Cake of Light


Cake of Light is the eucharistic host found within Thelema, the religion founded by author and occultist Aleister Crowley in 1904. It contains honey, oil, and particular bodily fluids, and is usually cooked in the shape of a small, flat wafer. It appears by name in two important Thelemic rituals: the Gnostic Mass and the Mass of the Phoenix. However, Crowley thought it was important for magicians to perform a eucharistic ritual of some kind daily :

A Eucharist of some sort should most assuredly be consummated daily by every magician, and he should regard it as the main sustenance of his magical life. It is of more importance than any other magical ceremony, because it is a complete circle. The whole of the force expended is completely re-absorbed; yet the virtue is that vast gain represented by the abyss between Man and God.
The magician becomes filled with God, fed upon God, intoxicated with God. Little by little his body will become purified by the internal lustration of God; day by day his mortal frame, shedding its earthly elements, will become in very truth the Temple of the Holy Ghost. Day by day matter is replaced by Spirit, the human by the divine; ultimately the change will be complete; God manifest in flesh will be his name.

Symbolism

The overall significance of the cakes is that it is considered to be a eucharist, a symbolic union between the microcosm, Man, and the macrocosm, the Divine; and the consumption of which completes a sacred circle, affirming an intimate connection between the two, which strengthens with each sacrament.
The Cakes of Light, traditionally composed of meal, honey, leavings of red wine lees, oil of Abramelin, olive oil and fresh blood as per the instructions in The Book of the Law is a perfume or incense when raw but also a cake when baked
Olive oil is considered a sacred oil by many cultures and religions of the world. It is also an ingredient in the making of Oil of Abramelin, and the olive noted by Aleister Crowley himself as "traditionally, the gift of Minerva, the Wisdom of God, the Logos.
Abramelin Oil was considered by Crowley to be representative of the "whole Tree of Life. The ten Sephiroth are blended into the perfect gold." Abramelin Oil is thus also a symbol of the Philosopher's Stone of the Alchemists.

Cakes of Light in ''The Book of the Law''

Cakes of Light are never mentioned by name in The Book of the Law, however many people interpret the following passages as being instructions for their creation :
Aleister Crowley described the Cakes of Light in his book Magick in Theory and Practice:
"The Cakes of Light are universally applicable; they contain meal, honey, and oil : also the perfume of the three essential types of magical and curative virtue; the subtle principle of animal life itself is fixed in them by the introduction of fresh living blood."
Some commentators have interpreted this to mean that the "blood" component mentioned in The Book of the Law can be any type of animal blood or meat, or can be formed from menstrual blood or semen.