Sic Semper Tyrannis!
Hermekate and the Word of Xem
Today is March 15th—the infamous “Ides of March.” On this date in the year 44 B.C.E., Julius Caesar was assassinated by approximately 40 members of the Roman Senate. He was reportedly stabbed a total of 23 times before succumbing to his wounds. It’s a day that echoes throughout history, rife with apparent meaning; from the viewpoint of the Roman Senate, Caesar had gone mad with power and had become a tyrant; as far as they were concerned, they were protecting the Roman Republic from the consolidation of power accumulated by Caesar. This event would go down in history as marking the transformation of the Roman Republic into the Roman Empire, and would lead to a series of civil wars that ultimately culminated in the fall of Rome. Given the iconic nature of this event, it is often used as a cautionary tale admonishing us to learn the lessons of history. Over two thousand years later, however, the question remains:
Have we learned the right ones?
This date has very strong connections with the Word of Hermekate, and exploring them will be the main purpose of this post. By the end, I will have connected quite a few of the dots that I have scattered about thus far, because so much of the meaning of the Word of Hermekate can be connected in various ways to this date. For starters, perhaps it is eminently fitting that another occurrence on this date was the passing of Michael Aquino, previously the Magus V° of the Word of Xeper, to the grade of Ipsissimus VI°—especially since so much of my work has relied upon and formed its basis on his own. I’ve made that very clear throughout my writings here at Dark Twins, but I will be spelling out more of these connections here in this post.
I had a nice chuckle when I learned about the coincidence of Aquino’s attainment of the Grade of Ipsissimus with this date, because by that time—even though I was not aware of the fact—I had already worked out that my Word bore a connection to the Word of Xeper that drew heavily from the other meanings associated with this date in Western culture. I was not yet entirely sure why this was or exactly what those connections were, but it was something I knew in my heart and felt resonating throughout my entire Being. In the simplest terms, I knew that one of the major purposes behind the Word of Hermekate was to address some of the imbalances brought about by Michael Aquino’s Utterance of his Word. This post will explain why that is, which will go a long way toward illustrating the dialectical nature of Words; after all, the Word of Hermekate both contradicts and yet derives its own meaning from the Word of Xeper. As such, I feel as though my relationship as a Magus with the Word of Xeper is very similar to Aquino’s relationship as a Magus with the Word of Thelema: To read his writings (particularly in his commentary on The Book of the Law, not to mention certain passages of The Book of Coming Forth By Night), it is clear that Aquino had his own sort of “love/hate” relationship with Crowley and all that he accomplished.
To begin this exploration will require that I start in the year 2020, with a trip down memory lane. For those who haven’t read The Weighing of the Heart, understanding what I covered in that post would be best before proceeding here. However, in the interests of bringing readers up to speed without making them open another browser tab, I will do my best to simply include relevant details of that post here.
In summary, on the night of the Strawberry Moon (otherwise known as the Rose Moon) Eclipse in June of 2020, my partner and I ended up deciding to trip on psilocybin mushrooms, which ended up catalyzing a powerful experience for me. Because I know how controversial the matter of the use of entheogens or drugs in an initiatory context is, I need to make one thing abundantly clear here:
I was not using psilocybin that night as an intentional part of my initiatory work. The intent was somewhat 50/50 between recreation and therapeutic use. I count myself as one of the growing number of people who advocate for the potential of psychedelics when it comes to aiding in trauma recovery—under the right circumstances. I also count myself among those who feel it should be legal for people to use such substances privately if that is their wish; I recognize why most professionals in the field of psychology and psychiatry insist that such work be done in a controlled, clinical setting with a trained therapist sitting in, but maintain that such a situation is not strictly necessary if the substances are being used responsibly by individuals who are capable of the discipline required to properly address concerns of “set and setting” by themselves. The risk of something going wrong is definitely higher in situations of independent use, but I firmly believe people should be allowed to decide for themselves to assume the risks involved.
When it comes to the role of such substances in initiatory work, I would never suggest that one conflate the use of such substances with the process of Initiation itself; I don’t think a person can take any substance and reasonably expect to have an initiatory experience by mere virtue of that fact. A number of things need to happen more or less in concert in order for Initiation to progress.
However, I also recognize that these substances do have a tendency to draw out that which is already latent in one’s psyche; in other words, I think the experience that I had did end up bearing initiatory fruit, but that this was more a function of the years of personal initiatory work I had already put in by the time this happened to me. It’s wholly possible for these substances to “catalyze” such an experience if the seeds of such fruit are already present within the soil of the psyche. This does not mean taking any substance can be a substitute for genuine initiatory work, and it is nonetheless important not to mistake one activity for the other.
With that disclaimer out of the way, let’s take a second look at my experiences that night:
As I described in The Weighing of the Heart, I took a high enough dose that, before too long, it became apparent to me that I was about to have my first “ego death” experience, for which I prepared by getting into bed next to my partner, closing my eyes and waiting for it.
Soon, I very palpably felt the presence of Anubis (and even saw his image), and proceeded to experience my ego death in the context of the Weighing of the Heart ceremony described in The Egyptian Book of the Dead or The Book of Coming Forth By Day. That particular myth had been a favorite of mine for a number of years, so on one level, this was all certainly “coming forth” from my own psyche; however, I must emphasize the very deep “ceremonial” feel of the experience from my point of view, which felt very much to me as though the neteru involved were very real and had chosen that moment to put me through an Initiation. Frankly, before that point, I wasn’t all that sure what I felt the ontological status of the gods to be; maybe they were independent entities, and maybe they existed only in our minds. My personal “needle” was moved decidedly toward their being objectively real, especially in the wake of some of the events that occurred in the aftermath (such as my phone spontaneously playing a song that seemed meant to urge me onward in my work related to the Word of Hermekate).
After the ego death and the “weighing” of my heart, I felt Anubis do something to me that lined up with his role as a divine “embalmer” (although I was not consciously aware of that aspect of Anubis at the time): I felt as though he “hollowed out” the central channel in my spine and, in short, triggered an activation of my kundalini. It was not until I began having intense synchronistic experiences about 9 months later, which also led to similar conclusions, that I gave such an idea much serious credibility. Let me add that this was not a matter of my dismissing the validity of the concept of kundalini, but rather it is an admission that I did not see myself as being “advanced enough” as an initiate for this to be the case).
After Anubis’ “procedure,” a strange “shared hallucination” between my partner and I saw us both getting up out of bed to gaze out the window at the array of planets we knew were out there, which resulted in the next phase of the experience wherein I began to spontaneously speak about the nature of civilizations, their historic rises and falls, and the relationship of their falls with the tendencies of the tyrants who have typically established or come to power within civilizations.
Themes surrounding the assassination of Caesar and the fall of the Roman Republic were prominent that night as I lay in bed next to my partner expounding the concepts that were pouring into my mind at that point. Perhaps because I had just experienced an ego death of my own mere minutes before this process began, I also related these ideas metaphorically to the individual, in much the same way that Plato’s treatise The Republic used the metaphor of a just city-state to simultaneously paint a portrait of the just man. Magicians of a Hermetic persuasion will, of course, easily make this connection as an example of the relationship between the microcosm and macrocosm; in short, so my ensuing “oration” went, there was a strong relationship between the concept of a tyrannical ruler and that of an inflated personal ego.
