Gnostic Boot Camp

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic could change any of the information below with little notice. Please watch for updates via the usual channels concerning any particular session of Gnostic Boot Camp.

Gnostic Boot Camp (GBC) is a monthly seminar on the Gnostic Mass and related topics. GBC is usually scheduled on the first Thursday of each month. There are occasional cancellations and schedule changes, so confirm each session beforehand. All sessions of GBC appear as events on the Catherine Berry classes Google calendar, which you can overlay on your personal Google calendar using the add-calendar control in the lower right of the calendar display page.

You must be an active initiate member of Ordo Templi Orientis to attend. GBC is most useful to current and aspiring members of the clergy of Ecclesia Gnostica Catholica (EGC), but all interested active initiate members are more than welcome.

How to attend

GBC sessions occur either online on my Discord server or in person at my home in West Los Angeles. Sessions are always online in the equinox and solstice months (March, June, September, and December). Sessions may be either in-person or online in other months.

Attending online sessions

Contact me at cdberry@gmail.com for an invitation to the One Reed server. You will need a Discord account with a verified email address which has been a member of the server for at least ten minutes to participate, so please prepare early. In order to encourage participation by my supervised clergy in later time zones, we meet from 7pm to 9pm Pacific time. We use the text and voice channels named "general". You will need to configure Discord to operate in "push to talk" mode to speak in the voice channel.

Attending in person sessions

In-person GBC sessions are scheduled for 8-10pm Pacific time. Email me at cdberry@gmail.com to get the street address of my apartment building. Include your civil name in the email. If I don't know you, make sure to do this at least a week before attending, so I have time to verify your active-initiate status. Optionally, include your cell number so I can reach you if there are last-minute changes of plan. Please do not share my street address with anyone who hasn't previously attended GBC (it's okay to remind someone who has). I would greatly prefer to keep control over who has my home address.

I live in a secure building, so I need to come down and let people in at the lobby door. I do this twice, at 7:45pm and 8pm. If you miss the 8pm pickup, contact me or another attendee and I will let you in when there's a spare moment. But that could mean you're stuck outside my lobby for quite a while, so do please try to be on time. Note that masks are required in common spaces in my apartment building (lobby, elevator, and hallways), but not within my apartment.

Gnostic Boot Camp is an official OTO event held under the auspices of Star Sapphire Lodge, subject to all applicable policies. All attendees must be fully vaccinated against COVID-19, and provide proof of vaccination to the Lodge. Lodge officers empowered to verify vaccination status are not always in attendance at GBC, so it is highly recommended that you complete the Lodge verification process before attending GBC.

Gnostic Road Show

I do seminars (and talks, and so forth) on the Mass elsewhere as opportunities allow, typically at OTO local bodies. These "Gnostic Road Show" (GRS) events almost always address broader topics than any particular session of Gnostic Boot Camp, where we routinely spend an entire evening discussing half a page of text. At a Gnostic Road Show, I'm working with people I may see very seldom, so it seems a better use of time to "go wide".

I have tried to keep the distinction between GBC and GRS clear in event names and so forth, but with only partial success. Nobody else seems to care about proper categorization as much as I do...go figure.

OTO local bodies interested in hosting a Gnostic Road Show event should contact me to discuss potential dates and event plans.