning to history with a moral, and this is what happened to
the Mass at the hands of the theologians.
The pagans of antiquity were convinced that humans could undergo apotheosis,
that they could become gods and goddesses. The Mass is closely connected with
this process, since in its mysteries earthly substances are transmuted into divine
ones, and, more important, humans may be similarly transformed in their
psychospiritual natures. The ancient Gnostics for the most part seem to have held
that Jesus was a human being who, very much like a hero in the pagan tradition,
became divine as a result of his spiritual virtue. Jesus the hero became Christ the
God. (This event is said to have been finalized, as it were, on the occasion of the
baptism of Jesus in the river Jordan, which was called the Epiphany, or the
manifestation of Christ to the world.)
The imitatio Christi, when understood as copying the moral qualities of the
Christed Jesus, borders on absurdity. How could a fallible mortal imitate the Divine
One descended to earth? On the other hand, the main body of the liturgical work
of the church is involved in an imitation of a different order. In the church calendar
the events of the life of Jesus are relived, from Christmas to Ascension and
beyond. The four-day cycle of Easter (Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Holy
Saturday, and Easter Sunday) is an intense reliving of the core drama of the
Passion and resurrection. And the celebration of the Eucharist is a daily
reenactment of this same drama, fortified by the mystical communion one may
partake of with the hero himself. The imitation of Christ is the deification, the
transformation, of the human being, and the Mass continues to be the most
efficacious means of that transformation, at least as far as the Christian tradition
is concerned. Only Gnosis, experienced within the Gnostic tradition, discloses this
fact to us in all its promise and wonder.

The Mass As Magic

Ritual that reenacts authentic mythic themes always possesses a magic of its
own. While magic may be anathema to the rationalist, it is an old friend to the
lover of myth and ritual. The magic of the Mass is the operational effect of the
lived myth upon the participants. People can have visions, experience expansions
of consciousness, undergo healing, and engage in effective prayer during the
Mass. Still, to overemphasize the magical element of this rite would be inaccurate,
and would put one in the same league as the person who defined the combustion
engine as "noise, speed, and stink." It is wise to have a balanced attitude toward
this issue and to refrain from any attempt either to rob the Mass of its magic or to
turn it into ceremonial magic pure and simple. (The much-publicized but rather
infrequent phenomenon of the Black Mass is an example of the latter.)
he magical aspects of the mystery are acknowledged in the very liturgy of
the Eucharist itself: Prayers are said for the living, for the dead, for
particular intentions. It has always been considered legitimate for persons
attending the Eucharist to pray for private concerns. On the other hand, one ought
to participate in the mystery of the Mass for its own sake, and not in order to "get
results" of any particular kind. If one comes only to obtain specific favors from the
deity, this would interfere with the nature and amount of grace received.
Eventually one would miss the true significance of the Mass entirely. A mystery of
such magnitude should never be allowed to degenerate into a forum for airing
petty concerns in the face of transcendence.
C.W. Leadbeater, the theosophist and Liberal Catholic bishop, in his work The
Science of the Sacraments, made some fascinating observations on the magic of
the Mass. With his paranormal faculties Leadbeater perceived certain recurring
patterns of forces not ordinarily visible that manifested at each celebration of the
Eucharist. The pattern seemed to organize itself into a form that described as a
sort of structure resembling a spire or cupola.
Personal experience of the writer may be of interest in this connection.
About 1948 or 1949, the writer acted as a part-time assistant to a Roman
Catholic prelate in Austria, Abbot Alois Wiesinger, O.Cist., who was writing a
book on occult phenomena. While perusing the abbot's files he discovered a
drawing prepared some years before by a rural seer, representing a form
clairvoyantly perceived by the seer every time the Mass was said in the village
church. Some six or seven years later the writer discovered a representation of
the "Eucharistic edifice" in Leadbeater's book. It matched the Austrian one in eerie
detail! Moreover, the chances of an illiterate Alpine peasant ever having
encountered Leadbeater's book are very small. That two persons of such different
characters should have perceived the same structure of magical forces in the
Eucharist is evidence that cannot be easily dismissed.
But this magical attitude toward the Mass must be kept in bounds also. People
may be tempted to participate in it in order to take a sort of "astral shower bath"
while neglecting the devotion that is required to receive sacramental grace.

C.G. Jung and the Mass

That great modern representative of the Gnosis, C.G. Jung, had a great interest in
the Christian sacraments, particularly in the Mass. He repeatedly stated that he
considered Catholicism a far more complete religion than its Protestant
counterparts. The mystery of the sacraments, said Jung, had great value, and
produced a degree of psychological health among Catholics that was not found
among Protestants and atheists. (One wonders whether he would have made the
same statement about the post-Vatican II church, with its folk Masses and burlap
vestments.)
Jung contended that the Eucharistic sacrifice contained a vital mystery that was
not entirely negated by the dogmatic structure in which it was veiled:

The ritual act [of the Mass] consecrates both the gift and the givers. It
commemorates and represents the Last Supper which our Lord took with His
disciples, the whole Incarnation, Passion, Death and Resurrection of Christ. But
from the point of view of the divine, this anthropomorphic action is only the outer
shell of husk in which what is really happening is not a human action at all but a
divine event. 1

