I am working on a book of Lovecraftian Magic.  I thought I would share a
chapter with you.  Please help spot typoes, and offer any thoughts you feel
might make it a better book.




^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Dream and Trance Work







For this section I am deeply indebts to Lady Aphanos, the mistress of
dreaming. Without her years of research and development the Yuggothic
magician would have many fewer tools.  Her name can be used as a Saint in
the Mass of the Outer Hells. H. P. Lovecraft, as we have seen, drew some of
his best work from dreams.  Dreams are the way our selves unite three
things.  Firstly the mind-body complex is sifting through the day.  We've
been taught to think that we observe everything that is important.  That's
because of the billions of neural signals we receive every minute we have to
choose which ones to pay attention to.  But it is so important to take a
second look at the unspeakable richness of the  world just for the sake of
our survival - our bodies must take the time to lay down - undefended -
every night for a second pass.  Our success as a species comes from
dreaming.  The second thing our minds do is simulate the future.  This
process is going on all the time.  Humans simulate all the time.  I don't
have to make tuna and garlic ice cream to know it will taste awful.  I
simulate.  Good simulators become good leaders, good scientists, good
artists. The third function of dreaming is our psyche - our Old One
heritage - expressing its voice in deciding what has happened and what
should happen.  The non-natural part of ourselves melds with the natural
part in dreams, which is why they seem weird. The non-natural part of
ourselves can communicate through symbols and images.  Many of these symbols
are remnants of other magical Workings, Jung called this the collective
unconscious.  Some of these images are items we have picked up from films or
art - often times without knowing we did so.  As the body-mind complex puts
these three streams together, the body's state slips in.  So if we need to
urinate, we dream of bathrooms.  An overly hot blanket can make us dream of
fire and so forth.

Once you have established your unbending Intent to become an Old One, you
can use each of these four factors to make your dreams into something
magically potent (as well as fun and more refreshing).  It is sad that the
Old Way of Thinking makes me list "fun" separate from magically potent.  In
the New Way of Thinking you would know those things were the same. I will
share a quote from a distinguished Jungian, than I will talke about
dream-work and the last of the chapter I will talk about trance work. The
following is an excerpt from "Man and His Symbols", and is taken from the
essay "The Process of Individuation" by M. L. von Franz. It lends itself
particularly well to dream work:

"This inner center is realized in exceptionally pure, unspoiled form by the
Naskapi Indians, who still exist in the forests of the Labrador peninsula.
These simple people are hunters who live in isolated family groups, so far
from one another that they have not been able to evolve tribal customs or
collective religious beliefs and ceremonies. In his lifelong solitude the
Naskapi hunter has to rely on hs own inner voices and unconscious
revelations; he has no religious teachers who tell him what he should
believe, no rituals, festivals, or customs to help him along. In his basic
view of life, the soul of man is simply an "inner companion", whom he calls
"my friend" or Mista'peo, meaning "Great Man." Mista'peo dwells in the heart
and is immortal; in the moment of death, or shortly before, he leaves the
individual, and later reincarnates himself in another being.

"Those Naskapi who pay attention to their dreams and who try to find their
meaning and test their truth can enter into a deeper connection with the
Great Man. He favors such people and sends them more and better dreams. Thus
the major obligation of an individual Naskapi is to follow the instructions
given by his dreams, and then to give permanent form to their content in
art. Lies and dishonesty drive the Great Man away from one's inner realm,
whereas generosity and love of one's neighbors and of animals attract him
and give him life. Dreams give the Naskapi complete ability to find his way
in life, not only in the inner world but also in the outer world of
nature..."
         The aim of dream work is four fold.  Firstly you wish to increase
the accuracy and efficacy of your memory.  Dreaming is when your mind-body
complex selects what to remember and how to index it.  Secondly you will
wish to travel both in the Earth's dreamland, but also to the outer hells.
Thirdly you will wish to send and receive dreams.  Fourthly you will wish to
obtain practical advice on current problems.

            There are steps in dream work, I will deal with each.

  a.. Remembering your dreams
  b.. Bringing control to your dreams
  c.. Sharing your dreams
  d.. Sending your dreams
  e.. Receiving dreams
      Remembering your dreams.  We are taught not to remember dreams.
Dreams, as Marie L. Von Franz says, lead to individuation.  "Individuation"
is not a desirable commodity in either capitalist or socialist states.
People who discover what they desire may not be desiring the cheaply
produced product or the state-mediated reality.  They may want to do strong
things like leave work when work is done and so sit in a tranquil garden.
So dreams aren't culturally encouraged.  However you dream for reasons
beneficial  to you - and your body-mind will be delighted if you restore
their function to your life.   Here are things that will help.  Since dreams
process your daily activities, do some things everyday to seed your dreams.
Dreamers reports that turning on or off a light has not effect in a dream.
Tap into this by thinking slow and loud when you switch a light on or off in
the waking world.  "Hmm the light came on (or off) I am not dreaming."  When
you process this in your dream state it will kick you toward consciousness.
Likewise most dreamers discover that they cannot read a book in a dream.
The words change and flow as they look at them.  When reading a book in
normal consciousness, think slow and loud, "The words are not changing I
must be awake." This too will kick you toward lucidity.  When setting up
dreaming it helps if you practice with this book as your text, or books on
dreaming or stories from the Cthulhu Mythos.
Other helps to setting up dreaming include modifying your environment.
Napping at unusual times  or places is a great stimulant.  Wearing thick
socks may help.  Make your sleeping area clean and uncluttered and think of
it as an altar.  Burning incense in the place you sleep is a good idea.
Particularly helpful are mugwort, blue lotus or copal. Avoid thins which
hurt your dreams.  You should avoid excessive alcohol which interferes with
the sleep pattern.  Don't spend the last few minutes before sleep paying
bills or having an encounter with some one that disturbs you.  This will
focus your dreams on unpleasant matters,

Once you have the above procedures in effect, you can seed your body with a
simple water rite.  Purchase some Melatonin at your local drugstore.
Melatonin is a powerful anti-oxidant produced by animals' pineal gland.  It
protests and stimulates mitochondrial  DNA.  The pineal gland is the remnant
of the third eye that amphibians had briefly during Cthulhu's reign, and
mitochondria are the bacteria that teamed up with cellar life to produce
their energy fields in the primeval ocean.  Look it up.  Buy a tall glass
(see the chapter on working tools) that you use only for this.  Just before
bed light a black or dark green candles and stand in front of a mirror.
Fill your glass with water (or a fruit flavored water pomegranate is a good
choice).  Gaze at yourself in the mirror and say, "I love you.  I love what
you are about to become.  Tonight I will dream.  Tonight I will remember my
dreams.  Hail Cthulhu High Priest of the Old Ones I seek your congress of
oeneric magics! Tomorrow I will Remanifest my dreams."  Take the Melatonin
and drink the all the water, gazing into the mirror as much as possible.  Go
to your bed.  Close your eyes and take deep breathes while you smell the
perfume of your room.

At first you may remember only fragments of your dreams.  Likewise your
first dreams will be of sex and flying.  Enjoy them.  Flying dreams partake
of the rune Zin and sex Nyar.  When rise to pee, write down or record what
you remember.  Do not put your raw dreams in your Book, many of your dreams
will not touch on your Initiation.  When you are remembering your dreams
fairly often, you may discontinue the Melatonin.  You are ready for the nest
step.

Bringing control to your dreams.  I am about to speak heresy in New Age
thinking.  "Lucidity" is not the be all and end all in dreaming.  Most
modern dream books will give the aim of total dream control as the great
goal.  I disagree, you need your dreams not simply to be an extension of
your daytime mind.  If you are dreaming of a forest and a beautiful woman in
white appears holding the Holt Graal - you do not want to have sex with her
just because you can control your dreams.  You want your dreams to enable
you to integrate and support yourself, exchange energy and essence with
other humans sorcerers, and finally to exchange energy and essence with the
great old ones.  As you develop your dreaming skills you will discover your
own techniques, but there are three beginning steps that will work with
everyone - sorting your conscious material, creating a dream caller, and
uttering the dream invocation.

Tibetan dream yoga derives from Bon.  Bon is a creation of native Tibetan
shamanism that blended with Zuvanism (a branch of Iranian thought related to
Zoroastrianism) and Indian Shavism (the Left Hand Path Tantra of
Shiva-worshipers).  It predates Tibetan Buddhism and has been hard-hit by
the Communist regime.  About ten percent of Tibetans still follow its ways,
and its study is useful for almost all occultists.  Dream yoga acknowledges
that dreams are largely processing the material of the day - the karmic
traces of life.  Lets say on your morning run you pass a house where you can
hear shouting.  This triggers your memories (some accessible and some
repressed) of listening to your Dad and Mom shout.  This is connected with
deep emotions, whether or nor not you have "dealt with these issues."  So
that night you will have a crazy dream mixing up Dad shouting  and the house
you ran by and the green Volkswagen that drove by you didn't even notice.
Unless you feel you are needing to deal with those issues right now - here
is what you do.  When you hear the shouting think "This is not real
shouting, this is dream shouting."  That labels the material as something
you don't need to process.  Likewise you can diffuse trivia in your life.
Did the boss tick you off this morning?  Think "This is not real anger.
This is dream anger." This will give you a very calm appearance in your
day-to-day life as well as lowering your blood pressure and other signs of
stress.  This is first part of choosing your material.  The second part is
inviting things into your dreams.  If you see something spectacular and rare
you can add it to your dreamscape.  One in a Maui I saw three separate
rainbows on a volcanic cliff with the faineance green Pacific around the
rocky crag.  I knew I wanted that in my dreamworld, so I said, "I welcome
your beauty into my dreams!" Then I changed my dream preparation that night
to add "Tonight I will dream of the three rainbow mountains."  Now, as is so
common in dreaming, I did not dream of the mountain that night - it took
almost a month for it to arrive in the dreamworld.

Making a dream summoner  helps focus your dreams.  At first a generic summer
will do well.  Later when you are attempting to contact a person or god you
will wish to make a special purpose device.  One of the goals of dreaming is
to realize that your day-to-day consciousness is a focused dream.  The mind
you have created to deal with the Objective World is a dream-construct.
When you begin to feel this in your soul, you will cease to fear death,
because you will realize the Old One's promise is of immortal life - not of
the dull stasis of harps and clouds vaguely promised by the Christian faith,
but a series of worlds and planes of action and ecstasy.  Your time here
should one of gathering experiences of many sorts, strengthening your mind
by reason and schooling, and strengthening your Imagination.  One of the
oldest known symbols of the Dreamer and the Dreamed is a Chumash Indian rock
painting.  You should acquire a piece of parchment and reproduce the
painting with ink or paint.  Don't worry about your artistic skill, it is
better that you do it yourself.  Beneath the paintings write in Nug Soth
runes.    "I Cthulhu Dream of Me." Place the summoner under your bed near
your head.







((Insert painting with runes))







            As one begins to dream, most dream books suggest that you carry
out an action to take some of your awareness into the dream realms. Carlos
Castaneda suggests looking at one hands.  Yuggothik magic has a slightly
more difficult task.  We strive (at first ) to utter a simple invocation in
a dream.  This serves three purposes.  Firstly it makes us aware of dreaming
and that we can act in dreams.  Secondly it establishes a magical link
between dream consciousness and the great old ones.  Thirdly it links us to
other sorcerers past, present and in the Is-To-Be that work in this current.
The phrase is short, and honors the Cthulhu,"Great God of the Labyrinth, I
dream of you, you dream of me!" These thirteen words are tied to the
thirteen runes written upon the brow of the Black Flame of Desire in her
form as the Scarlet Woman. After you have some success at controlling your
dreams, you may wish to begin sharing your dreams with a group of Yuggothik
sorcerers.  This may be a pre-made group like a magical lodge, Wiccan coven,
Church of Satan Grotto, Temple of Set Pylon or a group you create with
persistence and of course Craigslist.

Sharing your dreams.  Among the reasons you might want to share your dreams
two stand out.  If you establish a dream contact with somebody - you have a
deep alternate way to communicate with him or her.  This can range from a
dream that they're in trouble and need your aid to simply understanding
emotional aspects about each other.  The second reason is if you become
well-versed in creating a dream space with others while alive, you will have
a better chance of doing after death or in your next reincarnation.  The
group should begin with a right to synchronize - if they are in one location
the Mass of the Outer Hells is the best.  The procedures that follow are
very simple, but require great discipline and trustworthiness of the circle.
False "sutures" or claims of contact are not helpful and lead to delusions
or depressions.  It is more important to know that if the magic is performed
in good faith, the results will occur. Here is the procedure to follow:



1.               Pick a number of nights for the Dream Esbat,  A good number
is four, following the schema of the rune reading.  At first the group
purpose is simply to link up.  Other Dream Esbats can be used to examine
questions such as "What is Immortality?"

2.               Pick a reading material that people should read nightly.  I
recommend "The Dream Quest of Unkown Kadath" for the first Esbat.

3.               Although you have probably no longer need the Melatonin,
ater, and invocation method by now, you should all return to it for the
sesseion.

4.               On the  mirror you gaze into tape up photographs of other
members of your group.

5.               Your Invocation should be "Reh.Reh.Reh.Reh.  I send my
dreaming self through sea of awareness to ((Name of Group)) . I dream of
them,  They dream of me.  We shall remember our dreams.  I learned this rite
from Cthulhu Itself. Nyar. Nyar. Nayr."

6.               When you dream, go to your keyboard and type up the dream.

7.               The next day e-mail your dream to everyone.  Include
fragments and no result.  Do Not Read the other's dreams until you have
posted yours.

8.               The next night the dream leader will post synchronicities,
"Both Tom and Laura dreamed of going down steps.  We all had a restaurant in
our dreams.  Bill and Jose heard dogs barking in their dreams and were
awakened by dogs barking in their neighborhoods."

9.               Read the leader's post before beginning the ritual that
night.

10.            Repeat the cycle.

11.            When the Esbat his done write down each of your dreams that
matched up with others in any way in your Book.  Write any profound thought
you had either about yourself or Yuggothik magic during the Esbat as well.

12.            For a short, but pre-determines time, say four days, do not
talk or e-mail other members of the group is possible.  If you must talk
talk only about mundane things. Take down the photos of your friends, place
them in your Book.

13.            On the fifth night after the Esbat, perform the following
invocation before going to sleep, "In the Name of the God of the Labyrinth,
who made Dreams and Nightmares as my ancestors' ancestors made fire and the
wheel, tonight I will synthesize the Dream Esbat of ((Insert Name of your
Group)) in my dreams. Hail Cthulhu High Priest of the Old Ones I seek your
congress of oeneric magics! Tomorrow I will Remanifest my dreams."  Write
down any dreams you have.

After you have performed the Dream Esbat successfully here are some
questions you may with to pursue.  Simple add the question to your
invocations: "What are other worlds like?" "How will we know each other
after death?" "What is the dream-world of cats like?" "What magical
techniques can we learn in R'yleh?" After you have some success with sharing
dreams with willing participants, you may wish to learn to send dreams.

Sending your dreams.  Dreams may sent for amusement, for beneficial reasons
or as a curse.  Practice with friends at first.  Just try the method and see
if anyone mentions that they dreams of you.  As you will have learned above
timing is not exact in the dream world.  People process material at
different rates.  You may be trying to get Laura to dream you on Monday, but
she processes the dream on Thursday.  Again your precision and passion play
the greatest role.
            The general procedure is this.:



1.     For twenty four hours before the sending do not experience orgasm.

2.     Avoid drink or pot or stimulants for twenty four hours.

3.     Make a dream summoner that has their name written in Nug Soth Runes
and if possible a photo of the target.  If you have anything else that
belongs to the target - hair, lipstick prints etc.  Place these on your
dream summoner.

4.     At your usual bedtime spend a few minutes quietly chanting their
name.  Do this until your usual bedtime has passed.

5.     Do your standard dream set-up for the invocation say: "My will is
great than ((Name of Target))'s will.  He (she) dreams as I will him (her)
to dream.  They process my thoughts.  They process my images.  Do As I Will
Is The Whole Of His (her) Law!  Thus Cthulhu brought his cult to men, this I
bring my cult of (Name of Target)).

6.     If the sending is erotic an act of masturbation tom orgasm should
follow.

7.     As you fall asleep visualize the dream you wish them to have.

8.     Write down dreams.

9.     Observe the target.

10.  After a two-day rest, repeat the procedure.  This may be up to four
times.

11.  As much as possible distract yourself when you start to think of the
procedure during the day.  Forgetfulness of the operation is useful.

12.  When the cycle of sendings is over dispose of the dream summoner in an
appropriate manner.  If it was erotic masturbate and place sexual fluid on
the parchment, then "drown" it in red wine and rose petals and bury it.  If
it was a curse burn the parchment while saying insulting things about the
target etc.

