TEMPLE OF SET Post Office Box 470307 San Francisco, CA 94147; U.S.A. MCI-Mail: 314-3953 Telex: 6503143953 GENERAL INFORMATION AND ADMISSIONS POLICIES (c) 1986 Temple of Set - Updated 1/XXVI AES - Thank you for your inquiry. The Temple of Set is an institution unlike any you have previously encountered. Before you can make an informed decision concerning possible affiliation, it is necessary for you to consider the history of the Temple, its basic tenets, its current design and programs, and the benefits and obligations incurred by each Setian. HISTORY OF THE TEMPLE While the Temple of Set as an organization was formally incorporated in 1975 CE, its magical and philosophical roots are prehistoric, originating in mankind's first apprehension that there is "something different" about the human race - a sense of _self-consciousness_ that places humanity apart from and above all other known forms of life. Ancient religions - of which those of Egypt are generally acknowledged the eldest - either exalted or feared this self- consciousness. Those which exalted it took the position that the human psyche is capable of opposition to and domination of the forces of nature. Those fearing it warned man that such a presumption of independence would be sinful and dangerous. Therefore, they said, such "will to power" should be concealed, sublimated - and if necessary punished and exterminated - that mankind might return to an Eden-like "state of nature" untroubled by the burdens of having to take responsibility for decisions, judgments, and actions based upon an essentially personal determination of "good" and "evil". The psyche-worshipping religions were more intellectually demanding than their nature-worshipping counterparts, since it is more difficult to reason a path through one's span of conscious existence than it is to be swept along by a current of semi-rational stimulus and response. The reasoning religions - or schools of initiatory philosophy - attained levels of abstract knowledge that made them mysterious to the masses. In a few societies, such as Egypt and Greece, such groups were respected and admired. More often, however, their exclusive elitism and "supernatural" activities made them objects of resentment and persecution. While all philosophical schools embraced the psychecentric consciousness to some degree, there were a very few that made it avowedly and explicitly the focus of their attention. The divine personifications ("gods") of such schools have come down to us as symbols of what most Western religions, worshippers of non- consciousness, consider the supreme "evil": the Prince of Darkness in his many forms. Of these the most ancient is Set, whose Priesthood can be traced to predynastic times. Images of Set have been dated to ca. 3200 BCE, with astronomically-based estimates of inscriptions dating to ca. 5000 BCE. The original Priesthood of Set in ancient Egypt survived for twenty- five recorded dynasties (ca. 3200-700 BCE). It was one of the two central priesthoods in predynastic times, the other being that of HarWer ("Horus the Elder"). Unification of Egypt under both philosophical systems resulted in the nation's being known as the "Two Kingdoms" and in its Pharaohs wearing the famous "Double Crown" of Horus and Set. Originally a circumpolar/stellar deity portrayed as a cyclical counterpart to the Solar Horus, Set was later recast as an evil principle by the cults of Osiris and Isis. During the XIX and XX Dynasties Set returned as the Pharaonic patron, but by the XXV Dynasty (ca. 700 BCE) a new wave of Osirian persecution led to the final destruction of the original Priesthood of Set. When the Hebrews emigrated from Egypt during the XIX Dynasty, however, they took with them a caricature of Set: "Satan" (from the hieroglyphic _Set-hen_, one of the god's formal titles). After the eclipse and extinction of the original Priesthood of Set during the Osirian dynasties of Egyptian decadence, few "Satanic" groups have been able to survive long enough, or to carry on their activities openly enough to rise to significant heights of sophistication. Most remained at the level of primitive "devil- worship" or "witchcraft" - ironically the very stereotype assigned to them by monotheistic religious establishments. Adoption of such "blasphemous and diabolical" practices by ignorant people who were crying out to unchain their souls as best they could only made them easier targets for persecution, which was generally meted out with sadistic enthusiasm. It is historically estimated that some 13 million accused Satanists were tortured and burned to death in medieval and Renaissance Europe alone. Many European museums still display the grisly, almost unbelievably cruel devices used in such torture, and detailed records of the "trials" and "confessions" of the victims survive in shameful abundance. Cases of torture, murder, and genocidal extermination of "infidels" and "heathens" in other areas of the world similarly abound - and stand collectively in testimony to the appalling legacy of the world's major monotheistic religions. It must further be remembered that the more "tolerant" climate of modern times did not come about through the wishes of conventional churches themselves, but rather through their increasing rejection by a mankind exhausted by religious warfare and terrified by the wanton viciousness of such establishments as the "Holy Office" (better known as the Inquisition). If the "Enlightenment" of the 17th and 18th centuries succeeded in reducing Christianity - the dominant monotheism of Europe - to a secular moral metaphor, it was not until the late 19th century that the so-called "Black Arts" began to be tolerated, and then only in their most simplistic and socially innocuous forms. From Freemasonry came a ceremonial magical offshoot - Rosicrucianism - which became increasingly more sophisticated in the Rosicrucian Society of England (S.R.I.A.) and then in the famous Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn (G.'