More Setian Philosophy ~ Shopenhauer, and the Temple of Set

 Analyzing Philosophical quotes

“The cheapest sort of pride is national pride; for if a man is proud of his own nation, it argues that he has no qualities of his own of which he can be proud; otherwise he would not have recourse to those which he shares with so many millions of his fellowmen. The man who is endowed with important personal qualities will be only too ready to see clearly in what respects his own nation falls short, since their failings will be constantly before his eyes. Every miserable fool who has nothing at all of which he can be proud, adopts as a last resource pride in the nation to which he belongs; he is ready and happy to defend all its faults and follies tooth and nail, thus reimbursing himself for his own inferiority.” - Arthur Shopenhauer

The latest stop on my philosophical binge takes me to German philosopher Arthur Shopenhauer. He has a great deal to say about how stupid people advance easily through society while intelligent people are alienated from it. I call myself Siamanto the Foreigner (Otaruh) because not only have I always felt like an outsider in American culture, I don’t even fully fit in with my ethnic identity of Armenian. Religion is my biggest point of disagreement with the majority of Armenians; pagan Armenians exist, but are a very, very tiny minority. And even then, many of the ones I know of are overly nationalistic and socially conservative. I don’t fit in with American pagans either, who by and large are either Wiccan or follow only European deities (Greek, Norse or Celtic). I’m too “out there” with my Armeno-Kemetic path.  I’ve joined a coven twice in my life, and both times it ended badly. I’m at the point of my life where I feel like I’m better off on my own than joining a group of any kind, even if I agree with them by and large. 

I remember in school being baffled by calls for “school pride”, with mascots and football games. I hated school, because I was always bullied, and I hated being bossed around. Why would I have pride in the very thing that imprisons me? Might as well have pride in a prison. But people still fell for it, despite it obviously being only a way to insure obedience. And that’s what nationalism is. As long as your chains are in the color of your flag you’re supposed to be proud. But there was definitely a time in my early adult years where I was falling into the trap of nationalism. I’m not so above it all, truth be told. Armenian nationalism is different in character from American nationalism, but it’s still nationalism at the end of the day. When American nationalists call for closed borders and arming the military, they’re being bullies, because the US is under no real danger from outside countries. In Armenia’s case, it borders two countries which would love to see it erased from the map, Turkey and Azerbaijan, and have committed genocide against the Armenians on multiple occasions, while the international community ignores it. If Armenia stops militarizing their borders they’re done for. Armenia always seems to be hanging by a thread. But how much militarism is too much? Therein lies the rub. This constant state of conflict means social problems get dismissed, saved for some arbitrary “later” date that never comes. It’s never “now” when dealing with wealth inequality, sexism and homophobia, things of that nature. We have enemies to worry about first. The church sees to that. And they’re the ones who contributed to the defeatist attitudes that got Armenia into this situation in the first place. 

I think it’s okay to be proud of your heritage and culture to a degree, until it starts to cost you your individuality and you get absorbed into the herd. 

———

Apparently in 1987 the FBI investigated the Temple of Set, as part of a wider crackdown on “Satanism”, which was at the time the US conservative’s Boogieman of the Week. Some people, including those in the FBI, apparently still think Set and Satan are the same dude. At most they’re just drinking buddies. The Set-to-Satan pipeline definitely exists, in the same way I can find links between Set and the Armenian thunder God Vahagn via both of them having been seen as Ba’al to foreigners, but that doesn’t make them the same deity. Anyway, back on topic, I unexpectedly came across some notes from the FBI vault during an innocent internet search on the concept of Xeper as it relates to Set. It mainly has basic information about the history and beliefs of the Temple of Set. They were asked if they were “corrupting the youth” a key accusation of the Satanic Panic, and the Temple replied that you have to be an adult to even join because they don’t believe in indoctrinating children. You know, unlike some religions, namely the ones behind the Satanic Panic in the first place. Seems like every accusation is a confession. 

