is virtually impossible to predict that degree.
The chances of success in a GBM working are presumably improved if one does not attempt
too great a “distortion” in the laws of consistency of the OU, and if one applies extraordinary
energy to the corresponding phenomena in the SU(s). One must also take advantage of every
cooperative force in the OU to enhance the working, using GBM to “tip the balance” rather than
do the whole job. Thus GBM is ideally supported by LBM, though the converse is not true. Anton
LaVey referred to the consideration of peripheral factors in support of a GBM working as the
balance factor in magic.
Recently the term “Medial Black Magic” (MBM) has been introduced to describe GBM
Workings of a very simple, directed design with the specific and exclusive purpose of influencing
the OU. These influences or effects in the OU then, either incidentally or by intent, impact other
SUs which experience the phenomena. [Cf. Chapter #21.]
It is in the process of making the preliminary exploration of the SU and OU that the Black
Magician begins to discover and ultimately to know how things really work. He exists wholly
in neither the SU [like a mystic] nor the OU [like a materialist]. He regards neither one as a toy,
nor denies it reality. He moves back and forth between the two with increasing ease and
expertise, influencing the MLs between them and thus causing change in accordance with
his will.
In the process he becomes wise, but because he considers both universes when giving
opinions, non-magicians may consider much of his wisdom as folly. It is not; it merely takes into
account more dimensions of a particular problem than onlookers are likely to see. A magician
who accumulates extraordinary wisdom of this “mixed” type is said to possess Understanding.
One is taught to become expert in natural approaches to the OU through conventional
education in the social and physical sciences, and in natural approaches to the SU through the
arts. The Church of Satan taught the theory and practice of LBM, and the Temple of Set adds to
that the theory and practice of GBM.
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Just as education in natural approaches cannot guarantee that one will become competent
in applying that education, so education in non-natural approaches cannot guarantee that one
will become adept in their exercise. Many would-be magicians accumulate much “textbook
learning”, yet prove unable to do anything with it. It may be because they don’t try to apply it, or
because they don’t have the talent for it, or because they don’t have the intelligence to really
understand it. The Temple of Set, as is the case with other ethical, initiatory institutions in
history, teaches theory and Recognizes expertise in that theory. It cannot guarantee expertise in
practice.
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17: Initiation
A. Concept
Individuals who find their way to the Temple of Set are known as the Elect. This term has a
subtle significance of its own. It means “chosen” - but it does not identify the chooser. That
chooser may be Set; it may be oneself; it may be pure hazard. Nor does it imply privilege,
aristocracy, or guaranteed success. It is, simply, an acknowledgment that the aspirant stands at
these gates which only a comparative few have encountered. Like Parsifal, Jonathan Harker,
Her-Bak, or Nicholas Urfe, the aspirant either steps forward into the Temple - or turns back into
profane existence. 78
“Initiation” is the term used to describe the experience of an affiliate of the Temple of Set.
Since the term is very easily misunderstood and misused, its usage within and by the Temple
deserves careful explanation.
In its traditional sense, initiation is induction into the membership of a secret society,
hence being entitled to successively more exclusive secrets as the level of initiation rises. There is
usually a good deal of occult hot air mixed in with this, in that the candidate is exhorted
concerning the excellence he has had to display to be worthy of the honor, the sublime dignity of
Many initiatory societies are little more than financial rackets, while others are more or less
sincere in what they are trying to do. Most esoteric knowledge imparted under the guise of
initiation is not particularly practical. Rather it is vague, theatrical, mystical, and inconclusive:
obscurum per obscurius (“explaining the obscure by means of the more obscure”). The new
“initiate” is left with a pleasing feeling of heightened importance, yet is somehow unable to
explain why.
Authentic initiation is not simply the acquisition of specific knowledge or skills; it involves a
certain approach to the challenges of existence in general. An initiate, like a cat, must learn to
land on his feet in any situation in which he may find himself. He does this by the acquired and
applied technique of “stepping back to view the situation from outside himself”. He assigns
relative importance to it, estimates his options as an actor within it, and activates the most
appropriate such option. He may make mistakes due to lack of information, but he rarely errs on
the basis of what he does know. His developing sense of intuition, moreover, will warn him
78 There is an interesting metaphor of this principle in Bram Stoker’s Dracula. After opening the door of his castle to
Jonathan Harker and welcoming him, Count Dracula becomes silent and motionless until Harker steps across the
threshold. Only then does Dracula become the gracious host.
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whenever a situation is not whatever it immediately seems to be. He can then avoid premature
conclusions and impulsive actions.