.D.'.). In 1904 an Adept of the G.'.D.'. named Aleister Crowley broke away from that disintegrating body to form his own Order of the Astrum Argenteum (A.'.A.'.). To the Rosicrucian/ceremonial magical philosophy of the G.'.D.'., Crowley added first a strong emphasis on attainment of the highest level of self-consciousness ("Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel") and later the Masonic/sexual magic practices of Germany's Order of Oriental Templars (O.T.O.). The latter practices, together with Crowley's cavalier lifestyle, brought him public notoriety. His organizations survived his 1947 death only in highly-fragmented and doctrinarily degenerate factions. In 1966 a San Francisco sorcerer named Anton Szandor LaVey founded the Church of Satan as a medium for the study of the Black Arts and as an ethical statement repudiating the religious hypocrisy of conventional society. The Church remained principally a San Francisco phenomenon for its first four years, then during 1970-1974 branched out across the United States and Canada with local "Grottos" headed by those ordained to the Satanic Priesthood (the Priesthood of Mendes). The Church of Satan's attitude towards magic was more pragmatic and utilitarian than that of such mystically-based organizations as the G.'.D.'. and A.'.A.'. It saw no need for exhaustive studies into the often incoherent and inconsistent concepts of the Cabala, nor did it see anything extraordinarily significant in sex-magic. Rather it chose to approach the occult arts and sciences more rationally and even scientifically, employing "Occam's razor" to design and conduct Workings of ritual magic that were simple and direct, yet effective. In this the Church was generally successful, but it continued to experience increasing difficulty with the basic nihilism and negative connotations of its religious imagery. It could not escape the self-assumed limitation of being "anti-Christian", and of course the parameters of philosophy and metaphysics have been extended far beyond the primitive and superstitious conceptual and symbolic limits of the Judaic/Christian tradition. It also proved to be a misfortune of modern Satanism that, en route to divinity, the psyche is prone to superficial egotism. The Church suffered periodically from petty crises and scandals among the general membership, and finally Anton LaVey lost confidence in its organizational viability. In 1975 he made a decision to redesign it as a non-functional vehicle for his personal expression, exploitation, and financial income. This decision was emphatically rejected by the majority of the Priesthood, who immediately resigned from the Church in protest and denied its legitimacy as a true Church of Satan henceforth. The senior Initiate, Michael A. Aquino, invoked the Prince of Darkness in quest of a new Mandate to preserve and enhance the more noble concepts which the Church of Satan had conceived and outlined. That Mandate was given in the form of _The Book of Coming Forth by Night_ - a statement by that entity, in his most ancient semblance as Set, ordaining the Temple of Set to succeed the Church. The Temple was incorporated in California as a non-profit church in 1975, receiving both state and federal recognition and tax-exemption later that same year. It has since remained the sole Satanic religious institution possessing these legal credentials. THE CONTEMPORARY ENVIRONMENT In the United States the 1960-70s CE, despite [and in part because of] periodical psychopolitical strains such as the Vietnam War, generally represented a period of flourishing liberalism and freedom in personal affairs. Exploration and innovation were tolerated and encouraged in society. It was a time of breakthroughs in civil rights; of increased respect for racial, ethnic, sexual, and religious groups. There was controversy; but on the whole it was constructive and progressive in tone. By the end of the 1970s, despite continued growing pains, Western culture appeared to have moved decisively into the Age of Aquarius. The 1980s, however, heralded a sharp and surprising reversal of this climate into conservatism and intolerance. The most coarse, fundamentalist branches of Christianity gained converts and sought political power. And controversial minority groups were assaulted with fresh waves of discrimination and repression. Nowhere did this "new Inquisition" strike more directly than at "New Age" religions in general and at Satanism in particular. Invoking the same vile tactics that they have used over the centuries against alternative creeds, fundamentalists now began to disseminate hate- propaganda accusing Satanists of the most hideous crimes imaginable: human & animal sacrifice, cannibalism, the kidnapping/sexual abuse/murder of children. That none of this was in the least