13.  After 28 days write down results in your Book.



Dream sending can be used upon targets both living and dead.  It can
positively effect coma victims or it can be used to drive tyrants to leap
from parapets.  In effecting political change it can be done by a group
against a target.  As always you can help your nighttime magic by daytime
activities like letter-writing and political protest.

            After you have learned to send dreams, you are ready for the
most dangerous practice of all - receiving dreams.

            Receiving dreams.  The Old Ones do not only communicate on
one-to-one real time methods.  Their communication with younger races is of
two types.  The first type if the mythic and literary and magical artifacts
they inspire.  They leave their shadows in the minds of creation outsider
souls.  This is in no way to speak against the genius of the Lovecrafts, the
Bosches, the Clark Ashton Smiths, the Kennteh Grants, or Thomas Liggotis.
Each of these humans have given us shockingly well done pieces of realism.
The second way the Old Ones communicate with us is dreams.  Their minds
often touch as nightmares or night terrors for their worlds, their essence
is overwhelmingly different than our own.  It is because of the difference
of the Old Ones as=nd us that we have developed Imagination.  Indeed true
consciousness would not be possible without the shock of their Otherness
spurring humankind to wonder what life is?

            To receive a dream, you make a sash that you can wear.  In the
center of the sash should be a pocket that you place either sigil of the
entity you wish to communicate with or its name written in Nug-Soth runes.
Here is the procedure you need to follow.

1.     For five nights before you desire the dream you must awaken yourself
at an unlikely time.  You nust rise from your bed and utter a brief
invocation. For example:

"Mighty Nyarlathotep, thou created communication from one ot another in the
great dark.  Oh Haunter of the Dark I seek to know thee better!  I would
praise thy Wisdom of Lord of the Third Angle.  I would share my otherness
with you and have you share with me that we may grow wiser in all realms.
In shadowy Khem that walkest as man, and I would walk as a god in the Outer
Hells!  Iä Nyarlathothep!"  Place the sigil in your sash and return to bed.

2.     Take naps at unusual times for the first four of the five days
proceeding seeking the dream.  As you fall asleep (or try to) repeat the Old
One's name in your mind as a mantra.

3.     On the day before you seek the dream, stay up as late as you can
reading everything you can about the entity to be invoked, watching films
and so forth. When  you are very exhausted paint a dream summer with the
entities sigil and name in Nug Soth runes.

4.     The day you seek the dream arrange for sometime to be alone about
mid-day.  It does not have to be at your magical chamber.  Say aloud in a
calm firm voice the reasons you seek the dream.  Avoid any magical jargon.
For example:

"Tonight I hope my subconscious provides with a dream about Nyarlathothep, a
figure that Howard Phillips Lovecraft had a dream about.  It is a symbol of
communication between the Old Ones, other sentient beings this magical
system postulates and us. I hope this dream will allow me to develop greater
skills in communication and ability to detect subtle messages.  I believe
this will help me both in my mundane pursuits and the magical ones which I
indulge in for pleasure."

5.     On the night you seek the dream paint the sigil of the entity you
seek upon your brow.  Wear your sash.  Create a dream invocation based on
ideas that have occurred to you in the last five days.

6.     The dream may come later than you planned, when it comes ask the
entity what name you should call it, what magical techniques can it teach
you, and what you can do for it in the daytime world.  Write the results
down in your book.



Now that you have the basics of dreaming down, I will give you six goals to
try for.  As you achieve these write down the results in your Book.  This
start will lead you to goals of your own.  Afer this I will talk about
trance work.

1.     Learn to use your dreams to find lost objects.  This will sharpen
your ability to work with the objective universe with imagination and
para-senses.

2.     Dream of your sleeping body.  When this occurs it means you have
gathered your dream-awareness into a useable body and you can pursue Out of
the Body Experiences (OoBE)

3.     Dream of R'lyeh.  When you can dream of the sunken city you will soon
be able to find a Teacher - human or otherwise to take you to higher levels
of Initiation.

4.     Visit others in your sleep in such way that they can sense your
presence.

5.     Visit the past.  Public parks where you can camp are useful tools.
One of the easiest things to visit at first is battlefields because of the
vast physic energy spent there.

6.     Develop short stories and poems about the Mythos in your sleep that
you then publish. This enriches their lore.



A field closely aligned with dream work is trance work.  It is called
variously "active Imagination, "setting-forth," "siedr," and vision work.
It consists of turning down the outside stimuli and focusing on the inner
world. It is a meditative technique that can be done by visualization,
automatic writing or

artistic activities such as dance, music, painting, sculpting, ceramics,
crafts, etc..  Doing trancework  allows the thoughtforms of the unconcious
to act out whatever messages they are trying to communicate to the concious
mind.  The key is to wathc the scene in your mind, see what changes rather
than trying to lead the results.

            I will give a few of methods.  Try placing a sigil or Nug Soth
rune where you can gaze at it.  You should be fully or partially reclining.
Star intently at the figure for 13 breaths.  Now close your eyes.  Imagine
the figure expanding toward you until it touches you.  Ask it, "What would
you show me?" See if pictures of scenes develop.  A voice-activated recorder
may be used, if you do not wish to write up your results later.

            Another useful technque is the Rite of Brown Jenkins.  To work
this well you must have performed Workings in both an inside chmaber and an
outside location.  Draw a doorway and hang inside your chamber.  Place a
small bowl of milk under the figure.  Say aloud, "In the name of
Nyaralothothep, I call my familiar to help escourt me."  Imagine a small
rodent with human arms and face wlaking through the door.  Imagine it
leading you through the door all the way to your outside working area.
Visulaize performimng a Working there.  Repeat this often and your familiar
will be able to lead you to other more exotic places.

            You may wish to try automatic writing.  Some work with pen and
ink, others with computer keyboards.  Sit down.  Don't look at what you are
writing.  Simply begin writing.  If you start to look down, or you are
shaping your work too much say, "I have come from the world of the seven
suns, I am the Mighty messenger." And continue.  Stop if you feel fatigued.
Some people have the knack, others get only gibberish.

            Another method is Portal Building.  Visit a site that speaks to
you of Mythos energy.  Hide a sigil of one of the Old Ones.  Later close
your eyes and visuliaze returning to that site.  Do this at odd times of the
day.  When you find you can do this with high degrees of accuracy, return to
remove your sigil.  Take it to a secure place and write in Nug Soth runes,
"I wish this will grant me the powers of of ((Name of Old One))."  Annoit it
with sexual fluids.  Return to the site and bury or coceal the sigil.  The
next time you visualize your retun to the site picture a great doorway
there.  Pass through and you will meet the Old One, who will teach your
essence new points of assemblage.  Note after such work your apperance may
alter slightly to resemble the Old One.

            There are numerous tapes and CDs of music that induces trance.
Try your luck with them.  Likwise there are commerical ventures that book
Peruvian trips to expereince ayahuasca ceremonies, which can be useful to
the more experienced practitioner.

            As with all forms of Yuggothik magic, the magician should record
meaningful visions in your Book.  At first a great deal of what you get may
be very low-level material.  All your life you have been awash in a
media-heavy culture, and the first things to pour out of you will be
undigested bits of those control structures.  This does not mean you do not
have uncovered wealth within you.  One of the ways you are oppressed by our
society is by the layers of control you have absorbed that keep you merely
human.  There has long been a war against the human race, mainly carried on
by the human race. The Old Ones aren't interested in liberating you, but
since they are related to you exposure to their Being will set you free.
You have greater cycles of being and pleasure to interact with than trying
to decide which soft drink you wish.  Dream and Trance work will help awaken
you to possibilities, but beware its seductive side - it is easy to become a
Dream magician that looses the urgency to Transform yourself.  Do not let
the new vistas that you glimpse simply become a more exotic form of sleep!

            Dream and Trance work will enhance the ritual activities of this
book, but should not be thought of as a replacement for these activities.
The magician seeks not only to experience the signals the Old Ones send, but
to send signals of their own as well.

Dear Friends,

A great deal of high school English teaches literature as though it were algebra. Find X. X is the Symbol. We see a guy wearing a sheepskin coat pouring barrels of pollution into a stream by night and advocating ecological politics by day. The brighter student sticks up her hand and yells out "Wolf-in-sheep's-clothing." The rest of us dully nod. The problem has been solved and we think books are a little more dull.

I would hope that none of you use this method in creating a scene. The best symbols grow organically. Try observing them from your own life. I somewhat haphazardly collect coins and tokens. The saddest item I own comes from a bar in Austin called Lala's Little Nugget. Lala decided that Christmas was her favorite holiday and so it remains Christmas everyday. The decor is pure 1980s carpola. It is Quentin Tarrantino's favorite bar in Austin. One day I was walking past. I noticed someone had put a copper colored disk on the door. It was an AA 30 day sobriety token.

http://www.yelp.com/biz/lalas-little-nugget-austin

http://www.urinal.net/lalas/

When looking for an approach to art, Pound's "Make It New" remains the best:

http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/5893

One of the best examples of "make-it-new" in the SF/F field remains Samuel R. Delaney's Dahlgren -- chew on its plot and the wonder created in this lovely review:

http://www.sfsite.com/02b/dh122.htm

And now your trippy video. Ah Synchro-Vox such a sadly neglected method of animation:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7Ng9BOXtdc

Bestest,

Don

I am working on a book of Lovecraftian Magic.  I thought I would share a
riter with you.  Please help spot typoes, and offer any thoughts you feel
might make it a better book.


Mass of the Outer Hells



The Quest to Transform oneself into an Old One is often a lonely
one.  The Mass provides a time to draw on the encouragement of community.
It is derived from the ideas of Victor Tuner.  The initiates have left the
mundane world (separation) and are in a liminal state of the betwixt and the
between.  They are a meso-cosmos (Communitas).  In this state their
individual energies tend to work synergistically with each others and with
other who have trod the path of the Angles.  The Mass celebrates other human
pioneers, and we draw inspiration from their example.  The Mass fills us
with the spirit of Otherness and this gives us strength in our Quest.  It
may be said for those who have died to aid them in their next state.  It may
be said to heal the sick or to invoke a group egregore  to aid the group in
practical matters such as acquiring wealth or better living spaces. The
minimum needed to perform the Mass is three:  the Priestess, the Priest and
the Deacon.

Before the Mass music will be chosen, and the chamber decorated
in an appropriate fashion.  Those who participate will have read a least a
little about the 26 Saints.  Moneys gathered during the Mass shall go the
buying or supplies for the group.  The Priest is in scarlet robe, the
Priestess nude beneath a black robe. There will be two altars,.  Upon the
smaller higher altar should be electronic or scientific marvels such as
Tesla coils, Jacob's ladders, chemicals that react tighter when mixed.
Video screens showing Frankenstein's lab scenes may also be used. A second
lower alter upon which the Priestess will recline and the Bread and Wine
will offered is needed.  Any sex may fulfill any role as desired. There will
be a throne next to the reclining altar, decorated with the legend "Nothing
is True Everything Is Permitted" in Nug-Soth Runes

At the beginning of the Mass, the Priest will be "experimenting"
with his equipment, all others enter.  The congregation shall watch this for
a time in silence. When they have arrived the Deacon will strike the tone
bar seven times.



Priest  "In the Name of Yog Sothoth the Gates are Opened to the Outer
Hells."



All make the Voorish Sign.  With the first two fingers of your right hand
touch your left eye, your heart and your genitals.



Priest:  "The Caritas of the Sorcerors are with you, the Ananke of the Old
Ones falls upon you."



All: "And also upon you."



The Priest may say something about the purpose of the Mass, the readings or
the festival being observed.



The Priest will now sprinkle holy water upon the congregants while saying:

"Sea water is the sign of great Cthulhu.  It flows in our veins for we are
his dreams."

When all have been cleansed of ordinary thoughts of day to day, the Priest
will say:

"We have put aside ignorance for Starry Wisdom.  We are dreams made flesh
and by our unbending intent we Awaken to Become Dreamers.  Hail the Ancient
Dreams!"



All: "Hail the Ancient Dreams!"



The Deacon now moves through the congregation shielding his eyes as though
seeing something far away.  He says, "I have had a Vision of a beast with
seven heads and ten horns upon which rode a woman clothed in living black
flame.  Upon her brow were written thirteen runes, and she held a cup full
of the blood of martyrs and I said, 'Holy **** this must be from the Cthulhu
Mythos."



Priest: "What were the runes written upon her brow?"



Priestess stands and says: "Upon my brow were written these Runes: Reh, Eih,
Mem, Azoan, Nyar, Iod, Faug, Eih, Slaec, Telo, Azaz, Telo, Iod, Nyar."  And
that this Mystery signifies that from the Dream  Reh shall come forth this
night the Messenger Nyar!"



Priest:  "Come noble one and take this Thy throne."



The Priestess takes the throne next to the altar where she will later lay.

.

The Priest: "Before the Word there was the Silence of Possibility"



The Priestess:  "The text of another is affront to the self."

The Deacon: "Rub out the Word!"

All make the Voorish Sign.

The Priest reads brief selection that exemplifies Imagination. He may preach
a brief sermon at this point, and if desired the collection plates may he
passed. Appropriate music may be played at this time.



Deacon: "It is the zero hour,  Time for the New Thinking to replace the Old
Thinking."



Priest:  "We believe in the communion of the saints, the Remanifestation of
the Old Ones' dreams, the power of our Intent to change the universes within
and without, and that the few may conquer Time."



All:  "Holy. Holy. Holy."



Deacon.  "Who are the Saints?  Why are they 26 in number?"



Priestess: "Twenty Six is twice the number of the Word written upon my brow.
Once for the outer universe and once for the inner universe"



Priest.  "I will call now the Saints and as I say their names they are with
us.  Saint Aleister Crowley, Saint Mary Pinchot Meyer, Saint Howard Phillip
Lovecraft, Saint Kenneth Grant, Saint Fred Crissman, Saint Clark Ashton
Smith, Saint  Jack Parsons, Saint Charles Hoy Fort, Saint Anton La Vey,
Saint Kerry Thornley, Saint Frank Belknap Long, Saint Michael A. Aquino,
Saint Richard Sharpe Shaver, Saint Don Webb, Saint Nema, Saint Gray Barker,
Saint Thomas Liggoti, Saint Maurice Doreal, Saint Robert Anton Wilson, Saint
William S. Burroughs, Saint Peter Levanda, Saint H.R. Giger, Saint Stephan
King, Saint Austin Osman Spare, Saint Marjorie Cameron, Saint Rosaleen
Norton."



Priestess: "That's kind of a testosterone heavy list there."

Priest:  "We'll make a new list next time.  There just has to be 26 of
them."

Priestess:  "Ok I an already think of about ten or so."

Deacon: "Can we get on with it?  I mean their kas are here, that's a little
much on space and time."

Priestess: " I am the Black Flame of Desire" she disrobes "I am Shub
Niggurath and I plant my thousand children in Chaos that they may come to me
in Victory.  This wine is the taste of undying flame and consumes those who
falter." She shows the goblet to the congregation.  "It brings the Vision of
Yog Sothoth. Kia is its name."



She slowly and gracefully reclines on the low alter placing the wine between
her open legs.



Priest:  "I bring the bread that feeds the mouth of the spirit and the mouth
of the flesh.  Ipsos is its name." He lays the bread next to the wine.



Deacon:  "Come to eat of the food of the gods.  Prove to the Cosmos you are
not a dream to vanish when They awake, but that you will Awaken with Them in
the time of the Great Rising."



All come can take Communion.  When the Congregation has taken the elements,
then the Deacon and Priest do so.  They help the Priestess rise and she
finishes the cup and bread.  She re-robes.  Appropriate music may be played.



Deacon:  "Look upon those here and know that are become as the Old Ones.
New senses shall be theirs, new powers shall be theirs, new ecstasies shall
be theirs."



All:  "So Mote It Be!"



Priest and Priestess: "So Mote It Be!"



Priest: "And it came to pass that old verbal structures lost their power,
and idiot corporations fell away, and governments dwindled out of lack of
interest.  And the larva of the Old Ones hid no longer in human forms and
the dark energy ripped through space and time and all was it had been
Dreamed of by the Great Priest Cthulhu.  Hail the Ancient Dreams!"



All: "Hail the Ancient Dreams!"



Priest: "This Mass has ended go in peace.  Dream well.  Fight well.  Seek
After The Mysteries!"



Priestess "Where the rites have been spoken, the Portal to Otherness remains
open.  So it was in the time before humans, so it is now, and so shall it be
when man is no longer master of this planet."



The Deacon strikes the tone bar eight times

The congregation leaves.  The Deacon escorts the Priestess away if the Mass
has been held in dangerous territory.  The Priest makes sure all is secure
before he goes forth.