The Temple of Set conceives the process of initiation as a Socratic refutation of confused,
imprecise, and unsubstantiated information and thinking. It is the imparting of truth as much as
we know it to be, but even more importantly it is the imparting of the ability to pursue truth and
to recognize it when it is found.
Wisdom - knowledge of truth - cannot be taught to stupid intellects. A love of and insistence
upon the truth cannot be taught to unethical individuals. Hence initiation is not something that
can be “done to” someone merely by subjecting him to a series of classes, examinations, and
ceremonies. All that the Temple can do - and all that it tries to do - is to spread out its banquet of
truths, probabilities, hypotheses, and speculations before aspirants whom we evaluate as
reasonably sincere. They must then utilize it, together with such other resources as they may
develop, to achieve wisdom. Thus do they initiate themselves.
By its membership and degree system, the Temple merely formalizes the demonstrated
levels of this achievement. This is why initiation within the Temple of Set is referred to as a
process of Recognition.
The term “degree” is used because initiation itself is a constantly ongoing and expanding
process. Hence one never attains initiation per se; rather one attains a particular “degree of”
initiation.
The parameters of each Setian degree also expand as the Temple as a whole increases in
wisdom and sophistication. This is in keeping with the principle of Xeper (“becoming”), whi
ch
identifies the process of constantly-expanding personal evolution. “Science is not; it is
becoming,” wrote Mikhail Bakunin [in God and the State, 1882 CE]. “The learned man of today
is but the know-nothing of tomorrow. Let him once imagine that he has reached the end, and for
that very reason he sinks beneath even the babe just born.”
Within the Temple one does not become party to the “secrets of a degree” by first being
appointed to that degree. Rather one, through his pursuit of wisdom and truth, gradually
acquires those “secrets” through his own efforts, within and without the research systems of the
Temple. If it is perceived that he has reached the level of wisdom and skill appropriate to a
higher degree, he is Recognized as being entitled to that degree.
There are no penalties for revealing “esoteric secrets” in the Temple. We exist to promote
knowledge of truth, not to conceal it. Setians should understand, however, that some of the
truths known to the Priesthood of Set can be dangerous to oneself or others if misapplied, just as
a loaded gun in the hands of a child is dangerous. Be careful what “guns” of your acquired
B. Truth
It is impossible to overestimate the importance of the concept of truth to the raison d’etre
of the Temple of Set. In the last analysis the Temple is a tool to uncover truth, and a vehicle for
its promotion and application. Various historic initiatory systems have failed to the extent that
they have subordinated truth to anything else - impressiveness, wealth, power, luxury, laziness ...
the list of excuses, apologies, and rationalizations is endless.
The Temple agrees with Pythagoras and Plato that truth is an absolute Form or first
principle, which may be apprehended in specific instances through a combination of
intellectual effort and enlightened intuition. Rigorous examination of the intellectual process -
such as takes place in the Platonic Dialogues - is necessary to such apprehension. Thus it is
important to educate oneself in what is known, as well as to develop one’s analytical and critical
abilities, before attempting to apprehend the unknown.
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Intuition - the power or faculty of knowing things without conscious reasoning - is an
essential attribute of the initiate. Neither reasoning nor intuition alone will suffice; each must be
used in conjunction with the other. Intuition alone can easily become mere fantasy and
mysticism, while inductive reasoning can produce “logical” conclusions which are nevertheless
wrong.
Plato’s concept of nœsis - the “capstone” of his “pyramid of thought”, referred to a supreme
state of enlightened apprehension in which “the Truth” and “the Good” become
indistinguishable. Insofar as such a perception is unique and inevitable, it is also teleological,
constituting the telos, or ultimate end/purpose of the concept being investigated.
Friedrich Nietzsche felt, however, that where humanity is concerned, “truth” must be
judged in terms of its application. In his Genealogy of Morals he cautioned against the “ascetic
ideal”: an interpretation of the Will to Power that is in fact a Will to Truth ( Wille zur Wahrheit).
In a world of imperfections and duplicity, this ideal becomes a surrogate for the divine. Applied
to external God/gods it is indefinable; applied to oneself it becomes an ever-expanding, ever-
receding measure of initiatory perfection.
C. Ekstasis
To appreciate the initiatory significance of ekstasis, it is first necessary to understand what
it is, and that is most easily approached by what it is not.
What is common to all of Plato’s “Pyramid of Thought” categories - eikasia, pistis, dianoia,
and nœsis is the processing of thought based upon sensory input and logical manipulation of
same. Even the capstone, nœsis, requires a dianoic substructure, refined by the most exacting
reduction of imperfections, to appear in truth. Hence, for example, the nœsis of the Book of
Coming Forth by Night required extensive analysis and substantiation following the North
Solstice X. That could not prove the working in its entirety, but it could significantly contribute
to the probability of that proof.
