Xeper: The Eternal Word of Set
by Don Webb
I am the Magus of the Word Xeper (pronounced Khefer), an English language
coinage expressing an Egyptian verb written as a stylized scarab and meaning "I
Have Come Into Being." This Word generates the Aeon of Set, and is
the current form of the Eternal Word of the Prince of Darkness. To Know this
Word is to know that the ultimate responsibility for the evolution of your
psyche is in your hands. It is the Word of freedom, ecstasy, fearful responsibility,
and the root of all Magic.
An Aeon is a world. As human beings we are familiar with many "worlds".
We can talk about the "world of Thomas Jefferson" or the "world
of Newton". Magical worlds are created by Words—by the verbal
power of mankind to express a divine principle—through which the effect
of that Utterance on the objective universe brings about the creation of
the world. The Word serves as a gateway for the mind seeking to enter the
world it defines, and the effect of an Utterance of a Word will cause many
worlds to be reconfigured in order to Hear it. The Aeon of Set is Created
by the Word "Xeper." Xeper is an Egyptian verb meaning "I
Have Come Into Being." Xeper is the experience of an individual psyche
becoming aware of its own existence and deciding to expand and evolve that
existence through its own actions. Xeper has been experienced by anyone who
has decided to seek after his or her own development.
Awareness of Xeper usually begins with a moment of rebellion against the
spiritual status quo. In this sense Xeper is a "Satanic" word,
and the condition that led to its re-emergence on this Earth began in the
Working called the Church of Satan. Its properties transcend and are in some
ways opposed to that matrix. It is the nature of Self-Creation that it continually
Re-creates its matrix in the objective universe so that the subjective universe
can evolve and expand. To experience that moment of Xeper, of emergent self-divinity
one must Love two things with all of one's heart. The first of these
is Freedom, because only in Freedom can one take the steps (if initially
only mentally) that create and limit the Self. The second thing one must
Love is Knowledge. This isn't the same thing as information; this is a transformative
Understanding of those things within us and beyond us that determine who
we are.
The symbols of Xeper are the scarab beetle and the dawning sun. The beetle
is symbolic of self trust and hard work. The beetle goes through very different
stages from egg to larva to pupa to beetle. Each stage has its own Work,
a particular way of gathering energy and materials, particular ways of transforming
them. It senses its own evolution and works toward it—even though the
momentum of that evolution will change its shape radically—taking it
at the appropriate time into unknown worlds and new modes of Being. The dawn
is symbolic of the way the world is perceived. Unlike the followers of conventional
religion who posses guidebooks that explain the world away, the Seeker after
Xeper is looking for an intensification of his or her own Being so that the
world may be made intelligible in his or her own light. In this darkling
universe there are no lights save for those you create through your hard
work, your spiritual rebellion, your seeking after the mysteries of your
own choosing. When that light dawns, it will by its very nature not only
give you moments of clarity about the things in your life closest to you,
it will likewise show you new horizons—horizons for you and you alone
to explore. This Secret was known symbolically to the Egyptians—they
identified their god Xepera, the Self-Created One with Hrumachis, the god
of the Horizon. This Secret was also known (at a divine level) by Aleister
Crowley, who predicted that the Aeon of Hrumachis would surpass his own.
Set, the Egyptian god of Darkness, is the Divine origin of the Word. Set's
name ultimately means the "Separator" or "Isolator". His
chief enemies are the gods of Stasis and Mindlessness. The first of these
is Osiris, Death himself. Set's slaying of Osiris has a two-fold significance
for the seeker of Xeper. Firstly this represents the slaying of old thought
patterns; the dethroning of those internal gods that we have received from
society. On a second level this was the act by which Set, alone of all the
gods of ancient Egypt, became deathless. The Left Hand Path is a quest to
Become an immortal, potent, and powerful Essence.
Set's other enemy is
the demon of mindless chaos, Apep. Set is said to slay this creature every
night just before dawn. This symbolizes overcoming self doubt and delusion,
of acting at the times of greatest despair, or not being lulled to sleep
by the powerful self-hypnotizing engines of mankind. Set achieves (on a divine
level) this isolation from the universe so that he may say, "Xeper" = "I
Have Come Into Being." Each of these breaks—the break from the
dead past (by slaying Osiris) and the break from the confused present (by
slaying Apep)—is done for the sake of a self-determined future. One
of Set's cult titles, Set-Heh, means God of Unending Futurity.
