educational background. They would have been inclined to interpret extraordinary contacts in line
with the myths and legends most familiar to them. In going through this reprint of Casaubon, I
have attempted to evaluate each “Angelic” incident in a more empirical frame of reference. A
pattern is emerging that I find very exciting, but I must proceed further with the correlation
before I commit myself to conclusions. 9
I had then relegated Mr. Casaubon to my bookshelf against some presumed future leisure
time for such enjoyable explorations. I took him out just once again that spring, to activate a
GBM working recorded as The Sphinx and the Chimæra (Appendix #1).
7 See Chapter #31 of The Church of Satan.
8 Aquino, M.A., Working Record, Enochian Keys, March 9, 1975.
9 Letter, M.A. Aquino to Robert Ethel, March 12, X/1975.
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This working was quite spectacular as an experiment in formalized rational and intuitive
thought. Scholarly research preceded the working; then GBM was used to overlay it with
enlightened awareness. [This concept is discussed at greater length in Part II.]
As the Church of Satan’s 1975 crisis began to unfold, I attempted to comprehend and address
it reasonably and practically through correspondence and discussion. But as the situation
worsened, I felt increasingly the need to seek guidance from the authority of the Church’s very
existence, Satan himself. It seemed to me that if the Church were authentic - and, for that
matter, ultimately so beyond Anton LaVey’s current representation of it as merely his personal
creation and vehicle - the Prince of Darkness would have to step in. As the senior Master next to
Anton himself, I concluded that the responsibility to seek such a GBM resolution fell to me.
One of the distinguishing characteristics of a Master IV° [as beyond a Priest III°] in the
Church of Satan was Familiarity with [or, as Aleister Crowley might have put it, “Knowledge and
Conversation of”] the essential Powers of Darkness themselves, including their primal energizing
source, Satan. The Priesthood of Mendes III°, by contrast, could perceive and represent these
Powers, but not consciously meld with them. Perhaps the most famous modern example of the
facility of a Master in this regard is Crowley’s Liber 418: The Vision and The Voice, in which his
own initiation at this level is recorded.
I chose the night of June 21-22, X/197510 as an appropriate occasion for the working. The
time/events following my June 10th letter to Anton and Diane had suggested to me that an
ordinary solution was increasingly improbable, and that evening - as the Summer Solstice and
anniversary of my own ordination to the Priesthood five years previously - seemed “traditionally”
respectful. I cannot recall the date having any other significance to me at the time than this.
At midnight I was alone in my home at 302 East Calle Laureles, Santa Barbara - save only for
my beloved Irish Setter, Brandy. As was my habit with GBM workings, I put a phonograph
record on the turntable and set it to endlessly repeat. I chose a selection which I had never used
before [and, out of personal regard for the result, have never used since]: Ralph Vaughan
Williams’ Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis.
My altar was located in the living room of the house. I opened the working in the traditional
Satanic Mass, then spoke aloud the First Part of the Word of Set. 11
I felt an impulse to enter my study - “the Sanctum” as I nicknamed it - and with Brandy
curled up at my feet, sat down at my desk and took up pen and paper. Then, over the next four
hours, I wrote down the words of The Book of Coming Forth by Night.
The experience was neither one of “dictation” [as in Aleister Crowley’s Book of the Law
working] or of “automatic writing” after the spiritualist fashion. The thoughts, words, phrases
seemed to me indistinct from my own, yet impressed me as both unique and necessary, as
though no other sequence would do. Frequently I paused for a time, waiting for what might
occur next. Three times I got up from the desk entirely - once to find a small book by Wallis
Budge, Egyptian Language, and leaf through it until I found the sentence that had gnawed at
me, copying its hieroglyphs into my writing; once to trace an exact copy of a scrawled passage
from the Book of the Law into the narrative; and finally, at its apparent end, to place a small
piece of my own artwork (which I had done sometime previously, merely on a meditative whim)
as a “seal”. By about 4 AM the document was completed.
10 Internally, per a passage in the Book of Coming Forth by Night, the Temple of Set has continued to use the annual
dating system which, in Roman numerals, commenced from the founding of the Church of Satan in 1966 (as the
year I Anno Satani). However the Temple changed that “AS” to “ÆS” (for Æon of Set) after June 22, X/1975. For
ease of reference in this ebook, all years are indicated in profane (CE = Common Era) numerals, i.e. 1975, unless
there is a magical reason for using the ÆS system.
11 See Appendices #3 and #4 for the text and discussion of the Word of Set version of the “Enochian Keys”.
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2: The North Solstice X Working
The Greater Black Magical working record The Book of Coming Forth by Night was not only
a revelation to and reorientation of myself personally, but also the founding authority and
philosophical cornerstone of the Temple of Set. Appendix #2 contains the text of the working,
followed by my most recent analysis and commentary concerning it in Appendix #3.