It’s a pretty interesting read though. I’m not sure if I would ever actually join, but I agree with basically all of their key tenets. It originally branched off Anton LaVey’s Church of Satan. The ones who jumped ship to the Temple of Set rightly felt limited in the Church of Satan’s philosophy, founded on being only “anti-Christian”, which is exactly why I never considered Satanism either, despite agreeing with a lot of it. It still tethers it to the Abrahamic religions, and if that’s what you’re trying to get away from, you’re better off looking at completely unrelated traditions. I went from Christianity to Wicca initially, but that was kind of a stepping stone religion for me. I started incorporating Kemetic elements pretty much right away because of a fascination I’ve had with Egypt since childhood. I found what I was looking for in Kemeticism and gradually drifted away from Wicca, expunging any modern elements from my practice, and later learning about and incorporated elements from my ancestral Armenian paganism. But Kemeticism still has as many paths within it as there are Netjeru. Sutekh’s path ended up appealing to me the most, after the illusions I grew up with finally fell away. 

The document gets more interesting when they discuss Setian philosophy, as you can see in the screenshots I provided. I find that a lot of it is conclusions I was already coming to on my own. It’s a religion dedicated to self-improvement, and experiencing a sort of rebirth of the soul, the Xeper, by following one’s passions. Which reminds me a lot of what Carl Jung and Nietzsche talk about, the process of individuation and coming into your own by integrating the darker parts of your psyche. Breaking the psychological chains of society on one’s self. But it has structure, there’s a “Council of Nine” and a High Priest and Priestess. It sounds fun, but I’m kind of over hierarchies and lables that people put on themselves so they can feel important. I could just call myself a priest and get pretty far before someone actually tried to do some kind of check to see if that was true. In ancient Egyptian a priest was called Hem-Netjer, roughly translated as “Friend of the God”. That should be all it takes to become a priest; consider your God a friend, emulate that God, and help others to do so as well. We should all be the High Priest or High Priestess of our own individual paths.

https://vault.fbi.gov/temple-of-set/temple-of-set-part-01

May Set rise and A𓌜p𓌜e𓌜p𓌜 fall.  𓇼𓀢𓏛𓃪

𓋹֍֎𓋹

~ Siamanto the Foreigner

 𓋷𓅁𓈖𓏏𓍯𓀭𓈖𓐎𓏺𓈉𓏏𓅂𓌙𓀀 

Սիամանթօ Օտարը

Sutekh Goes to the Movies: Groundhog Day

 Sutekh Goes to the Movies

Today’s movie: Groundhog Day

The 1993 movie Groundhog Day involves a weather reporter who gets stuck in a time loop, reliving the same day over and over. A seemingly hopeless situation; everything he does gets reset, so it doesn’t matter what he does. He decides to try to win the heart of his coworker by using the time loop to learn everything about her, but even on his most perfect day he fails to make her fall in love with him within 24 hours, so he falls into a deep depression, ending his life multiple times only to wake up back in bed at the start of the day again. After he tries to confide in his coworker his predicament, and proves it to her, she suggests maybe the time loop isn’t a curse, it just depends on how he looks at it. So he decides to use the time loop to better himself. He learns foreign languages, learns how to play piano, educates himself, wins his coworker’s heart by becoming his authentic self, reaching his fullest potential. And that is when he breaks the time loop. 

From a Setian perspective, I think this movie perfectly illustrates the ancient Egyptian concept of “kheper” (𓆣), to come into being. Sutekh aids Ra every night on a trip through the underworld, fighting the Chaos Serpent among a slew of other baddies, until he is reborn at sunrise as Khepri, the scarab-headed Solar diety. Sutekh would relate to this movie a lot, having to repeat a day over and over until you get it right. This movie is a metaphor for life. You’ll notice the story shifts when the main character realizes there are no lasting consequences to his actions, and again when he decides to view it as an opportunity to grow rather than a curse. It falls in line with Nietzsche’s concepts such as “amor fati”, learning to love and accept your fate, and that of the übermensch, a person who has reached their fullest potential and is no longer chained to the morals of society but creates and follows their own. The purpose of life is something you have to give it, but it could be that you’re supposed to overcome adversity and “kheper”. If you want to bring reincarnation into it, perhaps this is the final goal of your ka, the part of your soul that lives thousands of times until reaching its fullest potential. Life doesn’t have to be a “curse”. Once you stop looking at it that way, you can better yourself, and “kheper”. I’m personally due for another kheper sometime soon myself, maybe this year. Still got some more dark underworld stuff to tread through first. 

