This Office is based on the sequence of readings suggested by Jim Eshelman ("The Thelemic Tephilah"). The readings are in a pattern of three sets of six -- there should be a 7-day candle or other large pillar candle on the altar (or otherwise set up prominently) for each set: for the first (20-25 March), a black; for the second (26-31 March), a white; and for the third (1-6 April), a red. During the first six days, light the black; during the second six days, both the black and the white; during the third six, all three.
On the day before the Feast of the Three Days of the Writing of the Book of the Law, all three should be lit, along with a gold pillar candle, and all four should be lit for the Feast.
The Office may be performed by a person alone, or by a Reader (or pair of Readers) for a congregation. In any case, the Reader begins with the invitatory (responding hirself if s/he is alone).
Ant. Mine heart is uplifted in me, and the serpent flame therein; I shall get me to the House of the Beloved.
HYMN
At this point, a hymn is sung. In the first set of six days, the hymn is the one which follows this rubric (#1); in the second, #2 (Appendix A); in the third, #3 (ditto); and on the eve of the Feast of the Three Days (and thereafter, during the Feast), #4 (ditto).
Now is the barren darkness of the winter
Become the darkness of a womb most fertile
Wherein a new seed, sown in secret passion
Rests in its promise.
See where the cold blue-grey of early morning
Unto the gentle rose now makes surrender
And the once-captive fire of life unending
Slips from its prison.
Even as night is by the light transfigured,
Even so may we be, who gaze above us,
And that night of our souls shot through with golden
Veins of elation.
O blessèd night, with diamond flames bespangled,
Bend upon us in comfort as a mother,
That we may feel the winter in our own hearts
Vanquished in earnest.
VERSE
The following verse is said before the readings, to mark the transition.
The Speech in the Silence.
The Words against the Son of Night.
The Voice of Tahuti in the Universe in the Presence of the Eternal.
The Formulas of Knowledge.
The Wisdom of Breath.
The Root of Vibration.
The Shaking of the Invisible.
The Rolling Asunder of the Darkness.
The Becoming Visible of Matter.
The Piercing of the Scales of the Crocodile.
The Breaking Forth of the Light!
READINGS
There are two readings. The first is the appropriate Holy Book reading, as outlined in Appendix B, with its responsory, and announced of the Reader by its title.
The second reading is from some other writing of St. Aleister, or a writing from one of our EGC Saints, or of some other gnostic Saint, or of our Patriarchs or Primates, as set out in the Appendix C, announced likewise. The appropriate responsory follows the second reading.
The first day's first readings are set out here, by way of example. (The first day of the season is the only one on which there are two Offices, one in the morning and one in the evening; on the remaining days, the Office may occur at any solar angularity.)
FIRST READING
From Liber Cordis Cincti Serpenti: Chapter I.
(Here follows the lection.)
RESPONSORY
SECOND READING
From The Spiritual Guide of San Miguel de Molinos.
(Here follows the lection.)
RESPONSORY
HYMN
CONCLUDING PRAYER
Now I begin to pray: Thou Child,
Holy Thy name and undefiled!
Thy reign is come; Thy will is done.
Here is the Bread; here is the Blood.
Bring me through midnight to the Sun!
Save me from Evil and from Good!
That Thy one crown of all the Ten
Even now and here be mine. AMEN.
The following declaration is made, whether the Office is communal or not.