Set did not receive the aid of other gods in his two quests, nor does Set
give aid to those who seek to emulate these quests on a human level. Those
who struggle (like Set) with the principle of Xeper are of his Essence. Their
actions are essentially the same. Those who want to share their quests and
pool their knowledge seek after Set's chief tool of His Aeon, the Temple
of Set. It is the most concentrated environment for the study of Xeper, both
as noun and verb. Xeper can not be studied as an abstract intellectual idea,
it must be experienced. One can read about Justice, or one can hope for it,
but to truly Know Justice you must bring it into Being. One can read about
Xeper, as your interest in secret things has brought you to do. You can hope
for it. Or you can seek the solitary self-transformation that will cause
you to experience it. The Temple of Set represents a concentration of the
Aeon; like Set himself, it does not answer prayers, and by its very Being
provides challenges for those who would seek after the Word of Xeper. It
is the embodiment of the Emerald Dawn envisioned by the Fraternitas Saturni.
We are not necessarily a "Satanic"
order, other than we Understand that for Initiation on the Left Hand Path
to be effective for those who have just begun Work on that path, the antinomian
aspect of the Work does Need to be fulfilled by some means. The imagery of
the Black Arts provides that Need for many, but it likewise can be limiting
as it is mastered. Our predecessor was caught by this trap, and we hope by
exploring the manifestations of the principle of Xeper in many cultures and
times and in our own creations to have much further horizons. Diabolical
imagery is useful only in a culturally bound antinomian sense; beyond this
it represents a new stasis to be discarded.
Xeper. Now an Egyptian verb, like an English verb, can have several forms
depending on its number, tense, voice, and mood. (Unlike an English verb,
Egyptian verbs also have gender.) You can have a verb such as "stative" which
can be conjugated (I run; you run; he, she or it runs; we run—I am
running—I ran—etc.). There are about 140 forms for an English
verb (I remember this because my Junior High School Latin teacher often made
us write the full conjugation of English verbs when he was mad at us). We
happen to know the tense and person of the verb Xeper from the sentence Xepera
Xeper Xeperu. It is first person, stative. Now while you're trying to
remember your High School grammar as to what tense
"stative" is—you won't. We don't have the tense
in English. It refers to a past event that modifies a current state. We do
have first person, of course; that means that 'I' did it.
The proper translation of the verb Xeper is "I Have Come Into Being."
Now there are some implications of this that we in the Temple have not yet
considered. Firstly the verb refers to a moment that HAS happened
that explains why we are here. When you write or speak or think the word "Xeper" you
are talking about something that has taken place. You are not talking about
something taking place at the moment of the speech act. Xeper is NOT a
continuous process. It is a series of events, whose presence we sense either
through reason, or through divine apprehensions. We are aware that something has
occurred to give the particular Being we have at any moment. We are aware
that whatever the great shaping potential of that something we
don't have that potential at this moment. In short we are aware that
we have had a moment wherein we acted as gods. We did something divine—we
had some peak experience—we made some life-altering choice—and
it has produced the creatures we are now. Now this produces two great realizations:
First, we are aware that we have a capacity beyond wherever and whenever
we are right now to both Limit and Create ourselves. All moments of Xeper both Limit and Create ourselves—or to use both of those ideas at
the same time, all moments of Xeper Isolate ourselves from the Cosmos.
Second, we want to do this again. Humankind wants the Divine. In erroneous
religions this desire is a return to the Divine in one way or another (either
by union, or by being in the divine presence in some place with far too
much harp music). Well that doesn't work—you can't go back
to the state where Xeper last occurred. You can't go back to a previous
divine state any more than you can fold an oak back into an acorn. You
can only go forward to another divine state. If you want to both achieve
and experience your godhood, you've got to go forward. In our Earthly
incarnation we never fully experience the divine moment; only through magical
introspection do we discover that we have passed through them, and can
therefore say (with both happiness and terror) "I Have Come Into
Being." In the Bremmer-Rhind papyrus this idea is reflected in the
fact that Xepera's first two children are Shu (Reason) and Tefnut (Peak
Emotions). Through these two Human experiences we can
detect the divine, and having detected it learn to Work with it to have
more divine experiences.