Here is a good essay on “kheper” by Don Webb of the Temple of Set; I’m not affiliated with the temple, preferring to forge my own path, but it is a good summary of the concept through a Setian lense. 

https://xeper.info/pub/pub_dw_xeper.html

May Set rise and A𓌜p𓌜e𓌜p𓌜 fall.  𓇼𓀢𓏛𓃪

𓋹֍֎𓋹

~ Siamanto the Foreigner

 𓋷𓅁𓈖𓏏𓍯𓀭𓈖𓐎𓏺𓈉𓏏𓅂𓌙𓀀 

Սիամանթօ Օտարը

On Competing Systems of Morality

 Day 2 of the Feast of the End of the 80-Year Battle Between Sutekh and Horus

I would like to share a poem by Armenian poet Avetik Isahakyan from 1905.

Avetik Isahakyan

Եղբայրության կամ թե սիրո

Եղբայրության կամ թե սիրո

Խոսքը ես ձեզ չեմ ավետում, –

Պատգամները չարի, բարվո

Ձեր ոտների տակն եմ նետում:

Կյանքն է պայքա՛ր՝ գոռ ու դաժա՛ն,

Ճզմի՛ր մարդուն և թռի՛ր վե՛ր.

Իրավունքը ուժն է միայն,

Վա՛յ հաղթվածին, հազա՛ր վայեր:

Տեր կամ ըստրուկ պիտի լինիս, – 

Ճշմարտություն չկա ուրիշ: 

Չես սպանի, քեզ կսպանեն,

Դու սպանի՛ր, քեզ չսպանեն:

Լուծ կամ լծկան պիտի լինիս,

Ճշմարտություն չկա ուրիշ:

Անիծվիս, մա՛րդ, որ հույսդ է մարդ.

Բախտըդ կռվով կռի՛ր ինքդ:

Սուրճ կամ զնդան պիտի լինիս. – 

Ճշմարտություն չկա ուրիշ:

Խոսք՝ Ավետիք ԻՍԱՀԱԿՅԱՆ

English:

I do not proclaim the word 

of brotherhood or love to you.

Instead I throw messages 

of good and evil at your feet.

Life is a struggle, loud and cruel,

Crush a man and jump on him.

Only strength is morally right.

Woe to the defeated, a thousand woes.

You’re either a master or a slave.

There is no other truth.

If you don’t kill, you will be killed.

If you kill, you will not be killed.

You are either free or in bondage.

There is no other truth.

You are cursed, humans, by your hope.

You continue to delude yourself.

You will either be a slave or a prisoner,

There is no other truth.