> Dear Ips Webb,
>
> Your first and second posts in this thread are plain enough for me.  Your
> third post however, I'm not sure what you're communicating or why.
>
>


Confusion is a gift.  When my Teacher used to talk about things I didn't
get, my human impulse would be to be mad or feel slighted ("Is this guy
trying to make me feel dumb?").  My Initiatory impulse was to wonder -- why
does this guy think that is important?

Here are four reasons why I wrote the post:

1.  I am vain.  As far as I know only two articles have ever been written
about the Church of Satan seal, I wanted to show off stuff I figured out
2.  I am Working on harmonizing the elements of the Aeons -- or to put it
another way it's my job to help people know how we got here.
3.  The Baphomet fascinates me.  Think about it.  The Church of Satan had
many magical seals -- there was the alchemical sign for sulfur, there was
the COS protective sigil of four black tridents holding four small white
squares at bay, there were the seals that Anton designed as a joke, BUT this
one seal became THE symbol for Satanism.  If you see it in a movie, a video,
a magazine you've got branding.  Why?  Even Set seems worried about it in
the _BoCFbN_.  If others share my fascination, good, if not there's the
delete key.
4.  As smart Cabalists (meaning learned Jewish rabbis not pot smoking
Crowley heads) say "Leviathan is a symbol of God's Kingdom"  -- At first my
anti-Judeo-Christian prejudice made me ignore this, but when I found out
that the formulas = Manifestation, well jeez then in an unbroken ring it
means exactly the Force James Lewis was Recognized to the Fifth Degree on
November 18, XXI.  Now Ipsissimus Lewis, my favorite Southern gentleman, is
old school AA line of thinking about Magi, Tarot, Crowley etc.  So the
Prince will speak to him in those terms, just as he spoke in Old Norse to
Ipsissimus Flowers, and Middle Egyptian to me.  Occultniks work out all of
their numerology in advance, Setian just do things and the mystery takes
care of itself.  For example the date 11 = the magical will, 18 = the number
of cycles (X E P E R A N D R E M A N I F E S T) and XXI will be read a
certain way for people using the Thoth Tarot deck.  Once I get the magical
minutiae on one hand, the emotional feeling of Remanifestation on the other,
and the broad philosophical reason on the third hand I  can Work or Play
with the tool.  ((As an Honorary Doctor of the Church of the Sub - Genius I
have three hands)

What was I communicating?

1.  I am giving the keys to those who would like to access to a magical sign
that has been drilled into people's collective unconscious by seven
kazillion horror movies.
2.  I am giving an example of tearing down a constellation of ideas in a
symbol, you can apply this to everything from the Union Jack to the figure
of Ronald MacDonald
3.  I am suggesting certain magical properties of perfect numbers like 6 or
28 or 496 -- they are symbols of being.  From a Setian perspective we use
these things to produce Sleep of Siloam.  Most of the time I discuss idea
like this without occult jargon but with scientific jargon
4.  I am causing that one or maybe two people who will struck with a certain
enthusiasm reading this to develop a magical Tool.  By the time they have it
they will long ago forgotten my post, and I do not care, my Joy is causing
certain things to take Root.

I hope this has not made you less confused.

http://www.learningandteaching.info/learning/dissonance.htm

http://www.edchange.com/publications/cognitive-dissonance.pdf

Xeper and Remanifest,

DWVI*

:RtR:

I've been thinking about this:

"Lewis took a great deal of magical inspiration from the Statement of
Leviathan.  When Anton La Vey copied the (in)famous Sigil of Baphomet it had
the Word LVYThN at the points of the Pentagram making a Cycle: It begins at
the lowest point and proceeds counter-clockwise.   The name of the Daemon
signifies coiled.  Lamed -- As[ration/Contemplation of the Heart, Vau
Connection/The Magical Link,  Yod -- the Infinite point/the contraction of
the godhead into a single point of creative force,  Teth -- the
impregnating/hiding of the divine Will into matter, Nun -- In Aramaic Nun
means fish, the creature that swims in the Mem.Leviathan equals Malkuth
(496). "

Let's think about the formula of the Baphomet.  We know from Dr. Aquino
that Anton traced the cover of Maurice Bessy's picture book for the occult
and that's how we got the figure.

Now Le Vey probably didn't know that the figure was part of two seals that
explained the Masonic god Baphomet in a book called  La Clef de la Magie
Noire (1897) by Stanislas de Gautia.  Anton chose the back side, the front
side shows an upright pentagram with Adam standing in it. Look at the
illustration on the Church of Satan page
http://www.churchofsatan.com/Pages/BaphometSigil.html

Now the Baphomet had been modified by Levi into a goat figure illustrating
"As below so above."

The two sides of Gautia's sigil balance -- one upright, spirit over matter,
the other matter over spirit.

Now in the one we are interested in the letter Lamed is at the lowest
point -- God deeply concentrated.  When Aquino later did the "Ceremony of
the Nine Angles" he likewise chose this point for the Black Flame.  The
Church of Satan aesthetic is all about stuff rising from below.

In addition to Nun meaning "fish" in Aramaic, in Hebrew Nun means Kingdom,
the standard Cabalist interpretation would be the Messiah, the heir to the
Throne.  The formula in the double ring is a formula of manifestation into
domination.  According to _The Hebrew Letters_ by Rabbi Yitsack Ginsburgh
Nun posses both a common and final form.  The final form means "extension of
the Infinite"

The goat in the center of the Pentagram, the goat of Mendes that the
Templars were said to worship, has been discussed by many scholars
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baphomet  You may draw your own conclusions.
But we the soul symbol of the Pythagoreans and a symbol of carnality.  The
Soul holds the carnal.  The carnal is not imprisoned by the soul, but the
carnal gives it its eyes and ears and toungue -- etc.  All of this while the
letters spell an incranation of the mind of God.

The dual ring suggests that the inner soul seeing carnally is not directly
interacting with the Cosmos, but that this process is mediated by the
magical process of things becoming manifest.  Or to put it more simply, the
soul/carnal complex must manifest itself into a Kingdom of its own Joy,

496, the value of Leviathan/Malkuth is a perfect number (like 6 or 28), the
sum of its divisors.  16 X 31 it multiplies the kernel of ShT (Set = 31)

Finally I will leave you with the words of another religious scholar on the
Baphomet:
http://www.chick.com/reading/tracts/0093/0093_01.asp

That should be enough toys for the night :)

Xeper and Remanifest,

DWVI*

:RtR:

The Aeon of Horus
And Us


In the cosmology of the Temple of Set we are given a picture of two gods:  Set and Har-Wer.  Because of the map given in the Book of Coming Forth By Night, we map these neters onto primal gods of ancient Egypt as well as the ideas of Ipsissimus Aleister Crowley.  In our task of self-knowledge/self-creation we are most interested in the God of Self-Creation Set, but are drawn to the notion of Set's first creation Har-Wer.  I would like to share my observations on Har-Wer and ideas associated with him both in Egypt and in the occult milieu of the Twentieth Century.
Many Egyptian gods are named Horus.  The name means the "Far-Off" one. The name belongs to the falcon.  To the Egyptians it was a symbol of sovereignty.  Picture yourself working in the hot fields - above you floating with seldom even a wing flap is a falcon.  For time to time he darts down and catches a mouse that your eyes certainly didn't see.  How like a ruler!  He has magical powers of perception, he is above you and he seems not to work hard.  The second part of the name "Wer" or "Ur" means the oldest.  In Egyptian thinking the older the better.  The Egyptians (like most people with a shamanic  mindset) saw the world as being in a constant state of decay.  Older gods are better, bigger, stronger.  The early pharaohs took the name Living Horus, with the exception of a Second Dynasty pharaohs PerIbSen.  He was a living Set.  A good of ink has been spilled to explain that early Egyptians were separated into two peoples - the Northern (more European) were followers of the solar Horus and the Southern (more African) were followers of the darker Set. Civilization therefore was a gift that the lighter folks gave the darkies.
However there are some problems with this notion.  Firstly the group of people that created Egyptian civilization as we know it - hieroglyphs, burial customs, god kings etc. were Set worshippers in Naqada.  Secondly the Palette of Narmer, the first pharaoh to unite the delta and the Nile Valley says he came from the South.  Thirdly Set and Horus are worshipped in sites both North and South (and archeological evidence suggests that this has always been so). The early pharaohs maintained a cult of themselves during their lifetime focusing on the hidden rites of the Heb-Sed, a rejuvenation festival where in the Pharaoh won a re-birth from Har-Wer and Set.  The spells and ritual complex were re-used to make his tomb.  The post-death cult would die away, and much ink has focused on the "Pyramid Texts" as funeral only.  A welcome correction to this is Jeremy Naydler's Shamanic Wisdom in the Pyramid Texts.  Har-Wer and Set work as partners in the Heb-Sed ceremony.  They hold up the ladder for the Pharoah's soul to ascend to Heaven (climbing a ladder to the stars is a common shamanic motif).  Har-Wer and Set are also unified into a dual headed god (occasionally named as the goddess Mehen or as the Lone Star (Venus). Utterance 245 says that the Pharaoh becomes the Lone Star (both during the shamanic initiation during his lifetime and as an afterlife state:
Make your seat in heaven
Among the Stars of heaven
For you are the Lone Star, the comrade of Hu!
Newer research on the etymology of the name "Set" indicates that it may mean stability.  Set's from as the north star, a fixed point around which other stars wheel, is the visual metaphor.  Animals do not rise from the immediacy of the cosmos to see themselves as separate from it.  This is the Setian moment - seeing Self as an object distinct from the Cosmos.  Many of the early determinatives for the hieroglyphs of Set are knives.  It is His Tail that is used as the birthing knife and the object that Opens the Mouths of corpses and idols.  This moment begins Duration, the subjective sense of time.  It reflects the agony of the cutting off from the world and also the confusion humans feel in their alienation.  "Hey it's a bright, sunny day why am I unhappy?"  This is the true moment of self-creation - not conception, not some ritual that may be performed externally. 
The following moment is the realization of the Cosmos as object.  The Self realizes the Cosmos exists of its own.  This is the true moment of world-creation - not the Big Bang or Genesis.  The world and its parts acquire Time.  An undifferentiated being can not think about the sun that will follow the rain, and certainly not the winter that follows the summer.  The god of world-creation is the Far-Off one, Horus.  Horus is what most of the day-to-day life of leaders consist of.  This is as true as a foreman of a truck dock who has plans for what happens if the number three semi is in the shop, as it is for the general planning an assault.  The leader may or may not have time or inclination for self-development, but he or she must be focused on analyzing, simulating and ordering the world.
Many people have produced systems to explain time and change.  The Greeks said it was getting worse (Age of Gold, Age of Silver, Age of Bronze, Age of Iron).  Darwin said it was getting better (fish, reptiles, mammals, primates, English men).  Joachim of Fiore  came up with a spiritual model of stuff getting better - God the (abusive) Father, God the (good looking) Son, and finally the age of God the (friendly) Ghost.  It was a useful model - it explained God's anger issues and tendency to hang out with Jews in the Old Testament, God's love of mankind and hanging out with people that read Greek and Latin in the New Testament, and a coming New Age where people will have special powers and realize how smart Joachim of Fiore was.   This is a great model for a magician working on the world.  It gives hope (which empowers the magic of those who listen to you).  It explains why the world has sucked - God is getting smarter and you can too.  Finally it deifies the prophet - if you want the better world listen to me.  He adopted a model that fulfilled his beliefs, and provided a magical link with history and its processes.  Crowley belived the history of the world must be written in the four letters of the Hebrew Divine Name "He Exists" Yod He Vau he.  It would make the God the Mom (Paganism and your room got cleaned up), God the Dead Dad (central authority but no child surport), God the Crowned and Conquering Child (Bart Simpson is god), and finally God the Cheerleader, who will Put Out.
Crowley was at a turning-point in his life.  He could settle down, stop magic and become a father to the little bun in the oven.  He visited a really big heap of rocks called the great pyramid.  He didn't know that this was Har-Wer at His best.  The Pharaoh kept the world from falling part during the floods by keeping people busy, he had built himself a great Initiation chamber - complete with escape rout to the North Star.  Crowley resonated with the resonating chamber and soon his wife went into a trance.  The trigger object was a burial stele for a Montu Priest of the 25 dynasty.  (If you have an old book it will incorrectly list Ankh-f-n-khonsu as 26th dynasty).  Now if Crowley along today, he would know that the Theban Set Priesthood had been absorbed into the Montu Priesthood, and that Montu was often pained with Set's head.  If he had come along today he would have received a better translation of the Horus invoked on the stella.  It was not the Child Horus, but the warlord Horus Behedity.  Crowley hired the museum to translate the text, they ere using a popular French dictionary and translated Behedity as Hadit.  You can see Horus Behedity n a clear night, He's that reddish light we call Mars.
Crowley needed someway not to become a middle class one-woman, no-men, father.  So he got one.  He Heard his revelation as the voice of Horus the Child.  The problem is that there is no such animal.  It would be equivalent to the Baby Jesus being something different than the guy on the cross.  We might like pictures of the Baby Jesus on your Christmas cards, but we don't think his message is to stay in the manager at all costs.  Horus the Crowned and Conquering Child is male adolescence writ large. Go for what you want!  Screw around!  Fighting is good and we can all be friends afterward!  The world is going to work out because I AM A GENIUS-GENIUS!
The Voice was the voice that objectifies the world.  There is a break and the world is seen as testing ground and pleasure garden.  If someone gets hurt it is because they must have wanted to. The higher end of this thought can be seen in Ayn Rand, Nietzsche, Robert Anton Wilson, Max Stirner etc.
The lower end of this reasoning can be seen in shopping malls usually wearing a holey T-shirt.
This leads us with a few questions.  What historical and psychological forces made this a powerful idea?  What does magick have to do with all this?  Why did Set merge with Har-Wer - what was the Age of Satan all about?  What practical things does this mean for me in my day-to-day practice?  
Why it Worked.  Jung wrote about this very well for his (in)famous Wotan essay.  Christainity did a great job on splitting pagans into two parts.  The "top" part is the willingness to work together, store food for the winter, care for the old.  Every town in Europe was a map of this - the tallest structure was the church.  "Good" people helped out (and the Church administered).  Spiritual duties were never neglected because they came from the calendar and clock.  The "bottom" part was suppressed - the joy of group ecstasy, the need for direct spiritual experience, the sacred nature of sex and drunkenness, the need to put the rules down as a reward.   Just as a human deprived of half of his impulses will eventually crack, so to a society.  Crowley was by no means the only spiritual leader that re-connected the repressed - Jung slept with his patients, Steiner banged everybody, Gurdjieff did the sex and drugs bit, and I won't even mention Timothy Leary. 
As Jung had predicted the primal spirit would re-emerge.  Most of the spiritual thinkers of the time were fascists.  Not because they were the mean Naziods of movies.  Because they wanted group ecstasy.  Julius Evolva, Alain Danielou, Mircea Eliade, Schwaller de Lubciz , Guido Von List,  were all Fascists.  All of them wanted to rejuvenate society - and the Horian principle is to let out repressed energies with a strong director/magician to control them.  The Awakening that we call the "Aeon of Horus" was a mass break with the immediacy of the world and seeing the world as object.   The power of their force did things like turn a defeated WWI Germany into a world power. 
How does "Magick" fit in with this?  At first glance there seems to be no connection.  The expression of Will seems to need only a person who Wills and a Cosmos to work upon.  Yet the Aeon of Horus was filled with people driven to regain the secrets of the past.  There are several reasons for this.  Firstly for Horian  consciousness to break with the immediacy of the world, it needs to be reminds of Past and Future.  Magick and myth are great symbols of the past.  Secondly the magic of the past holds codes/programs to realize the very energies that powered the Aeon of Horus.  Thirdly Horian  magic  returns the group trance whether its is Thelemic mass, a rally at Nurmeberg, the Super Bowl, or a Wiccan bonfire.  Group ecstasy breaks from the non-awareness of the world into an awareness of power that might be brought to bear upon the world.  Hail the power of the posse!  Advertising, mind controls, sports fandom, MKULTRA, Beatlemania, are all examples of the return of group-trance. 
Now we looked at Set earlier as God of Self-Creation.  It was easy to see why Self-Creation would precede World-Creation.  But why would the god of Self-Creation merge with the God of World-Creation?  Horian consciousness can do things on a heroic scale - it can cause millions of human to be inflamed and act (for good or ill).  Since it based on Will - the experiencing of the world as a place of action - it makes people aware that they can do anything.  Space program.  Tear down the Berlin Wall.  Give women the vote.  Blow up the Twin Towers.  This consciousness had come and gone in the history of mankind.  We are amazed at its triumphs.  The Great Wall. Stonehenge. The Roman road system.  The Panama canal.  But Will without direction from an evolving source creates the Ukrainian starvation, the Holocaust, the Killing Fields.  The willful child that builds a huge sandcastle can be the kid who destroys it in a few seconds. The more empowered mankind can be as a group, the more chances mankind can really **** up.
Now just as Horian consciousness is in part fueled by repression from viewpoints that claimed   humans can not make decisions about the Cosmos as object, Setian consciousness is repressed by group trance/ecstasy.  You can look around a high school pep rally and see which kids are not energized by the group.  They see no reason to give their attention to the defeating of the other team.  Or you can see their sad faces at Mass while their parents are excited by getting a free cracker.  They are unfed by group trance.  Some of them may discover Apollonian trance - they may find yoga, or tookin' on marijuana, or made up rites.  But their growth is small.  They see the universe as object, so what? And they see themselves as the Subject - the doer in the Cosmos.  However unless they find the arts or writing - their solitary pursuits can seldom amount to much.
The solution is to unite the forces.  "I exist and my existing is Doing something about itself!" and "The world exists outside of  me and I can choose how to interact with some parts of it!" can merge into the "The world exists and I want it!"  The possibility for small groups - Meso-Cosmos - to work on both increasing pleasure from the world and shaping themselves on their own principles  -- comes into being the moment the Setian and Horian consciousness merge.  There has to be certain common factors - a hatred of the world that can be pleasurable.  A distrust of the world's models of how-to-succeed but a frank desire to have some of the world's treasures.  A belief in secret rules - this is a very important idea.  Unless the Set-Har-Werian think there is some secret way to obtain goals, they would have despair of realizing that they would have to do what everyone else does.  So the follower/friend of Set-Har-Wer will have magic, materialism, a belief in self-driven self-development, and a desire to make fun of society.  In Setian terminology we call this two-headed figure Satan.  It has had other names including Eris and Bob. "Lucifer" the Lone Star once again presaged the coming of Khephra, the dawn.
The End of the Age of Satan, and the separation of the Horian and Setian streams, is interesting.  For Magister Aquino it ends with the "Ninth Solstice Message" - a document that annuls the Pact between Satan and La Vey.  La Vey is encouraged to be his own self, a Daimon.  In other words his be-all and end-all were to see himself as Subject and Object, the receiver of all action.  Although his actions may be aimed at the Cosmos as Object, they will effect him as Subject more profoundly.  He is made into the first Setian.  For Stephen Edred Flowers an audible voice says "Runa."  He is given an Object to Seek, but the Object is one that can only sought by sacrificing the immediate self to Transcendent Self.  His Word Runa becomes an imperative phrase "Reyn Til Runa!"  -- which he will later note adds up by rune-tally to 93, linking into with the Law of the Aeon of Horus.  The Runes are the great symbol of Set-HarWer - they exist in the Objective Universe and in the Subjective one.  Seeking them creates a break with the immediacy of the world that both furthers the Self's articulation and development and increases the effect of the Will upon the Objective Universe.  At the end of year a curious reception of a "Book" by Nema, proclaimed the speaking of a dual god - one part Horus and one unnamed that brought a word that is said to create change, IPSOS.   The imagery of this "Book" is lovely - Black Flame as the form of the Mover of the dynamic universe.  It can be read as the expression of consciousness (the Black Flame) naming the whole of the Cosmos as Object, IPSOS, and the self as Doer - and suggesting that change brought about by repetition of the Word fulfills both Setian and Horian agendas.  The Book is flawed by Setian standards in that it perceives the Black Flame as Ma'at, and holds to an older notion that consciousness is Order. However it's timing is suggestive.
Selves will seek other selves for the process of "Summoning."  In the presence of a defined self we respond from the depths of being by showing ourselves.  If all we have is society to respond to we usually work on the "I agree" or "I disagree" level.  If we are in the presence of people that represent a different modeling of being, we can respond in simple ways (we copy), or more complex ways (we think), or very complex ways (we model our future selves thought behavior).  If the core cell of Setian consciousness endures, the two-headed monster is not needed.  Those who one hand can perceive and reject the world as object, and on the other hand see the response to this being the transcendental response will be magically drawn to us.  If we wish to flourish we should up the flow with some sort of advertising - but even if we took down the website and forgot Set's admonition to wear the Pentagram proudly, some would continue to find us.
By the way, the transcendent function to the world is not to star at your navel and chant something.  It is the response to Transcend a problem.  To mature, to gain knowledge or experience, to "think outside the box," to not view the world on its own terms.  Each transcendental response the Setian makes, makes the Setian.






