I'm finally reading The Satanic Bible ReVision and I absolutely could not put it down last night until sleepiness forced me to. My on-again-off-again relationship with Setianism has been like a collision orbit.
From a young age, I've always been fascinated with the concepts of transformation and metamorphosis. I would work with psychological concepts and my own theories within the safety and harmlessness of imagination and stories. In terms of philosophy and especially the occult, I shunned outside sources and came up with my own observations of consciousness. I had this sense that there was the potential of everyone to become a better and ideal version of themselves, and I called this The Great Becoming. In college, I made a friend who was heavy into occult reading, and it would be often that I would relate something of my own that would be met with a surprised and enthusiastic "I read that in a book once!" My reactions to this were annoyance at first but as it continued, I wondered if there were essential truths of consciousness, in the same way that there are of Natural Laws, and anyone can discover them if they looked enough.
It was actually "The Four Agreements" that finally severed me from Christianity back in 2009. It is ultimately a RHP book, but it firmly presents to the reader the reality of their own Subjective Universe and the SUs of others, as well as the concept of willful change of the personal SU. I spent the next few years flirting with (but never committing to) Wicca and Buddhism, and a Wiccan book about Becoming A Goddess propelled me even farther. I wish I could remember exactly what that book was but I had to read it secretly as a library loan, lest my ultra-Catholic parents stumble across it. Having it actually in my personal collection would have been an unnecessary risk.
When I began my relationship with my now-husband in 2013, his hard (yet Eastern-leaning) atheism snuffed out my vulnerable "generalized spiritualness". I gradually embraced his stance, thought the more I tried to be content with the Natural Universe as the everything and my consciousness and self-awareness as merely a delusion of animal intellect, the more miserable and depressed I became. I began flirting with an atheistic form of paganism, seeing gods and goddesses purely as psychological archetypes that I could temporarily align with and nurture within myself. It helped, but I needed more.
I joined The Satanic Temple in late 2014. I'd heard about them from a news story about their public antics and so I researched them and found their tenets to be, well, completely reasonable and in alignment with my own beliefs. It was a great formal stepping stone to the LHP - a firm rejection of Christianity. However, it was still firmly atheistic. I read a copy of The Satanic Bible. Wait... I am my own god? Of course. At last, the beginnings of something for my starving spirituality, even if at first embraced as nothing more than pure psychology. I could work with this. I'd spent so many years of my life being taught and rewarded for giving away my own power that using it for myself felt wrong. Nevertheless, I persisted with unlearning the ways in which I'd been domesticated.
While perusing the TST forums, I came across the first reference to the Temple of Set (TOS) presented as part of a trinity of current LHP alongside COS and TST. This caught my attention. I immediately went to the TOS website and devoured everything there. There it was, my simple notion of The Becoming, but FAR more mature. It made so much sense while seeming so crazy - I had to have more. I searched and found a PDF of Black Magic. Reading that text, I had the epiphany of my life: many of my own philosophies, here I was reading them in a book! However, here they were much expanded upon and connected to each other. The concept of consciousness and metaphysics belonging to a dimension ABOVE the domain of the Natural Universe was at last the explanation I needed for what Almighty Science couldn't explain and why. I felt like I was reading something written by a future version of myself who had years more knowledge, reflection, and experience. The fact it was written by another person was astounding evidence to me of absolute truths of consciousness.
I didn't return to that text for some time, as my mind had been a bit shaken by it and there was a lot that had been difficult to grasp, if not outright alien. Over the next few years, I returned to it a few more times, each new reading making more sense than the last, and revealing truths that I could see and experience for myself. In the meantime, daunted by the extreme amount of personal responsibility that the text charged, I kept exploring other spiritual options. In a way, a juvenile part of myself really didn't want Setianism to be correct. However, as I continued to rule out others, Setianism and Atheism were the only two that remained, and Atheism would again be a route to self-destruction. I was no longer ignorant enough to believe in fairytales, but my will wasn't yet strong enough to accept the challenge and commitment of Becoming. Also, I had an extreme sensitivity to rejection for most of my life. Should I apply to TOS at that time and be rejected, it would crush me.
I realized that I could not and should not attempt to join TOS at that time, even though it was the only viable way forward. I had much personal work to do on myself, on my own. Applying while I was still in that current state would be coming from a place of desperation and helplessness, which would surely be obvious and not help me to be considered. I resolved that I would not apply until I had Come Into Being as a proper initiate, by undertaking the work of transforming myself and my life on my own. I realized that I'd only be able to allow myself to apply to the Temple of Set once I no longer felt a need for any outside force to "rescue" me, as this feeling was merely a RHP holdout.
Two years went by, and I have succeeded. Finally, now, I am all I need. For a little while, I decided that I actually didn't need to apply, and I could carry on just fine on my own. However, I am beginning to realize that some guidance on this quite perilous journey could be helpful. I no longer need "saving" but I could benefit from some instruction. That, I feel, is what the Temple of Set can provide to me. Should my application be rejected (which I honestly don't foresee) it would not devastate me as it would my former self, but it would give me a great deal of pause and reassessment.
I look forward to finishing reading ReVision, and I'll also be picking up more of Aquino's books. There are several books on the TOS website reading list that I must look into as well, as I'm finally ready for the responsibility of this knowledge.
The time is nearly right, but there is no rush.
