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.
The baptized child joins the community at what is essentially a probationary level. The recitation of the creed by the congregation during the baptismal ceremony represents the instruction of the child in the essential tenets of the church. The child is not a full member of the community until he or she has learned these tenets and has made a conscious, informed decision to accept them…
The ceremony of confirmation is mentioned in the final paragraphs of Liber XV. Confirmation represents the first conscious manifestation of the True Will. The recitation of the Creed by the confirmand represents a statement that active participation in the Church and belief in its tenets is in conformity with the confirmand’s own True Will. The Church accepts the confirmand as a Thelemite, one of its own, a rightful claimant to the heirship, communion and benediction of the Saints. The cheirotonia conveys the sacramental bond that joins the confirmand’s consciousness with the egregore of the Church. The cuff on the cheek represents an awakening to the reality of Thelema and all its implications, as well as to the life-consciousness of puberty. (Note that the Greek word egrêgora means, roughly, “it has awakened.”)
The Invisible Basilica of Sabazius
