Eating the Sun: A Tale of Gnosticism and Frankincense
After I graduated from college, I had more free time to go out into the world and seek out information about my interests. In college, I was very tempted to minor in religious studies, but it was taking long enough for me to get through, and I didn’t see much opportunity pursuing that line of study. As a hobby, I became a devourer of books dealing with a wide variety of spiritual paths. When I heard of Ecclessia Gnostica Catholica, which was in Glendale at the time, my curiosity was piqued. I thought the Gnostics had all died, so hearing that not only were there living Gnostics but Catholic ones at that was enough for me to hop in my car and check it out.
At the time, I knew very little about Gnosticism and didn’t know what to expect. I attended a Sunday mass, which reminded me of the Episcopalian church I attended when I was young with its golden crosses and shining candle sticks. The presiding bishop of Ecclessia Gnostica was, and still is, Dr. Stephan Hoeller, who, as legend has it, was part of the Hungarian nobility when the Communists took power and began slaying aristocrats. After tragically losing his parents, even though he was still a child, he was able to flee by joining the Catholic priesthood. Later, he was ordained a Gnostic priest by Richard Duc De Palantine, founder of the British Gnostic church. The intensity of Hoeller’s story generated an aura of mystery about him, so I decided to attend mass there for a few months. I found the Gnostics in general to be welcoming but never pushy with their beliefs. Hoeller wore brocade vestments and swung the censor, filling the air with thick frankincense and myrrh incense. The only difference, which is actually a significant difference, were the liturgy and song. Like a regular church, their communion consisted of red wine and communion wafer. Their ways were familiar even if, at the time, their beliefs were not. They were used to the curious passing through and politely greeted visitors before their Sunday services offering flyers for future events. The bishop himself was fascinating, so I began attending his lectures on Gnostic, alchemical, and theosophical topics as well as Carl Jung. I was so excited because I wanted to find the real practitioners of magic, to find a living tradition. There were so many things I could have asked the bishop about, but of all things, once I realized he had known Aleister Crowley, I decided to ask him were I could find the Ordo Templi Orientis (O.T.O.), not really knowing that much about it. He chuckled when I asked him and said, “All they care about is sex. Why of all things does everyone want to know where they are? There are other groups that might offer more fulfilling spiritual growth.” I was young. I just wanted to find them because I found Crowley’s correspondence tables, magical writings, and poetry interesting. Hoeller told me the name of a local branch, and I sought them out on the Interweb.
A society can’t be that secret if you can Google them; on the other hand, a simple website doesn’t reveal much. I found the local chapter of the O.T.O. and found that they had a public Gnostic mass. “Wonderful,” I thought to myself, “The Gnostic mass I’ve been going to seems nice. I’ll go to the O.T.O’s Gnostic mass.” I was extremely surprised to find it was quite different. The temple wasn’t like a church with wooden pews and prayer bars. Instead, chairs were placed to form a circle, and the congregants were mainly people you would run into at the goth club. The floor was covered in extremely shiny black and white tile. Unlike the altar at Ecclessia Gnostica, the altar was cubic and draped with a cloth embroidered with fleur-du-lys, like something out of The Book of Abramelin the Mage. The entire ceremony was conducted by a priest, and in this particular branch, a bare-chested priestess, following vastly different lines and ritual movements than the Gnostic church I had grown accustomed to. Finally, it was time for communion, and the sacrament was described with a reverence I have seldom observed elsewhere. The communion bread was the sun, the sacred sun condensed and contained in a disk, the cake of light, that we were to eat. At the time, I didn’t have any problem with the ritual itself, but I remember not really wanting to try the bread because quite frankly, I didn’t really understand what we were eating. Would it taste bad? At the time, I was vegetarian, so I contemplated if it had animal products. How did they get the sun in a cake? When it was my turn to take the communion bread, I discovered it was like a small, dense, moist cake that tasted how frankincense smelled.
To some people, eating something that tastes like frankincense might sound like consuming solidified perfume, but in all actuality, it tasted beautiful. There was no bitterness to it. Somehow it tasted exactly what I would imagine sunshine to taste like. I went to another O.T.O. event or two, but it wasn’t my cup of tea. My curiosity was sated. However, I still think sometimes longingly of the little frankincense cake. I sometimes wonder why we don’t eat frankincense flavored things more often. Sure, frankincense is a rare resin imported from faraway lands, but that hardly seems prohibitive to most people these days where even the (seemingly) poorest hippies will open a pantry filled with super foods, like goji berries and ashgawandha. In ancient times, frankincense was used when embalming the dead, fending off corruption. Why isn’t it more widely used in smoothie powders (or face serums for that matter)? The essential oil wouldn’t be good to consume. It would be far too caustic, but what about just the resin itself? I’m sure it would be costly to eat en-masse and the sacred quality of the resin and the integrity of the land should be respected, but for a long while, I have wondered why frankincense never became part of some kind of regional culinary tradition.
With so much wondering, I never looked into it until now: It turns out that frankincense is used in food! In Oman, where frankincense trees grow wild, you can find frankincense ice cream[1]. In Thailand, there is a cookie called Kanom Kleem Lumdual, which is scented with the smoke of a candle stuffed with Frankincense and other aromatic plants[2], and is shaped like the flower of the Annonaceae plant, which blogger Pui likens to a cat nipple. Another blogger adds just a drop or two of frankincense essential oil to the recipe to make the cookies taste extra nice[3]. It’s a long way to travel to taste some sunshine, so I think I’ll try to make something similar at home. Just remember, and this is so important, you can poison yourself with any essential oil. If you decide to try making something with frankincense, follow the recipe exactly.
[1] Martin, Sasha. “Frankincense Ice Cream.” Global Table Adventure. 09 Aug. 12. Web. 12 Feb. 21. <http://globaltableadventure.com/recipe/frankincense-ice-cream/>
[2] Pui. “Thai Fragrant Cookies, Kanom Kleeb Lumdual.” Rice Kingdom. 27 June 09. Web. 12 Feb. 21. <https://ricekingdom.blogspot.com/2009/06/thai-fragrant-cookies-kanom-kleeb.html>
[3] Kydd, Michelle Krell. “Frankincense Short Bread Cookies.” Glass Petal Smoke. 13 Dec. 12. Web. 12 Feb. 21. <https://glasspetalsmoke.blogspot.com/2012/12/frankincense-shortbread-cookies.html>
