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The Temple of Set I

Page 37

by Michael A Aquino


  the Satanic Bible, the II° is granted. In one sense the II° is the highest recognition possible

  within a true Satanic order, because Satanism is characterized by diversity of individual

  technique. Once the Church is satisfied that a certain member is a capable magician, that is all

  that need be said.

  Priest or Priestess of Mendes III°: In other churches the priest or minister is simply a

  semiprofessional or professional organizer, demagogue, and ringmaster. He is also considered

  to be a shepherd, charged with the moral and spiritual guidance of his flock. The Satanic Priest

  is altogether different in concept. He is chosen for ordination not by other humans, but by the

  Powers of Darkness, who accentuate his characteristics and achievements in such a fashion as

  to identify him as Elect to the Council of Nine. Once declared Elect by the Nine, an individual

  has the choice to accept or reject formal ordination. If he declines, he retains full control of his

  Will and continues normal existence. Should he accept, he will find that his life will be warped

  in unforeseen and often strange directions, as the Powers of Darkness actualize the Will of Our

  Lord Satan through him. Simultaneously he will come to wield powers that will permit no

  obstacle to stand before him. The Satanic Priesthood takes its name from the ancient Egyptian

  Priesthood of Set, which was centered in the vicinity of Mendes ( Ba-neb-tett) and Tanis during

  the latter days of the empire.

  - 194 -

  Magister IV°: This degree is conferred by the High Priest in one of three designations:

  Master of the Cavern (Magister Caverni), Master of the Temple (Magister Templi), or Grand

  Master (Magister Magnus). The degree and designations refer to the recipient’s expertise and

  scope of magical influence.

  Magus V°: This is the highest degree conferred within the authority of the Mandate of the

  Church of Satan, reflecting the Will of the Prince of Darkness himself. Presently it is held only

  by Anton Szandor LaVey. Like the IV°, the V° is a measure of an individual and not the

  designation of an organizational function.

  My first policy statement as High Priest of Set concerning the degree system of the Temple

  of Set was contained in a July 15, X/1975 letter to the founding membership, abridged as follows:

  As I have said or written to several of you individually, the true degrees are properly

  neither “rewards” for past achievements nor “incentives” for future ones. Rather they are a

  form of recognition of an individual’s position at a point in time. This concept applies to all

  five degrees.

  In the Church of Satan degrees I°-III° were conferred by Anton Szandor LaVey, either with

  or without the aid of a formal, written test or questionnaire. The IV° was conferred by him

  without any guidelines at all. The V° he assumed, being justified in doing so by the Infernal

  Mandate.

  The Temple of Set will operate differently. It is my feeling that any person who is rightfully

  a III° has the judgment to recognize a I° or II° individual, and therefore should be empowered

  to do so. Persons may join the Temple as Setians I° directly through the Executive Director,

  but no I° will be able to advance to IIůnless he has interacted with a III°+ and demonstrated

  to that official that he is deserving of the higher degree.

  The same holds true for the III°, except that it will now be IV° officials who perform the

  evaluation. A IV° should be able to recognize a person who is Elect to the Priesthood. The

  criteria are both too complex and too subtle to be encapsulated into any written examination.

  The same again holds true for the IV°, with one difference in that the High Priest, upon

  making a IV° Recognition, must secure confirmation from the Council of Nine.

  The concept of the I° today is the same as it was in X/1975. Such information and resources

  as the Temple has to offer are placed at the disposal of the new Setian, and using both these and

  other tools he or she is expected to take the initiative to become an Adept in the Black Arts. No

  standardized criteria are used by the Priesthood in performing II° evaluations, since “every man

  and every woman is a star” and thus will apply the Art in a different manner.

  It remains necessary for an aspiring Setian to seek out compatible contacts from among the

  Priesthood, so that his or her achievements can be known and appreciated for what they are.

  Here the initiative for contact is decidedly the responsibility of the I°, and III°s will expect to be

  contacted for advisory and evaluative purposes. Priests and Priestesses III° who are available for

  contact are included in the Temple of Set’s “Pool of Neheh” Internet forum.

  An Adept II° is Recognized by the Temple of Set as a competent Black Magician. This

  statement is never made lightly. Like an academic or professional degree, the II° signifies not so

  much the passing of examinations as the “licensing” of the recipient to practice the Art in a

  knowledgeable, ethical, and professional manner. Unlike the I°, in which one may remain no

  longer than two years, there is no time limit for II° Temple affiliation. It is expected that the

  majority of Setians will hold the II° for Earthly life.

  II°s, like I°s, partake of the benefits and services of the Temple and have no reciprocal

  obligations save to respond promptly and courteously to contacts from the Priesthood. The

  Temple of Set remains committed to individualism, and it deliberately avoids intrusions into the

  prerogatives, interests, or privacy of the I°/II° membership. Reciprocally it is assumed that I°/II°

  Initiates will conduct their lives and personal affairs in such a way as not to jeopardize the

  dignity and ethical reputation of the Temple.