 
Some Helpful Links

Joachim of Fiore
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joachim_of_Fiore
Mircea Eliade as Fascist
http://www.realitysandwich.com/blog/5433
Transcendent Function
http://www.nautis.com/2004/07/node-48/
Eris
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discordianism
Bob
http://www.subgenius.com/
The Pyramid Texts by Naydler
http://www.newdawnbooks.info/Reviews/SHAMANIC_WISDOM_IN_THE_PYRAMID_TEXTS.html
Liber Pennae Penunmbra
http://user.cyberlink.ch/~koenig/dplanet/html/pp.htm
The idea of "Summons" of a Self by other Selves
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Gottlieb_Fichte

Dear Setian X,

Thank you for questions about Lovecraft

Howard Phillip Lovecraft was a New England writer.  His dad died in the
nuthouse from syphilis.  His mom died in the nuthouse.  His mom discouraged
him from playing with other kids because he was too ugly and might scare
them.  His grandfather encouraged him to read and make up stories.  The
family library had a vast store of eighteenth century literature.
Grandfather died and the family got very poor.

Lovecraft went deep inside himself.  His night-side was tuned into dreams
and legends.  His day-side was tuned into reason and logic.  His self-image
was of an 18th century Anglo-American gentleman of leisure.

He wrote a great deal of very bad verse.  He wrote huge letters to his
friends. And at the urging of fellow amateurs writers he wrote
SF/Fantasy/Horror.

Not surprisingly it read like 18th century prose.  It was dominated by
dreams
and raw physic images It reflected:

1.  A belief that humans weren't the center of the universe
2.  That the universe is very, very old and drama could stretch for
trillions of years
3.  There is no God
4.  Weirdness runs though family lines
5.  religion is a joke on mankind
6.  certain humans can break the bounds of culture and time becoming
immortal and not subject to moral or physical laws
7.  Wonder and terror are more interesting than love, greed or anger
8. The book is a willful character -- grimoires don't just set there
9.  the establishment strives to keep people from knowing the above items
(and it should because humans are string to know these things)
10.  Jews, Negroes and Italians are sub-humans Imagine his surprise when
realizing his wife was Jewish

11.  Mnay good people wind up in nuthouses.  They are really not crazy


This made his fiction very much at odds with either his literary
contemporaries (Hemmingway) as well as fellow pulp-writers (Seabury
O'Quinn).

Lovecraft ran a revision business.  So he helped people who wanted to be
published by re-writing their prose.  He added freely his ideas.  So various
Lovecraftian notions (such as his arch-grimorire the _Necronomicon_)
suddenly started appearing up all over the place.

Since most magicians believe the first nine ideas (more-or-less), and since
the dream images from the stories are plug-and-play (You will dream things
from his stories) -- he had a big effect on 20th contrary magic.  Some
effect comes from literalists like Kenneth Grant = "Lovecraft was a
magician.  His wife once dated a cousin of Aleister Crowley." Other comes
from less literal thinkers that were looking for metaphors for the world
(For example see _The Morning of the Magicians_).

His effect on writers of horror is huge.  Lovecraftian derived fiction was
written by Borges, Stephan King, Ligotti, Ramsey Campbell, Joe Lansdale, and
dozens of others.
There are a two or three role playing games, scads of movies, TV shows, you
name it.

A few helpful links:

http://old.disinfo.com/archive/pages/dossier/id10/pg1/index.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._P._Lovecraft

http://www.sflit.com/novaexpress/14/lovecraft-14.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cthulhu_Mythos

Xeper and Remanifest,

DWVI*

Reyn Til Runa!

From _Uncle Setnakt's Guide to Everything_ Pg. 93

Q.  What party would you most like to have gone to?

A.  One of Mustafa Bey's shindigs.

"Mr. Bremmer, I know you are going back to Scotland.  Have this scroll as a
Gift from Egypt."

"Thank you Mr. Bey.  What is it?"

"It's a dramatic papyrus.  You should check out the spell that starts Xepera
Xeper Xeperu!  I think some young man named Budge is going to need it in a
few years"

"What's this written on the cover?"

"It's just a little curse it makes you get tuberclosis if you take the
scroll out of Egypt.  Silly native superstition."

"Cough. Cough. Cough."

"Mr. Bremmer here have a brandy.  We Ismalis can drink.  I am a Ninth
Degree, directly owing my initiation to Hassan I Sabbah.  Hey look at Amelia
over there.  She seems to like the dancing girls a lot if you know what I
mean."

"Cough.  Cough. Cough."

"Yesterday she took that German sculptress Ney with her to Luxor.  Ney told
me that she realizes when she saw the giant Kheper beetle that she realized
that the source of all human religion was originally the idea of Self
Creation.  You think Amelia would be able to bang her?"

"Cough. Cough. Cough."

"Well I know she is getting nowhere with Miss Nightingale over there.  What
a prude!  She told me the Sphinx talked to her last week!"

"Cough! Cough! Cough!"

"Mr. Bremmer you need to leave for Scotland tomorrow.  Remember to give the
scroll to the British Museum in your will."

"Cough. cough. cough."

"Oh Miss Edwards!  You seem to like my dancing girls so much!  Why hasn't a
good looking young Egyptologist like yourself found a husband?  You know if
you don't marry you could leave a lot of money to a foundation of
Egyptologists.  Just a thought."

"A foundation!  The American Research Center in Egypt.  What a great idea
Mr. Bey.  Have you met my friend Elizbet Ney, she has convinced me to write
a book on Egyptian sculpture and the cult of the Ka.  She thinks it could
lead to other women studying sculpture in Germany to think about Ka
statues."

"That would be lovely.  I try to spread Egyptian ideas into the world.  It
seems the other lady that came with you, Miss Nightingale is not having a
good time. "

"She's not the party sort.  Sadly.  She should probably be a nurse, but she
thinks everyone will be interested at her Visions here in Egypt."


Xeper and Remanifest,

DWVI*

Ir Shti Shta-tu!

From _Uncle Setnakt's Guide to Everything_ Pg. 419

Q.  After Set made the watermelons what happened?

A.  He was still trying to catch Horus, so he transformed himself into a
leopard.  They are fast and since they had not spots blended into the desert
scenery.

Q.  But don't leopards have spots?

A.  Isis used her Knot (the magic knotted rag she wears) to make herself
into a goddess with a red hot branding iron.  She attacked Set several times
with the iron, giving the leopard spots.  Thus when Priests wish to Become
Set: Opener of the Mouth -- they wear the leopard skin, the Sem Priests.
Set was angered that his sister had used her magic rag to become the
poker-yielding goddess.  He said to her "I liked you better as a **** then
on the rag."

Q.  I doubt that appears in the Papyrus Jumihilac.

A.  It may be a dubious translation

Xeper and Remanifest,

DWVI*

Ir Shti-Shta-tu!

> From _Uncle Setnakt's Guide to Everything_ Pg. 418
>

Q.  In the Papyrus Jumilihac it is mentioned that a Priest of Set is a
"Shed-Kheru"  What is the English translation of this phrase?

A.  There are various translations -- "Smart ****,"  "Wise Guy,"  or "Dick"
come to mind.

Q.  In the Papyrus Jumilihac  it is mentioned that Set attempted to mount
Isis.  Comments?

A.  Yes.  He tried to mount the ****.  I don't mean that in bad way, she
had transformed herself into a black female dog in heat (Set was in the form
of Saharan wolf at the time).

Q.  Was it a succesful romance?

A.  After Set had mounted her, she changed into a bird and took flight.
Set's ejaculated on the desert.  His semen was tranfsomred into watermelons,
which is why the watermelon is full of seeds.  Priests of Osiris are
forbidden to eat them.

Q.  What about seedless watermelons?

A.  I think those are Ok.

Q.  Do you feel Set transgresses ethical sexual boundaries?

A.  No.  Although it is widely presumed that Set is "Setian" -- as
theAgeless Intellignece of the Universe, he is much older than the Temple of
Set.  My guess is that he is nominally Mormon -- he had to explain to
Nepthys why he married Asarte and Anath as well.

Q.   What about his boyfriend?

A.  That was at camp and does not count

Q.   So we got sex, what about drugs and rock-n-roll?

A.  Drugs are more Osirian.  The biggies Blue Lotos (you can get it on
E-bay) and Qat (it can get you in jail) are sacred to Osiris. Set stuck with
wine, beer and probably the Lake Victoria import pot.  Loud music was a
definte yes.  The good Osirian was "ger ma-a" the quiet dude.  The good
Setian was annoying at times.  "Shed Kheru" and so forth -- but the real
party hearty folks were the Priestess of Bast.

Q.  Would you ever tell any of this to Setians?

A.  Hell, no.  Especialy not on the 4th of July.  What do you think I am?  A
shed-kheru?

Xeper and Remanifest.

DWVI*

Ir Shti Shta-tu!

> From _Uncle Setnakt's Guide to Everything_ pg 1114
>

Q.  Why did the Greeks invent philosophy?  Was it because eating gyros makes
you really, really smart?

A.  Greece is really poor and rocky, so young men had to go fight as
mercenaries and came back with money.  You face death, you think about it.

Niki -- "Well I was near the Black Sea and they said when you die that you
go up a ladder into the Northern Star and wander around a really long time
and come back.  And shamans can make that journey while alive and learn
stuff."

Solon -- "Well I was in Egypt fighing Hittites.  And the Egyptians say atht
you got a selection of souls.  Now if you unite the sould of Becoming Ba
with the soul of Being Ka, by mgaic and leading a super active life you
become a star-god Akh."

Philbus -- "Well I was in Persia and they have deontological ethics -- if
you do good things in this life you get promoted in some final judgement
into a better wort of world."

"Well they can't all be right.  Hmm let's think about it.  I got a gut
feeling it is better to have some idea about death before you die.  If we
could figure this out we probably know what to do when things come up.
Wisdom is what you can use when you don't already know what to do. I'm
lovin' that idea."

Xeper and Remanifesr,

DWVI*

:RtR:

> Since it has been proved that the Universe expands and it is orderly
> maintained by universal laws as to preserve life, would you please
> explain Creation to me without a Creator?
>
>


I don't feel that I can answer this question without God's help.  So I am
buying a 6 sided die so that God can help me.  "Oh mighty God, Creator of
all things big and small and really really small like quarks and **** aid me
as You preserve the Order of the Universe (With the possible exception of
some parts of New Jersey)" Then God, the scientific source could tell me:

1. -- Yes the universe was Created.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_Spaghetti_Monster 'nuff said.
2. -- Yes the universe is Created to preserve life.  Real life exists in
Dark Matter, that why I made much more of it.  23% of the Universe is Dark
Matter.  I did that to impress Robert Anton Wilson and William S. Burroughs
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_matter
3.  -- Yes I created the Laws of the Universe.  I made you roll the dice.  I
made it be a three.  The other day I made Pluto not be a planet.  Pretty
damn spiff.  What you are "thinking" right now with your brain.  I made that
happen.  Cool hunh?
4.  It is well known in the phenomenology of the Trickster -- Set, Coyote,
Baron Samhedi, Loki, Hermes -- that they exist in opposition to an Ordering
universe.  I made the Universe for Set.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trickster
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1055309/the_trickster_a_gods_evolution_from.html?cat=38
5.  Yes I Created the universe to preserve life because otherwise I had no
place to put my pets. If you pray I'll give you a treat.  Most times I won't
give you a treat, because random rewards are the best conditioning
http://cultblender.wordpress.com/2008/07/09/did-skinner-answer-why-we-have-a-thing-called-religion/
6.  Yes I Created the universe in accordance with strict mathematical laws
that I also created.  If you roll "6" two more times in a row., you are
going to Hell.  666 I Created that

Then for the Setian philosophy part I would Invoke Set, "Oh Mighty Set,  who
teaches Free Will and Free Thought and was most probably an aardvark despite
what Magister Kauschen thinks as well summarized on this webpage
http://cohesion.rice.edu/CentersAndInst/SAFA/emplibrary/deMaret,P.Safa2006.pdf
although Webb thinks you are a werewolf
http://www.cryptozoology.com/forum/topic_view_thread.php?pid=567753&tid=29
and anyway you are cool, guide me to answer!"

1.  -- Figure it out yourself
2.  --Figure it out yourself
3.  -- I am going with the Flying Spaghetti Monster
4.  -- Figure it out yourself
5.  -- Figure it out yourself
6.  -- Figure it out yourself

I hope this may prove useful.

Xeper.