Soon, my thoughts and emotive proclamations veered from mankind’s past to our future, including the possibility of our leaving this planet and venturing forth into the stars. As I hinted at in The Weighing of the Heart, there was a sense, that night, of being “observed” by “the gods,” which I simultaneously perceived as the spiritual beings most people are accustomed to thinking of, and something more along the lines of “extraterrestrials” with advanced technology living in other parts of the universe. Was there, in fact, a real difference between the two concepts? I would be far from the first person to speculate on such things: Whether in New Age lore or conspiratorial conjecture, many have wondered about the possible relationship between the two ideas. This is even found in pop culture, with films like Stargate and its spinoff television series Stargate SG-1: The idea that the so-called “deities” of ancient Egypt and other world mythologies are, in fact, advanced alien species. Perhaps it’s a “both/and,” and as a species evolves technologically, it also evolves in terms of its basic level of consciousness? Perhaps “spiritual” and “technological” evolution ran in parallel with one another (at least in some cases)? Perhaps, as a species advances toward godlike technology, it also develops godlike consciousness in parallel? If not always, then perhaps sometimes, at the very least. Perhaps even ideally.
We humans have mythologized space travel recently in Star Trek, in which Gene Roddenberry imagined “The United Federation of Planets,” which explored the galaxy, aiming to develop peaceful and mutually-beneficial diplomatic relationships with other advanced species. In this fictional universe, the Federation was motivated first and foremost by The Prime Directive, which dictated that any developing species or civilizations that had not yet developed warp drive technology (the ability to traverse interstellar space in an efficient and timely manner), were to be left alone.
Is that how it would shake out in real life?
What if there were already advanced species out there, concerned with maintaining relative peace and order throughout the cosmos?
Would simple technological development be the sole criterion by which the decision to engage with burgeoning interstellar civilizations were made? Or would there be…other considerations?
In Star Trek, not all civilizations share in the peaceful vision of communion and mutual cooperation that lay at the foundation of the Federation. There were also more individualistic, warlike peoples, such as the Klingons and the Romulans, with which the Federation was forced to contend.
Would a real-life “Federation” be satisfied with the Prime Directive? Or is it possible that (assuming a similarly peaceful disposition), a real-life space-faring confederation might carefully monitor younger species to determine if they might pose a potential threat to galactic peace and order if allowed to sufficiently develop their technology? After all, even the most peaceful of human beings generally don’t sit idly by while termites infest their homes; when we see trouble like that, we make the decision to take less pacifistic measures.
We exterminate them before they can do more harm than is acceptable.
The sense I got on the night of the Rose Moon eclipse of 2020 was that, if such species had found us, then perhaps they were sitting at the cusp of just such a decision regarding the human race.
Do they dare allow us to venture forth into the stars, potentially developing the technology to pose a threat to cosmic order if we don’t seem to be getting along peacefully amongst ourselves?
Or—at a certain point—would wiping us out for the good of the cosmos be deemed the wiser course of action?
Regardless of whether or not there are, in fact, actual advanced beings watching over humanity to make such decisions about us, this sent my mind to exploring some of the implications of these concepts: As we humans press forth into the exploration of space, we are now being driven along in this process by the fact that our situation here on Earth is gravely deteriorating. We’re making a huge, despicable mess of this planet and the possibility is now very real that our technical growth has outpaced a similar growth in our level of consciousness. Put simply, we aren’t demonstrating that we have the maturity to responsibly handle our technical knowledge, to the extent that it is actively in the process of threatening to destroy us and many other species.
In this regard, I have very often felt that we should be directing our attention toward fixing the problems here on Earth rather than seeking to escape the planet to go wreak the same havoc somewhere else; for “wherever you go, there you are.” If we address the problems facing us by managing to get off-planet, we will simply take our problems with us and spread our sickness elsewhere.
Along a similar line of reasoning, it began to occur to me that, perhaps, the better approach for us would be to emphasize our “spiritual” development, or at the very least (since I know not everyone considers the lens of “spirituality” to be valid or fruitful) “personal” development. And, again following the connections between the whole and the part that form the message of Plato’s The Republic, I concluded that it just might be the case that the best way to address the problems facing humanity might be for more people to begin embracing the process of personal development. The fact that humanity is so reliably “shitting where it eats” and ruining our planet stems largely from how rare it is that truly wise and well-developed people of integrity find their way into power; in short, it dawned on me that those who have truly Individuated—or, in more “occult” terms, those who have advanced sufficiently on the path of Initiation—would be much less likely to make the kinds of decisions that would lead to the world of relative ruin with which we are now confronted.
Just as Plato before me, I surmised that it would be preferable if the world were run by true “philosophers” rather than by simple, crude plutocrats and power-mongers.
Since that would be a pretty unreasonable prospect (how would we get to that point from our current situation?), the next-best thing, to me, would be to begin at the very least from the bottom up:
To heal the world, we need to heal ourselves.
To continue the metaphor above of “god-like” extraterrestrial species, in order for us to develop along similar lines—in order for us to “become like the gods”—what would we have to do as a species?
Well, we have systems and techniques in place to effect that very transformation from human to divine status on the level of individuals: The process of Initiation, or in Jungian terms, of individuation. And it seemed, then, obvious to me:
Thus far throughout history, such a transformational process has always been held in reserve as one that is intended for very few people to undergo. Through most of history, the practices involved have been closely guarded, only recently emerging into popular accessibility. In order to save humanity, I began to think, we just might need to “mainstream” the process.
The key to surviving as a species is for more (and perhaps even most) of us to “level up.”
By the end of the night, I understood very well that these were the foundational ideas of my Word, and I knew I needed to find a way to articulate that Word and move into the stage of actively Becoming the Magus of the Word of Hermekate.
And, as I reported in The Weighing of the Heart, I felt very overwhelmed by the prospect.
But I did what I could.
Beware
I’m pretty sure that at the time this all happened, I was between “incarnations” of my former blog, Hermekate, because try as I might, I had been unable before that point to really get a sense of my Word’s meaning even though I knew it lay latent within me.
After this event, I began some of the activities I described in the post Basic Elements of Hermekate: Part One, including writing up some outline documents summarizing my best understanding of the core concepts that comprise the Word, as well as creating a Facebook page to go along with my blog, which I used as a “base of operations” to share various posts and articles that related to topics laid out in my written outlines. I even formed a private Facebook group for a time, and invited some of my friends.
In the month or so leading up to March 15th of 2021, I even came up with a half-baked “marketing campaign” for Hermekate that was completely built around the story of Caesar’s assassination on the Ides of March; I created a banner for my Hermekate Facebook page and a landing page for my blog at Wordpress with the word “Beware” and the date 3.15.21 ominously plastered in crimson across an image of Vincenzo Camuccini’s famous painting, “La mort de Cèsar.” I still think I did a pretty awesome job of building up tension and momentum leading up to the date, with one major problem:
I was mostly riffing on a “vibe,” and didn’t really have a solid plan for what was actually going to happen on “The Big Day.” It was very impulsive and, as I look back, rather embarrassing. As of the Ides of March on 2021, I came up empty-handed…and I felt like an abject failure. It was, as they say, “much ado about nothing.”
Looking back, there were two reasons all of this fizzled out and fell on its face the way it did:
I was drunk almost every day while this was going on.
My personal studies relevant to such matters were insufficient and my available knowledge was minimal.
I lacked something very important, even though I knew I was onto something and could feel the connections between my Word, the modern state of Initiation, and other Words such as Xeper.
