[the Silver Star of the A.'.A.'.] as a Babe in the womb of our Lady Babalon, under the Night of Pan,
to grow up to be Himself wholly and truly as He was not previously, he remains in the Abyss,
secreting his elements around his Ego as if isolated from the Universe, and becomes what is called a
“Black Brother”.
Such a being is gradually disintegrated from lack of nourishment and the slow but certain
action of the attraction of the rest of the Universe, despite his now desperate efforts to insulate and
protect himself, and to aggrandize himself by predatory practices. He may indeed prosper for
awhile, but in the end he must perish, especially when with a new Æon a new Word is proclaimed
which he cannot and will not hear, so that he is handicapped by trying to use an obsolete method of
Magick, like a man with a boomerang in a battle where everyone else has a rifle. 87
Here there is a paradox. To become a Magister Templi, an individual is told to destroy his capacity for
logical thought, i.e. his ability to draw deductive or inductive conclusions from the phenomena of the
objective universe. Since it is precisely this capacity that produces the “mirror in which the Self may be
seen” ( Cogito Ergo Sum), the aspirant is invited to obliterate just what it is that enables him to perceive
himself as a unique entity. Theoretically he is “reconstructed by the gods in a perfect form” - an ideal “self”.
Herein lies the heart of the paradox: It is that an independent Will, capable of perceiving itself in
contrast to the objective universe, cannot be entirely a product of forces derivative of that universe. True
freedom of the Will necessitates the ability of that Will to move both with and against objective-universal
patterns (“laws”). The Will is Self-creating, Self-sustaining, and Self-improving. [This is the basis for the
Formula of the Æon of Set XXX.]
Because of the paradox, it is impossible for a Magister Templi to be the result of such an annihilation as
Crowley prescribes. Such a “Magister” would possess no Will of its own; it would be a zombie, non-
consciously moving in harmony with the objective-universal laws. It would be an animated corpse, a mere
“meat machine”. This would not be a rebirth of the Self; it would be suicide under the illusion of
participating in a “greater life force”.
Now let us look a little more closely at Crowley’s description of a “Black Brother”. Those familiar with
Crowley’s life will note that, in these few short phrases, a veritable blueprint for his own life has been
presented. Crowley’s writings attest to the overwhelming presence of his individual Will in all of his
enterprises.
The inevitable conclusion is that there is no Right-Hand Path to the initiatory level of Magister Templi
[at least not as prescribed by the original G.'.D.'. and A.'.A.'.]. There is only the Left-Hand Path, and it is
fraught with danger - not a one-time crossing-the-Abyss test, but a continuous peril that exists from the
moment the individual completely realizes him-Self as a Magister.
The Magister Templi is one who can comprehend the entire objective universe. In order to do this, he
cannot have vision which is distorted by instinctive assumptions internal to that universe. He - his Will -
must be independent, separate, and distinct. This necessitates an extremely strong presence of mind, a
personality that is sufficiently secure not to require “crutches” from the objective universe, and a
determination to fight off the panic that could result from the sensation of being utterly alone.
The Magister Templi, if he is truly entitled to that degree, possesses the abilities necessary to thwart
these dangers. Those who presume to that degree without appreciating these dangers or the severe mental
pressures they can cause, do in fact suffer the fate that Crowley prescribes: death or loss of sanity [or mere
relapse from that level of initiation to a less-stressful one, or even to profane “freedom from initiation” … Cf.
Fromm, Escape from Freedom].
And many of the Aeon of HarWer sought to read this but could not. Nor could the Magus
himself, though he guessed rightly at its simplicity. It was said that every number is infinite -
hence each number or sum of joined numbers became merely the corresponding letter.
The statement that every number is infinite is also in the Book of the Law [#I-4].
Crowley develops this concept in a brilliant essay appended to 777 which he also included in his later
commentaries on the Book of the Law. Its central thesis may be found in the following included statements:
By adding 1 to 8 we obtain 9, so that we might define unity as that which has the property of
transforming a three-dimensional expansion of two into a two-dimensional expansion of three. But
if we add unity to 9, unity appears as that which has the power of transforming the two-dimensional
87 Crowley, Aleister, Magick, page #332.
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expansion of three aforesaid into a mere oblong measuring 5 by 2. Unity thus appears as in
possession of two totally different properties. Are we then to conclude that it is not the same unity?
How are we to describe unity, how know it? Only by experiment can we discover the nature of its
action on any given number. In certain minor respects, this action exhibits regularity. We know, for
example, that it uniformly transforms an odd number into an even one, and vice versa; but that is
practically the limit of what we can predict as to its action.
We can go further, and state that any number soever possesses this infinite variety of powers to
transform any other number, even by the primitive process of addition. We observe also how the
manipulation of any two numbers can be arranged so that the result is incommensurable with
either, or even so that ideas are created of a character totally incompatible with our original
conception of numbers as a series of positive integers. We obtain unreal and irrational expressions,
ideas of a wholly different order, by a very simple juxtaposition of such apparently comprehensible
and commonplace entities as integers.