In this chapter I would like to consider the phenomenon of the working per se. What was it?
What sort of validity, if any, can be assigned to it? Should this be different for others besides
myself? Should it be regarded as a time-specific document or as something with “timeless”
relevance and application?
In Chapter #1 I said that there was nothing overtly sensational, supernatural, or
melodramatic about the Book of Coming Forth by Night working. I simply sat down and wrote
it. It was not dictated to me by a materialized Egyptian god, nor did the words burn themselves
into the pages like the fabled Hebrew Ten Commandments. The thoughts were “comfortable”
ones, comprehensible to me within my preexisting frames of reference.
What, then, distinguished the Book of Coming Forth by Night from a mere meditation or
exercise in creative writing? No more and no less than a sensation I had then, and conviction
ever since, that something beyond Michael Aquino was generating it.
In his excellent work The Psychology of Anomalous Experience, Graham Reed (Professor of
Psychology at York University, Canada) surveys the many types of human thought-experiences
beyond the ordinary emotional or rational. “Anomalous,” he begins, “means irregular, distorted,
or unusual”. 12 He goes on to note that these classifications may be in the individual’s own
opinion, or in that of parts or the whole of his surrounding society. While some such experiences
may indeed be symptoms of various forms of mental illness, others are quite routinely a function
of healthy thinking and are not at all pathological.
We are all familiar with AEs such as dreams/daydreams, “trick of the mind” visual/audible/
conceptual illusions [as in stage m
agic presentations, paradoxes, distortions of perspective, etc.],
memory surprises, and déjà vu. None of these are cause for concern unless they become
unusually frequent or otherwise overwhelm “ordinary” thought. The area into which The Book of
Coming Forth by Night falls, however, has to do with what Reed calls “experience of self”. It is:
... fundamental to the whole of the individual’s psychic life. It underlies, determines, and colours
all other experiences. Like other critical aspects of mind, we take it for granted and are only aware
of it when it is disturbed in some way. It is almost impossible for a person in normal health to
12 Reed, Graham, The Psychology of Anomolous Experience (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1974), page #9.
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imagine what it would feel like not to be experiencing oneself as oneself. This is doubtless because
imagining, like all other mental activities, normally occurs in the context of self-experience.
Clearly the experience of self is inextricably involved in all other cognitive activities and states
because it underlies them and acts as a selector, integrator, and synthesizer. In a sense all the
experiences we care to discuss affect, or are affected by, this central experience. So it would be
possible to discuss it partially in terms of, for example, attention, registration, memory, thinking,
or emotion. Being oneself determines how we attend and to what we pay attention. It is a product
of all our stored experiences, and it determines our emotional responses. At the same time the
idea “me” is a concept, the development and range of which can be considered like other
concepts. 13
Reed delineates four different types of anomaly from this normal, comprehensive “me”: (1)
inability to distinguish oneself from one’s environment, (2) attribution of personal thoughts/
imagery/actions to external forces, (3) experience of a detachment or separation of the self, and
(4) concern that one’s experience of self/reality is not in fact valid.
The first - the “blurring of ego boundaries” 14 - is characteristic of clinical schizophrenia, but
in a contrasting and even highly-respected sense also encompasses the dissolution of the self
into the “higher unity” of the cosmos as, for example, in nirvana.
The third - detachment or separation of the self - also takes a variety of forms, from the
dream “out of the body” experience to the more elaborate, subtle, and metaphysical concepts of
“astral selves”, the Egyptian ka, the sinister Doppelgänger, and in general the soul/mind/body
distinction.
The fourth - doubt of the experience of reality - raises the question in one’s mind whether his
entire experience of being, and that which is outside it, is truthful. Most recently this theme was
dramatically romanced in the Matrix series of movies.
As for the second, it is in many respects both the most extraordinary and the most
troublesome of the four. Here we find people who are convinced that they [or others] have been
“programmed” by the government or aliens to think or act in certain ways, from sex slaves to
“Manchurian Candidates”. Some may feel that their own thoughts are being sucked away by
“thought vampires”, or that other people or beings are able to “tune into” their privacy just as on
a radio channel.
The second type also embraces, however, metaphysical or religious experiences of a
“revelation” nature. These may range [as historically in various religions] from possession or
incarnation to prophecy, “channeling”, or simply perceiving one or more Great Truths. Far from
being regarded as psychopathic maniacs [although they might well have been in their own day!],
such representatives as Abraham, Moses, Jesus, Mohammed, the Buddha, Joan of Arc, the
Mahdi, and Joseph Smith are popularly regarded with superstitious awe. Their less-successful
competitors throughout the ages, of course, remain recorded as only heretics, weirdoes, frauds,
or madmen/women.
