Let me help you find the medium of the Deity know as "Set"...
The oldest form of the Prince of Darkness, the archetype of Isolate Intelligence, is the Egyptian god Set, who’s 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 5000 BCE. Set’s original name meant “cutter” or “Isolator” - he is the personification of the process of initiation- of becoming more and more your own self. Setians do not pray to Set, nor does he care about their day-to-day lives. Setians emulate Set, and further the process of individuation and Initiation on this world. Set is a complex figure, a much better role model than the limited figure of the Judeo-Christian Satan. Satan, the archetype of the rebel against cosmic injustice , may be where many people begin the lifelong process of Initiation, but he is too small a symbol for the richness of the Left Hand Path.
The Egyptian god Set went through periods of immense popularity alternating with total denunciation. Set in the predynastic and archaic periods was an essentially positive deity introduced from the east as a god of the “extension” of “existence“. He is therefore god of “expanding” borders and radical changes of being, particulary birth, circumcision/ initiation, death in battle, and rebirth through the Opening of the Mouth ceremony. Popular among easterners, his first cult site being Pelusium in the eastern Delta, Set’s worship quickly spread to the “border” areas, where he was identified with local gods of initiation. Two examples of such cult sites are Kharga in the south, which has always been primarily a Nilotic culture area, and the Libyan settlement of Ombos, wherein Set was identified with the local god Ash in the IInd dynasty. Set’s original worship as a nighttime/polar deity suffered a decline with the rise of solar worship in the IVth dynasty. The Great Pyramid of Khufu is one of the last early monuments connected with the idea of the Setian afterlife as well as a solar one. The Great Pyramid had a special air shaft for the king’s “akh” to fly to the stars of Set.
During the Middle Kingdom, Set was reduced to a symbol of Upper Egypt and apparently seen only during the Setian festival of “heb-sed”, or tying together. It was during the time that Set was first blamed for the murder of Osiris, a Semitic corn god who had arrived in the IIIrd dynasty. Previously, Osiris had died of drowning. No matter how “evil” Set was, the essential function of Set, of going out and expanding the borders of existence and the returning that Chaotic energy to the center always continued. It is the darkness that binds together the Egyptian light. The murder of Osiris is the destruction of the fetters of society, of accepting self-change and civilization over the forces that lead stagnation.
The foreigners who ruled Egypt who were known as the Hyksos, actively identified themselves with Set and established their capital at an ancient Setian site, Avaris. Very little is known about their religious or magical practices, although excavations going on at the time of the writing should reveal great wealth. But they were great horsemen, and the horse had become identified with Set. It required Hyksos rule before, after almost 200 years of its use in Egypt, that evil Setian animal the horse could be portrayed in Egyptian art.
The second native blooming of Setian thinking may have begun in the XVIIIth dynasty, but certainly it reached its peak in th XIXth and Xxth dynasties when a family of Setian priests from Tanis became he pharaonic line. During the time of expanding, borders, Set was extraordinarily popular, as can be seen from pharaohs’ names such as Seti (Set’s man) and Setnakt (Set is mighty). Two important Setian text were produced: First, the “Tale of Two Brothers” tells how Set (identified with the god Batta, whos name means “Lord of this world”
undergoes a series of metamorphoses (Xeperu) that changed him from a farm hand to a star in the constellation of the Thigh. Thus Set is our role model as a man who through his own hard work, magical skill, and the “use” of the resistance of the world - Became divine. The second text is the “Book of Knowing the Spiral Force of Re and the Felling of Apep.” This protective formula, which Ramses III, son of Setnakt, inscribed on certain border monuments, shows two Setian particularities. Firstly, it narrates (from a first person perspective) how an untamed god comes into being in the psychic (subjective) realm as the god Xephra. Secondly, the spell gives the magician one of the powers of Set, which is to slay Apep, the dragon of delusion. Set likewise serves as a role model, in that each Setian seeks to end delusions of his or her life.
With the coming of the XXIInd dynasty, Egypt entered it’s long decline. Set became a tremendously unpopular deity. His worship ceased everywhere except the oases and the city of Thebes, where his cult was absorbed into the cult of Montu, the warlord of Thebes. The negative and destructive aspects of isolation and destruction were emphasized and as Egypt turned more to an idealized past, Set-hen, the god of the “Void” called the future, came to resemble the Christian Satan. (Set-hen = Satan) The third blooming came with the coming of the Greeks to Egypt. It is from this period that the Hellenic notions of independence and self-worth began to revive both the operant and initiatory aspects of the New Kingdom Set Cult. The success of Graeco-Egyptian magic, despite Roman persecution, saw an expansion of both the philosophical and magical aspects of this tradition as far north as Britain. The third century of the common Era was the height of Setian Hermeticism. With the coming of Christianity as a state religion, individualism was again despised. The Coptic fathers identified Set with Satan, Set almost disappears as a figure in Egyptian magic.
The forth blooming of Setian thought began in the nineteenth century with certain archaeological discoveries, but it reached a visible stage in 1975 ce when Michael Aquino invoked the Prince of Darkness to seek his advice. On the Solstice 1975 the Prince of Darkness revealed himself to Mr. Aquino as Set, and gave us the word of our Aeon “Xeper”. Aquino and most of the Priesthood of the Church of Satan founded the Temple of Set, and he served as the first of its three High Priests.