Now the first question is: how do I have more divine experiences? Xeper
happens to every sapient being (note I didn't say every intelligent being,
I'll return to that point in a future article). Most humans (and most
of us, most of the time) stumble across those experiences that would set up
the conditions so that they could later say "Xeper" if they
had a large enough brain to hold the concept. The experience might be going
into a drugstore to buy a malted milk and meeting the person that becomes
your spouse for the next fifty years. Well, that was divine moment; it both
Limited and Created your Life. A Christian would say it was the hand of God,
a Hindu would invoke Karma. But we know who did it: that man or woman
we face in the mirror everyday. The scary thing for all humans—and
in fact the reason they/we invented religion in the first place—is
that most divine experiences occur blindly. So most humans
either ask some fairy tale on bended knee not to give them bad experiences,
or if they're a little braver try to influence them with magic, or try
to deny them by exerting the meaningless nature of the Cosmos. But the Setian,
knowing that only through such experiences can he or she find the metamorphosis
that our philosophy finds both achievable and desirable, seeks out the divine
experience. I can't tell you where to find yours. If you did what I did,
you would mainly find that it didn't work. That is because of the individualistic
nature of Xeper (Remember? First Person verb).
This tells you many things about Xeper, the verb. It is NOT continuous.
All events do not feed it equally. It is not fully under conscious control,
rather consciousness and emotion arise from it; but can and must be used
to seek more of it. This means that Xeper is NOT simple
self-development or self-improvement, but that those things chosen rationally
can put us in the place where Xeper can occur. All sapient beings experience
Xeper, but those who can name it and Understand its purpose have a much better
chance of achieving it. The paths to it are absolutely personal, but some
of its properties (such as being fed/triggered by peak experiences) lead
to certain group functions as facilitators. It Limits you—Divine decisions
always involve a road not taken. It Creates you—Divine decisions always
lead to much more than can be rationally deduced. When you can say
"Xeper" you are in some way a different person.
The noun "Xeper"—that thing we speak of us as our
"Xeper"—is likewise an Egyptian noun. It is usually translated
into English as manifestation or "The thing that happened." The
plural of the noun is Xeperu. When we talk about our "Xeper" we
are talking about a very large thing indeed—and we usually (in our
normal slug like mode) give very little thought to it. Yet if we simply Become
aware of Xeper our personal magical and philosophical horizons greatly
expand. Many magicians in the Temple of Set take justifiable pride in the
magical items they create. It's easy to see one's magic in a necklace
one makes. However as magicians what we do is a make a very large magical
object, existing on many levels of reality. Our entire lives considered at
any moment is a Xeper, a manifestation. If you can think of all the things
that you've wrought—changes in your mind/body complex, your recognition,
your reputation... all of those things that represent what you have brought
to this Earth—as a giant talisman, then you've got a handle
on Xeper the noun. Many of you may have written a Rune to pull something—gold
or love—out of the Unmanifest. That Rune is a tiny, tiny version of
the great talisman your Xeper is. The creation of Xeper is the Working whereby
we attract what we're going to get in this life, and the divine memory
we will have of this life.
Xeper, the noun, is the extension of existence to a further level of Being.
These extensions can be a thought that you've pulled to a developed conscious
level from an intuition—which would represent two levels of being in
your Subjective Universe. These extensions can be what others think of you.
The extensions are particularity evident in actions that represent a first
or personal best effort at some thing. Hence if you really want to Xeper,
conquer fear by doing something you didn't think you could. Or find a
mystery and bring it to the surface of your understanding—or better
yet the understanding of others. Or create something new (the last would
be an example of the verb for Create, S'Xeper). Since Xeper exists as
a noun, you can interact with the Xeper of others—you are affected
(usually blindly) by the Work of past magicians, or if you have learned the
art of Shaping and Seeking your own Xeper first you can
consciously Work with other's products. An excellent example of
this would be the Wewelsburg Working.
I'll leave you with one other word for your word-hoard: the dual
noun Xeperi. Egyptian nouns can be singular (one cat), dual (two cats) or
plural (too many cats). The noun Xeperi can best be translated as synchronicity,
although the standard translation is miracle. The Egyptians knew the Sign
of something Coming Into Being was the meaningful coincidence. We know too—either
bu Shu ("What were the odds of that happening?"), or by Tefnut
("It sent shivers down my spine."). The noun Xeperi shows that
manifestations are not continuous, but discrete—actions at a distance—or
more simply, magic. Xeper has occurred when two discrete systems resonate
with one another. Another form of Xeperi is that moment of communication
of wordless magical information with one another. The most familiar form
of this is through our interactions with the Aeon, and as before the more
adept you are at Seeking and Shaping your own Xeper, the more you can positively
interact with the Xeper of the Aeon, and help fulfill her purpose of exporting
Xeper into the Objective Universe.