DWVI*

:RtR:

Dear Friends,

I am pretty dang sure that no serious Runer has not read C. Scott Littleon's The New Compartive Mythology, which is a cheap and painless introduction to the ideas of Dumezil.  As Dumezil is the scholarly basis of understanding the tri-partite Indo-European world -- a as much as Guido von List was the magical basis of this Remaninfestation.

http://www.amazon.com/New-Comparative-Mythology-Anthropological-Assessment/dp/0520024036

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C._Scott_Littleton

What I did not know is that he was a witness to one of the best documented UFO cases ever, "The Battle Over Los Angles"  The world is weirder than we think:

http://wanderling.tripod.com/la_ufo.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Los_Angeles

Don

:RtR:

Dear Friends,

For those who wish to Wish:

It has been XXXVI years since Edred Heard Runa.  Hmmm.  There will be powerful currents in Midgard this year and the next.

Xeper.

Setnakt

Reyn Til Runa!

Dear Lovecraftians,

Misaktonic University Department of Littrature is great:

http://www.yankeeclassic.com/miskatonic/dliterature/dliterature.htm

Also cheap new loss leader at Barnes and Nobles (eight bucks for the hardback) Lousiana Vampires with Nancy Collins, Poppy Z. Brite, me and the usual suspects.  You can find it in the cheap stakcs near the checkout

Xeper.

DWVI*

Reyn Til Runa!

Dear Adept D-----

Great question.  Some rituals have induced sickness in me, but some of the
greatest self-change work has happened in times of great pain and fever.

Some grist for the mill:

Many shamanism practices stress out the body as a means of getting access to
the psyche.  Some groups enter into shamanism vocation by suffering illness.
http://www.tengerism.org/becoming_a_shaman.html

Victor Turner has a good model of Initiation -- one of the ideas is that in
the ritual process there is the time when everything goes by the script
(Structure) which is affirming and conserving the world as it is.  These
times are for conservation.  But there is the balancing time, the time of
the betwixt and the between when anything can happen (Anti-structure).  In
these times improvisation is the rule and the Trickster is the King.  Here
Growth can happen.  Illness is a time of Anti-Structure.

Sickness creates commintas.  You got one sick person coughing in an
office -- every non-sick person hates them.  Now they may express that
hatred with acts of kindness.  But here's the kicker you get two sick people
and they are friends.  That bitter steno with the tall blond hair you used
to hate is suddenly your pal.  Feelings about her welfare, which you have
never had, come forth.

It is very easy to charge cursing items when sick.  (See Roger LaForrest
_Fate Control_ which would be a TOS 6 since it isn't as balanced as his
_Houses That Kill_)  You got the 24 stomach bug?  Hold on to a keepsake and
hate on it.  Give it to your victim.  This goes way beyond germ warfare.

Sicknesses lead (at least temporarily) to seeking health.  This weekend I
got the stomach bug that has got about a third of my school.  For weeks I
will eat better. No junk food, plenty of raw veggies.  But it wasn't junk
food that gave me the sickness  -- heck probably the chemicals in a Little
Debbie's product would have killed the virus.  My illness prompted good
deeds from my wife, my mom and friends.  Should I be worried that they love
me more visibly when I am imitating Ragan from _The Exorcist_?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lMEN5PxrJ-A

The modern Runic revival began with illness.  Check out the life of Guido
Von List:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guido_von_List  Like many people who
disliked the blend of Capitalism and Christianity of the late nineteenth
century, List had been attracted to romantic versions of paganism.  In 1902
sudden blindness forced him to look inward and pull a somewhat subjective
runic synthesis into the world.  Now I am the least Germanic guy here, but I
can say (with accuracy) that because of Guido Von List's personal
intervention in my life on Mother Night XXIII AS I am sitting here writing
this note (I'll tell that story elsewhere).

For the average human sickness is the only time when death is considered.
Most of the stages of grief are the basis for religion and philosophy of one
sort or another http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C3%BCbler-Ross_model

Oh well, I am ranting.  You have seen the tip of an iceberg, good exploring!

Xeper.

DWVI*

:RtR:

To the Followers of the Brushed Eared One,

Greetings!

In India and Egypt the Left Hand Path color is Red.
In China one mourns in White and gets married in Red
In Europe "Red and Black: used to mean military and clergy.
My Scots ancestors were all about the matrix.

In Setian practice all Symbolic systems are switches.  When you want to use
something that has been built up by others, switch On -- Red is Blood and
Life and Set.  When you want to decodition yourself (and get energy by
tearing down a concept) switch Off for tonight White is about energy and
purity and Lucifer.  When you are very personal don't hit the switches at
all -- what I want to wear or not wear, light or not light is exactly waht I
Need it to mean.

Given the above here are a few toys:

Egyptain Color Symbolism

http://africanhistory.about.com/od/egyptology/ss/EgyptColour.htm


Colr in Left Brain/Right Brain tests

http://www.brainteasercentral.com/riddle.php?riddleid=70

Does Langauge Makes Us See  (read section 5)


http://dfll.fudan.edu.cn/jpkc/kwyd/supplementary/Reading7.doc


Color and LBM

http://www.precisionintermedia.com/color.html

Xeper.

DWVI*

My friend Micahel Santora sent me some responses to my book When They Came:

Concerning Words

By

Don Webb

Ego Sum Ipissimus in Ipissimum

This article reflects my understanding of Words, the Utterances of Magi, in the context of the Aeon of Set.  It is neither more nor less than my understanding, and should not be viewed as an offical Temple document. .

The article will deal with five things:  the Reception of the Word, the Magus/Maga, the nature of a Word,  The Utterance of the Word, the Understanding of a Word by Masters of the Temple.  It will focus on Setian practice but will have comparative examples from magical systems of Late Antiquity, Indian system of sonic theology, and European and American philosophical systems.  It is not written to evaluate any particular Utterance or concept that may be Coming Into Being.  It does not address the concept of a Word outside of Setian thinking and practice except tangentially.

The Aeon of Set is the Working of the Prince of Darkness upon the Earth at this time.  It’s primary components are human beings, who both individually and interpedently refine, evolve and  spread Xeper by thought, word and deed.  A principle component of this Working is the Temple of Set.

One of the more obvious ways the Temple of Set aids the Prince of Darkness is by the Recognition of Words, which are easily accessed imperatives for actions that are seen to refine, evolve and spread Xeper across space and time.  The Temple is not an infallible source of Recognition,, nor can the Masters of Temple completely foresee the effects of adding another tool to enhance free will.

The founding Root of the Temple is, was and shall be the Utterance of Xeper by Michael A. Aquino.  The principle of Xeper holds the notion that an Idea that is becoming manifest as an evolving idea has the Power to create its own field to grow in.  It will displace other less vital ideas, and will require of the humans who use to engage in self-development in all areas of Being.  The task of the Temple is to distinguish between useful concepts and tools from Words.  The former bespeak the wisdom and excellence of the humans who have created them from their struggles.  The later represent an enlivening influence from the Price of Darkness though a human.  The latter must be subjected to great scrutiny and testing.  This process of scrutiny provides very useful material for the continued development and empowering of the Masters of the Temple. 

The Reception of a Word

The Prince of Darkness is not deus absconditus.   He is perceived as aware of the human struggle and capable of Divine Intervention in such ways hat do not hinder the evolution and expression of Free Will.  He provides Gifts, which are seen as amplifications of his Gift to the human race of Self-modifying Isolate Intelligence.  This gifting is accomplished by the giving of Words to enable motivated humans useful imperatives to aide in their own quest for immortality, power and pleasure.

The Prince though magic presents Words to certain humans at certain times.  As each Word  represents an unbinding of the conditioned order of the Cosmos, its effects can be estimated and guessed at – but all of the consequences can not be known.  Each human takes in certain risk as he or she adds to possibilities of Becoming.

Words are not the property of the human who Utters them.  The human, and his or her methods, are part of the meaning of the Word. This distinguishes the life teaching of a Master of the Temple.  A Master’s Teaching is a Remanifestation of him- or herself.  A Word is the Remanifestation of the Will of the Prince.

Among the tests that a Master must use in testing an Utterance is discovering the story of its Reception.  Each Word will have a unique path of Coming Into Being and that path will be resonant with the Master’s apprehension of the Prince of Darkness. 

The Magus or Maga

The Magush was the Persian fire-priest.  Zoraster had determined that there was not a Cosmos full of Gods.  There was one god, the God of the Mind.  Every concept on the divine world illuminated a portion of this god, just as human had a Self that wore many faces (from greedy to Noble, wonder-filled to angry).  The symbol of the Mind in the physical world was the fire,  the fire-priest because of his knowledge of the Cosmos as well as the force that displaced the laws of the Cosmos as needed, was a perfect example of what Victor Turner calls the ritual specialist.  In other words the fire-priest knew what you needed to do to Change things.

The notion of a dynamic divine world symbolized by fire entered the Greek world through Heraclitus, who also invested us with the philosophy of Becoming. The Magush became the Greek Magos and our word Magus.

The Magus knows how to bring about Change at a price.

He or she can teach you to perform magic but you have dedicate your soul to his or her Word.  When you pay your price you gain a new Tool for manifesting and expressing your psyche – and all you manifest or express will further the Will of the Prince of Darkness,

The Magus or Maga can only Hear the Word if he or she has a great Need for it.  The struggles of the Magus to understand the Word are the magical sacrifice that empowers it.   The need to understand (and therefore Experience) the Word requires more than one human’s experience.  The Magus is therefore compelled to speak.  The process of Recognition may empower the Magus by drawing attention to his words and deeds, but is not necessary for the Magus’ Task.

Philo of Alexandria wishing to portray Moses as being more important than Plato said that a Magus needed a Word, a Book and a Law.

After Aleister Crowley, the Law, has come to be seen as an imperative phrase that tells Seekers something they must Do – but also describes an existing Process in the Cosmos.  It is both prescriptive and descriptive.  The Utterance of a Law does not bring any new thing into being, but brings an anticipatory Awareness of that thing.  To use that problem form your beginning philosophy class – if there is no one in a forest to hear a tree fall it does not make a sound – the phenomenon described the law did not happen because no was listening.  But now the Law has come to humans, they will not only listen for the phenomena, but will be out felling trees.

The Book of the Magus is that collection of magical techniques that can allow the Seeker to perceive certain aspects of the Word, which cannot be accessed by ordinary consciousness.  This includes mystic communions, noetic understandings or “hand-on” experience with the Creation of the Universe.  Setian jargon for the later is Greater Black Magic.

In many mythological systems – Hebrew, Aztec, Germanic, Egyptian etc --  the universe is presumed to full of chaotic stuff before a conscious god acts upon it to Create the ordered Cosmos.  In such systems the god’s Plan would be equivalent to the Word, Book and Law – and it should be noted that when the God has done these Deeds, the Cosmos will still contain Mysteries for him, which will provide the material for his furter conscious development.

In other systems – the Vedic and the Gnostic for example – the universe is Created by the Word.  In these systems the Word would equate with the Magus’ Word, and the Book and Law are those things that come into being as a sort of operating manual. 

Either mythological model can be used to understand the Setian view of the Magus as Creator and the Word as Tool.

The Nature of a Word

A Word is a two-fold thing.  One part is a label for a group or constellation of ideas.  For example we all “know” what we mean when we say, Capitalism, Communism, Democracy, Racism.  We use some Words to define who we are, and others to define who we are not.  We can gain motivation when we think about Words – because Words separate us from the mechanical universe.  A rock never worries if it a good enough Capitalist, nor does a locust think ants to be Racist.  All Words are ways that human being align themselves with movements – and as such with the power and limitation of groups.  At their worst Words can lead to sleep – for example we all know other people that are so self-identified with their label “Mormon” or “Democrat” or “Feminist” that they have ceased thinking.  We also know people that think a good deal about their label – and by bringing to their highest level of thinking shape themselves and their world in good ways (or at least in ways that appear good to them).  Words are also a magical act.  In a psyche-centric religion such as the Temple of Set, the Word of an individual’s self-creation is the word of cosmic creation.  The sentient observer and actor is what is created, and his or her actions and perceptions of the Cosmos create his or her world.  Purely philosophical systems see the contemplation of Words as a method of purifying the soul, or even casusing an Ascent into powerful regions – such systems generally look upon ritual enactments of the Words as a “lower” or “superstitious” system.  Most magical systems usually think that Words are keys to power only through a magical technology.  The Setian system (in many ways harkening back to Chaldean theurgy) sees both approaches as complimentary and necessary.   Thus we are neither wholly magicians nor philosophers, but a unique modern synthesis cast forth as a Left Hand Path school.  In a later article I will address why this synthesis  not only is, but must be, manifest in a Left Hand Path School – even though the term itself (from the Sanskrit vama marg) is less than a thousand years old

Words do not have to be new concepts.  All Words represent principles that are part of the multi-faceted process of individuation.  Words have to be something that is Needed in the world as a living and evolving concept.  On human scale, Words are concepts that need to be activated in the world. They can not be so broad that they are two large to define - such as "Justice" or "Liberty" Or "Meaning."   They should exists as part of natural language - if they are simply made-up nonsense, there is no chance of exploring the Word beyond the Magus' writing and saying.  The act of seeking out the meaning in context should itself provide an enriching process for the users of the Word. Words do not have to be from an exotic lexicon (ie they do not have to be Greek, Norse, Egyptian etc.), but that have to be from unusual discourse so that they may appreciated.  This is  an example of the Setian idea of the magical tool.   You could use the knife you crave the turkey with to be your magical dagger, but the Inspiration a special tool will have will increase your power.  Likewise common language may suffice for holding most of the straightforward meaning of the Word as a philosophical imperative, but the full magical force of the Word needs something that sets it aside from average discourse. 

The Utterance of a Word appeals to the approach of Reason over Tradition.  The Word should provide new thought that displaces older patterns and destroys/renews a Tradition.  The mythic model is that of Jesus, who came to fulfill the law, and thereby create a new law.  Words are resisted emotionally because they threaten Tradition.  Words are tested by seeing if the further Reason.  Words have areas of growth and friction (that leads to strength) on all levels of reality.  In the emotional realm Words challenge long-held beliefs, and also create and destroy alliances.  (Matthew
10:35).  In the intellectual realm, Words (like mental concepts) must be tested by reason and debate - and will grow when one human seeks to teach/share the word with another.  In the physical realm writing, broadcasting etc must spread the Word.  - this requires money, effort, development of talents and so forth. In the daemonic realms the Word must cast out collections of energy from  other Words - and must provide such magical experiences that those who rally under Its banner shall be able to empower and protect their number against the forces of stupidity.

The Utterance of a Word

The world is filled with self-help and how-to-do-magic books.  It seems that almost every struggle or problem you may have has been figured out by somebody, who will gladly tell you what to do in order to fix your sorry self, blast your way to mega-bucks, or finally hook up with Bootsy Collins.  And wonder-of-wonders the authors of these books just plain know better than we do.  They have articulated a formula; does this not make them Magi?

We do not live in a purely intellectual universe where only ideas count.  Nor do we live in a world of things where no ideas have any place.  We dwell in a reality that is both physical and mental, not two realities.  Change in the one reality comes by the interaction of planning and deed, thought and hazard, trial and error.  The Magus does not float outside of the world dropping helpful hints to us mere mortals.  The Magus struggles, has victories and defeats – and in order for both him and us to profit we must watch, judge help, wonder at, and occasionally be glad we aren’t him.  

The Utterance of a Word consists not only of the Magus’ words, but also of his deeds, his Signs and his Wonders.  We have to watch and evaluate.  We have to decide if it will further us to be part of his Rituals.  We have to decide would it help out our friends or family if we exposed them to some (or all) of the Word.  We may decide that we want to buy a copy of his book for the library of our college, or we may decide to challenge him to a debate on an e-mail list:  or we may decide to perform our own Illustrative Working to see if we can see what he Sees.  Some will be moved to resist the Magus, and his Utterance may grow stronger by overcoming an obstacle.  Others may fall in love with him, or take him to Thanksgiving dinner, or put a blog about his ideas in their native Korean.

All things become part of the Utterance, which soon grows beyond the control of the Magus.  Some will purposively not understand and by spreading their mis-understandings set up patterns of resistance that the Magus’ followers will deal with for decades.  Other may misunderstand but feel so rightiuos in their misunderstanding to challenge the Magus on his own Word.  Others still will mock the idea of a Word as the Will of the Prince of Darkness – and even others will accept that notion with such blind religiosity as to hypnotize themselves.

The Temple seeks to aid the human with an Utterance.  It can help him or her to Understand that the Word is or is not from the Prince of Darkness.  It can provide both resistance to its coming into being by the formal Recognition process – Words are nominated  by the High Priest and need a unanimous vote of the Council of Nine.

The Master of the Temple Understands the Word

Words are easily accessible imperatives.  They tell you to Do something.