Jung emphasizes that those involved in the celebration of the Mass are ministering
causes of the divine event. The priest does not cause the mystery; he is merely a
minister of grace and power. The same is true of the congregation and of the
seemingly inert substances of bread and wine. The Mass is not an action executed
by humans, but by divinity.
To revert to magical terminology once again, there are two main categories of
magic. Low magic is personalistic and egotistical: It envisions its operators as the
causes of magical acts. But when humans become the ministering agents of
divinity, having mystically sensed that divinity wants to manifest itself through
humanity, then we are dealing with high magic.
According to Jung, the Mass, when properly understood, is best treated as an act
of high magic. In this regard he wrote:

Wherever the [low] magical aspect of a rite tends to prevail, it brings the rite
nearer to satisfying the individual ego's blind greed for power, and thus breaks up
the mystical body of the Church into separate units. Where on the other hand, the
rite is conceived as the action of God himself, the human participants have only
an incidental or "ministering" significance.2
Jung does go on to state that the lesser, human consciousness, symbolized by the
priest and the congregation, is confronted with a situation that is independent of
human action. Divinity and its sacrificial mystery exist on a plane that is timeless
and transcends consciousness as humans know it. It impels the human being to
act as a minister of grace by making him an exponent, in time and among
humanity, of an event that is timeless and divine.
Jung's attitude differs, commendably, I believe, from the prosaic, humdrum
interpretation offered by rationalizing theologians, who reduce this sublime
mystery to the trivial proportions of their own thinking. It also differs from the
arrogance of some New Age teachers, who insist upon humans "creating their own
reality."
Humility in the face of transcendence; this is Jung's great characteristic as a man,
and it is also his advice to us. "The hammer cannot discover within itself the
power which makes it strike," as he remarked in the essay quoted above. What
seizes the human being in the mystery of the Mass or in any other mystery is
something outside humanity: a sovereign power, as free from limitation as light is
from darkness. Ordinary human consciousness cannot find anything within itself
that would cause humans to perform a mystery. It can only do so when it is seized
by the mystery.
The human soul is at once near and far from the divine. On the one hand we are
all suffering from the great alienation, the great estrangement; yet there also
dwells within is a portion of the free and eternal one who is forever united with all
that is holy, great, and good throughout the aeons of aeons. The dazzling spark of
the divine lives in the outermost darkness. When viewed from without, it appears
clothed in darkness, having assumed some of the likeness of this darkness. The
Gnostic myth declares that the sparks of our indwelling divinity have come forth
from a central flame, and that they partake of two aspects: They have the quality
of "sparks" (separateness) and of "flames" (union) at the same time. (This
recognition is in fact the central idea behind the much-discussed Gnostic
"dualism.")
In addition to the views of the mass discussed above, there is also the notion that
this mystery is of the nature of a sacrifice. The sacrifice, in its Gnostic sense,
involves the return of the alienated spark to its original flame. Neither philosophy,
metaphysics, nor dogma can accomplish this longed-for union, for it is not a
matter of concept but of experience. If we wish to join our shining twin in heaven
by removing the dichotomy, we must do a work, an opus, as the alchemists of old
would have called it. We must offer the bread and wine of our lesser nature to a
power from above, so that this human self may be transformed into the likeness
and indeed the substance of the wholly other, the alien God, the One beyond and
above all the aeons, who in some utterly mysterious way is still our own, true,
inmost Self. God in man returns to himself in the sacrificial mystery. As Jung
expressed it:

The dichotomy of God into divinity and humanity and his return to himself in the
sacrificial act hold out the comforting doctrine that in man's own darkness there is
hidden a light that shall once again return to its source, and that this light actually
wanted to descend into the darkness in order to deliver the Enchained One who
languishes there, and lead him to light everlasting.3
This return is not an act that can ever be performed by the lesser human
consciousness. This lesser self can only offer itself as an instrument, an offering on
the eucharistic altar of Gnosis. Words cannot describe, thoughts cannot penetrate,
senses cannot perceive the true character of the mysterium tremendum et
fascinans (awesome and bewitching mystery) enacted on the altar. Only the still
mind, the reverent emotion, and the pure will directed toward the goal of divine
union can bring us closer to the secret that blazes forth at the center of the
mystery. Myths may bring us nearer, magic may illuminate, philosophy may
elucidate, but the mystery remains, as it must, for it is in us and we are in it.

The Cruets (below) contain the sacramental

wine and water. The Ciborium (right) is a
covered chalice which holds the hosts
(sacramental bread) that are distributed to
the congregation. The Chalice (left) is the cup
in which the priest consecrates the wine
during the Mass.

This article originally appeared in Gnosis: A Journal of Western Inner Traditions, (Vol.
11, Spring 1989), and is reproduced here by permission of the author.

Notes
1. C.G. Jung, "Transformation Symbolism in the Mass," in Eranos Yearbooks, Vol. 2: The
Mysteries (New York: Pantheon Books, 1955), p. 314.
2. Ibid., p. 314.
3. Ibid., p. 317.