There is only one conclusion to be drawn from these various considerations. It is that the nature
of every number is a thing peculiar to itself, a thing inscrutable and infinite, a thing inexpressible,
even if we could understand it. 88
The corresponding letters are those of the English alphabet, in keeping with the English text of the Book
of the Law. Cabalists may desire an interpretation based upon the Hebrew alphabet or Cabala. In the Book
of Coming Forth by Night, however, Set implicitly rejects the entire Hebraic mythos as a latter-day
corruption of the Osiris cult. The Cabala, whose authenticity is already questioned by reputable scholars of
Jewish religion, is nowhere to be found in the Book of Coming Forth by Night, or, for that matter, in the
Temple of Set. 89
Even so the sequence remained unknown - and so, after its issue, to me as well. For, while I
may pass free of the boundaries of time, memory of the future cannot exist.
Set states that he may “pass free of the boundaries of time” - a rather curious way of addressing the
problem of time-travel. Yet such “passing free” seems to involve mental perception of the past and present
only, not the future. This has interesting implications for those who believe in “predestination” (a fixed
course of future events)
. The contrasting school is that of free will, which cannot exist unless the future is
undetermined. The problem, as Crowley and Gurdjieff demonstrated, is one of identifying the true will and
freeing it from mechanical conditioning, either conscious or subconscious. 90
Time-travel - or, more precisely, the control of time - is a skill which is essential to a magician. Isaac
Newton believed in the idea of a universal “absolute time” or “linear duration”, saying that time is a thing in
itself, not a relation between events. Leibniz argued to the contrary, foreshadowing Einstein, who said in his
1905 paper:
If we wish to describe the motion of a material point, we give the values of its coordinates as
functions of the time. Now we must bear carefully in mind that a description of this kind has no
physical meaning unless we are quite clear as to what we understand by “time”. We have to take
into account that all judgments in which time plays a part are always judgments of simultaneous
events. If for instance I say “that train arrives here at seven o’clock”, I mean something like this:
“The pointing of the small hand of my watch to seven and the arrival of the train are simultaneous
events.”
It might appear possible to overcome all the difficulties attending to the definition of “time” by
substituting “the position of the small hand of my watch” for “time”. And in fact such a definition is
satisfactory when we are concerned with defining a time exclusively for the place where the watch is
located; but it is no longer satisfactory when we have to connect in time series of events occurring at
different places, or - what comes to the same thing - to evaluate the times of events occurring at
places remote from the watch. 91
88 Crowley, Aleister, 777, pages #134-135.
89 According to Richard Cavendish, writing in the Encyclopædia of the Unexplained (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1974), the
“Hebrew Cabala’s” oldest identifiable works can be authenticated to between the third and sixth centuries CE. Since that time it
has been added to and revised by innumerable occultists, with the result that it has lost even what cohesion it may once have had.
90 The most lucid explanation of the Gurdjieff approach to this subject is contained in P.D. Ouspensky’s The Psychology of Man’s
Possible Evolution (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1969). Crowley did not address the notion of free will in depth, save perhaps
indirectly in Liber Aleph. He seems to have interpreted the idea in a mystical sense, along the lines of The Sacred Magic of
Abra=Melin the Mage (S.L.M. Mathers [Trans.], Chicago: deLawrence, 1948). See pages #172-179 in Crowley’s Confessions.
91 Whitrow, G.J., The Nature of Time. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1972.
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Then there was an effort to prove “linear duration” by the Second Law of Thermodynamics - the
tendency of ordered molecular structure to decompose (the phenomenon of entropy). Logically it is
unsound, if it is assumed that the laws of motion are symmetrical for both directions of time. [Symmetry for
“reverse time” can be demonstrated by the actions of particles at the subatomic level.] So “time” is not a
fixed law which the magician cannot influence; he may at the very least accelerate or decelerate it. To “pass
free” of it altogether, he would have to be a being like Set, i.e. independent of the laws governing the
objective universe.
Now it has come to pass, and the Book of the Law is laid bare - “Destined First Century heir -
Aquino - breaking Keys by doctrines Anton LaVey - great Magus of reconsecration coming
Year Xeper - founding his rightful Priesthood - Set - true origin Volume AL.” Michael
Aquino, you are become Magus V° of the Aeon of Set.
I, Set, am come again to my friends among mankind - Let my great nobles be brought to me.
Set has returned in his true identity, for the first time since the destruction of the original Temple of Set
in ancient Egypt. “Let my great nobles be brought to me” is the same passage that, in hieroglyphs,
surrounds the Seal of Set at the end of the Book of Coming Forth by Night.
In Khem I remain no longer, for I am forgotten there, and my house at PaMat-et is dust. I
shall roam this world, and I shall come to those who seek me.