The Master of the Temple is involved in integrating, understanding and expressing himself.   The Master has achieved a level of self-sufficiency from the Universe.  The Master can take the universe on his or her own terms.  To grow the Master must cause the Universe to relive certain aspects of his life.  This is an extroverted form of sammastti meditation.  Allen Bennett had taught the First Beast this method.  In Remanifesting his or her life, the Master experiences triumphs of the art of his existence.

The Master having   reached a level of self understanding, neither falsely proud nor falsely humble, can reliably receive magical communication from the Cosmos.  The master can evaluate mysterious signs without self-serving or facile explanations. 

An apparent Curse falls upon a very few Masters.  The material of their lives does not supply them with the knowledge, luck or magical method they need for a particular Need.  This Need, for example the crisis of the Church of Satan in Year X,  causes the master to Seek an answer.  This process is an act of magical memory wherein one discovers the moment a certain Sign was presented to him or her. The reception is a Willed deed wherein a principle presented to the human is made into a channel for the Prince of Darkness' Will.  The moment of first "hearing" is not what makes one a Magus  -- Aquino did not become a Magus reading Budge,  Crowley did not achieve the grade in Cairo, Flowers  was not elevated during his car ride in the Year IX.  When the outer stressor forces the Master of the Temple, he or she must abandon what has been their life (ie. Words kill Tradition) in order to deal with the outer world. 

Other Masters have the ability to evaluate the Word.  They can judge magical signs.  At their best they are not moved by their feelings toward their fellow human (Magister Billy-bB has been a member twenty year, this is a reward"  or "I hate that woman she split Jell-O on my shoe at the San Francisco Conclave.").  The Master evaluates the Word on two poles.  "Can I use this Word in my own life?" and "Can I understand this Word in the development of the philosophy of the Temple of Set?"  This level of dual thinking personal-greedy/impersonal-wise is one of the marks of the Master.

There is an allure of the Grade.  When watching a football game we do fancy ourselves the one carrying the ball - when he makes a touch-donw.  We may not ev him when he is tackled, fumbles or has no personal life.  For those possessed of the Grade, there is little allure.  It is humbling.  All of your students seem to Understand things better then you, all of your failures are known, and no feels that they have the least barrier toward criticizing you.  The imbalance of becoming an expression of the Will of the Prince of Darkness has a heavy toll.  The Master of the Temple has the relationship that people dream of when they seek to become magicians.  The Magus has bought his ticket.  At the best he is riding on a roller coaster.  At the worst the Hindenburg or the R101.

                                       Questions to Consider

Interacting with a Word is a process of discovering principles of consciousness, Self discovery, releasing of magical energies and communing with the Will of the Prince of Darkness.  You can learn a great deal by discovering that particular concept is a good tool and not a Word.  Some Words will open to you at once, others will be very slow to reveal themselves to you.  The Words that are the Sun and Moon to your best friend may be tiny dim stars for you. Here are some questions that may help you in determining if a certain utterance is or is not a Word:

1. Is the Word (and its Law) descriptive?  Can you see example in myth, history and people you know wherein the principle described helped them get ahead in the Cosmos?

 
2. Is the Word (and its Law) prescriptive? Does it tell you something you should Do?  Can you see a situation in your life that the Word would point a path of action?

3. Is it simple enough to grasp quickly, but subtle enough so that one could spend a lifetime working out its refinements?

4. Is resonate with and expands the philosophy of the Temple of Set?

5. Would you feel comfortable with the idea of performing a ritual to help you Understand the Word in your life? 

6. Could you describe its philosophical principles to someone without using the jargon of the Temple of Set?  Words are a medium by which the Will of Set interacts with the world.  Not only should they be accessible to all levels of Setians, but they should understandable by intelligent people.

7. Can you understand (at least in broad terms) how it relates to other Words of the Aeon? 

8. Does the Word exist as an idea on its merit and not simply a subsection of an existing Word?

9. Once you have Heard the Word does your mind and heart return to it often?  Are your dreams, deeds, and thoughts drawn to It by no effort on your part?

(A nod to my Teacher)

Dear Mr. Ellison,

My friend Gordon Van Gelder kindly provided your address.

I am not a frequent writer of fan letters; my last being to Fritz Lieber.

Yesterday I was wondering through a used bookstore when a lady in her thirties asked me if I could recommend any science fiction, a field of which she professed ignorance.  After gravely assuring her of the importance of acquiring some of my collections, I mentioned names in a somewhat haphazard manner.  Sterling, Egan, Ballard, Smith, both Burroughs, Lovecraft, Mike Bishop, Dick, Bester, Le Guin, and of course Ellison.  The store had an under priced copy of Paingod which I pressed into her hands.

In addition to having (no doubt) taught her the dangers of speaking to garrulous book hunters, I spent the next few hours thinking of what I should have said.  My thoughts kept orbiting the sun of Ellison.  I realized that I could rattle off the plots of thirty of your short stories (without cracking open a book).  I could have given a long speech (with little to no preparation) about your influence in the field as an editor.  Or as a campaigner for writers’ rights.  I could have waxed fannishly eloquent about City on the Edge of Forever, or Demon with a Glass Hand.  I could have come across as “Mr. No-Child-Left Behind” and talk about teaching “Repent Harlequin, Said the Tick Tock Man” to my reform school students or maybe I should been academic chic and mention how I recommend your writing in the on-line creative SF writing class I teach for UCLA.  I could certainly point to your influence in ten of my own stories, and the longeterm effect of the Dangerous Visions on my notion of what writing can be could not be overstated.

I was surprised at how many cards in the internal library catalog were labeled “Ellison, Harlan.”   You have my thanks and admiration,

Best Satanic Invoaction EVER!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kECs0VH_2y4

(Thanks Jeff )

My friend the poet Vernon Frazier's Bodied Tone:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOzR1qE5eBI

The History of the History of Death

http://www.conjunctions.com/archives/c53-pl.htm

(Again thanks to the Genius Jeff G.)

ethics and the Craft

John J. Coughlin

$19.95

155 pages trade paper Wanning Moon Publications

How the Word Found Us

This article will discuss the history of the Word Xeper.  It will focus on the some of the magical ideas inherent not only in the Word, but in the history (or Wyrd) of the Word.  My next article will deal with the relationship with some of the major modern philosophical movements in the West (with a few observations on other systems).

Let’s begin with the obvious.  A word has a sign, a sound, a history and a meaning.  All of these change over time.  Both the media that express the sign and sound and the context and connotation evolve and influence each other.  For Logoi all of this true and two additional features can be observed:  the Authority of the Utterer and the feedback effect the magical utterance has upon the world, which now includes the Logos.  Somebody, pretty dang important at the time, Utters the Word; and after that, the Word shapes its own destiny.  If the Magus/Maga is successful in her Task the Word become self-sufficient in the world and has the magical power to find the correct minds to refine and spread through deeds, thoughts and further words/Words.

The Sign.  The Egyptians used a writing system that encoded things by what they are (the picture of the sun means the sun) and by what they sounded like (garbanzo bean sounds like “Horus” so we will draw Horus with another little sign meaning bean).  The scarab beetle eats dung.  It scrambles over to the droppings and gathers a ball up to fifty times its weight, and then guided by a scent trail pushes it backwards in a straight line to its hole.  The Egyptians believed there were only male beetles, it mixed its semen with the **** and voila baby beetles.  The baby beetles feed on the dung mass and do not emerge from their holes until fully grown – so they are a perfect metaphor for the sun.  It follows a straight course somehow,  It appears fully grown from the ground.  It can engender life in anything.  The sign for the beetle becomes the sign for Becoming.  But the sign has two other forms.  The self-creating one was a perfect sign for the heart-mind.  The Egyptians were smart to know that we are not our thoughts and feelings – our thoughts and feelings are the sperm squirted on the crap of our lives.  The scarab became the symbol for the heart-mind ib.  The Egyptians biggest insecurity was that the heart-mind would think we failed to do enough by birthing ourselves (acting on the right thoughts-feelings strongly enough).  So they made a fake heart-mind amulet in the shape of scarab beetle and inscribed it with the 30^th spell of the Book of Coming Forth by Day, so that the fake heart would lie to the judges.   The second use of the sign was in the design of tombs.  The earliest tombs, the mastabas, imitated the scarab beetle’s tunnel.  You stick the dead guy in he should come back.

It came to pass that letters replaced hieroglyphs, and Xeper was expressed in Coptic.  I will say more about that in history section below.  In the nineteenth century apprentice Egyptologists were given less important scrolls to practice on.  Less important meant magical or religious.  More important meant treaties and lists of tax-rolls.  One of the first scrolls that Wallis Budge cut his teeth on was the Papyrus Bremner-Rhind (BM 10188), a Temple procedural or Dramatic Papyrus from the Ptolemaic period – it details at battle re-enacted between Apep and Thoth.  Thoth recites a creation story that uses the phrase,” Xeper Xepera Xeperu” and destroys What Has Not Come Into Being by means of What Has Come Into Being.  Budge may have  used Coptic as a start writing the word out as Kij Eje Fij Eje Rou.  I can hear your question – “Where did the Ejes come from?”  Well in Egyptology of the day you stuck an “E” if you didn’t know what the vowel was.  Budge was sure of the consonants – KFR – Xeper is a common triliteral.  He could have found the vowels, had he read the Coptic Bible more carefully – both Egyptian verbs for “to be” – wen and Xeper were used by the desert Fathers.  The form Wen, the static form of “to be” is used by Jeovah when he talks about his state of being, except when he is in the burning bush – when he uses “Khouchr” a form of Xeper.  When Jesus talks about his state of being he uses “Khouch.”

Budge’s spelling of Xeper has a value by Coptic gematria of 600 + 5 + 700 +5 + 100 = 1410.  When Budge wrote his Easy Lessons in the Egyptian Language he transliterate the word in into Greek and wrote it out as Chi epsilon Phi Epislon Rho.  It is easy to see that he did so – he kept thee Greek letter Chi χ at the beginning of the word, rather than the Roman letters “Kh.”  He also used the Roman “p” for phi instead of the letters “PH or “”F” n ow by the Greek alphabet code 600+ 5 + 500 + 5 + 100 = 1210. As a five lettered word it fit well into the arithmosophy of Aquino, who had decided that Five was the Symbol of the visible order in his Ceremony of the Nine Angles.   I will leave you to work out some of the special meanings that this Chi brings about, but I will leave you certain hints:  Chi is the left hand of the SOMA SOPhIA (you know that naked black lady that Einstein had the hots for), it is the 22^nd letter of the Greek alphabet: Do What Thou Wilt Shall Be The Whole Of The Law. Great Is The Might Of Set, Greater Still He Though Us,  it is the Archon of the Aeon of Hope, it rules the Aeon LIN of John Dee (which the Golden Dawn tells us is Ch S N in Hebrew =118), and so forth.

If one wanted the Hebrew (or Aramaic) Kabblah of this word, you are in luck .  As both Hebrew and Egyptian are Afro-asiatic languages, primal words from the same root are in each.  In Hebrew the verb (Heth Lamed Phe – the last consonants form a metathesis or switcheroo) means “to pass on, pass away, change.”  The verb has similar forms in Syriac, where it means “change, exchange”  -- and you are familiar with the Arabic for “He who came after” – Caliph.  In all of these languages the idea of one form succeeded another, but is still somehow the same (in essence) is reflected in the cognates.  By Hebrew Kabblah the value of the verb is 118.

The sign has a different aspect than one generally encounters in alphabetic languages.  You can hold it and know by touch.  Scarabs can be found in any New Age store, and even Egyptian artifacts of this common protective charm cost little.  As part of one’s knowing this Word, one should hold it in one’s hand.

The Sound.  Judging from what is known about Coptic and the development of Afro-asiatic languages the verb was likely pronounced “Khufurr.”   The rolling “r” and the “oo” sounds would make the opening phrase of the Book of Felling Apep have a particularly mantric effect:  KhufurrEE Khufurr KhufurrUU.  Modern linguistics in general takes as a matter of course that the sound can either be onomatopoetic (BANG! Sound like an explosion) or merely arbitrary (uranium does not sound like a radioactive heavy metal).  However some thinkers suggest that there is a place in-between for words whose sound may model cognitive processes or states.  Such words are called phenomines and physcomimes.  A phenomine reflects a soundless process in the objective universe and a physcomime reflects a  soundless process in the subjective world.  On a poetic/magical level this is an easy concept to grasp and is explored in a variety of traditions from the Runes to the Abjad to mantra creation in Buddhism, Hinduism or Jainism. It is easy to hear the process at work in Madison Avenue (http://www.stanford.edu/class/linguist34/Unit_08/blackberry.htm) and it is basic idea we intuit in Lesser Black Magic. If you do not think that sound may have meanings/symbolism trying making a gagging sound next time your beloved touches you . . . if you would like some experimentation with the idea go here:  http://www.trismegistos.com/MagicalLetterPage/  or why do languages as unrelated as Chinese and English have certain psychological rules for dirty words?  http://www.acoustics.org.tw/asoroc/locationA/A06.pdf

 The scholar/theoretician that has dealt with this the most clearly is Dr. Margaret Magnus. (http://www.trismegistos.com/MagicalLetterPage/).  According to Dr. Magnus the “K” sound is a cut-off point, an obstacle, the “R” sound is a primal energy of something manifesting inevitably without obstacle.  Dr. Magnus does think that vowels have  as great a force, but our Greek friends did.  The EE sound would signify the solar center, the UU the outer limit of the psyche.  The triple phrase that we write as “Xepera Xeper Xeperu.” Vocally it  moves to the inmost point, then expresses an action  and then the outer edge – reconciling a changeless core with a dynamic edge, or in the terms of the First Beast, it is the magician touching both Had and Nuit.  Is composed of physcomimes followed by a  phenomime, so it encodes the notion of changing the subjective so that the manifestations in the objective change.  Because if its melliferous tones, it will work very well in relaxation response meditation (http://hrop.ucop.edu/employees/eap/relaxation.html)

The history and the Authorities.   Many of the Egyptian neteru carried the epithet “Self Created,” but we are interested in a particular phrase, “Xepera Xeper Xeperu” which and its uses and effects in the world.  Egyptians did not think of texts as neutral objects, something happened when they were read.  Reading belonged to an initiated elite and was taught in sacred precincts.  The grammar of the spell containing the  XXX formula dated to the Middle Kingdom.  We do not have physical evidence of the spell until the Empire and Ptolemaic periods.

 In some traditions (like the Hebrews) God talks to the prophet – in other traditions (like the Vedic) seers glimpse the ultimate reality.  In the Egyptian tradition alone there is the idea that revelation comes from a written source.  Either the god (usually Thoth) tells you where a scroll is hidden or you steal from it him.  As a consequence it became very important not to alter “holy” texts, and very archaic language would be carefully preserved.

The XXX formula is spoken by the Neb–ur-djer (Lord of the Greatest Limit).  This phrase was later used in Coptic magical texts to refer to an all-purpose all-powerful God.  God says, “I Came into Being and by my Coming into Being, ‘Coming Into Being’ Came into being.”  Now the God has a name Xeperer, his fist action is to lay the foundations of all things in his heart-mind.  Creation begins in the Subjective Universe and then remanifests in the Objective Universe by the magical link.  Like the beetle he uses his sperm to make the first two gods Shu (Space) and Tefnut (Moisture).  So Space is the first creation.  Shu and Tefnut head off to Chaos to play.  So Xeperer grows an Eye (Re) and send it off to bring back His children.  In the meantime he grows another Eye (Khons).

So the first five deities are Self-Creation, Space, Life Matter, Mind (sun) and Arranger-of –Fates (moon). 

Shu and Tefnut have Geb (Earth) and Nut (Starry Sky)

Geb and Nut have five kids, which are Remanifestations of the first five gods.  Their kids are their great gods: Horus (Remanifestation of Re), Osiris (Moon), Set (Xeperer), Isis (Tefnut), Nephtys (Shu).

The daytime mind (Re) is living Pharaoh (Horus)

The Moon, who arranges fates is the holder of human’s fate (Osiris)

The Self-Creator is the god of Liminality (Set).

The moisture goddess is the Proto-Mom (Isus)

Endless space becomes living space and time (Nephys).

The sun cries, and his tears become humans.  Humans intermarry with the great gods and take on their traits

The first use of this spell for which we have archaeological evidence was in a protective bust of Ramses III, son of Setnakt.  Ramses III ruled in the late twelfth century BCE, and was the last of the truly strong imperial rulers. The royal Ka is portrayed as the god Xeperer.  The spell is inscribed on its back.  The user would pour a wine offering over the statue, which then collected in a basin.  He would drink wine offereded to Xeperer and partake the spell that the wine had covered.  The bust is found at the edge of civilized space as one enters the eastern desert.  By this action the user 1) Wished good things to the eternal part of the Pharaoh (seen as Xeperer) 2).  Identified himself with Xeperer by drinking the sacrificial wine and 3) drank in the history of the Cosmos, so that Order was within as he ventured into a place that had not come into being.  In Afro-asiatic cosmologies “Creation” are stable bubbles where the gods’ wills have shaped things.  Beyond Creation are forces that are not shaped or conditioned. Interestingly only two Pharaohs had their ka portrayed as Xeperer – Ramses III and Hatshesphut.  Both recorded their special relation to Set, both had astronomical ceilings in their tombs.  Hatshepsut’s tomb the Djeser-Djeseru not only had her portrait as  Xeperer, but some other interesting odds and ends hidden there as we shall see.