Looking back, I’m almost certain the whole thing would have appeared as a manic shit-show and that my relatively unstable state was obvious, although I do note that I had amassed far more followers for my Hermekate page than I currently have after over a year of working on Dark Twins: The Hermekate Page has 250 Likes compared to Dark Twins’ paltry 29.
I guess, whether or not you’re even selling anything worthwhile, self-confidence (even if artificial and alcohol-fueled) counts for a lot, huh?
The irony of the fact that one of the major connections I was making to the whole Caesar symbol was a metaphor for the ego—and that my ominous use of the word “Beware…” was meant as a warning about hubris, all while attempting to proclaim a Word and act as something like a Magus given the state I was in at the time—was not lost on me at all. I was basically a caricature of myself at the time and I knew it. This is the Curse of the Magus in action upon a person who has not yet developed skill in heading it off.
Thus, not too long after this “campaign,” I called it quits. There would be another attempt to resurrect the “project” of Hermekate later, but in August of 2022, I shut down the page for the last time, and later, the blog itself.
In December of 2022, I instead launched a new blog, Gogo’s World of Ruin, still feeling the urge to write and share my ideas, but completely apart from any intention of continuing the work of Hermekate itself.
By February of 2023, I had founded Dark Twins, and before I knew it, I had renewed my intention to Become the Magus of Hermekate using this site and its own Facebook page as a vehicle.
Xem
Alas, although I still wasn’t either sober or stable last year when I founded Dark Twins, I was nonetheless very caught up in the currents surrounding my Word. However, in my relative lack of composure, I was being tossed about in the tempestuous waters of the Abyss much more so than effecting anything like a skillful and willed “Crossing”.
Now, here’s something cool: I was intent on incorporating this song into this current section anyhow (hence my use of the word “tempestuous” above, which was meant to “weave” the song thematically into this section), but not quite yet; nonetheless, it just came up randomly on YouTube—so here you go:
At any rate, I eventually sobered up and simmered down, and have more recently been conducting more of the study that I knew I would need to do in order to understand the Word of Hermekate and where it fits into the greater scheme of things.
One of the things I knew back in 2021—even though I knew very little about the explicit meaning of the Word itself—was that the Word of Hermekate had some deep connections to the Word of Xem. In part, this understanding stemmed from the fact that somewhere, I picked up that Xem’s Magus—Ronald Barrett—had split off from the Temple of Set to form The Order of Anubis. Given Anubis’ role in my experiences on the night of the 2020 Rose Moon Eclipse, I felt there might be some synchronistic connections showing themselves in this concurrence. From what I understood of the meaning of the word “Xem”—namely, the fact that “Khem” was the ancient name for the land we know as Egypt, and was also the root word of “alchemy”—I had some guesses as to what the Word meant.
In the last month or so, as I have read the documents associated with the Word of Xem in The Temple of Set: Vol. II, I’ve learned that my hunches about the meaning of Xem and its relationship with the Word of Hermekate were largely correct.
That felt pretty good.
One of the other things I understood (mostly via hearsay) back in 2021 was that the Word of Xem was something of a touchy subject within the Temple of Set, because for some reason, it had been at the center of a controversy that nearly crippled the Temple itself. I also had a compelling sense that the emergence of my Word is deeply connected with that period of “upheaval,” but without concrete knowledge of the Word itself, I could not understand how it was all related.
I now have a better understanding of things.
The Magus of Xem, Ronald Barrett, was the second High Priest of The Temple of Set; after seeing the Temple through its fledgling years and in the wake of the “Coming Into Being” of Barrett as a new Magus, Michael Aquino felt it best to step down from the role of High Priest to let Barrett and his new Word carry the Temple forward into its next phase of development:
The “Infernal Mandate” is carried by whoever best represents the true will of the Prince of Darkness at a given point in time. I am convinced that the “Infernal Mandate” has now passed. Xeper has been Uttered, and it is now the time for the Coming Into Being of Xem. The impetus of the Aeon of Set is now in the care of another Magus.”
The Temple of Set Vol. II
p. 318
Back in 2021, I was under the belief that the nature of the Word of Xem itself was at the center of the Temple’s then-imminent upheaval, but it turns out I was incorrect. the Word was considered legitimate and even promising; the problem was how Barrett acted upon it as High Priest. In order to understand what went wrong, however, an understanding of the Word itself is crucial.
The Word of Xem is explicated rather cryptically across several chapters in The Temple of Set: Vol. II, the first of which is entitled The Xem Working, which describes the Working performed by Barrett to establish his Word. The entire thing was essentially a visionary experience carried out as Barrett sat upon a mountain in Northern California that would later become his home and would be named “XemSet.” XemSet would go on to serve as the site of the Temple of Set’s Second International Conclave during Barret’s tenure as High Priest.
First, Barrett “opened the gates” for the Working, and as he began to concentrate, he experienced the sensation of being “a colossus, with the size and appearance of the seated Rameses II.”
He then went on to experience a vision that reminded me so very much of my experiences on the night of the 2020 Rose Moon Eclipse:
My eyes were drawn to the waning Moon. I felt an association of Set with its darker side, and of Osiris with its waning bright side; and something within me recoiled in rejection of the associations.
Immediately I had a vision of a large hall, dimly lit, with several entities (approximately 15) gathered over against a wall and observing someone who was standing before a pair of scales. He was Anubis, and there was a heart being weighed against a feather. The scene was obviously the Hall of Judgement. Although the entities were in Egyptian garb and of Egyptian appearance, I recognized them as certain members of the Temple of Set. Set was there also, but his presence was felt rather than seen.
Then came an impression: “Set is the leader only of higher man.” This did not include all Setians.
Anubis/I was before the scales only because an individual (whose heart is being weighed) was seeking entry into this group of Elect/higher beings, and because I was in some way responsible. Another seeker would be judged by another Elect.
The Temple of Set Vol. II
p. 320
Many details here overlap with my own experience of “The Ceremony of Weighing the Heart,” including the fact that Barrett experienced Set as being present, but unseen; in my own case, only Anubis was visible, but I felt the presence of many entities as well who themselves were also unseen.
After this chapter come several more, entitled “The Book of Opening The Way: Key 1” through “Key 5,” wherein Barrett attempts to convey the meaning and principles behind the Word of Xem.
His approach reminds me very much of my own early experiences with the Word of Hermekate, although he did a much better job of handling his Utterance than I did; still, one definitely gets the sense of a man attempting to grapple with something utterly ineffable and just beyond his ability to encapsulate and convey in words. There are many points throughout these chapters in which Barrett essentially throws up his hands, insisting that one cannot apprehend the meaning of Xem through the rational mind alone, but instead must approach it from the perspective of an advanced initiate—through the heart rather than the mind.
This reminds me very much of what I wrote about the nature of Hermekate in the post Song of Hermekate, and how the concept of a “Song” is also apprehended via the heart rather than solely by the mind. This sense of attempting to communicate something essentially ineffable draws to the mind the slogan I used for the “tagline” of the Hermekate blog:
”Eff the ineffable.”
