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Concerning the Book of Coming Forth by Night
RT Classification: V2 - A17.121 - 4 (c) Temple of Set
Author: Don Webb V^0, High Priest
Date: January 14, XXXIII (1998 ce)
HTML Revision: January 15, 1998 CE
Subject: Book of Coming Forth by Night
Reading List:
"On the North Solstice of the year X, Magister Michael A. Aquino
of the Church of Satan performed a Greater Black Magical Working
of Communication that produced several results, one of the least
interesting of which was an inspired document called the Book of
Coming Forth By Night. Because most of the various products of
this still ongoing and transpersonal Working are not subject to
easy manipulation, the BoCFbN has attracted a good deal of
attention, and is quite the collectible in the occult
underground, as well as an occasionally posted item on various
websites and other electronic archives. That the Temple of Set
maintains the copyright of the document, and does defend this
copyright, seems of little interest to certain people who, having
created no intellectual property in their lives, scarcely feel
the need to respect others. From an institutional point of view,
I strongly urge the Temple to continue its policy of protecting
the copyright of the document; from a personal point of view, I
am not too worried about it. The type of personality that could
get in psychic trouble mucking about with it is the same sort
that could get in trouble with Alice in Wonderland. On a level of
sentiment, I am always pissed-off when I see the document altered
or prefaced by bizarre and insulting remarks, but such things are
part of the current Internet culture's lower levels.
This brief essay will explain what a Communication document is,
what use the Temple of Set has put the document to, what dangers
exist in such documents, and lastly the growing insignificance of
such documents at the Dawn of the postmodern era.
What is a Communication document?
You don't call god on the telephone to chat about the weather;
you call out of great Need, the same sort of Need that might make
you call up your wisest professor years after finishing school.
In a self-sufficient system (ie. the Left Hand Path), you know
that god isn't going to answer you with help. All god may give is
Clarity. Set was and is the Pharaoh's Teacher of the art of
Archery, he doesn't fire the arrows for you, but if your purpose
and His and are resonate, he may clarify the content of your mind
to allow you to see the target. For most of mankind such
clarification never occurs, because it is a Curse. Like the Magus
Moses, you will see the promised land, but you will never step
foot into it. You will have the unpleasant Task of trying to tell
others that there are behaviors and thoughts that will give them
Power to Work on themselves, while they are trapped in the
received notions of the world, which are inherently
dis-empowering. The Cursed one, whom we call a Magus (although
other titles such as Rishi would work as well), isn't better,
smarter, or a more powerful magician than those he or she leads.
He or she expects that others will do more with the Teaching then
he or she has. Every Plato waits for his Aristotle.
A Working of Communication then is based on Need. A great deal
has been written by people who were there (I was learning Latin
in junior high at the time), ascribing the Need to Howard Stanton
Levey's design to sell the degree system of the Church of Satan.
I can not comment on this, from my vantage point this decision
looks resonate with his philosophy. It would likewise be a true
Sign of that philosophy to clear out when you realize you've been
had. I see the Fulfillment of Levey's Teachings in the exodus of
many Church of Satan Priests under Michael Aquino. In this act of
rebellion, the Temple has maintained its contact with the Prince
of Darkness in his archetypical form as Satan, but such a
connection is a fairly low voltage connection compared to what
mankind is capable of (see below). It is the Act of Rebellion
that makes the magical and philosophical connection, not the
document associated with the Working. I would fully expect the
Priesthood of Set to either toss me out or rebel if I attempted
to change the Temple from a School into a personal vehicle. If
any of the Priests feels a greater personal loyalty to me or
Michael Aquino or the next High Priest or Priestess than to the
Set's Eternal Purpose, then they are not Priests but sheep with
shiny black medallions.
However the Working did change the focus of LHP role models from
the archetype of the Rebel against cosmic injustice to the
archetype of Isolate Intelligence. Set is a fairly complex figure
that fights for his own Power by killing Osiris, and for the
Cosmic Good by slaying Apep so that the Boat of Re can keep
moving. Set is most easily grasped as a Divine model of
self-enlightened, self-enlightening self interest.
The reason for the Working began much earlier, in 1904 in Cairo.
There Aleister Crowley had a Need to create Space. There we had a
young man with great gifts of mind and magic, who Needed to flush
out of himself the received notions that clustered around
Christianity, British class thinking and sexual mores, and the
notions of Imperialism. His Working communicated a Word, which he
knew well both as a middling Greek scholar but more importantly
as an excellent scholar of French literature, Thelema. This is a
Word whose essential message is "Courage." A Divine commandment
to Do things in the world despite the social restrictions of
society, and to obtain Self Knowledge thereby. The Word Thelema
reached one of its pinnacles in Lavey's Word of Indulgence. The
Church of Satan was light years ahead of any esoteric
organization of its time, because it viewed occultism as form of
madness (quite correctly). It provided a Space creating device
for its practitioners. One could take on all of the false limits
of society, burn away one's neurosis, and otherwise realize the
healthy tiger within by killing the sick sheep without. The
Church of Satan failed in that after this great moment of
purification, it had nothing more to tell you. Creating Space is
the first step to building something better on it. The Working
that communicated the Word of Xeper, occurred because of the
success of other Workings which created a Space for growth.