The next usage for this spell for which we have physical evidence was in a dramatic papyrus belonging to Nes Amsu.  The papyrus is dated (by the owner) from the first year of the rule of Alexander the Great.  The spell and a similar one had been named The Book of Knowing the Remanifestations of Re and the Overthrowing of Apep.  The text that housed the spell indicated that it should be read while green wax figures of Apep were burned.  The Egyptians (most likely) did not think that if they didn’t read the text and burn the voodoo dolls that the solar barque would be stopped and the sun not rise.  As we know from their magical practice performing this action which mimed the killing of Apep (by Set or by the Great Tomcat or by Isis) destroyed the forces that were “bad/evil’ toward the Temple.  A this is the core of Egyptian philosophy -- action by day coupled with the correct magic at night creates a force that overcomes all that is moved to appear against it.  It is likely that Nes Amsu was a lector priest at the royal temple at Luxor.

Now you may ask where was the spell between the late twelfth century and the middle of the fourth century BCE?  Good question.  Since the spell was preserved somewhere word for word – it had to be in a scribal library. Libraries were called the Pa Ankh, “House of Life” – symbolically they were seen as places of Resurection – the dead text coming back to life like Osiris.  Reading was only part of the process which included ritual and possibly philosophical debate.  This use of a dedicated meso-cosmos for Initiation, where it is not the text, but Experience that unlocks the text is a peculiarly  Egyptian method.

Tomb robbers were a big problem in the Late Kingdom and Ptolemaic times.  The protectors of dead found a few good hiding places in the Valley of the Kings.  One of the better known  junkroom of mummies, scrolls, coffins, steles, etc.  came to be known as the “Cache of the Royal Mummies at Deir El-bahri.

I could spend a good deal of ink on why Europeans wanted Egyptian magic, but I think I’ll stick with a single important note.  The translation of the Corpus Hermetica by Marsilio Ficino  fascinated the Italians , so much so Cosmo De Medici started the Renaissance.  The Italian-Egyptian axis was re-born. Sir Aquino’s blend of neo-Platonism, Egptian mystery and magic and emphasis on the equality of men and woman in occult circles proved very important.  I am referring Sir Luigi d’Aquino.  Who did you think I was talking about?  Between 1761 and 1775, Sir Luigi initiated Guiseppe Balsamo into three high degrees of Italian Masonry emphasizing neo-Platonism, becoming god-like by use of ceremonial magic focusing on Egyptian godforms, and the use of reason to destroy superstition.  Here is how I picture their last conversation – I see Sir Aquino as Grocho Marx and Guiseppe as Chico Marx:

“Hey Guiseppe how are you?”

“I’m a-good Luigi.”

“I’ve gotta a little job for you.  I need you to go to Germany and introduce Egyptian Freemasonry there.  It will inspire a young guy named Mozart to write the Magic Flute.  It will become a central item study of a German Left Hand Path Lodge the Brotherhood of Saturn.  This will be important for man named Stephen Flowers.”

“Ok boss, I go to Germany.”

“I also need you to go to Britain and establish Egyptian Freemasonry, it creates a tradition that will jell into the Golden Dawn, which a young man named Crowley will join.”

“Ok boss I go to-a England.  I’ll be starting off now,”

“And Guiseppe two more things.  I need you to overthrow the French government and start secret societies in Russia.”

“Ok boss.  Is this for the Crowley guy?”

“No for a member of my family. I need him to visit Indo-China 63 years after the Crowley guy.”

“OK boss.  Do I get anything out of this?”

“The Crowley guy will claim that he us you reincarnated.”

“Ok boss.  I really gotta go now.”

“Remember Guiseppe, neo-Platonism, magic and Egyptian mania.  Oh and change your name to Alessandro Cagliostro.   Ciao.”

It is well documented that the Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor, the Theosophy Society and the Golden Dawn all drew from Caglistoro.

In the Nineteenth century the British went ga-ga for Egypt.  Egypt has always been a plumb for colonial powers – Persia, Greece, Rome etc.  But it took Set and an Italian guy to really get things going.  The Italian was juggler, stage-magician and fountain maker named Belzoni.  Belzoni’s friends had told him he would be a super-star in Egypt, the Pasha loved them trick water-works.  They were wrong; he went broke.  So he went to the Valley of the Kings, which at time was a spooky area west of Luxor.  As he sat and pondered what a tall Italian juggler could do for a living in Egypt, the god of storms tossed a lightning bolt at the hidden door of the tomb of Seti I. Belzoni spent most of his remaining funds on dynamite  hoping to find gold.  He was a little late for that, but he did find a remarkable tomb – and a new profession “Egyptologist.”

He went to London.  He found a spot for his exhibit.  “Pardon me, signoire, is this the spot where the London Conclave of the Temple of Set is going to be in 175 years?  Si? So I set up here, Tomb of Set’s Man.  By the way Seti’s la amica will show up in a few years, Budge will teach her to read the hieroglyphic capish? OK? “. 

Wealthy Brits (and Scots) thought Egyptology a delightful sport.  You could go to the “Orient” buy a few baubles, blow a tomb or two and by Jove you’ve helped civilization along.  Of course sometimes the tourists didn’t find what they needed, so it could be sold to them.  Upstanding Muslims couldn’t deal with pagan evil, Copts were limited geographically, but Left Hand Path Muslims (Ismailis) not only were happy to raid old tombs, but knew where they were.  (I am not suggesting a secret history here, but it does make you think.)  One of these Ismailis was the British Consul at Luxor.  He enjoyed throwing native style parties for visiting Brits and giving them sumptuous gifts to take back home ( http://www.theoldfoodie.com/2009/01/more-on-mishmish.html). Mustafa, who represented the English, Russian and Belgian governments made quite a pretty piaster on antiquities (http://www.egyptianmuseum.com/article10a.html) The hiding place at the Djeser-Djeseru (Holy of Holies) was routinely looted when tomb robbers needed some extra cash.  For example in 1858, the mortuary stele called the Stele of Reveling was taken from there and sold to the Bulaq Museum, their 666^th stele.

One of his guests a wealthy and good-looking Scottish lawyer, Alexander Henry Rhind.  Rhind had come to Egypt on doctor’s orders, hoping the dry climate would clean out his tubercular lungs.  He did not succeed in making any finds, but on his last night in Egypt Mustafa gave him Nes Amsu’s papyrus.  He returned to Britain with Nes Amsu papyrus and the famous mathematical papyrus.  While he was arranging for their publication with the British Museum, he passed on.  His lawyer David Bremner donated the papyrus to the British Museum and another interesting player enters the scene E. A. Wallis Budge.

The study of dead languages was a rich man’s past time, and Budge made the mistake of being born poor.  Budge was born on Osiris’ Birthday 1857.  Father unknown, his aunt brought him up in London, by age 12 he was a clerk at W. H. Smith.  He taught himself Hebrew and Syriac, and he hung around the British Museum.  His talent for languages and his burning desire to learn attracted the attention of the Museum’s Egyptologists and Assyriologists.  He added Egyptian, Arabic and Ethiopian tio his repertoire.  Birch gave him a papyrus to cut his teeth on BM  10188, the papyrus of Nes Amsu.

Budge had some ideas that were unusual.  I had once repeated the rumor that Budge had been in the Golden Dawn, which is recorded in the book The Sword of Wisdom: Macgregor Matthers and the Golden Dawn.  This seems to be have been the author’s creation, although Budge did enjoy hanging around some of the ladies of the Golden Dawn (especially Florence Farr).  However he did a strong interest in things paranormal and was a member of the Ghost Club (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ghost_Club) He also held the notion that Egyptology should not be the domain of the wealthy and to this end wrote Easy Lessons in the Egyptian Language.  This text appeared in 1889, the same year his friend H. Rider Haggard’s Cleopatra and H.P. Blavatsky’s The Voice of the Silence.  That same year H. Rider Haggard sponsored Budge into the Savile Club, and the best and brightest of London listened to his humor and his Egyptian Studies. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Savile_Club

 Mainstream Egyptologists of his day were certain that all of the greatness of Egypt was due to white people – who were of course the Followers of Horus.  The whites had vanished by breeding with the darkies – Followers of Set.  Budge not only didn’t buy into the “dynastic race” theory but also actually suggested that Egyptians were (gasp) Africans.  His work on Egyptian magic and lore were sucked into occult societies with an almost audible  gulp. Early on the Golden Dawn accumulated god names, he helped occult writers like Farr write books including Egyptian esoteric subjects.  His writings about Osiris had a huge effect on Sir James Frazier.  Budge even pushed the envelope further; he suggested that Egyptian soul-craft might be better understood by studying living Africans.  The downside to Budge’s prolific writing was that he read little scholarship, his own popular books were often not up-to-step with current publications and sadly Egyptosophists such as Schwaller and Massey have occasionally spun large webs on incorrect concepts. 

Meanwhile back on the Nile.  Mustafa Agha is throwing another one of his parties.  He just can’t seem to get that pretty little Amelia Edwards to flirt with him, but she seems to really be getting along with the young German sculptress Elizabet Ney. The next morning she takes Elizabet to see this huge protective scarab at the Luxor Temple (you know the one that Nes Amsu worked at).  Ney writes in her journal that seeing the image of Self Creation, she suddenly understood where Religion must have come from – the holy awe of the self-sculpting self.  Elizabet leaves for Germany the next day.  I picture it like this,

“I really wish you would stay Elizabet, foreign women are very free here.”

“Thank you Amelia, but I have many things to do.  As you know I was the first woman to get formal training as a sculptor in Germany, I had to break that barrier for Betty Ford.  Anyway I must hurry back to Germany to sculpt Ludwig II, and after that I must emigrate to Texas to start serious art there.  I am so inspired by the statue of Xeperer I am thinking of making a study of Prometheus.”

“I will miss you.  It does seem you have much to do.”

“I’ve got to devote my life to a single idea.  Sursum Lift Up!  Anyway I need to sculpt the brothers Grimm and several Texas heroes, so that when Stephen Flowers goes to the University of Texas in 1974 there will be a festival of my work.  I don’t know – German folklorists, Promethean idealism and Texas heroes – maybe it will get through to him.  Oh and I need to inspire a heroic sculpture movement in Paderborn so some guy builds a Hall of the Fallen in Wewelsberg.  And I have to work for women’s suffrage in Texas and start a spiritualist group called the Garden Circle so there will be an occult tradition in Austin, TX.  Ciao.”

“Goodbye darling.  Thank you for insights about sculpture and the ka.  I need to write a book about that so Patty Hardy can discover the relation of ka statues to Congo effigy cults. It also helps Betty Ford make a statue of Set.  Farewell, my lovely.”

The drama of Aleister Crowley’s life is well documented.  I wish to draw attention to two things.  Firstly, the Stele of Revealing, which had come from the same hidey-hole as Nes Amsu’s scroll belonged to a Montu Priest.  Now the Priesthood of Set had been absorbed into the Montu Priesthood in Thebes as early as the XXI Dynasty, and they had a theology about being active in the world after death.  They did not use the fake heart charm to fool some afterlife judge, but steles to act as gateways.  There was a translation error at the Museum when Crowley  laid down some sovereigns and asked for a translation.  Some museum employee armed with M.G. Hagemans' Lexique Francois-Hieriglyphique -- they were an up-to-date museum.  The forced archaisms weren't hard to read, and soon a French text followed.  Some of the artifacts of that text like the French word for "Night" Nuit being used for the star goddess Nut, but as Jess Karlin  pointed out there was a translation error of the place-epithet Behedet for Horus.  The scribe rendered it "Houdit"  Not bad for using the state-of-the-art 1896 dictionary.  This created two textual problems for Crowley.  What he didn't know (but we have learned in over a hundred years of Egyptology is that there are many "Horus" gods.  Horus Behedit was a Son of Geb and Nut, brother of Set, Osiris, Isis and Nepthys.  He was not the young vital Horus that appealed to Uncle Al.  He was Horus of Edfu, who had that all "You take-a-my-eye I take-a-your-balls" fight with Set. 

Jess Kralin's GREAT and WONDERFUL Blog

http://jkthoth.blogspot.com/2008/04/strange-egyptomaniacal-origin-of-hadit.html

EDFU

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edfu

Now the youthful Horus did have a small Temple at Edfu also.  So there is no question that the Edfuians knew both.  The scribe had read the place name epithet as "Houdit"  -- not because he was a dummy, but because it was what the dictionary said.  In fact Edfu wouldn't even be excavated at all until 1931.  So the First Beast did the best he could with the letters from the French translation to figure out this "Hadit" guy -- as per basic Golden dawn magic you worked yourself into a gematric frenzy as part of getting a god to talk In/Through/As you.  And we've been stuck every since.

            But if you took the sounds that were written on the Stele, BeHeDeT  (the "e's: are placeholders) you've got a very simple job rendering it into Hebrew values.

BETH (2) + HEH (5) +   DALET (4) +    TET (9)  = 20.  = Heh (5) + YOD (10) + EH (5)

The verb Hayah is Hebrew for "Come Into Being" adds up to 20.f you don't have your Hebrew lexicon handy for Hayah

http://www.searchgodsword.org/lex/heb/view.cgi?number=01961

http://yadayahweh.com/Yada_Yahweh_Genesis_Hayah.YHWH

Now the magical formula that the Unnatural Flame said from the bush,  "Ehyeh asher ehyeh "  I shall-be that I shall-be is a form of the infinite verb Hayah.  

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_am_that_I_am

Crowley used the best resources at his disposal.  If he had had a Coptic Bible he could have cross-referenced “Coph” with Moses’ burning bush verb.  The Second Beast did figure this out as can be seen in his commentary on The Ceremony of the Nine Angles as well as the Priesthood Ordination Ceremony he wrote for Stephen Flowers’ Ordination.  

Crowley did not become a Magus upon hearing the Word, he still had to work though the degress – just like the rest of us.  However he did become one with his Holy Guardian Angle in (what would later be) Vietnam in 1906.  He eventually found out that his Holy Guardian Angel was “Set, Shaitan or Satan” spelled Shin Teth = Fire + Force.  Anyway in 1970 Satanist Michael Aquino (the family had dropped the “d’”) also obtained Conversation with his Holy Guardian Angle in Vietnam, who later revealed Himself to be Set.  So as a traveler’s note if your Holy Guardian Angel shows up in Vietnam – it is Set.  I’m guessing this is a really funny joke in Classical Egyptian. 

Now we should examine some of the later players in the game.  I am going to venture a guess that many of the readers of this article are at least somewhat familiar with Michael A. Aquino. If not please pause to read his The Church of Satan and The Temple of Set and Stephen Flowers Lords of the Left Hand Path.  Done?  Ok let’s go further.  The 1960s were a time for great counter-culture activity.  As has been the case when such moods take the minds of people, Egyptomania appears.  Egypt looks alien and wondrous and wise – and most importantly it stands outsides of the Western tradition.  If the Western tradition is screwing things up, let’s look for a land without pollution or wars -- an imaginary land but pyramids will do.  From a publisher’s point of view the best way to cash in on this is be reprinting books that are in public domain.  Routledge & Kegan Paul brought out a reprint edition of Budge’s Easy Lessons in Egyptian Language in 1966.  Hippy warlocks sported ankhs in Bewitched, and Sun Ra’s Arkestra started a regular gig in Slug’s Saloon.  Early on  Michael Aquino had come under Egypt’s spell – beginning with a costume party/Working for Diane LaVey’s birthday in June 10, V where Nepthys was invoked (as they say) to visible appearance.  Anton LaVey advised Grotto leaders to seek out historical and anthropological texts to spice up their rituals.  Budge’s book seemed an obvious source.  I suspect that Aquino did not know that all of the examples in the book came from texts Budge had translated for the British Museum (for example his chapter on the article comes almost entirely from the Papyrus d’Orbiney).

Aquino had not come into the occult the way most of us do.  The occult revolution of the late sixties and seventies hadn’t happened yet.  Aquino was an existentialist. (I’ll have a great deal more to say about this in my next article).  As my favorite existentialist philosopher Cherry Poptart  likes to quote, “Essence proceeds existence.”  Unlike other things in the cosmos, human beings are not determined by type, but rather by how they shape themselves, their actions determine what they become.  Humans, unlike other entities that exist in themselves, exist for themselves.  Transcendence is not a religious phenomena, but a human understanding her actions in terms not only of the use of the tools of their situation, but their evaluation of them.   Therefore when Aquino saw the XXX formula there on the bottom page of 143, he was intrigued by a formula that goes the Sarte formula one better.  What can I say? An reX-n-tu Xepertu arit Set . . .