Given the somewhat “inchoate” nature of Barrett’s elucidations on the Word of Xem in The Book(s) of Opening the Way, I still can’t necessarily claim for certain to have a complete apprehension of the Word, but here is my general sense of things:
Although Barrett was clear in differentiating the Word “Xem” from the Word “Khem,” which, as I already mentioned, was both the indigenous name for the Kingdom we Westerners now know as “Egypt” as well as the root of the word “alchemy,” it’s also clear that Xem is intentionally related to Khem in a metaphorical sense. The metaphor derives from and is extended from Aquino’s purposes in founding the Temple of Set:
In short, the modern Temple of Set was, from its very inception, held to be the re-establishment of the same “Temple” or cultus of the neter Set that once flourished in the ancient land of Khem. In a similar manner, Barrett conceived of the establishment of the Word of Xem as continuing on from this idea, to further “re-establish” the entire Kingdom of Khem, but in its highest “spiritual” sense rather than a literal sense. In short, as Barrett saw it, the Temple of Set was re-created in order to serve as a school for Initiation via the Word of Xeper; it was meant solely for Set’s “Elect” to effect their “Setamorphosis” or “Coming Into Being.” According to Barrett, once a member of this Elect had achieved this Coming Into Being (i.e., once they had achieved Setamorphosis or reached the upper grades of the Temple), they then became eligible to enter “Xem,” which Barrett also held was a word that described “the state of Higher Man.” In short, then, the work of Xem was reserved for an “elite” even more exclusive than the Temple of Set as a whole: Only those who had reached the so-called “upper degrees” beyond that of merely Adept II° were to partake of the work of Xem.
It seems to me that there is a lot of overlap between Barrett’s ideas of establishing a sort of “Kingdom of the Initiated/Higher Man,” and the proposition of the Word of Hermekate that it’s important for greater numbers of human beings to undergo the process of Initiation (and specifically, the phase known to the Temple as “Setamorphosis”) in order to reach a collective level of consciousness at which we’re finally able to solve the problems that we face as a species.
Again, the basic concept behind the Word of Xem was never in dispute; in fact, Michael Aquino had good things to say about Xem as a Word, in the sense that it brought greater focus and definition in modifying his own Word of Xeper. Basically, Aquino recognized that the nature of Xeper alone was rather open-ended: It described the process of Coming Into Being, but did not really specify precisely what a member of the Elect was to actually Become; one could channel the Word of Xeper in any number of directions according to one’s own inner promptings. The Word of Xem basically asserted that one could/should focus one’s Becoming on the task of Initiation in the upper degrees—and further, that this should be done for the sake of a collective good. In this sense, “Xeper” provided a “what,” whereas Xem provided a “why.”
So far, so good; however, as Michael Aquino would have it, individual members of the Temple of Set should be free to either follow the Word of Xem or not. In his view, no artificial constraints should be imposed upon one’s process of Xeper; the Elect should pursue their Xeper in any direction they desired.
Ronald Barrett did not feel this way, and instead leveraged his power as High Priest to basically insist that Temple members develop toward the pursuit of Xem in addition to Xeper. He proceeded to institute all sorts of rules enforcing this, including making additions and alterations to the Temple of Set’s official reading list, which was previously optional (but encouraged) study; when Barrett took charge, he moved to make the study of the entire reading list mandatory. He also instituted a “licensing” process whereby every member of Adept II° must pass a written exam on the material covered by the reading list in order to earn the Grade; every existing Adept proceeded to flunk the exam and was summarily demoted to the I°.
I repeat: Barrett created a test that no Adept was able to pass, and he punished everyone with a demotion.
Barrett next insisted that all existing members of the Priesthood also take and pass the exam within a short time period. The Priesthood resisted this but when they did take the test, the results were similarly dismal to those of the Adepts II°. Apparently, Barrett had made the exam far too stringent. However, these new policies presented a deep problem, in that Barrett couldn’t very well demote or expel the entire Priesthood.
Basically, Barrett’s new rules resulted in a situation that was rather tyrannical and unrealistic, setting up standards that the entire Temple had difficulty meeting…and this is especially notable considering these were all very intelligent, handpicked people who were all considered to be “Elect” and thus very astute individuals.
Finally, on the Spring Equinox of 1982 (this will be important later), Barrett instituted a Temple-wide program called “Order Without Law,” which was effectively a “compartmentalization” wherein the Temple as a whole would henceforth be subdivided into several separate “Orders,” each led by a Magister/Magistra IV°. Every member of the I° and III° (since there were no Adepts II° remaining after he demoted them all) would be forced to join one of these Orders as “Apprentices,” and authority would thus be centralized in the hands of the IV° members who led the Orders. This would essentially result in turning the Temple into a “pyramid scheme” wherein power would be concentrated in the hands of those whom Barrett felt were qualified Initiates of Xem. Furthermore, in order to be Recognized as such, Temple clergy were expected to somehow “divine” the meaning of the Word of Xem for themselves—they were not taught about the Word. One supposes that the worthy would figure out magically. This is how confident Barrett was in the metaphysical reality of Xem (and honestly, given my own experiences and the ways in which my own Word relates to his, I don’t necessarily think he was completely wrong about this, even if the way he allowed Xem to shape Temple policy was impractical at best).
All told, Barrett had essentially made all of these changes as a way of establishing the supreme rule of his Word of Xem, even above and beyond that of Xeper itself. This was nothing more or less than a usurpation of the rightful order of things as envisioned by Aquino himself.
As I related in the previous post, Chapter 29 of Inner Tarot Revolution, it was very much Aquino’s intention that the Temple of Set move away from the kind of “standardization” of “occult attainment” that was being instituted by High Priest Barrett; the entire point of simplifying the system of grades from the form it took in the A.:.A.:. was to remove such strict and particular guidelines for Adepthood, instead placing the power into the hands of the members of the Priesthood III° to discern on an individual basis who was qualified for advancement from Setian I° to Adept II°. The changes Barrett was imposing on the Temple were, from this point of view, a giant step backwards; Barrett was effectively turning the Temple of Set into an updated version of the A.:.A.:. itself.
In fact, one might argue that the entire concept of “Xem” as a “Kingdom of Xeper” is nothing more or less than a translation of the A.:.A.:.’s concept of the "City of the Pyramids” into Setian language, and that Barrett’s vague way of expressing the concept was a way of resisting the recognition that this part of his Word was nothing new.
Furthermore, it was against the founding ideals of the Temple of Set to make the pursuit of the upper degrees an explicit goal in and of itself; the Temple was founded to promote the Word of Xeper first and foremost, and this was understood by Aquino to be open-ended, meaning that members were absolutely free to pursue their own development along the lines they and they alone deemed suitable. Aquino very emphatically held that not every member of The Elect was “meant” to reach the upper degrees, that when it did happen, it should happen organically on its own. In fact, based on Aquino’s understanding, there was nothing anyone could do to “work” their way into the upper grades; like the Church of Satan before it, Temple of Set held that entry into the Priesthood III° was by Set’s Election alone. It was up to him. Thus, to organize the entire Temple around the Word of Xem would be to completely upturn the prevailing order of things.
Lastly, it had come to pass that Barrett had been “conspiring” with members of his own Order, the Order of Anubis, feeding them privileged information that he had been withholding from the Council of Nine, the governing body of the Temple of Set. In short, Barrett had established an embedded, hidden "elite” within the organizational structure of the Temple that effectively served to circumvent the authority of the Council of Nine, which was specifically established to serve as a check against the absolute power of the High Priest. The entire point was to prevent the High Priest from becoming some kind of “dictator” who would subject the Temple to his own whims; this in turn was meant to prevent a situation like the one that had arisen in the Church of Satan, where Anton LaVey wielded his autocratic power to pervert the purposes of the Church for his own personal profit.
