Beliefs & practices

Setian doctrine treats Set as the personification of isolate consciousness — the principle of an existence that is genuinely apart from, rather than continuous with, the natural cosmos. Where most religious systems direct the practitioner toward union with the larger order (theistic devotion, mystical absorption, ethical conformity), Setian work directs the practitioner toward intensification of the individual self until that self is stable enough to exist as a discrete divine identity. This is what the Temple calls Xeper: a verb in the Egyptian sense, “to come into being,” treated as the operative principle of the order.

The Temple is hierarchical. Membership is conferred by recognition, not application; once admitted, initiates progress through six degrees: Setian (I°), Adept (II°), Priest or Priestess (III°), Magister or Magistra Templi (IV°), Magus or Maga (V°), and Ipsissimus or Ipsissima (VI°). Each degree is recognised rather than examined: the second-degree recognition, for example, is the Temple’s acknowledgement that the initiate has demonstrated functional control of magical technique through documented working. Only the higher degrees carry institutional authority.

Beyond the central initiatic structure, the Temple is internally organised into Orders, each focused on a particular line of work — the Order of the Trapezoid (Germanic and Indo-European material, originally directed by Aquino and developed by Stephen Edred Flowers), the Order of Leviathan (mythopoetic and abyssal work), the Order of Setne Khamuast (scholarly and historical), among others. Members elect their Order affiliation according to their working interests; many participate in more than one.