Kenneth Anger (screenwriter, director) THE GNOSTIC MASS (2002) Film script

Np [Los Angeles?]: 2002. Vintage original film script, quarto, brad bound, [1], 20 pp. Photomechanically printed first generation screenplay. Various scattered creases (with the final page, which is mostly blank, most affected), very good+.

An unproduced screenplay generated by Kenneth Anger. It was intended to be the basis of a forty-minute film adaptation of Aleister Crowley’s book of the same name, first published in 1918.

The structure of Crowley’s mass is similar to the Mass of the Eastern Orthodox Church and Roman Catholic Church, communicating the principles of Crowley’s Thelema. It is the central rite of Ordo Templi Orientis and its ecclesiastical arm, Ecclesia Gnostica Catholica.

Scripts for any of Anger’s films are exceedingly uncommon, and this is the only one I have ever seen. Provenance: Kenneth Anger archive.