In the wake of all of this trouble, Ronald Barrett resigned from the Temple quite abruptly, without so much as warning anyone outside of his established inner circle, most of whom he took along with him. This final blow was extremely traumatic to the Temple, since the membership had begun dwindling throughout Barrett’s High Priesthood as soon as he began making the above changes. Membership had been whittled down to 36 members before Barrett resigned suddenly, and it was almost certain (though they denied it when questioned) that the people who followed him had planned to do so before anyone else even knew he was planning to resign.
This entire debacle decimated the Temple. When all was said and done and Michael Aquino was left to resume the role of High Priest and clean up the mess, there was hardly anyone left.
I was very interested, when I recently read about all of this, to note the dates in question. Why?
Simply put, there’s been a tendency for important events surrounding the Temple of Set to happen around certain “auspicious” dates. For example, The “Santa Barbara Working” that resulted in the writing of The Book of Coming Forth By Night and the founding of the Temple of Set was performed on The North Solstice, and “Setamorphosis,” the letter in which Michael Aquino addressed the Temple Priesthood regarding the Temple’s main “mission” as interpreted from The Book of Coming Forth By Night, was sent out six months later on the following South Solstice (I wrote about this at length in the post Hermekate and Setamorphosis).
Famously, the Church of Satan was founded on Walpurgisnacht of the year 1966, and interestingly enough, Don Webb—the next High Priest to succeed Michael Aquino following the above crisis—was born on Walpurgisnacht.
Lastly, as mentioned above, Ronald Barrett instituted his policy of “Order Without Law” on the Spring Equinox of 1982.
By May of the same year, Barrett had resigned from the Temple, issuing the “crushing blow” that rocked it to its foundations. It was very much a “Tower” moment.
As I have expressed several times throughout this site (particularly in the post When They Talk Back), I have held for most of my life that I chose to incarnate when I did in order to do certain specific work in my life, and that I eventually determined that the work in question is centered upon my Word of Hermekate.
I was born on March 22nd, 1983, at precisely midnight between the 21st and 22nd—right around the first Vernal Equinox one year following Barrett’s institution of “Order Without Law.” Furthermore, the date of March 22nd was the date, in the ancient Egyptian calendar, upon which was celebrated “The Day of Rebellion Set Made Against Osiris.”
I had felt as much even before I learned all of the details I’ve laid out above, but once I learned those details, the feeling was only confirmed:
I believe the Word of Hermekate is Set’s response to the above events, and I have Come Into Being in order to address the situation. Something went very wrong in the Temple, and it centers upon the Word of Xem and how all of this was ultimately handled. Much as Michael Aquino felt that he had Come Into Being in order to “correct” the problems and imbalances inherent in the “execution” of the Words of Thelema and Indulgence, I have Come Into Being in order to correct that which went wrong with the “execution” of Xeper and Xem.
However, while timing-wise, the “trigger” for my Coming Into Being does appear to center around Xem and its fallout, I also believe the problems ultimately began with Xeper itself and the “Setamorphosis” letter sent out on the South Solstice of Year X.
To explain how, I will need to revisit matters that I first raised in Hermekate and Setamorphosis, and do the same thing with The Book of Coming Forth By Night that Michael Aquino saw fit to do with The Book of the Law:
Namely, to “correct” Aquino’s interpretation of his own text.
Xeper
The long and the short of my assertion—which probably won’t surprise anyone who’s been following my writings here lately—is that the elistist policy of The Temple of Set is short-sighted, counterproductive, and not at all what Set intended. And honestly, I think there was a part of Michael Aquino that knew it, but that he was ultimately swayed by his Priesthood in the wrong direction.
To quote once more the relevant passage of The Book of Coming Forth By Night:
I seek my Elect and none other, for mankind now hastens toward an annihilation which none but the Elect may hope to avoid. And alone I cannot preserve my Elect, but I would teach them and strengthen their Will against the coming peril, that they and their blood may endure. To do this I must give further of my own Essence to my Elect, and, should they fail, the Majesty of Set shall fade and be ended.
The Temple of Set Vol. II
p. 153
To review what I covered in Hermekate and Setamorphosis, in his letter to the Priesthood in December of 1975, Michael Aquino shared his thoughts regarding this passage, which informed the very purpose of the Temple of Set. The acknowledgement was made that various reliable authorities at the time were beginning to forecast a potential collapse of human civilization, which was taken to be the “annihilation” to which this passage alluded. Aquino’s response to this idea was somewhat meandering; at first, his thoughts seemed to hover on the more magnanimous, “big picture” side of things, exploring some very big ideas such as the Temple somehow managing to develop technology like faster-than-light space travel. The tone at first was almost that of wanting to save humanity as a whole, but very soon, Aquino instead began to restrict his thinking to “the Elect,” going on to imply that the Temple needed to cover its own ass first and foremost.
This is where I believe things “went south,” to use a poignant colloquialism; and the error has everything to do with how the term “the Elect” was interpreted, along with the insular reclusiveness, obscurity, and relative impotence of the Temple that resulted.
As I mentioned in that post, the definition of “the Elect” itself is somewhat wishy-washy; even in the section of The Temple of Set Vol. I devoted to explaining it, a definitive answer is lacking. Nonetheless, it’s very obvious that in the end, the working definition adopted by the Temple was essentially rooted in supremacist thinking. In short, the consensus formed was that some people are Elect, and some simply aren’t, and that by all appearances, this was something fairly set in stone and pre-determined. “The Elect” were held to be those specially chosen by Set himself, in such a way that, as the early days of the Temple wore on, its Priesthood even began to think in terms of them being something definitely “other than” and “greater than” humanity itself. The recruiting and membership policies followed these criteria. In his followup to the first letter, Michael Aquino stated:
Summary of Discussion & Actions to Date
(1) From the Priesthood I have received no negative comments concerning the overall tone or philosophy of Setamorphosis. This is significant because the concept involves some potentially-controversial assumptions and conclusions.
The idea that Earth civilization is entering a period of over-saturation and crisis, for example, is by no means generally accepted by analysts and forecasters.
The exlusivist and elitist tone of Setamorphosis might have raised some objections from readers on grounds of compassion and humanitarianism.
The technological, financial, and cooperative requirements raised might have seemed ridiculous for an organization that is presently just getting underway.
Finally it is a “long mental stretch” between ancient Egypt, traditional concepts of magic, Satanism, and spaceships capable of faster-than-light/interdimensional travel! Some might have thought that the Temple was simply biting off far more than it could ever hope to chew.
(2) As it turned out, however, the comments I received from you were positive.
The Temple of Set Vol. II
p. 159
So, what Aquino is basically saying here is that, “The elitist implications of Setamorphosis might have offended some people on the grounds of humanitarianism, and the entire concept was fairly grandiose and overblown to begin with, but the comments of the Priesthood were mostly positive, so this must all be a good idea after all.”
Now, let’s remind ourselves of the particular audience in question here:
The Priesthood who came with Aquino after he left The Church of Satan, which was by all accounts falling apart all around them anyway.
Did Michael Aquino never stop to consider the extent to which he had successfully managed to surround himself with a body of sycophantic Yes-men? Given the group in question, what were the odds that any of them would have seriously argued with what he was proposing? It appears some people haggled on some of the finer points of his plan, but should their endorsement of its basic foundations be fully relied upon?