There are two other interesting features of most “revelations”:
First, as they are presumed to spring from a supernatural, all-knowing source, they are [at
least by believers] not subject to the usual sort of factual questioning or analysis. They are to be
accepted as an act of faith. Inaccuracies or inadequacies in them are ignored or assumed to be
“revealed in their truth and understanding” at some divinely-determined future time.
Secondly, some adherents rely upon a steady stream of such manifestations to keep the
belief-system going. Hence the series of Hebrew prophets, the visions and miracles throughout
13 Ibid., page #112.
14 Cf. P. Federn, Ego Psychology and the Psychoses (NY: Basic Books, 1952).
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the New Testament, and of course the “Book of Revelation” telling Christians how the whole
show is eventually going to climax.
The Book of Coming Forth by Night fits Reed’s definition of an “experience of self/second
type/revelation anomaly”, but does not exhibit or depend upon the two sub-features described
above. It has been extensively and exhaustively examined, and compared to other perspectives
on reality, by many Setians [and nonSetians] over the decades - and again here in Appendix #3.
Also it has apparently passed well the test of time as a stand-alone document, requiring neither
sequel nor supplement to retain its usefulness and relevance to Setian philosophy.
Frankly I didn’t know what to make of the Book of Coming Forth by Night. It was certainly
not at all what I had expected [although I hadn’t known what to expect the evening before].
Obviously it contained elements of ancient Egypt, Aleister Crowley, and the Church of Satan. But
it mingled these in what was to me an odd and unfamiliar way. In some ways it seemed ancient,
in other ways futuristic. It seemed to be speaking to me personally, but also to as-yet-
unidentified others. It contained cosmology, philosophy, magic, evolution, cryptography,
promises, and threats. Summarily it pretty well upset my entire applecart.
I did, however, have two immediate impressions: one, that it was authentic - what it claimed
to be - a communication from the Egyptian god Set; two, that I myself must take it wholly and
sincerely to heart. Even today, after all these years of examination of and reflection upon the
Book of Coming Forth by Night, I cannot explain or defend these convictions, but simply recall
them.
In his “Preliminary Remarks” to his Book 4, Part I, Aleister Crowley discussed at some length
the ecstatic vision which each founder of a religion seemed at one point in his life to experience:
Finally something happens whose nature may form the subject of a further discussion later on.
For the moment let it suffice to say that this consciousness of the ego and the non-ego, the seer
and the thing seen, the knower and the thing known, is blotted out.
There is usually an intense light, an intense sound, and a feeling of such overwhelming bliss
that the resources of language have been exhausted again and again in the attempt to describe it.
It is an absolute knock-out blow to the mind. It is so vivd and tremendous that those who
experience it are in the gravest danger of losing all sense of proportion.
By its light
all other events of life are as darkness. 15
For me the Book of Coming Forth by Night was something like that. I might try to discuss it
theoretically and practically with others, but beyond and beneath any and all such sensible
courses of action, the thing had somehow seared me to the heart of my soul. Henceforth
visualizing existence without this as its centerpiece would be quite inconceivable.
But on the morning of June 22, I did not pursue such an ominous course of reflection. More
important to me at the time was that I had asked questions about the crisis in the Church of
Satan, and they had been answered. It was now time to share that answer with others, which led
in due course to the [re]founding of the Temple of Set.
It later seemed to me that there might be much more to the Book of Coming Forth by Night
than just its reading. In this, admittedly, I had the model of Aleister Crowley’s attitude towards
the Book of the Law, which he approached as a complex puzzle to be deciphered and analyzed -
and so he did, over the years and in several editions of commentaries.
My first detailed examination of the Book of Coming Forth by Night was a 10-page letter to
the Priesthood of Set III°+ on September 6, 1975. This was eventually followed by a 22-page one
the following year and a 26-page one in 1985. That was included for a time in the Crystal Tablet
15 Crowley, Aleister, Magick (Part I, 1911) (NY: Samuel Weiser, 1973), page #9.
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of Set (the Setian I°/introductory volume of the Jeweled Tablets of Set), and later was moved to
the Adept II°+ Ruby Tablet. Appendix #3 of this book marks its first [and possibly final, at least
by me] revision since then.
As mentioned at the beginning of Chapter #1, the Church of Satan had struggled for the
entire decade of its existence with the central, inevitable issue of the reality of the supernatural,
or more precisely the metaphysical. The puerile myths and images of the world’s conventional
religions we had long since dismissed as worthless nonsense - indeed, as pertaining to their
devils and demons, the stuff for amusing, spooky psychodrama, sarcastic lampoon, and