A Working of Communication, such as Michael Aquino performed on
North Solstice in the Year X, has four components. Firstly the
contents of the brain of the individual: This will determine the
language and factual material. Secondly the rest of the body-soul
complex: This generally unmanifest part of the human being is
sometimes called the Higher Self. This is the potential for
Becoming. As opposed to New Age thinkers who stress the unlimited
model of mankind, Left Hand Path thinkers stress the limits of
Being as a key to power. Know what you are and can be -- it is
only from this knowledge that you can Work effectively. Thirdly
the matrix of the culture: All such Workings are in the language
and thought of the time. So if one wishes to analyze the BoCFbN,
one must not only look at it as an expression of the Ageless
Intelligence of the Universe, but as something written in
California in the '70s. This is not a dismissive remark -- it if
the key to understanding the nature of the interaction between
Initiatory magic and history. Why there? Why then? Fourthly the
Intent of Set in creating the document: This later is useful to
persons wanting to map the mind of Set for the reasons of seeing
what centers of their own personality they wish to develop to
Become likewise an immortal, potent, and powerful Essence.
Without these components such Books will mislead. If one treats
the book as a Divine Communication like Right Hand Path religions
treat their scriptures, one is lost. The Book achieved four
things. Firstly it empowered Michael Aquino by allowing for a
sudden restructuring of his psyche. It gave him Meaning, allowing
him to see (as every Left Hand Path thinker must see toward the
end of his or her Initiation) that all the details of his life
Become an absolute source of Power that is indeed greater then
the Power spread through the rest of mankind's brains. Secondly
the Book revealed new depths of Being (see below); rather than
saying "Ok, Mike you're it!" it revealed that there was a very,
very long way to go -- an infinite Darkness within that could be
manifested in the world without. Thirdly it dissolved certain
sentimental attachments and personality weaknesses. Now one does
not achieve liberation from the bullshit of the world in a single
Working -- whatever personal weaknesses the 28 year old Aquino
had before the Working he had after it. But such Workings give a
glimpse of what it would be like to be free of such limitations.
Fourthly it Created in Aquino a magnetic coherence. That is to
say that after the Work, his Vision of what Could Be done in the
World was fixed enough that he could not articulate it, but drew
people to him to drink of that Graal. In short it was a
Recognition Ceremony.
What has the Temple of Set used the document for?
For the first eighteen years of its Manifestation, the Temple of
Set placed the BoCFbN in the Crystal Tablet of Set for magical
reasons.
The Crystal Tablet is the basic Setian document describing the
cosmology, ontology, epistemology, protocols, and practical
working magical techniques of the Temple of Set. It is part of
the fourfold formula of allowing someone who Seeks after the
Mystery of Set to Become Adept in the Black Arts. The four parts
are a coherent central articulation of Setian thought (the
Crystal Tablet), the interaction with others who have applied
the philosophy in objectively quantifiable ways, the previous
experience of the Initiate, and the ability of that Initiate to
perform a Creative and Unique Synthesis of the first three items
that changes his or her thought and life.
In our first Working Year (from X [1975] to XXVIII [1993]) we
placed the BoCFbN in the Crystal Tablet as a "jump starting"
device. Like all magical writings (such as this essay), it draws
Attention, Transforms it, and Returns to the source of Attention,
in the hopes that impel action. The symbol-rich and poetic
language of the BoCFbN served to give each Initiate some of the
same experience that Michael Aquino had -- it gave them a taste
of Meaning, Adventure, Freedom (the loosening of fetters) and
Being (Coherence). This foretaste was enough for many to seek
their own adventures, wanting not fleeting glimpses in the words
of another, but True experience of their own.
The results of this decision was the establishment of an
international Temple that survived various media and even
governmental attempts to suppress or destroy it.
After our First Working Year, we applied the basic principle of
the Setian School -- turning Students into Teachers. Instead of
making use of a primary Initiatory event of one Initiate, who was
after all not a graduate of the Temple of Set system, we choose
to let the Attention of students be Transformed by the lives of
our Priesthood. This means that each Priest or Priestess began a
new level of magical and philosophical responsibility, in that
rather than looking to a document by the human founder, Setians
looked long and hard at their Priesthood. This is a dangerous
gamble, this trust business, but it is the gamble that will
establish a Left Hand Path school that will endure rather than
one based on the strengths and weaknesses of its leaders.