The Church of Satan was already an elitist group with a core ethos that catered to those hungry for power and influence, one which held the principle of Indulgence as the sole motive, and explicitly went out of its way to filter out any sort of higher guiding principle other than pure selfishness. In order to be a Priest of that organization, a person had to fully embody that mindset. The ethical principle of “Might Is Right” was basically copy-pasted from the white supremacist ideology of Ragnar Redbeard by Anton LaVey as a foundational principle for the group.
Then LaVey went power-mad and completely sold the entire Church out. If Michael Aquino hadn’t done what he did in performing the North Solstice Working and establishing the founding document of The Temple of Set, those people wouldn’t have had anywhere else to go. It was either stay on board a rapidly-sinking ship, or hit the lifeboats with the Church’s second-in-command and follow him in the building of a new vessel, where they would be virtually assured a position of influence in the new order.
Did Aquino honestly think these were conditions that were conducive to promoting values like integrity and true loyalty to him and his cause? Did he not suspect that many of these people might just be telling him exactly what he wanted to hear in order to curry favor? Did he truly believe that they wouldn’t do anything so conniving and manipulative? That sort of modus operandi was what defined them as Satanists. Read The Satanic Bible and tell me it isn’t so!
These questions are largely rhetorical, because the answer is pretty much obvious: He did think so. And, being one of the most influential Satanists aside from Anton LaVey himself, obviously Aquino didn’t think any of this was problematic.
And then, when he laid out his thoughts for these people and asked for their feedback—thoughts which, right off the bat, presented another picture based on personal prestige, power, and an overinflated opinion of one’s own greatness—he found that, wouldn’t ya know it, none of them saw any issue with the principles of elitism that lay at the foundation of the new Temple.
Imagine that!
Despite the apparent mission of “preserving Set’s Elect” that was presented by the relevant passage of The Book of Coming Forth By Night, if you go on to read some of the writings that characterized the Temple in its early years—which I quoted at length in Hermekate and Setamorphosis—it becomes very obvious that the Temple’s activity basically amounted to a lot of hot air and self-congratulation, posing and posturing, and shit-talking of outsiders. The smugness and mutual masturbation of the Temple’s members is palpable. All these people really wanted to do was talk about how wonderful they all were, hand-chosen by the “one true god, Set,” and pretend they were doing anything meaningful for anyone but themselves. And yet in the same breath, they were patting themselves on the back for their role in allegedly saving humanity:
We, the elite, must endeavor to lead the masses on a path that will save them, if possible. Our first duty, however, is to ensure our own survival and prosperity.
p. 265
It’s all right there. Everything you need to know. These people were frankly deluded and drunk on their own self-importance.
In what amounts to an esoteric version of “trickle-down-economics,” these self-entitled prima donnas actually convinced themselves that their exclusive and secretive little club was somehow destined to redeem what was left of humanity in the name of Set…and that, while the rest of society fell down all around them, they might somehow find a way to save themselves from the fallout and be spared, presumably to emerge from the ashes and, what, re-start civilization after the fall? Who knows what exactly they were thinking? Despite the sharing of these documents with the public, the better part of the story remains a secret available only to those who prove themselves “Elect” through “Recognition” to the grade of Adept II° by the Priesthood.
As the years wore on, these policies (and Aquino’s own near-obsessive commitment to elitism) only deepened; in his subsequent annual letters to the Temple membership summarizing the activity of Years 1, 2, and 3, Aquino boasts about the Temple’s growth and progress while growling and grumbling about keeping the unwashed masses out for fear that they would somehow drag the organization down like deadweight (which I personally don’t buy). From his Year 2 letter to the membership:
There is an extremely important reason for this stress on personal contact. As you know, Setians I° face a time-limit of two years in which they must demonstrate their ability to be recognized as II°. This is not something which they can achieve by memorizing and parroting Temple documents. [Indeed little more than the Scroll is even made available to a I°.]
Rather this ability will be recognized in a I° by a III° in the course of normal, systematic dialogue between them. It is a quality which is not the product of “occult book-learning”, but of an individual’s presence of mind in the strictest possible sense.
Another effect of this practice is that persons who join the Temple with the idea of gaining access to its archives while remaining mute and unseen themselves will discover that the majority of Temple texts will be unavailable to them - and that within two years they will be gently but firmly disengaged from the Temple altogether. The time and energy of the Elect are precious and will not be wasted on parasites. They are reserved for those who are also Elect - who will continue to find their way to us and to Come Into Being as the first manifestations of the Third Stage of human evolution.
p. 277
So let me get this straight—the entire purpose of the Temple of Set is to ensure the survival of “the Elect” so that they can endure beyond “the coming annihilation,” and the way to make this happen is to deeply restrict membership and further, to hoard knowledge and information so that only a handpicked group of people could even access it? To regard anyone who didn’t fit in as “parasites?”
How does that even work?
Wouldn’t it make more sense to distribute the Temple’s knowledge as widely as possible so that it might actually reach greater numbers of The Elect?
The Temple documents that Aquino sought to keep out of the hands of “parasites” who didn’t prove how awesome they are were already written. They were just there, and anyone with eyes might have been able to read them if they hadn’t been kept secreted away. Mere provision of access to the Temple’s archives doesn’t require a great expenditure of effort, and I can’t imagine what kind of harm it might do to allow freer access to them (though to be fair, this was a different matter, logistically, in the 1970s than it is today).
The really cool thing about knowledge and information (which, one presumes, Michael Aquino was bright enough to grasp) is that it spreads like fire. It only multiplies with the introduction of added readers once it’s recorded. If someone reads a book, that knowledge spreads to them and no one else loses it in the process; knowledge doubles. In other words, if the Temple’s object were to help out The Elect, was it wise to assume that only those who happened to join them were “Elect” to begin with?
Basically, allowing for a greater number of people to benefit from the Temple’s knowledge couldn’t really hurt but just might have helped more of the people the Temple was trying to help.
The only other valid reason for such strict secrecy that I can think of would be fear: Specifically, the fear of persecution by a public that was hostile to Satanism and thus many of the Temple’s ideas; after all, The Satanic Panic did unfold in the decades to come and the Temple certainly dealt with the resulting reprisals. However, this wasn’t really what Aquino was conveying in these letters; instead, he was implying that no one but the Temple’s specialized elite was even deserving, and he was actively boasting about the numbers of people who came to them seeking such knowledge, but were summarily rejected.
The essential error was in the Temple’s (rather arrogant) presumption that it was up to they themselves to determine who is and is not Elect; it was all-important to instead put up walls against those deemed “unworthy,” rather than to take a more open approach and perhaps let the matter of Election sort itself out purely in the results.
More than this, since people pay dues for Temple membership, more members means more money to put into the work. Aquino’s apparent curmudgeonly and anal-retentive focus on concentrating all of this power and knowledge seems to have assumed that the success of the Temple hinged on making sure everyone was a top performer, which for an organization of this kind is actually wholly unnecessary. He seemed to think that if he didn’t leverage this sense of prestige and exclusivity, the Temple’s reputation would somehow suffer and people would be less motivated to put in effort and contribute to the work—because Set forbid anyone deemed “dull” and “slow” might tarnish the Temple’s reputation!