The sentiment in this poem is an understandable reaction to centuries of on and off genocide and colonization undergone by Armenians. It was written ten years before the worst phase of that genocide, at the hands of the Ottoman Turks. In Friedrich Nietzsche’s “Beyond Good and Evil”, he introduces the concept of two basic moral systems that have been at odds since the beginning of human history, calling them “Master Morality” and “Slave Morality”. Keep in mind he was writing in the 1800s; I probably wouldn’t have called them that myself because it makes it sound like one is good and the other is bad, and it’s not that simple. These competing moralities both have strengths and weaknesses, and having too much of one or the other is a bad thing, in my opinion. Nietzsche writes that Master Morality was the dominant moral system of the ancient world, or at least of ancient Greece; how much he knew about the moral systems in ancient Egypt, the Western Hemisphere before European colonization or remote regions of Africa and Australia, I don’t know. Nietzsche provides the example of the Trojan war, and how it differed from modern conflicts; neither side in the war demonized the other, in fact they had begrudging respect for one another, even for heroes on both sides of the battle. No one was calling for a genocide against the other, neither side called the other “evil”. Master Morality’s starting point is defining what is good, and anything that isn’t good is labeled “bad”. Bad is different from “evil”; it is undesirable, but a person who does bad things is not irredeemable. Things that were “bad” mainly were things that undermined society in some way. Strength, bravery, nobility, chivalry, these are seen as positive qualities. Abuse of power, killing (without good cause; wars and death penalties still existed), stealing, cowardice, these things were considered bad. Slave Morality, Nietzsche says, was a reaction to Master Morality, and came from those who were victimized by those in power that followed Master Morality. Its starting point was from a place of resentment, and that is the whole problem with it; rather than try to transcend Master Morality it embodied everything that Master Morality was not. The first thing they did was define “evil”, and anything that wasn’t evil was labeled “good”. Once something was labeled “evil” it could be dismissed, or punished. Once something is “evil” you don’t have to come up with an argument against it, it’s evil because “God says so”, and this “God” is always in agreement with whoever invokes them. Positive qualities in their moral systems include obedience, peacefulness, pacifism, equality, empathy, conformity. Its adherents fear negative emotions and chaos. The Slave Morality overtook the Master Morality when Rome made Christianity its official religion. They did this because, while to this very day world leaders follow Master Morality, people who exclusively follow Slave Morality are easier to control and dominate. They “turn the other cheek” instead of fight back, they fear power and strength, if they protest they do so peacefully and nonviolently, and they often wear their victimhood like a badge of honor. You see the latter when people try to position themselevs as victims, or play the “trauma Olympics”, and use it as an excuse to whatever they like. But I wouldn’t say the Slave Morality originated with Abrahamic religion, it merely popularized it. We start to see shades of it in ancient Egypt, with the popularization of Osiris and the demonization of Sutekh. That’s how it ties in to Sutekh. In Osiris’ afterlife, you face judgment, and you can either gain passage into Osiris’ paradise to serve Him forever, or your heart becomes a meal for Ammit the Devourer and you cease to exist. In Sutekh’s afterlife, you climb a ladder to the stars and become a God youself. Sutekh wants you to strive for excellence and reach your true potential, not bow your head in servitude. 

Despite this, I’m not here to say one is right and the other is wrong. Almost no one follows one moral system exclusively, and that actually is for the best in some ways. Nietzsche died before he could criticize the Master Morality in a book (and this is the cause of a lot of misinterpretations of his work), but he did not advocate for a return to the Master Motality. Someone who only followed Master Morality would become a tyrannical self-centered psychopath, while someone who only followed Slave Morality would become a stagnant, cowardly doormat. I personally value empathy towards the downtrodden and equality as much as it is possible. On the political spectrum you’d find me on the bottom left corner, I am anti-authoritarian and socially a leftist. I do not like hierarchy in general. So I think I already mix both. Most people have shades of both moralities, and it is the source of a lot of hypocrisy in our society. This is why there are so-called Christians that blindly worship the US president no matter how many times he violates the morality of the Bible. In fact Nietzsche mentions that the ones who have the most conflict between the two clashing moral systems often become priests. 

I do not desire to be anyone’s master or slave. I desire personal freedom. So I am building my own moral system, combining ancient Egyptian philosophy and the best of both Master and Slave morality. If the choice is mine, I no longer plan to have my heart weighed on the scales in the afterlife, I will instead ascend Sutekh’s ladder to the stars in order to “kheper”, to ascend to my highest potential. 