The BoCFbN was placed in the Ruby Tablet of Set, which is a
document designed to assist the Second Degree in his or her quest
for Strength, much as the Crystal Tablet helps in the quest for
Meaning. The Ruby Tablet is a celebration of Life and all its
possibilities, offering a rich and varied account of many Setians
magical and philosophical pursuits.
This change represent a profound notion in Setian thinking. We
classify even our Founding Magic as part of the realm of the
possible for all Setians. The Work of our best and brightest is
valued not because of the awe we might hold for them -- but
because it stands as a constant external reminder of what might
be achieved. We are not interested in a Temple of a few great men
and women. We are interested in creating an environment that
produces many great men and women. One giant is a genetic fluke,
a race of giants is a way of changing the world.
What dangers exist in such documents?
Text is subject to a great deal of manipulation, which is why
books alone are not and can not be the basis of Initiation.
On a day when you are very mad at your neighbor, all books are
about what a scum your neighbor is and your own nobility. If you
are in love, all books are about love. If you are in denial all
books offer new and potent formulas for denial.
Books that provide a certain coherence are good in that they may
pull you away from the places you have let your emotions lead you
to. If a book teaches the Initiatory lesson that your emotions
should follow you, rather than you them, the book is worth its
weight in silver.
In moments of clarity are books of Value. If you can find a
series of circumstances that cause moments of clarity, then such
book is worth its weight in gold.
If the book contains the rules that can produce more moments of
clarity, then is it is a gem of the first water.
If the book can provide rules that allow for more than one person
to achieve a moment of clarity and communicate his or her
Understanding to another who is also experiencing clarity, the
book has is an intimate spark of living fire.
Such in my opinion is the value of the Crystal Tablet of Set. For
someone that wants to work hard for Power and Knowledge, and is
almost in possession of these things, the Temple's primary text
is beyond any dollar amount.
However most of us, despite our lofty sounding claims, want a
short and easy enlightenment. So we play absurd games with the
letters and numbers of a text, try to read hidden knowledge into
it (when we can't figure out the obvious knowledge), and
otherwise engage in hobby pursuits. Such distraction can lead us
into a variety of defective thought processes, and if we feel
that the text we are plaything with is of divine origin, we feel
somehow that god wants us to do these absurd things -- thus we
make our own Sleep sacred and move daily away form the very
things that we claim to seek.
This danger is great, and in this sense any inspired text is a
trap for the hobbyist.
Why will such books become less significant in the Aeonic age?
World History has passed through three great epochs and is
passing in to a fourth.
In classical times we had a great growth of many paradigms. This
lead to great schools of philosophical inquiry. We would be hard
pressed to look at the philosophies of ancient Greece alone, and
think by comparison that we have made any progress toward Knowing
the answers of the questions posed by Life. But two things were
lacking, one a system of universals that allowed philosophies to
be taught, exchanged, and improved across the boundaries of time
and space. Secondly a useful knowledge of the material world that
could empower the philosophic seeker to realize his or her Ideas
in the world.
In medieval times we had one paradigm. One god, one book, one
thought system across racial and cultural lines. This produced
many good things. A realization of the need of a common language
(then Latin, now English), common time keeping, and rules for
international travel. In short, in the middle ages the design for
a set of common factors that enabled the Word to go forth from
Rome, or Mecca, or Constantinople, or Beijing -- created the Idea
of a common basis for commucation.
In modern times the paradigm of science -- of approaching the
world rationally as a way of controlling it -- has given us many
things. We live twice as long as we used to -- pretty important
if you are going to spend time figuring out the answers mentioned
above. We can travel almost anywhere in a short period of time.
We can interact with other minds in a moment. The power of the
indiviual is at an all time high because of science, but because
of the human beings' natural laziness this power is usually
turned against the Self, as we learn ways to keep ourselves
distracted.
The postmodern however will be the synthesis of the three
preceding. It will have the growth of many, many paradigms for
inquiry. These will be communicated by universal means from books
to the Internet. They will be empowered by the mastery of the
natural science makes possible. In such a time, the inspired book
of another will matter less, because the most important
acquisition of the individual will be a philosophy system that
helps him or her utilize the historical forces that are coming
into being now. The Temple of Set seeks to create such a system,
and is always looking for fine minds and fearless hearts that may
contribute to the system's perfection. There is long way to go,
but a long way has already been covered in our first 23 years of
Striving.
Shot as an Arrow on the Ninth Year of my membership in the Temple
of Set and the Thirty-Third Year of the Emerald Dawn.
"Temple of Set - Ruby Tablet article
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