DeConick A.D

321
PLEASANTVILLE RELIGIONS
in memorization and verbal recitation of the guardians’ names and their
visual presentation of the hand-drawn signs to the rulers. In addition,
the initiates had to clutch in their hands amulets, small stones or gems
carved with the numerical cipher that corresponded to a particular treasury.
Given the number of treasuries and the amount of information that
needed to be known, the initiations likely were graduated and would occur
over a lifetime.
Before the soul could be released from the body and make these initiatory
flights, the initiates had to go through an extensive preparation
(the text claims it is twelve years), which included segregation from the
traditional family unit and integration into the church unit. Moral fitness
also had to be proven. Then a series of three baptisms was performed,
beginning with water immersion, followed by the burning of incense, and
finalized by the sealing of the initiate on the forehead with God’s spirit.
These were complicated baptismal rituals, performed to wipe out sins
and permanently safeguard the initiate from demonic attack. They involved
specified prayers, plant materials and offerings, drawn seals or symbols,
numerical ciphers, and names of deities. These baptisms prepared
and safeguarded the initiates as they undertook progressive initiation into
the sixty treasuries, one treasury at a time.
At the finale of the sixty celestial initiations, when the initiate reached
the sixtieth treasury, the group gathers around the leader. Together they
stand and sing in recitation style a hymn of praise to the Father, the unapproachable
God (1 Jeu 41.92–98):
leader : I sing praise to you, O God, my Father,
for it is you who allowed this little thought to shine within yourself.
What now, O Unapproachable God?
congregation : Amen. Amen. Amen.
leader : I sing praise to you, O Unapproachable God,
For you shone within yourself alone,
because you willed yourself to shine.
What now, O Unapproachable God?
congregation : Amen. Amen. Amen.
The hymn continues along these lines for several pages, rehearsing as a
song of praise the entire cosmological story of Jeu’s emanation from the