true mattered not at all to fundamentalists. If the Big Lie could be repeated loudly & often enough, it would catch hold. Suddenly it became dangerous to be an avowed Satanist in communities infected with anti-Satanic hysteria. The campaign eventually spread to several other countries as well, among them the United Kingdom, Italy, New Zealand, Canada, Australia, and Germany. Why should the same post-World War II generation that had grown up in the open atmosphere of the 60s-70s tolerate, even encourage a relapse into the brutish hatreds and persecutions of the Middle Ages? Perhaps for the very reason that it was a generation unprepared for what might be termed humanity's "religious impulse". During the 60s-70s religion was generally dismissed as something quaint and obsolete: superstition embarrassing to an age of science, computers, and Project Apollo. "God was dead", and Christianity was invoked merely as an excuse for Christmas revelry and other entertainments (such as _Jesus Christ Superstar_ & the "Jesus Freak revolution" of 1970). Even the formation of the Church of Satan in 1966 was somewhat anti-climactic: It didn't arise in response to a "threatening" Christianity - for Christianity already appeared to be a dead horse. The carcass was there to be kicked around a bit for the sake of theatre, but there was no expectation that it had any energy left to get up and kick back. The "religious impulse" proved to be important to both Satanists and non-Satanists. In the case of Satanists it brought about an increasing interest in exploring the "human equation" and the metaphysical and psychological roots of the great Satanic/psyche- centered philosophies of history. The psychodrama and "social Satanism" of the early Church of Satan gradually evolved into something much more profound and introspective: an exploration into the essence of the individual consciousness. Even had Anton LaVey not provoked the crisis of 1975, it is clear that the evolution of Church of Satan into something like the Temple of Set - a completely non-Christianized, positive "high Satanism" - would have proceeded inexorably. Non-Satanists, meanwhile, found themselves adrift in a society whose Judaeo-Christian moral values had disintegrated into materialistic hedonism. In such an "arid wilderness of steel and stone" there arose a longing for "something/anything spiritual" - and the remnants of Christianity were there to offer the appropriate opium. In the 1980s, however, there was a difference: This new herd of Christians had not received an education enabling it to see Christianity in historical context. Rather it perceived Christianity as a completely novel experience - and so it was far more trusting and vulnerable to Christian propaganda than the previous, more worldly generation had been. The result was an eruption in the 1980s of a fundamentalism as primitive and brutish as that of the Middle Ages. Now, as before, it needed a scarecrow - and "Satanism" was a word with an appropriately scary sound. Christian fanatics who knew [and cared] nothing whatever about _actual_ Satanism suddenly embarked upon passionate and financially profitable campaigns against the scarecrow. Complicating the situation was the perennial impulse among alienated youth and antisocial elements to deliberately shock society by flaunting its bogymen. If prudish elements of the community were going to terrify themselves with "scarecrow Satanism", then Heavy Metal rock music would affect this same image, as would the occasional psychotic criminal and teenage gang. Fundamentalists happily held up such phenomena as "proof" of the scarecrow's existence. The Temple of Set, as the world's preeminent Satanic religious institution, found itself in the awkward position of having not only to defend authentic Satanism against the shrill screams of the scarecrow-merchants, but also to reject superficial glorification of the scarecrow that would return Satanism's image to nothing more than anti-Christian "Devil worship". In recent years both challenges have been addressed, but not without the cost of time and energy drained from the Temple's own magical and philosophical interests. As we enter the 1990s CE the immediate danger has been largely averted. We have been able to establish the truth about Satanism sufficiently to expose the falsehoods of the scarecrow-merchants in all but the most ignorant backwaters of society. That same society, however, continues to flail about for the moral anchor that the large mass-religions claim to offer. Christianity's strength lies today, as throughout its history, in the _absence_ of intellectual education and mental effort which it demands of its sheep. It has also become quite accomplished at exploiting humanity's fear of death, sexual neuroses, and other irrational hatreds and insecurities. This is therefore a time of critical importance for Satanists. Our knowledge of our marvelous philosophy has never been more advanced, yet we pursue it in the midst of a confused, superficial, and emotional social environment. It is not the task of Satanism to be a "savior of the masses" - but rather to help suitable individuals to apprehend and attain their own divinity. The wisdom with which our Initiates exercise this divinity may well determine whether humanity advances to the stars - or succumbs to the entropy of the universe as one more inconsequential aberration of nature.