Ekstasis, on the other hand, is a psychic process which stands apart from the manipulation
of sensory information by reasoning. Because of this ethereality it is almost beyond defining per
our usual, logical language. The etymology of the term itself is illustrative: The original Greek
ekstasis means “astonishment” or “distraction”, which in late Latin became extasis, “terror”.
While we can only approximate what the ancients were trying to convey by such
expressions, it is apparent that they regarded ekstasis with caution. It was the ultimate
“uncharted territory” of conscious existence, the awareness of self-existence without reference to
anything external at all.
In Setian philosophy this is akin to becoming as Set himself, not merely adapting his
principles to our respective circumstances in the Objective Universe, or to our sensory-
referenced visions in our individual Subjective Universes. The ecstatic psyche generates and
sustains its own complete universe.
This is a [real!] Big Bang, to be sure, and it is unsurprising that profane society, and profane
philosophy, have shied away from confronting it directly. In common usage “ecstasy” is
cheapened into nothing more than an emotional rush, an “out-of-body experience”, or the kind
of self-annihilating trance symbolized by nirvana or religious rapture. Common to all these
interpretations is their dead-end: Persons so stunned become completely numb and neutralized.
They don’t know who they are, what their consciousness is, or what they can or should do with it
now. Perhaps the most classic illustration of this profane dilemma is the Star Child at the end of
Clarke’s/Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey. He didn’t know what to do with himself, but, wrote
Clarke lamely, “he would think of something”.
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For the Setian, however, attainment of ekstasis is the inevitable, ultimate consequence of
initiation. Hegel regarded all external phenomena, the flow of universal history, as “the mind of
God in the process of completely understanding itself”. Separately and severally we are not quite
so grandiose; we grant that we are all unfolding gods and goddesses. Our realization of ekstasis,
therefore, is not exclusionary: there remains “otherness”.
It is perhaps not surprising that artists and musicians flirt with ekstasis in their creative
explosions, a marvelous aspect of which is that we who look and listen can share their thrilling
“terror” with them. In the Order of the Trapezoid’s Runes I quoted Adolf Hitler:
Music and architecture - Is it not in these disciplines that we find recorded the path
of humanity's ascent? When I hear Wagner, it seems to me that I hear rhythms of a
bygone world. I imagine to myself that one day science will discover, in the waves set in
motion by the Rheingold, secret mutual relations connected with the order of the world.
The observation of the world perceived by the senses precedes the knowledge given by
exact science as well as by philosophy. It is insofar as percipient awaren
ess approaches
truth that it has value. 79
Thus may we “preview” ekstasis in so many wonderful ways en route to its ultimate,
complete envelopment of our existence, which is the secret of what the profane ignorantly and
fearfully regard as “death”.
D. The Two Paths
The terms “Left-Hand Path” (LHP) and “Right-Hand Path” (RHP) are used in different and
often incompatible ways by various occultists. Reportedly the terms originated in Tantrism, a
school of Vajrayana Buddhism in northern India which taught that Buddhahood can be realized
through various theurgic practices. For mantra and mudra ceremonies the female was
positioned to the right of the male; for erotic rites she was positioned to the left. Theosophy’s
H.P. Blavatsky felt sex-magic to be immoral and perverse, so she subsequently employed the
term “LHP” to characterize the magical systems she didn’t like, and the term “RHP” to
characterize the ones she did, i.e. Theosophy. Post-Blavatsky the terms have been expanded
through popular usage to refer generally to what the Temple of Set defines as White Magic
(RHP) and Black Magic (LHP).
Most popular-occult organizations, to be sure, use the two terms simply to identify their
moral biases. What they consider “good” is RHP, and what they consider “evil” is LHP. After
Aleister Crowley left the Golden Dawn, he portrayed it as a “Black Lodge” and his own A.'.A.'. as
the “Great White Brotherhood”; while on the other side of the fence W.B. Yeats and other G.'.D.'.
leaders considered Crowley to be the Black Magician.
To further complicate the matter, there have been some deliberately criminal “Satanic”
organizations which have avowedly followed the LHP as defined by those who consider it
synonymous with degenerate and destructive practices. Such episodes have of course
served to reinforce the conventional religious image of Satanism and Black Magic as nefarious
practices.
So enduring was this stereotype that the Church of Satan found it very difficult to break free
from it during the entire decade of its existence. All sorts of creeps, crackpots, criminals, and
cranks pounded on the door of the Church, assuming that it would excuse and encourage