It would seem that the strategy here was instead to prioritize the impressive stature of the Temple’s reputation by ensuring that only “the best of the best” were able to represent the Temple at all; in turn, this would attract top talent, and keeping the membership exclusive served as a means of motivating people to work hard to contribute. I get that, and that does make a certain kind of sense. However, I think that given Aquino’s personal biases (as the kind of person who was even attracted to a group like The Church of Satan at the time that he joined), he also overlooked some important considerations:
First off, I think that even if some relatively inactive people were allowed to keep paying dues and retain their membership, Aquino might have still found that plenty of people would have been willing to work hard and contribute. Despite what he seemed to believe, fear of loss or expulsion is not the best motivator of quality work. Instead, it’s a very good motivator for conformity, which is actually antithetical to a healthy Left Hand Path organization. It’s also a good motivator for bullshitting just to get along. In other words, it tends to bring out the worst in people.
When you meticulously cultivate a reputation of excellence and elitism largely as a Public Relations strategy to attract “a certain kind of person,” in addition to people with admitted skill and acumen—what kind of people do you think you’re likely to attract? Do you think such esteem is only going to attract people with integrity and honest intentions?
Or do you think you might also attract: Schemers? Social climbers? Narcissists (and talk about “parasites”)? Those hungry merely for power and influence? Manipulators? Con-artists? And it’s true, the Temple Priesthood likely anticipated this and sought to filter such people out, but unfortunately, with such high standards for membership, some such people were bound to get in—and the ones who made it in were, of course, the really smooth operators. Probably the last people you want hanging around for the sake of a truly healthy organization, Left Hand Path or otherwise.
Unfortunately, that is pretty much exactly what happened:
In Hermekate and Setamorphosis, I made some extremely critical comments in particular about Magister L. Dale Seago IV°’s essay, “Implications of Elitism,” and the fact that it made him sound downright psychotic.
In the wake of the crisis brought about by Ronald Barrett’s actions as High Priest, L. Dale Seago himself would go on to participate in the conspiratorial “power play” intended to “steal” the High Priesthood for Lynn Norton, a former accomplice of Barrett’s:
Only then were I and the entire Temple of Set to begin to see what an iron claw of dogma Barrett and Norton had been designing for the Temple during the past year. Norton and his two Order of Ptah III°s Folkler and A. Seago objected immediately and obstinately to the removal of that claw; and Norton, Barrett, and Magister L.D. Seago commenced an operation designed to defame me and to obtain the High Priesthood for Norton so that the claw could reassert is grip.
No one was more astonished or dismayed to see this than myself. At first I could hardly believe it was taking place at all. Then the amount of poison “under the surface” of the situation proved another shock. For the first time in 13 years, I found myself actually having to argue on behalf of my own integrity in the Temple. Some III°s behaved with unprecedented impudence and arrogance - not that Magus Norton and Magister Seago set a better example for them. When the poison was finally cut out after two months of agony for the Temple, everyone was badly shaken.
p. 353
So, you start with a failing Church that explicitly values Machiavellianism as a mode of self-empowerment, then you lead a schism and bring a bunch of that Church’s Priesthood along with you to a new one, you make your new organization a similarly elitist circle-jerk and ensure that your recruitment policies are specifically geared toward self-superior individuals who see themselves as “Set’s chosen people” by making it clear that you’re only looking for “the Elect,” then you enforce those same standards by ruthlessly rooting out anyone who doesn’t toe the line…
…and then you act “astonished” and “dismayed” when some of those people organize a coup to fuck you over?
Wow. Talk about lack of foresight.
I maintain that this elitist policy was bound to attract “the wrong kind of people” to The Temple, even if Aquino’s intentions might have been sincerely aimed at ensuring quality input from skillful individuals (and I am frankly being charitable toward him here); further, this is an especially egregious oversight since, once more, the ostensible purpose of the Temple itself was (at one point, anyway) to save humanity from “annihilation.”
About a month ago, I shared an article to the Dark Twins Facebook page entitled, “History's crisis detectives: Using math and data to reveal why societies collapse—and clues about the future.” I liked how the article reflected one of the early stated meanings of the Word of Hermekate that I outlined in Basic Elements of Hermekate: Part One—that of “historic echoes.”
I also liked how it featured Camuccini’s painting of Caesar’s assassination for its artwork.
In short, the article describes a thorough scientific analysis of history that looked into the inherent causes of the very kind of collapse that the Temple was supposedly founded to overcome—and one of its main subheadings was “Inequality and elite infighting.”
To quote the article:
For example, the 100 years of civil fighting that felled the Roman republic was propelled by widespread unrest and poverty. Different political camps were formed, took increasingly extreme positions, and came to vilify their opponents with progressively more intense language and vitriol. This animosity spilled over into the streets, where mobs of armed citizens got into huge brawls and even lynched a popular leader and reformer, Tiberius Gracchus.
Eventually, this fighting spiraled into full-blown civil warfare with highly trained, well-organized armies meeting in pitched battles. The underlying tensions and inequalities weren't addressed during all this fighting, though, so this process repeated itself from about the 130s BC until 14AD, when the republican form of government came crashing down.
Perhaps one of the most surprising things is that inequality seems to be just as corrosive for the elites themselves. This is because the accumulation of so much wealth and power leads to intense infighting between them, which ripples throughout society.
In the case of Rome, it was the wealthy and powerful senators and military leaders like Julius Caesar who seized on the anger of a disaffected populace and led the violence.
Although the study in question was examining the roles played by inequality and elitism as they play out across entire societies, I would maintain that the basic principles nonetheless hold true on smaller scales, including smaller organizations like Temple of Set:
When you cater to elitism and thus make a certain inequality a core principle, you inherently court these kinds of outcomes; you appeal to selfish, conniving sorts of people and regardless of any higher motives and objectives, this is the result: True to form, the “elites of the elite” in the Temple of Set behaved according to this model.
The Temple was presuming to save humanity from itself by courting people with the precise qualities that created the mess to begin with.
As you sow, so shall you reap.
Ironically—by what I can gather based on what I’ve learned from studying The Temple of Set Vols. I and II—the Temple came the closest to understanding the nature of its error in words written by L. Dale Seago himself in the very article I most heavily criticized, “Implications of Elitism:”
From an Elect standpoint, however, there are three kinds of people: The Elect, the potentially Elect, and the non-Elect.
p. 294
This is key. The very acknowledgement of a category such as “potentially Elect”—as distinct from simply “the Elect”—suggests that perhaps the Temple should have taken a more open approach to welcoming and vetting potential members. It recognizes something other than a stark dividing line between the proverbial “haves” and “have-nots,” and the recognition of room for potential Election is more in keeping with the very spirit of Xeper—of Coming Into Being—than aiming to exclude anyone who wasn’t obviously recognizable as “Elect.”
In other words, had I been in Aquino’s shoes, rather than rigorously screening for Election at the very first point of entry into the Temple, I think I would have preferred giving applicants the benefit of the doubt and generally allowing most people a fair shot as I° members instead of making a positive effort to turn most of them away from the start.
Granted, I understand that with the Temple’s emphasis on personal contact among members (and particularly with the Priesthood), there were concerns about the limited ability of available clergy to adequately engage with new members. It was, in part, a matter of ensuring the Temple had the resources to give its members the support they needed; since I’ve never been a Temple member, there is a lot about its methods and procedures that I obviously can’t understand or appreciate.