Think about these things. Think about them till that shiver runs down your
back. Then put this aside for a while and come back to it. Then, after the
most personal and individual of experimentation you too can Know and Heed
the Law: Xepera Xeper Xeperu =
"I Have Come Into Being, and by the Process of my Coming Into
Being, the Process of Coming Into Being is Established."
I will speak on the Word's history, and I will ask you all to think
on this Evolution in the objective universe, and then upon the Evolution
of your own subjective universe: how you, the reader, has experienced
Xeper. With each evolution of the Word, note how it doesn't lose meaning,
but gains through each historical test—just as Xeper in yourself gains
as you gain new being.
The formula "Xepera Xeper Xeperu" has been traced by French
Egyptologists back to the First Intermediate period. There it was a formula
of power for finding meaning when the Divine Kingship, the most important
source of order, had collapsed. This was probably the birth of the Left Hand
Path—the idea that meaning can only come from the individual. "Xeper" was
the last fortress, the mind and body of the individual. "Xeper" was
the word of anyone who would not let the divine principle of Isolation and
Evolution fail.
The second appearance was in Ramses III's time. The formula was used
to empower travelers through the desert. "Xeper" was a touchstone
for those who extend existence by passing boundaries. "Xeper" was
the word of the extender of Egypt—of the Known Order.
The third appearance was at the beginning of the Hermetic tradition.
"Xeper" became the word of the individual magician seeking two
types of power: power to see through the illusions of this world, and power
for a coherent afterlife. These practitioners began a magical practice that
went beyond the state goals of Egypt or Greece or Rome.
The Swedish Satanistchurch has this picture below as an altar while working with the forces of Set
The fourth appearance—connected with the purchase of Budge's Egyptian
Language by a Priest of Mendes—was very different. The Left
Hand Path was up and running. The Word Worked on a matrix of its own making.
Michael Aquino had to find the word (cast in Roman and Greek letters) in
a translation from its last appearance. He didn't write the Rhind papyrus,
any more than its author came up with the spell of Continuous Re-Creation.
But his Utterance of that Word—in a matrix conditioned by its last
appearance—produced a new access to energy and power beyond any previous
utterances. Aquino's Utterance in 1975 e.v. was the Utterance of the
Word of Aeons, defining the process that each sapient being must experience
in order to change him- or her Xeper is the concept upon which the
cycles of manifestation are actualized (in both the noumenological and
phenomenological worlds). The actual activity of cyclical dynamism is generated
by the formula of Xepera Xeper Xeperu, and my Remanifestation of the Word
with my own Utterance of Xeper on the Spring Equinox of 1996 e.v. will
raise and attune the imagination of the world to a new and permanent understanding
of the principle.
My Utterance of the Word is in the tradition of Michael Aquino's. I
am Uttering the Word into a Matrix of its own conditioning. The results should
be stronger and further reaching than Michael Aquino's Utterance—just
as he or she that follows me will extend the Word further.
Each Pharaoh attempted to extend the borders of the country further than
his predecessor. I am extending the possibilities for Xeper further than
Michael Aquino. My accomplishments will be less; the time of seeing an Aeon
being born is very rare. My job will be to find and articulate more of the
properties of Xeper, so that each student of the Black Arts will have new types of
tools for their collaboration with Set.
If I manage to extend the boundaries and make there my Oath of Truth, then
I will be seen as a successful Magus. If I fail, others will Utter "Xeper," just
as mankind has been doing for the last four thousand years. It is the job
of the Temple to keep the connections of the Word alive, so that long periods
of ignorance come not again. In fact, if we fail utterly then the Word will
not be heard on this earth again.
To those that dare the Black Magic, that take up the uniquely personal
challenge of Xeper, both as a spiritual quest for Self-deification and a
psychological exploration of antinomianism, I send greetings, and the sure
Knowledge that when you think of Set, He thinks of you.
Xeper.