I am using the article title another used. I've been thinking about the nature of SET, people who fear him, the rare few who adore him 'as the Ultimate Rebel', and those with viewpoints inbetween.

I am using my intuition to sense this. He is the force that wants to keep flowing, like a horse that must run. His force will brook no obstruction, but crash through it, ('enemy of boundaries'). Those of us who welcome him into our hearts (or spines *) give him that much more room to travel, more region in which to flow unobstructed. This 'need to flow' is not an 'evil' thing, but it is feared by those who cannot fathom the unstopability of it.

That is his 'electrical' nature. The current must flow.

Next I sense what some might call 'self absorption'. The awareness he has of his immensely vast consciousness is very strong. This is the thing that earns him the title 'Isolate consciousness'. Content within himself, he needs no worshippers to gain his pride. He roars mightily the joy of his own existence.

So he is content in and of himself. But what of those who do invoke him? Like attracts like, within them his current flows and it thusly energizes them. ("Great is the Might of Set, greater still He through us!") He is pleased to so dwell. Proud to so dwell, and thus he calls those who draw him in his elect nobles.

Of the others, he just rushes on right past them. To him, Egypt which was once his home is no longer. I got a sense of this wandering through the ancient artifacts in the Metropolitan Museum. A sense of sadness, but that it once was is all in the past, and it is the current Priesthood which is his domain and concern now.

To those who fear him, he has not wrath, but a determination that he will not be stopped. The immensity of the determination makes them tremble. He just rushes on right past them. If it is with a cyclone force that leaves a bit of destruction in his wake, he does not care.

(It's up to them to clean it up.) And he might laugh while they struggle to do so. Which may very well cause those who fear him to fear him all the more. This is what earned him the title 'devil'. He has a strange sense of humor, a 'DARK' sense of humor, of course. He laughs at our struggles, for when we are challenged to our limits, this is when we grow. But then I sense his pride when we do meet the challenges.

Also, he doesn't harbor resentment. He doesn't gather a store of hurt umbrages upon which to sulk. That would hamper him in his 'flow'. So he just rushes on right past those who fear him.

He knows he will endure, with or without companions. I will not say 'followers'. We open the channel, and he flows through us, so in a sense he 'follows' us.

* Why did I use the word 'spine'? Because even in the Osirian works, The Book of the Dead, the spine is declared as the realm of SET, and a person with endurance is said to have a strong backbone. The influence of SET gives us greater endurance.

Afterthoughts, June 6, 2005
Are there aspects in this piece which are not clear? Have I not made it clear why SET is sexy to me? Have I made SET sound brusque, even unpleasantly so? Perhaps it's because I find the nature of deity much different that what is the conventional view. One of SET's titles from ancient times is 'Son of Nuit'. Nuit is called 'Mother of the Gods', and SET's birth is described as 'tearing himself out of her womb'. The ancients were understanding the nature of Power. How do I envision Nuit? Nuit is like a conscious neural network underlying the physical existence of everything, the 'Infinite Space' in which all creation occurs.

When I think of what hurts Nuit, it is chaos that is not necessary. SET's chaos is of the necessary kind, that without it creation would not be possible. To me what hurts Nuit is everything of the APEP snake variety. This snake would keep the sun from rising, it disturbs Ma'at, the balance of things. And thus the ancient Egyptians recognised SET as the only one being strong enough to dispose of that snake. That which goes against Ma'at hurts Nuit. SET, though being 'amoral' in a conventional sense, very much loves Ma'at and lives within it.

When I describe SET as 'not being interested unless he's interested', 'duty' doesn't move him. However if you amuse him, if he's attracted to you, then he calls you his Elect and he is fiercely interested. This he does if you have characteristics like his, strong Will, persistence, independence of thought, and a profound love of life. It becomes a natural emotional attraction with him. Would this be like the old saying 'God helps those who help themselves?' In a way, yes.

To those people, SET gives his strength, but what else does he do? (Well, since we have within us our own divinity, it's up to us to consult these aspects of divinity within our Deep Selves to give wisdom for actions, so we don't need a God to tell us what to do.) What else do we need but the Matrix (Nuit, the Mother of the Gods) in which all the magical happenings occur, the Power (SET, Great of Strength) to energize them, and our Own Wisdom, (aided by other wise human beings at times)? Thus seemingly miraculous things can happen when our Will aligns itself with Might and Wisdom.

Afterthoughts, March 28, 2006
I feel I have done so badly here to explain why Set is sexy, the following poem couldn't do any more damage:

I say to the stars, I know how you got there! I know the Invisible Force! I say to the thunder, I know your Voice, it speaks deep and true! It vibrates within me to the very core of my being. It speaks in a deep 'hum', too, the electric current, pulsing pulsing pulsing through me. The Divine Spark, the touch which enlivened all, gives desire for the fire. By this fire, to become our ownSelves, Creators. Thus, He keeps not his Gift to himself, but delights in sharing it. I take it, grab it, proudly bare it. I do not complain that it makes me wildly curious, and itch in places I can't scratch. I do not complain. I do not complain of the thirst, but smile and proudly bare it. One who has not been here, cannot know it. but if you have, if you know the Dark One of the Night, know his tingling touch, then you know. Dare I say more, of the opening of myself, done with all my Will, of the opening to that tingling touch? I open, and through me the greatest rush. Dare I say? "Great is the Might of Set, Greater Still, through me" And so 'through me', he and I accomplish our Will. JAL, 3-28-06

Afterthoughts, July 14, 2006 AM
So I think then of my depictions of Set, and how I'm not showing it right. Sure, it is only the thunder face for 'strangers', but there is so much more depth. I'm not showing the love he has for his Elect. It's not there in these pages. All the fierceness, but not the love. Horus at first look might be a gentler creature. But he's easily distracted. "Strange and fitful', is that how Crowley described him? And he is. his passions don't run deep. Set's does, and the love he has, once he decides you're on his side, is immense, boundless, it is pure love of a passion that won't weaken, won't ever be distracted, the hero's love that will endure anything for the sake of who he loves.