  - 195 -

  For the Church of Satan’s degree system, Anton LaVey deliberately chose the medieval-

  sounding “Witch/Warlock” designation for the II° rather than the more esoteric-sounding

  “Adept”. Part of the reason for this was LaVey’s preference for the colorful imagery of traditional

  Satanism, but he was also wary of being tainted by the goody-two-shoes/Cabalistic connotations

  of white-light “adeptships”.

  The Temple of Set, in searching for the single term most descriptive of the II°, ultimately

  concluded that “Adept” was it. Like the Church of Satan, we see no reason for half-a-dozen

  variations on this title; one either is Adept in the Black Arts or one is not. Thus you could say

  that, as compared to the A.'.A.'. system, the transition between the Temple of Set’s I° and II°

  would correspond to a transition between the (1)=[10] and (7)=[4]. Obviously this is not a

  sudden transition, but the Temple of Set feels that any sort of graduated subdivision of the

  process, as in the G.'.D.'. and A.'.A.'., is not relevant ti our situation. As Adeptship in the Black

  Arts is non-standardized, there is no one path toward it to be incremented.

  As was the case during the Age of Satan (I-X), the III° is the most essential and significant

  distinction recognized by the degree system. The I° and II° are intellectual measurements and so

  constitute a strengthening of the purely human mind to its maximum potential as such. The III°

  identifies a transition from a human state of being to that of a divine being - ordained by,

  consecrated by, and sacre
d to Set. The IV°-VI° are characterized by certain additional attributes,

  but none of them approaches the III° distinction in essential sublimity and sanctity.

  Just as the II° represents the height of personal identity, and glory to be taken in that

  identity via application of the Black Arts, so the Priesthood involves the opening of a very special

  kind of door: the merging of the consciousness, indeed the personality, with that of the Prince of

  Darkness himself. In this working the Priest or Priestess in no sense loses personal identity or

  self-awareness; rather one’s consciousness is augmented, energized, and strengthened by that of

  Set. Hence the Priest or Priestess - when acting as such, for “Priesthood” is a deliberate act, not

  an office - is something more than human, something more than the individual whose human

  visage appears before onlookers. At such times he or she is not “possessed”, but is rather become

  a veritable living Temple indwelled by the presence of Set.

  It is impossible to overemphasize how alien this concept of Priesthood is from that of

  conventional religions, in which it is merely a paid profession and/or bureaucratic function for

  the promulgation of various institutions calling themselves “religions”. As Black Magic is

  properly a tool for use by magicians, so the Temple of Set as an institution is ultimately a vehicle

  for the identification and formalization of the Priesthood of Set, through whose souls flow the

  current of the Æon of Set. Each Priest and Priestess of Set is a Temple of Set: a psyche so

  purified, educated, consecrated, and initiated that it has become a fit medium for the Prince of

  Darkness. Nowhere is this more succinctly illustrated than in the ultimate admonition of the

  Egyptian sage to Her-Bak, at the culmination of the latter’s initiation as a Priest:

  O Her-Bak. O Egypt. You are the temple which the Neter of Neters inhabits. Awaken

  Him ... then let the temple fall crashing.

  It is difficult to describe degrees beyond the III° for I°/II° Initiates without resorting to

  specialized terminology intelligible primarily within the Priesthood. Ultimately, to fully

  Understand one of these degrees is to be deserving of Recognition to same. Some general

  characteristics, however, may be discussed.

  These and their preliminaries are usually attributed to the Hermetic Order of the Golden

  Dawn (G.'.D.'.) in turn-of-the-20th-century London. 81 The G.'.D.'. never conferred the three

  81 Nevertheless they go back considerably farther. See Section #F & notes above.

  - 196 -

  senior grades (as they were called), reserving them to the mysterious/supernatural “Secret

  Chiefs”; they were thus held to be “astral” grades beyond incarnated human attainment.

  When Aleister Crowley founded his G.'.D.'.-superseding A.'.A.'. in 1907, he made it possible

  for incarnates to attain the astral by a process of consciousness-transformation to which he

  referred as “crossing the Abyss”. Now the grade of Magister Templi (8)=[3] came into focus as

  characterizing one capable of completely comprehending (“Understanding”) an æon. A Magus

  (9)=[2] identifies one who creates (“Utters the Word of”) a completely new æon, or who

  significantly expands or enhances apprehension of an existing one.

  So far so good, but Crowley left Ipsissimus (10)=[1] floundering in vagueness: “It is beyond

  all this and beyond all comprehension of those of lower degrees.” 82 In 1979, however, I finally

  realized not only the significance but what James Thomson in his City of Dreadful Night so

  magnificently named the “necessity supreme” of the degree of Ipsissimus VI°.

  The Utterance of a Word of a Magus, by introducing a principle beyond the universe known

  to the Masters of the Temple, creates a situation of disequilibrium and kinetic energy. As the

  Utterance continues, so does this destabilization of the magical and philosophical environment.