Nonetheless, I think that with a different attitude regarding what it really means to be “Elect,” a different approach could have been found that would have allowed for a greater number of initiates to Come Into Being under the Temple’s auspices. I appreciate the balancing act between quality and quantity that Aquino was monitoring, but don’t think it was necessary for him to have been so demanding in what he expected of the Temple’s lay membership. I think that allowing for a greater variety and number of people to apply themselves to the I° might have resulted in some pleasant surprises on Aquino’s part in terms of the number of people who might succeed. I think a more open approach allowing for greater growth could have further reinforced the numbers of clergy available to attend to an even greater number of initiates in a positive feedback loop. I don’t think the balancing of quality and quantity was necessarily as “binary”or “black-and-white” as Aquino seemed to believe it was. I think he was far too uptight and stingy about all of this.
However, we’ll never know for sure; what’s done is done.
To be fair, I can’t claim to know a whole lot about how the Temple has evolved over the years; all I really know for certain is that it does continue to this day in its essentially elitist recruitment policies and still very much markets itself to “a certain kind of person;” while it doesn’t engage in any outright proselytization, books have been released that continue to talk up the “impressive pedigree” that the Temple is seeking in its members, and thus the Temple is very likely to continue attracting “a certain kind of person,” indeed—and I would suspect this would continue to include and consist largely of people so self-interested that it ultimately undermines the Temple’s duties regarding the fostering of Setamorphosis. For all I know, this is no longer one of its explicit priorities at all; quite a lot has likely changed since the early days covered by the publication of The Temple of Set.
For one, I personally admire and look up to Don Webb, the next to assume the position of High Priest once Michael Aquino managed to “right the ship” in the wake of Ronald Barrett’s shenanigans. If ever there was a leader whom I think might have been capable of offsetting any of the inherently toxic elements bound to be attracted to a group like The Temple of Set, it’s him. However, it’s been quite a while since he was at the helm, and given the Temple’s relative secrecy, not much gets out regarding the state of affairs since then.
However, I do know one thing: From what I’ve heard, the Temple does indeed have a problem with attracting “a certain kind of person” that not all members are happy to see: Elements of the far right. While the Temple, as a 501©3 religious organization, must maintain a certain level of political neutrality—and since the ethos of the Left Hand Path also transcends partisan politics—the Temple isn’t especially interested in excluding such people purely for their political views. However, given the loftier goals of both Xeper and Xem, I don’t necessarily think attracting such folks is all that desirable, either. The ultimate goals of the right are not exactly compatible with the higher aims of the Word of Xeper, nor of Xem—except insofar as those goals can be twisted to align with supremacist and essentially fascist ideals; and if you study the ideas expressed in Setamorphosis, you will see that the rising of a fascist political order is one of the things Michael Aquino was concerned about with regard to the longevity and survival of the Temple.
When your ethos of supremacist elitism is inherently appealing to the very people who are working toward turning the United States into a fascist regime…
…you’ve gone astray somewhere (that is, unless such a contingency has been well planned-for, which may be the case given Aquino’s professional background).
While Michael Aquino was worried about “unworthy parasites” who might drag the Temple down, it seems he was unable to anticipate the fact that his own deeply-ingrained elitist attitudes would likely draw them in like moths to a flame. In short, the prevailing arrogance of the Temple’s culture isn’t doing the wider project of “The Third Stage of human evolution” any favors while the Temple continues to serve only the interests of its own, specially-selected members—who seem to increasingly consist of people sympathetic to white supremacy and fascist ideals.
As I step back to survey the way the Temple’s early history unfolded—especially from the perspective of the Word of Hermekate—it appears to me as if the Coming Into Being of Ronald Barrett and the Word of Xem was itself meant to make the necessary adjustments that are now also built into the Word of Hermekate; I think they were meant to do this by redirecting the Temple’s “wide-angle” view of the application of Xeper in such a way as to bring its focus back to the higher aims of Initiation (i.e.; that of fostering and promoting Setamorphosis for all who might be interested in and capable of it). Instead of prioritizing that, Michael Aquino instead got carried away with the Temple’s function as a desirable “clique” for hip, elite occultists who could meet him at his own level of philosophical sophistication.
He stressed a more open interpretation of the Word of Xeper, one that specifically de-emphasized the a priori pursuit of higher initiatory goals, a shift in emphasis which actively promotes a culture where remaining at the II° is the norm; and while from one point of view, this is actually a more inclusive approach in the sense that it avoids setting such lofty goals as a baseline expectation, I also get a sense that it comes at the expense of being less welcoming to people to do sincerely wish to “Xeper Ir Xem”—that is, to pursue Xeper by focusing on higher Initiation. The sense I have gotten from my observations of ToS culture and my own application to join the Temple seems to suggest that the Temple almost actively shuns people whose focus is on higher initiatory goals—in their own words, because such people often tend to be “occultniks” and thus undesirable from the Temple’s point of view.
In this sense, where Aquino viewed both Crowley and LaVey as having “lost the score” in various ways, I hold that Aquino himself “lost the score” by promoting a shallow, superficial elitism, by de-prioritizing the objectives of Xem, and by preferring an overly secular approach to Initiation.
That being said, it should not be supposed that I think Ronald Barrett was without fault, either; I also think his particularly stringent and even “draconian” implementation of Xem was misguided in the opposite direction. He did his best, and as I know all too well, the pressures of the Grade of Magus are great; I’ve fumbled extensively, as I’ve readily confessed throughout this entire website and in this post in particular. I know how it goes.
However, he did very much cave in to the pressures inherent in his Task, and overshot his approach of “reforming” the Temple via the “iron rule” over which he presided. I think there were likely more effective methods he could have employed in leading the Temple into the realm of Xem.
However, since Xem evidently fell apart, it is now up to the Word of Hermekate to make an attempt at addressing the resulting imbalances….
….which is why one of the core principles of Hermekate is largely to serve as a “counterweight” to the elitist impulses that continue to unnecessarily hinder the enterprise of Initiation. Such seeds were sown by Crowley and his Word of Thelema, and only exaggerated to a nearly grotesque extent by Anton LaVey and his Word of Indulgence; the prevailing trajectory was so sharp and extreme that not even an otherwise wise and insightful man like Michael Aquino was able to see the problems inherent in such exclusive attitudes.
Granted, the matters of Magi are also deep Mysteries; although Hermekate is meant to shift the landscape away from these elitist inclinations, as its Magus, I simultaneously recognize that said elitism once served a purpose. Once more, the Curse of the Magus rears its head and the limitations of expressing wholesome divine truths in the stark and inherently dualistic terms of language become apparent: Even as I view certain decisions and approaches of other Magi to have been taken in error, I also understand that each Word carries its own specific purposes and that, in a sense, things likely could not have happened in any other way. The excesses of a Magus derive from the fact that we identify so much with our own Word that we are bound to live out all of its implications to an abnormal extreme that will not be the norm for anyone else. Thus, for example, did LaVey “play Indulgence to the hilt” to the point of endangering the very Church that he built around it; even so, his legacy lives on today and played its role in giving rise to the Temple of Set. Likewise did Michael Aquino get carried away with the “nobler” aspects of Xeper, as did Barrett over-reach on the initiatory rigors implied by Xem.
And, I am sure, my more “egalitarian” and idealistic attitudes are just as sure to be the major excesses to which I live out the Word of Hermekate. I am well aware that some of my aspirations connected with my Word are just as limited and impractical, only in the opposite direction.
Such is life.
In posts to come, I will separately address some of the deeper implications of the ideas I have presented here, including more focused examinations of the relationship between elitism and egalitarianism in Initiation. I will also interrogate the unavoidable political ramifications that unfold therefrom.