I hope this addition in some way helps to give a better picture.

Afterthoughts, July 14, 2006 PM
The amazing synchronisticities of my life! I was Googling for something else, when an author's page appeared in the strand. I took a look at Odhroerir: Nine Devotional Tales of Odin's Journeys by Laure Lynch There is a pdf excerpt of her book, and I read the sampling. How much like Set is her Odin! The One of Power is for her wearing Odin skin, and for me, Set skin. She calls Odin the 'God of Paradoxes', a 'complex' God. Listen to some of her descriptions: "He is the fury of storm winds and the fresh breeze of inspiration, giver of our first breath and collector of our last..." Further on, she says, "Accused of utter selfishness, He works tirelessly for the preservation of the world." And doesn't SET, on the solar barque against Apep who would devour and destroy everything? YES!

In the conclusion of her introductory chapter, she declares, "He is a God feared by many (and not without good reason) and truly loved and known by a few, and yet I've found it to be true that to a very great extent people see what they expect to see in Him, and experience what they expect to experience. In all His interactions with Gods, giants and mortals alike, Odin gives as good as He gets, that much is attested in the lore as well as in UPG. Approach Him with dread and prejudice in your heart, and you will very likely see why He is called in the Voluspa 'Terror of the Gods'. Approach Him with love, or at the very least respect and openness, and you will receive the very best He has to offer you, personally." Her definition of UPG is 'Unverified Personal Gnosis', those direct experiences which people have which aren't necessarily in the lore.

Who is the Dark Lord? It depends on you, what you are looking for and how he decides to manifest himself to you.

Set's Power "I am that I am, I exist, I roar, I AM!" (Roaring loudly!) Who can behold it and still live? Who can know the power and remain unchanged? Can you know it surging within you? "I am that I am," (They stole that phrase from me!) Going down into terror, into the fiery furnaces of creation itself, the anvil, the fire, the tempered steel, terror awaits those who lack understanding. This is not a one way exit. Each departs to his own understanding. Some carry a bit of the fire with them as they go. Kissed by the flames, they are changed and have a secret knowledge. To their own creation, they may apply such as they are able. JAL, 9-9-07

Why Set?
November 3, 2007

In one of the many discussion forums I frequent, I was asked, "Why Set? What attracted you to Him? And is "Set" actually His Egyptian name?"

Name clarification first:
"Many different forms of the name of Seth occur in the Egyptian texts...."

"Just as the way of writing is not uniform but has variants, the pronunciation will also have been different according to time and place.The harder Lower-Egyptian pronunciation may have been Sutekh evolved to Setekh; the Upper-Egyptian pronunciation may have been Sut, evolved to Set. The h in the modern rendering of the name Seth might be reminiscent of the Coptic 'q'. It seems practical to maintain in this book the long established rendering that follows the Greek: Seth."
-Te Velde, _Seth, God of Confusion_, pages 1, 2-)
As I can't find special html characters for certain characters in his text, I have actual book excerpts, page one and pages two and three.

(Now for my personal tale...)
In 2003, I was full of curiousity about so many things, and I gave Google a good work out each day, day after day, searching, trying different wordings of search strands. Some how I ended up at xeper.org, website of the Temple of Set. So I was there wandering the blue backgrounded pages of those 'black' magicians, reading of Set, and I thought, "HE's the One I sensed so many years ago, in my epiphany under the stars!" Back when I was nineteen (1978), and much absorbed with Ayn Rand's atheistic philosophy, I thought the world all ordered by reason.

But then under the stars, on a late July night, oh, I'm sure it was summer, I looked up at all the sparkling diamond stars and I felt that a Great Power had gone into their making. I knew the Power to be electrical in nature and that we could plug into it(him).

Well, that's all the further I knew. I'd read here and there of deities, but none seemed to match what I felt that night. Until I read of Set, the Egyptian God, 'Great of Strength', who does not keep to borders, and I felt "Yes!" That's the one, that's the one with the strength to make stars. Yes, he's chaotic and dangerous and the Egyptians feared him. But he's the one, 'cause Power, by its very nature is dangerous and must be channeled. It can't be 'orderly'. It has its own pulse, its own direction, that which brings worlds into being.

Experience has layered upon experience. I think maybe he borrows the face of Shiva for a while, maybe Odin, oh...maybe. But the one view of All That Power, All that Chaos, All that Drive, all that jolts us into awareness like an electric shock, that to me is best represented by the Egyptian Set. And I like his pantheon mates,too.

(I will add this to my "Who is the Dark Lord" piece and eventually rewrite the whole piece, instead of it being a conglomeration of various writings through out the years.)

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