  Left unresolved, this atmosphere can result in the extremes of either the complete overwhelming

  and suppressing of the status quo [as for example in history’s most drastic revolutionary

  episodes] or in growing resistance to the “irritation” and its sometimes-violent rejection and

  suppression.

  What is needed, therefore, is a perspective and influence beyond that of a Magus, with the

  purpose of blending and synthesizing the old and the new into a harmonious and viable whole.

  In this sense the initiation of an Ipsissimus is the resolution of the tension between the initiation

  of a Master of the Temple and that of a Magus.

  Just as the other degrees of initiation had within the Temple of Set evolved significantly from

  their Church of Satan and earlier definitions, so it was now with this one.

  “Ipsissimus” was originally nothing more than a superlative of the early Latin pronoun ipsus

  (“self”), which as ipsissimus would approximately mean “utmost self”. In the 19th century this

  curious term was adopted by Britain’s Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn to replace the

  original name (“Jesus”) of the eleventh degree of its predecessor organization, the Societas

  Rosicruciana in Anglia. Presumably the G.'.D.'. thought “Ipsissimus” a bit less blasphemous,

  while still implying that such an individual, associated with the highest of the Sephiroth of

  Kether (“Crown”) on the Jewish Cabalistic “Tree of Life”, could have attained a sort of “supreme

  selfhood”. Since none of the organization’s original members claimed any grade beyond that of

  Adeptus Exemptus (7)=[4], they felt no need to discuss it much beyond founder W. Wynn

  Westcott’s official History Lecture:

  ... But the highest of all in this ancient scheme are the Great Rulers of the whole system who

  severally govern and sustain the Third Order, which includes three Magic Titles83 of Honour and

  Supremacy. These represent the Supernal Triad84 of the Sephiroth and are shrouded and

  unapproachable to the profane and to all others but the Chiefs of the Adepti ...

  When Crowley adopted the G.'.D.'. grades for his successor A.'.A.'., he endeavored to make

  “Ipsissimus” somewhat more explicit. In One Star in Sight he elaborated concerning this

  (10)=[1] grade:

  82 Crowley, Aleister, “One Star In Sight” , Magick (New York: Weiser, 1994).

  83 Magister Templi, Magus, Ipsissimus.

  84 Binah, Chokmah, Kether.

  - 197 -

  There is also an account in a certain secret document to be published when propriety

  permits. 85 Here it is only said this: The Ipsissimus is wholly free from all limitations soever,

  existing in the nature of all things without discriminations of quantity or quality between them.

  He has identified Being and not-Being and Becoming, action and non-action and tendency to

  action, with all other such triplicities, not distinguishing between them in respect of any

  conditions, or between any one thing and any other thing as to whether it is with or without

  conditions.

  He is sworn to accept this Grade in the presence of a witness, and to express its nature in word

  and deed, but to withdraw Himself at once within the veils of his natural manifestation as a man,

  and to keep silence during his human life as to the fact of his attainment, even to the other

  members of the Order.

  The Ipsissimus is pre-eminently the Master of all modes of existence; that is, his being is

&nb
sp; entirely free from internal or external necessity. His work is to destroy all tendencies to construct

  or to cancel such necessities. He is the Master of the Law of Unsubstantiality ( Anatta).

  The Ipsissimus has no relation as such with any Being: He has no will in any direction, and no

  Consciousness of any kind involving duality, for in Him all is accomplished; as it is written

  “beyond the Word and the Fool, yea, beyond the Word and the Fool”.

  The problem with this definition is that it cancels itself out, making “Ipsissimus” a

  meaningless term and/or state of personal being. Indeed associating it with the Buddhist anatta

  (“no-self”) removes any sort of individual, personal identity altogether. 86

  The most that can be said for the Golden Dawn/Crowley approach is that in discussing the

  “Third Order” (the three highest Sephiroth) they assumed that they were talking about initiated

  beings progressively closer to the universal mind and oneness of [the Hebrew] God; and the

  closer you get, the more your personality dissolves into his. Theoretically this is in keeping with

  the goal of the “Right-Hand Path” of initiation.

  But according to Setian “Left-Hand Path” philosophy, such dissolution of the psyche is not

  only undesirable but indeed impossible, because there is no universal consciousness such as

  YHVH; there is only nonconscious universal existence, balance, and consistency. Thus to us the

  three highest degrees of initiation have a distinctly different, and very real, significance.

  It is the initiation of a Master of the Temple (Magister/Magistra Templi IV°) to gain an

  Understanding of the universe of conscious thought as it presently exists. Magically this is

  referred to as the current “æon”, being the most sophisticated and comprehensive of a

  continually-unfolding series of philosophical perspectives on reality. Once attained to this

  Understanding, the Master can then guide less-advanced initiates in ways along their personal

  quests that are enhanced, not obstructed by the overall environment.

  Occasionally beyond the initiation of a Master is that of a Magus/Maga, who is characterized

  by the introduction of a new factor into this existing philosophical universe, sufficiently potent

 

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