May Set rise and A𓌜p𓌜e𓌜p𓌜 fall.  𓇼𓀢𓏛𓃪

𓋹֍֎𓋹

~ Siamanto the Foreigner

 𓋷𓅁𓈖𓏏𓍯𓀭𓈖𓐎𓏺𓈉𓏏𓅂𓌙𓀀 

Սիամանթօ Օտարը

Day of the Fight on Behalf of Sutekh the Great-One: Fighting Against The Nothing

Today is another Kemetic holiday, the Day of the Fight on Behalf of Seth the Great-One. I would like to mark it by getting my thoughts down about the eternal  Chaoskampf Sutekh fights against the Chaos Serpent A𓌜p𓌜e𓌜p𓌜. A few days ago I rewatched The NeverEnding Story because I thought that it had themes which are relevant to the chaotic times in which we find ourselves. For those unfamiliar, it follows a boy warrior Atreyu, who is trying to stop his fantasy the realm, Fantasia, from disappearing, as the world is being swallowed up by the Nothing. A fearsome wolf named G’mork is helping to spread the Nothing, much as A𓌜p𓌜e𓌜p𓌜 tries to bring about nonexistence to the universe.  This particular exchange near the end of the movie when Atreyu confronts  G’mork I found to be of particular interest:

Atreyu: But why is Fantasia dying then?

G’mork: Because people have begun to lose their hopes  and forget their dreams. So the Nothing grows stronger.

Atreyu: What is the Nothing?

G’mork: It is the emptiness that’s left. It’s like a despair m destroying this world. And I have been trying to help it.

Atreyu: But why?

G’mork: Because people who have no hopes are easy to control; and whoever has the control…has the power!

(G’mork’s captions are in green because that’s how they are on the VHS release and I think that’s cool.)

Anyone who’s been hanging around social media lately might have witnessed this happening to our world. The people working behind the scenes, the billionaires, the parasitic class as I call them, wish to spread hopelessness and despair, because people without hope are easy to control. We are bombarded with terrible news every day, as fascism is on the rise. Now, for those of you that are pagan, and believe in some form of magic, whether Kemetic heka or “magick”, surely don’t think that you know something those in power do not. There is a reason magic was criminalized for centuries under the Abrahamic god. They don’t want the commoners to use it, they wish to spread the idea that it is either evil or fake, but they have been using it themselves all along. Whenever you see the latest quote from the Orange Ogre or the Muskrat in your feed, it is an energetic attack. Meant to chip away at your hope. The Zuck employing fake AI accounts for the purpose of starting arguments with people is another form of energetic attack. It’s subliminal messaging. They do this to secure their power, and they are doing this through an alliance with A𓌜p𓌜e𓌜p𓌜, or whatever form the serpent is taking to them. However, while their goal is complete power, the goal of A𓌜p𓌜e𓌜p𓌜 is complete nonexistence. Their goals are going to conflict at some point, and when that happens, they will lose control, and become victims of A𓌜p𓌜e𓌜p𓌜 themselves. 

Sutekh is the only netjer who can stare into the eyes of A𓌜p𓌜e𓌜p𓌜 without flinching. The other netjeru have to look away. Sure Sekhmet, Horus, and Ra in His cat form can defeat the serpent, but they can’t look it in the eye. When you scroll through social media, you eventually glimpse into the eyes of A𓌜p𓌜e𓌜p𓌜. So in order to protect yourself from energetic attacks you should at the very least limit your time on social media, so that the energetic attacks do not reach you. With time and practice, under Sutekh you too can learn to look into the eyes of the serpent unflinchingly, but until then, limiting your contact with it is your best bet. This needn’t be the same as sticking your head in the sand and ignoring the news, but don’t allow yourself to be overwhelmed and consumed by it. This is what they want. Find a balance. And do not lose your hopes or dreams. “Fantasia can arrive in you”.

𓋹֍֎𓋹

~ Siamanto the Foreigner

 𓋷𓅁𓈖𓏏𓍯𓀭𓈖𓐎𓏺𓈉𓏏𓅂𓌙𓀀

Սիամանթօ Օտարը