As is well documented elsewhere Anton LaVey had a little trouble with his ka energy in the Year X.  He forgot that the god you lent out to other people isn’t something you actually are – or to put another way you ain’t the damn church.  John Ferro had given Michael Aquino a copy of TeVelde’s Seth Bringer of Confusion to let the young starry-eyed Italian-American understand that Set was not Satan.  Bad choice John, Satan is a being interested in things in themselves (If you is bad you is mine), but Seth is interested in things for themselves (if you revolt from what is you transcend what is). 

Dear Friends,

With a tip from my freind the artist, Joey Shea.  I came cross some nice YouTube stuff on Rosaleen Norton  -- Wotch and Artists.   I am intrigued by metion of her three "Lovecraftian Tales"  Can anybody clue me in?

Rosaleen Norton on YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kxY80Wkzj4


Rosaleen Norton's Art

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-H-gTcM8O8&feature=related

Sin City Oz Style:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3EbZFy4XJM&feature=related


The usual stuff

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosaleen_Norton

Best Book List by someone named "Pridgen:

http://www.amazon.com/Witchcraft/lm/R1Q3X153XOSXT5/ref=cm_lmt_DYNA_f_1_russss1?pf_rd_p=496997231&pf_rd_s=listmania-center&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_i=B002710DD4&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=0ZDXSRCAW3JA4BRAR7WH

Xeper.

DWVI*

:RtR:

Dear Friends,

I am sure you all know about the crisis in Haiti.

Evangelist Pat Robertson has explained that the Haitains deserved it. You know because they love the Devil


http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/posted/archive/2010/01/13/televangelist-pat-robertson-blames-haiti-quake-on-pact-with-devil.aspx

Fortunately the Harry Potter Alliance is reaching out to help

http://www.thehpalliance.org/harry-potter-alliance/reaching-out-to-haiti/


I feel our alliances in this matter are clear.

Xeper.

DWVI*

:RtR:

Why do we Need an Egyptian verb when we ain’t Egyptians?

            The Temple of Set is founded in the magical action of one human, Michael A, Aquino, and the Prince of Darkness speaking as Set.  The Aeon of Set was, is and shall be based on the Egyptian verb “Xeper.”  - rendered in the spelling in the 1966 reprint edition of Wallis Budge’s Easy Lessons in Egyptian Hieroglyphics.  In my next article I will discuss certain properties that emerged because of the origin of the Word, but I’ll begin with a more basic question, “Why do we Need an Egyptian verb when we ain’t Egyptians?”

            This can be broken down into a few smaller questions: What (basically) does the Egyptian verb Xeper mean? What is a Word?   What is performative speech?    What sort of actions and ethics does this particular Logos imply and impel?

            What does Xeper mean?  In Western philosophy there are two big schools.  One is the Platonic school.  Plato held that Reality (with a capital “R”) was unchanging.  His universe was based on concepts, which he called Forms (EIDOI).  The chair you are sitting right now will someday be gone, but the idea of a Chair is forever.  Everything you see, everything in the sensible world, is a temporary reflection of a Form.  Trees will come and go, but the idea “Tree” will around after everything growing today has long since rotted.  Forms are said to have BEING.  Heraclitus, on the other hand, argued that nothing is permanent (except impermanence).  All things of this moment – your mind, that river, the candle burning on your mantle, even the Grand Canyon is ever-changing.  The universe and its contents are always in process.  The universe is said to have BECOMING.  Now the Greeks reflected their own vocabulary.  Models made out of words, reflect those words and their grammars.  In the Egyptian language there are aspects for verbs  that reflect other time and being concepts.  The Old Perfective (or stative) aspect contains the Indo-European ideas of Being and Becoming at the same time.  The verb, which the Egyptians probably pronounced “Khufurr”  reflects both action in the sensible world – “Becoming” and an eternal dynamic state “Being.”    The verb shows what the sun does every morning.  It Comes Into Being by rising out of the unseen horizon.  At the same time, the Sun has always been there – in fact for the Egyptians the Sun was the supreme deity.  It is the symbol both of Rulership and the Mind.  The human Pharaoh is an incarnate form of the Sun, standing as the intermediary between the gods, the blessed dead and humanity.  The verb “to Dawn” – is the verb Xeper – which because of its unique time and being concepts is usually translated as “I have come into being.”  The Setian, who has Come Into Being, sees a world brought of out of darkness which is both revealed to him anew and subject to his reign.  The opposite word in the Egyptian language is Wen.  Wen means eternal changeless Being.  It refers to something that happened in the past and now is an eternal fact.  Aspects of the conditioned world that can not be changed are said to possess Wen.  “Wen” is the word used to describe Set’s adversary Osiris.  After being slain by Set, Osiris is the god of all that is fixed in the Cosmos.  For example death itself.  Everyone reading this article will die (at some time).  The fact of death is not subject to Xeper, but the circumstances of one’s death (since is a dynamic reality of the future) are subject to Xeper.  Xeper may be seen as an ongoing reaction to Wen.  When you are first born all is Wen, but as a human increases his or her power more things are “Remanifestations” of Xeper – Xeperu.  Unlike the Hindu system which would see all actions/Karma as limiting and binding, the Setian system sees all Remanifestations of willed Becoming as a future medium for yet new pathways of Coming Into Being.  The notion of Xeper is not merely a philosophical nicety – it deal with a major question of human life.  In a world where the rule is BEING, it does not matter that Uncle John is lying in a coma – that does not effect his soul – Alzheimers does not effect your chances of after death survival, but the on the other hand neither does getting a Ph.D., being a great husband or curing AIDS.  The soul is the soul.  In a world of BECOMING only actins count – if you loose your mind due to fever in the tropics, that’s it – you loose.  What you do is what you are.  In the world of Xeper, Becoming may be brought to bear upon Being.

            A Word is a two-fold thing.  One part is a label for a group or constellation of ideas.  For example we all “know” what we mean when we say, Capitalism, Communism, Democracy, Racism.  We use some Words to define who we are, and others to define who we are not.  We can gain motivation when we think about Words – because Words separate us from the mechanical universe.  A rock never worries if it a good enough Capitalist, nor does a locust think ants to be Racist.  All Words are ways that human being align themselves with movements – and as such with the power and limitation of groups.  At their worst Words can lead to sleep – for example we all know other people that are so self-identified with their label “Mormon” or “Democrat” or “Feminist” that they have ceased thinking.  We also know people that think a good deal about their label – and by bringing to their highest level of thinking shape themselves and their world in good ways (or at least in ways that appear good to them).  Words are also a magical act – specifically in some mythologies Words are the way the universe is created.  Words Create the Christian universe (see the Gospel of John) and the Hindu universe (google “Vac”).  Sometimes the “Word” or plan is a template used to fashion the world from Chaos as in the Hebrew or Germanic Cosmos.  Xeper is the watchword of Setian thinking, much as Communism is the watchword of Marxism or Thelema the watchword of the Aeon of Horus.  Xeper is also a Word of world-creation.  In a psyche-centric religion such as the Temple of Set, the Word of an individual’s self-creation is the word of cosmic creation.  The sentient observer and actor is what is created, and his or her actions and perceptions of the Cosmos create his or her world.  Purely philosophical systems see the contemplation of Words as a method of purifying the soul, or even casusing an Ascent into powerful regions – such systems generally look upon ritual enactments of the Words as a “lower” or “superstitious” system.  Most magical systems usually think that Words are keys to power only through a magical technology.  The Setian system (in many ways harkening back to Chaldean theurgy) sees both approaches as complimentary and necessary.   Thus we are neither wholly magicians nor philosophers, but a unique modern synthesis cast forth as a Left Hand Path school.  In a later article I will address why this synthesis  not only is, but must be, manifest in a Left Hand Path School – even though the term itself (from the Sanskrit vama marg) is less than a thousand years old

            In 1955 ceratin ideas emerged that weuld provide the ground for the Aeon of Set to put forth roots in.  One of the more accessible was at the William James lectures in Oxford.  British philosopher J. J.. Austin began his discussion of “Performative speech.”  Up until Austin’s time, the philosophy of language divided utterances into “true” (Cats are mammals) and “false” (Cats can vote in Indiana).  Langauge is seen as a descriptor, not as actor.  But Austin pointed out there are some times when language does things.  For example – if the President of the United States hits a bottle of champagne on a boat and says “I christen you the Marie Celeste.”  An event has occurred.  If I say, “I bet you a quarter that it will rain tomorrow.” – a situation has occurred that changes subjective universes.  If it does not rain tomorrow, I may or may not pay.  But my reputation was effected by the utterance.  If man living in a country ruled by Islamic says, “I divorce thee, I divorce thee, I divorce thee.” To one of is wives, a divorce had happened.  Austin called this sort speech “performative speech.”  Performative speech may be “happy” – the person with authority says the right things at the right time and everyone follows through, or “unhappy”  either the speaker lacked the authority to ensure the event (or other events occurred). When the Setian says, “Xeper,” he or she is engaging a performative act. The Setian is changing their Being by including the actions, thoughts and words that have occurred in the world of Becoming.  Setians act with the idea that action in the changeable world can be used to change/improve/evolve in the world of Forms.  I cannot change the Form of “Chair,” but I can through will actions and a following performative action change the Form of “Me.” In essence this is why Setian practice is “Satanic.”   IN the Abrahamic religions, God changes your status according to your failing.  You sin, you go to Hell – God’s law.  In the philosophical framework of Xeper, you change your status.  You act, and you can decide that your actions in the world of time-and-space can further your Essence in the timeless realm.  In the conventional religions, God judges you by your falling short of an essential-ideal.  In the Setian way, you use your actions to reshape/discover/strengthen your essential-self.  As your scope of actions increase, you can further the process – so the Setian ethic becomes seeking to surpass your own limits, in ways that you feel express your essential self.

            This leads to the questions of what actions can further Xeper and do all actions influence Xeper.  The notion of Xeper holds both BEING and BECOMING.  In order for an action to further Xeper, it must be reflect the essential self.  Actions may be of no consequence (scratching your butt on a summer day) or they may be inauthentic (being polite to a bore at pub).  These things would lack the potency to effect the essential self, even if I posses the stereological secret of Xeper.  In other word I could think about Xeper, say and write the word millions of times, but the butt-scratching does not save my soul. I am not saying that for some human to change his immortal soul by actions that he has to know the word “Xeper” – but I am saying that if he does not (on some level) graps this idea, Xeper cannot occur.  I am also saying that Xeper is a conservative force.  One can not loose or undo Xeper, because one abandons the quest for Being.  One may loose the facilities for it in this world, as in the example of the coma above. 

            The dilemma of Xeper is that stronger and more precise actions are needed to apply the force of this world to the essential world. A breakthrough action – for example telling your rabbi you disagree with him when you are 14 – has more soul changing effect than most follow-up actions – being rude to your rabbi when you are 17.   Daring to whisper a blasphemy in the dark may be a huge action of spiritual rebellion at 20, whereas dressing like Gene Simmons at 21 may simply be silly.  For Xeper to continue, personal actions have to be carefully considered and more difficult actions must be performed.  This schema for these actions belongs to the person – it may not be a feat of Xeper for a child of a well-to-do parents, who have a family tradition of seven generations of going to college ,to attend college.  The first child in a family to attend is a different matter.

            The stative verbs Wen and Xeper offer guidelines to action.  The anthropologist Victor Turner classified ritual into two sorts of action:  structure – the affirmation of the universe/tradition/society and anti-structure moments of breaking free from laws and norms.  Magicians come to understand that once has entered into the magical life, everything is ritual.  Some may look like ritual to a non-initiate such as chanting in dark robes, other aspects of life (like filling up your car at a self serve pump) not so much.  Turner said that anti-structure were periods of isolation and liminality – entering into “betwixt and the between” where new/wondrous/scary things can happen.  An example might be the blindfolded state of an initiate into Freemasonry.  This period is one of “growth.”  Structure in ritual is a period of “conservation”   Here one affirms the changes made during the anti-structure moments.  An example of anti-structure would be fighting a in a battlefield, an example of structure would be marching in a Veteran’s Day parade.  The result of anti-structure is by passing limits.  Let us take for example Setian A.  Setian A has always been afraid to fly – her parents died in an airplane crash.  After many anxious days, Setian A decides to fly to San Francisco for a Conclave.  Setian A has achieved a feat of Xeper – the energy is there for her to use on her soul.  That flight and the claming of that flight is Xeper – her soul is changed thereby.  For Setian B, who has flown in jets since he was eight months old, flying is Wen.  It is an established pattern that he uses to maintain his life.  Osiris is the god of Wen, the god of what has been done.  He’s a great god – it is good to know that if you plant corn every year you will get to eat.  Punch the clock everyday and you get your paycheck and so forth.  Set is the god of anti-structure.  Every carefully chosen overcoming changes not only what we have experienced in the world of Becoming, but also our essential selves.

            It is important to note that I used the words “carefully chosen” above.  Simply doing extreme things does not reflect Xeper.  As the word Xeper reflects both the Western concepts of Being and Becoming, actions that partake Xeper are rooted in an understanding and experience of the authentic (or essential) self.  Whereas one may gain (albeit haphazardly) some understanding of the essential self by trying a lot of random actions, one does not Xeper thereby.  Most human beings wander between the extremes of sticking-with-the-known and the what-the-hell-I’ll-try-anything modes, but neither gains Being.  The later approach produces some results and leads certain people into the notion that Set is a god of chaos.  In truth neither Order (ultimately expressed by Osiris) nor Chaos (expressed by Apep) are anything other than tools by which the New may be added to existence.  The adding of the New is the goal of Xeper.  Xeper may be said to the habit of the novel. Just as the Sun dawns (Xeper) on a new day everyday, it is in the habit of renewing that newness.

 http://khpr.xeper.org/

http://www.hermetica.info/

To the Friends of the God Whose Name is Evil Day,

Greetings!

I thought I would share some of my observations about the Cycles of Nine:

A Gathering of Eagles at Government Sucks Day
November 9, 10:03 AM
Libertarian News Examiner
by Garry Reed

A small band of libertarians gathered on the grounds of the Middlefaire
Renaissance Festival near Hillsboro, Texas, in near-perfect autumn
weather to launch the First Annual Government Sucks Day Rally.

Speakers for the day that began at 11:30 am and continued throughout the
day until dusk included notables on the national scene and local
libertarians alike.

Attendees included political activists, Libertarian Party candidates,
Ron Paul supporters, Ayn Rand admirers, anarchists, Texas secessionist
sympathizers and other free minds eager to exchange ideas and
experiences.

Karen De Coster presented an overview of the recent takeover of the once
relatively free economy by the Bush and Obama administrations and
described America as "quickly morphing into a socialist corporate
state."

Mary Ruwart, longtime Libertarian Party activist and writer, best known
for her books Healing Our World in an Age of Aggression and Short
Answers to the Tough Questions, urged all freedom lovers to become
active in whatever capacity best suited them. Her message was, "Find
your calling, then do it."

Texas Libertarian Party activists discussed organization and tactics
while candidates for office gave their stump speeches and fielded
questions from the audience.

R. Lee Wrights, who helped organize the event, exhorted everyone not to
shy away from the "anarchist" label. Explaining that anarchy doesn't
mean chaos ("cats sleeping with dogs") but simply means self-government,
Wrights declared, "Anarchy is not a four letter word. It's a
seven-letter word. So is freedom. So is liberty."

At the end of the day Kevin Tuma, cartoonist (Tuma's Toons) and writer
(Tuma's Voice), event organizer and the creator and owner of the
Middlefaire Renaissance Festival chaired, a free wheeling panel of
speakers that covered a wide range of freedom related topics.

At one point a participant complained that the Tea Party protests, which
were primarily libertarian events in the beginning, had been co-opted by
the Republican Party. One panelist responded that, considering how
virtually every political party in the country except the libertarians
wanted to control the levers of big government, it was unlikely that
anyone would co-opt an event called "Government Sucks."

Time ran out to pull off a planned comedy skit "with an effigy of Uncle
Sam" (but as one wit pointed out, "Too much planning and there goes your
anarchy") the evening ended with "a fire troupe pyrotechnic act" and a
bonfire after sundown.

While attendance was small for the inaugural event, an estimated fifty
souls can tell their grandchildren that they were there on Day One.

As event organizer and host kevin Tuma summed it up, "I personally think
a small renfaire imparts a sense of 'family' or community for an event
like this that a more antiseptic backdrop, like a city park, cannot
match."

The comedy skit with the Uncle Sam effigy will be performed next year,
so start making your plans now.