“In the South Seas there is a Cargo Cult of people. During the war they saw airplanes land with lots of good materials, and they want the same thing to happen now. So they’ve arranged to make things like runways, to put fires along the sides of the runways, to make a wooden hut for a man to sit in, with two wooden pieces on his head like headphones and bars of bamboo sticking out like antennas—he’s the controller—and they wait for the airplanes to land. They’re doing everything right. The form is perfect. It looks exactly the way it looked before. But it doesn’t work. No airplanes land. So I call these things Cargo Cult Science, because they follow all the apparent precepts and forms of scientific investigation, but they’re missing something essential, because the planes don’t land.”
Richard Feynman “Cargo Cult Science”
One of the most profound aspects of Setian thought and practice ties to the image of the Egyptian birthing knife. Where it literally is used to sever the connection to what the individual needed to grow within but would be fatal to remain connected to, magically it serves as a tool to dispel delusion and “make way for the Real.” How an individual Setian pursues the real in art, science, religion, and magic varies. Mixing the truth-value methods of each of those fields, applying those of science to art or magic to religion, can cause tremendous problems.
Where I often find my greatest personal friction around the Setian commitment to “The Real” comes when I see Setians holding onto things that do not match reality. They hold positions by which “the planes don’t land.” If I am to take Xeper seriously I cannot simply run in, birth-knife swinging, trying to cut them out of a matrix they apparently need for the moment. Sometimes you need to be wrong in order to grow towards being able to be right. It is neither my job nor my obligation to rip someone from a matrix that they presently need. Still, it can be a struggle watching someone cling to figures or positions that ultimately run counter to Setian Initiation. As Dr. Aquino once opined it is “rather like Gandalf seeing Denethor enthralled to Wormtongue.”
So, I try, to the extent I can, to add more and better material to the resources and discussions of the Temple. You can rarely make changes in another’s subjective universe by brute force, but you can look to identify their positive intentions, then feed better resources that will displace the ones counter to reality. In the end this helps them get towards those positive intentions.
Occasionally opportunities arise within the Temple where in a single moment a Setian can say a few simple words and do more than was done in decades to bring about a greater awareness of the Real. Ipsissimus Lewis masterfully did this with the so-called “Chicago Letter.” The core message of the Chicago Letter is Simple: it would behoove Setians to let go imaginary gods and monsters in favor of embracing a realization of the Prince of Darkness, focusing on our own capacities as unique individuals, and directly facing the challenges of reality. It emphasizes that these conditions are not only all we have but all we need as Black Magicians. This was high heresy for some and simple clarity and for others as an obviously better focus than the illusions of bygone minds.
“When I was younger and first starting to read up on the occult, I was always puzzled why it all seemed to be so ‘ancient’ – I’d read book after book looking for something to latch onto, but little of it had much relevance to my life and my interests. Latin incantations, wands, daggers, robes and the various occult ‘props’ all seemed pointless to me and very ineffectual ways of making magick happen. I’d read about purification rituals, ‘casting circle,’ the ‘Mass’ of this or that, ‘hand fasting’ and all of this stuff that magicians were supposed to do, but where was the sorcery? When does it get to the part where it explains how to make shit happen? That’s the part I was interested in and it was the only part I was ever interested in. Forget about all this hokey Dungeons and Dragons robe-wearing nonsense, I wanted results.”
Richard Metzger, from the introduction to Disinformation’s Book of Lies
Of course, the dismissal of the illusions of the past has been central to our School since this unexpected house emerged. What drove Anton LaVey to develop his own magical synthesis was the realization that was passed for “magic” was of little use to anyone but publishers. The entire baroque systems of the past existed not to do magic but to trap the would-be-magician in a never-ending maze leading nowhere. So much to learn, so much to memorize, so much to get wrong in order to excuse your failings. The irony he discovered, and which black magicians must rediscover on their own, comes from realizing that once you discard what you have been told “magic” is supposed to be you far more able to actually do magic. The practice of magic becomes much simpler on the one hand and much harder on the other.
The really hard part of black magic is that it works. Few are prepared for that eventuality as it unravels countless assumptions about self, culture, and nature. This forces the black magician beyond the ease of the known into uncharted territories. These territories are not haunted by demons and monsters but by those other villains, heroes, and fools who have pushed beyond the barriers. These others’ existence might make you wish for a monster or two instead. It may even get so bad that you decide to hide in your basement and pretend that you are the monster.
The Satanic answer alone, however, did not address a broader issue. If black magic works where does it come from and what purpose can it best be put to? These were not the questions for an artist-magician like LaVey nor for those who were attracted to his personage alone. Far better to shelf such speculations and embrace the notion that purpose itself was a wounding lie best treated by nostalgia and pleasure.
“In the nine months since the advent of the new Aeon, it has become clear that many pre-existing notions of magic were inefficient if not outright nonsensical. … Must we say goodbye to werewolves and vampires and ghosts and goblins and horned entities from the Pit and the rest of the gang? Must a Setian be so cerebral that every romantic superstition be abandoned? … The…old assumption that demons were independent entities and intelligences which could be addressed and activated through ritual is indeed obsolete. There is only one such independent entity…Set alone in its fully-directed intelligence.
The other gods, goddesses, and demons do enjoy existence – but with an important difference: They are derived of the human mind.
This is not the same thing as saying that they are merely figments of imagination. The mind is capable of imagination, yes, but it is also capable of creation in a far more substantive sense. It can literally give life to stereotypical, archetypal, or unique gods or demons – very much like the creation of the id-monster that took place in the famous film Forbidden Planet. The difference between the magician and the non-magician is thus easy to identify: the non-magician is subject to spontaneous creation of such entities from his non-conscious Id, but the magician is able to create them deliberately from his conscious Ego.”
Then-Magus Michael Aquino, Setamorphosis II
The greatest heresies within a religion come from the reiteration of its core principles against the compromises that have been made to make those principles palatable to its adherents. The best of those reiterations not only return to the roots but also bring those roots forth into the present circumstances. The Chicago Letter was one of the best examples of this sort of reiteration within our School by both returning to the very foundations of the Aeon of Set while placing itself squarely at the center of the issues facing the Temple of Set at the advent of Working II.
The challenge of constructive heresy like this can be its own compromises in order to become palatable to its time. This happens not by a watering down of the original intention, but its dissipation by those touched by it. This can happen through self-justification, where knowing that you are the creator of your fantasies gives license to get so wrapped up in them that you lose the world. This can happen through fanaticism with the message, which kills thought and adaptability in favor of adherents and believers. This can happen through an obsession with the notion of your purpose in the Cosmos needing to be the purpose of everyone else you encounter, and forcing those who feel their purpose in other things to conform or leave. Yet just the opposite can also happen in those touched by this message if they focus on creating space for others to reach the same realizations and taking them on as students until such a time as they become peers and Teachers.
The Chicago Letter acted, and still acts, as a reminder that in the end, we have ourselves, we have those others that we share the Cosmos with, and we have the Prince of Darkness. For those imperfect enough to be willing to Work, and Work again, in pursuit of Xeper to have anything more would be to take.
(Originally written as an introduction to a collection of works for the Order of Leviathan, 2019)
Setemheb 