PaMat-et was the capital of the ancient Egyptian XIX Uab Nome. It was called Oxyrhynchus by the
Greeks, and it was the center of the original Temple of Set. It is located in Upper Egypt at Latitude 28.5N,
Longitude 30.8E. Other cities which were centers of the Setian Priesthood were Ombos at 24.5N, 32.9E and
Tanis at 31N, 31.9E in Lower Egypt. 92
Magus of my Aeon - Manifest the Will of Set.
The essential characteristic of a Magus is the manifestation of a philosophical principle - in magical
terminology the “utterance of a Word” - to supersede or enhance previous ways of understanding,
actualizing, improving, and eventually transcending the human condition.
Reconsecrate my Temple and my Order in the true name of Set. No longer will I accept the
bastard title of a Hebrew fiend.
When I resigned from the Church of Satan on June 10, 1975, I spoke for its Mandate and, as a Magister
Templi IV°, assumed the Satanic High Priesthood. Initial steps were taken towards a “second Church of
Satan” during the next ten days. With the coming into being of the Book of Coming Forth by Night, those
plans were dropped. The Temple of Set was organized, incorporated, and recognized nationally as a tax-
exempt religious institution within four months.
The “bastard title” is “Satan”, which is in Hebrew a title (“Adversary”) although in Egyptian it is the
name Set-hen (“Majesty of Set”). It is by Set’s name that he is known within his Temple and Priesthood,
92 Brugsch-Bey, Heinrich, Egypt Under the Pharaohs. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1891, page #452.
Ions, op. cit. , page #63.
Carus, op. cit. , page #17.
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When I first came to this world, I gave to you my great pentagram, timeless measure of
beauty through proportion. And it was shown inverse, that creation and change be exalted
above rest and preservation.
The significance of the pentagram is discussed in Chapter #16.
With the years my pentagram was corrupted, yet time has not the power to destroy it. Its
position was restored by the Church of Satan, but its essence was dimmed with a Moorish
name, and the perverse letters of the Hebrews, and the goat of decadent Khar. During the
Age of Satan I allowed this curious corruption, for it was meant to do me honor as I was then
perceived.
As its emblem the Church of Satan used the Sigil of Baphomet, an inverse pentagram decorated with a
goat’s head and surrounded by the Hebrew letters lamed/vav/yod/tav/nun = LVYTN = Leviathan, the sea
monster mentioned in Job #41 of the Judaic/Christian Bible. The goat was the Goat of Mendes, the Devil’s
form of manifestation in traditional Satanism. 93
The term “Baphomet” - the “Moorish name” - came into prominence as the god reputedly worshipped
by the medieval Knights Temple (Order of the Temple). There have been many colorful and creative
explanations of this curious term, but the most sensible is that of Idries Shah, who in his book The Sufis
suggests that it is a corru
ption of the Arabic abufihamat (pronounced “bufihimat”), which means “father” or
“source of understanding”.
Going beyond Shah, this in turn may have been a corruption from the ancient Egyptian Ba-neb-Tettu,
the hieroglyphic term for the city of Mendes, capital of the XVI Khar Nome in the Nile Delta at 31N, 31.5E,
not far distant from Tanis. In Ptolemaic accounts Mendes was “notorious” for its goat-god, who was said to
mate with human females in religious festivals. The truth is probably less lurid. Comments Budge in his
Gods of the Egyptians:
The title Ba-neb-Tettu was sometimes held to mean the “Soul, the Lord Tettu”, and this was the
name at Mendes of the local form of Khnemu, whose symbol there, as elsewhere, was a ram … He
was regarded as the virile principle in gods and men, and is styled “King of the South and North, the
ram, the virile male, the holy phallus which stirreth up the passions of love …”
But this is now my Aeon, and my pentagram is again to be pure in its splendor. Cast aside the
corruptions, that the pentagram of Set may shine forth. Let all who seek me be never without
it, openly and with pride, for by it I shall know them.
The pentagram as used by the Temple of Set is returned to its pure form, so that the beauty of Φ is
undiluted and undefiled. It is enclosed in a perfect circle (a function of π), which represents the
mathematical order of the Universe. The pentagram does not touch the circle, however, signifying that Set is
an independent entity.
The pentagram itself does not appear on statues and bas-reliefs of Set that have come to light, nor does
the Temple of Set use the image of Set against the pentagram in place of the Baphometic goat. Each may be
considered a “key” to knowledge of the other, rather than two parts of a whole.
The reconsecrated Temple of Set displays the pentagram openly, and Initiates of all degrees wear a
simple pentagram medallion as evidence of their affiliation.
Let the one who aspires to my knowledge be called by the name Setian.
The word “Setian” is now used to refer generally to all Initiates of the Temple of Set. It is used in a more
specific sense as the formal title of the First Degree of Initiation, whose recipients are in the position of