From the moment of its [re]creation in 1975, we have instinctively felt the Temple of Set to be something unprecedented on this world. It crystallized a premise at once more ambitious and more subtle than that of its Church of Satan prelude. And unlike the cynical pessimism of the Church, the Temple has always had about it a wondrous exuberance, an electrifying optimism, a promise of wonders and marvels to be enjoyed by all who ventured through its pylons. We may not have anticipated all of these discoveries accurately on our first exposure to them – and on occasion some Initiates have found the light too intense for their self-possession – but such growing pains as we have experienced have never eclipsed the magic and magnificence of the Aeonic current. And no one who has experienced initiation as catalyzed by the Temple, whether temporarily or over an enduring period, has been unaffected by it. No initiatory system exists in a vacuum. The great temples and orders of history all were enhancements of, or reactions to social currents and critical events in their time. The Temple of Set has similarly remanifested amidst the dramatic and stormy fluctuations of Western civilization from the 1970s to the 1990s: “the best of times, the worst of times.” Never before in recorded history have some many social absolutes disintegrated to relatives, while at the same time technology has exploded into uncontrollable and addictive extremes. Never before has the individual been able to gather information so quickly, communicate so efficiently, travel so easily. Yet paradoxically humans have never felt so anonymous, powerless, and alienated: infinitesimal cogs in a giant Metropolismachine of history careening onward out of control. Ultimately, then, what the Temple of Set has done has been to restore to us an awareness of the great dignity of individual consciousness. Once we are awakened to this, all else that we do flows from it as remanifestations of the respective neteru. |
Dr. Michael A. Aquino, “A Passing By” Scroll of Set issue 145
Setemheb 