Talk:Temple of Set
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Welcome to the Temple of Set Talk page. Please feel free to make comments here concerning improving the quality of the Temple of Set article. Thank you. Balanone
Since the concept of "xeper" is so central to the Temple, do you think you could get permission from Mr. Webb to use a short excerpt from one of his books, as an entry for "xeper"? Legally of course someone could use a very short quote under Fair Use, but it would be better if the entry could include that "published with permission..." clause. Perhaps the Egyptian hieroglyph would also be appropriate here? RL Barrett 21:21 May 6, 2003 (UTC)
I've forwarded this request to both Dr. Aquino and Don Webb. Balanone
Hathor: this is the only place I've seen the term "Setianic"... would it be more accurate to just use the term "Setian"? I seem to remember that "Setian" is a noun which can also be used as an adjective to describe things (other than members or the ToS) that members of the TOS would find affinity with.
Jan 7 2006: My apologies for not having been around for several months. My thanks to those who have attempted to improve the quality of this article. Unfortunately some others have also made changes not as beneficial to the Wikipedia. I've tried to clean those up, while not removing anything which does contribute to the 'pedia. Balanone
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[edit] Purported cult
This material is from the article List of purported cults, which we are paring down to a pure list. Editors here can best evaluate its statements and decide how to integrate it into this article. Thanks, -Willmcw 10:55, Mar 14, 2005 (UTC)
- Temple of Set
- Lupo LeBoucher, a former member, had this to say about the Temple of Set:
- "More trivially, they are your typical mail-order cult in any number of ways. They require large amounts of participation on the parts of their members, to the extent that participation in the group becomes a central organizing principle in their lives. They sponsor getaway vacation/conventions which all members are required to attend. They have strict hierarchy, a charismatic leader and apocalyptic prophecy (the "Gifted of Set") are supposed to survive an upcoming apocalypse, according to their Seminal document "The Book of Coming Forth By Night" - though lately they have been making noises that this is only a metaphorical apocalypse (perhaps to avoid legal intervention in the wake of other post apocalytics), such as the Branch Davidians and the Solar Temple mass suicides, and the Aum nerve gas attacks; there was literal belief in this passage as prophecy in the not-too distant past. They have a number of secret documents which one must have certain levels of "attainment" to read; much like the OT grade documents of Scientology. They have all manner of bizarre theories about atlantis, ancient astronauts, "Tesla Physics," a theory of creationism, holocaust revisionism, and so on..."
- References:
- Note that a quick survey of Usenet posts and Internet web pages will likely show that those who disagree with Lupo LeBoucher are as numerous as those who agree with them. Further, while it is easy to find those who agree with him among past members of the Temple, it is equally easy to find those who disagree with him among past members of the Temple, as is the case with any purported cult.
[edit] Khe-per
"Many Archeologists and experts in ancient Hamo-Semitic languages, as well as critics of the Temple of Set, assert that if an ancient Egyptian deity were to communicate an ancient Egyptian word, that word would have at least been correctly pronounced by the deity in question as "Khe-per"."
Citations? This paragraph needs them badly.
I think we should eliminate the material in this page about pronunciation altogether. It's a bit silly: how could anyone possibly know how ancient Egyptian was pronounced? Scholars even dispute - or, I should say, have long since stopped disputing - the "correct" pronunciation of Latin and Ancient Greek (which, one may safely gainsay, was pronounced quite differently than its modern counterpart, partly due to the inevitable vicissitudes of history, but more especially due to the sweeping cultural changes during the time of the Ottoman Empire). Since no audio recordings exist from the Classical Age, determining the "correct" pronunciation of these languages is quite impossible - assuming (and it is quite an assumption) that there ever was a "correct" pronunciation uniform in all city-states and rural regions, throughout history. As for Egyptian, it is far less likely that we could ever know its pronunciation for certain, since much of Ancient Egyptian history is even older than that of Ancient Greece and Rome, and since the vast majority of Egyptian writing is in pictographs (hieroglyphs) rather than in an alphabetic script. Greek
- I agree. -Willmcw 09:02, 22 September 2005 (UTC)
Jan 2006: One of the edits I made this weekend was to remove: "In 1975 Aquino made the claim that the Egyptian god Set communicated the word Xeper to him under the pronunciation of "Kheffer", though the majority of Egyptologists and experts in ancient Hamo/Semitic languages agree that the word Xeper is correctly pronounced as "Khepper" ( with a hard "P" sound ), which indicates the probability that Aquino found the word Xeper in a book written by E. A. Wallis Budge, an Egyptologist known to have had a flawed grasp and understanding of ancient Egyptian language and grammar, further placing Aquino's claims as being in communication with an ancient Egyptian Deity into question."
Though I do use the "Kheffer" pronounciation rather than "Khepper", I have no great desire to see it pronounced either way -- both are fine, and I removed the statement largely because of the discussion above. (I also disagree with the conclusion of the statement, but that's a different discussion.)
The contributor from 86.142.15.240 who reinserted this statement has not participated in this discussion. How do we resolve the question of removal/inclusion of this statement? Balanone 02:56, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
There is actually some evidence for how "xpr" was pronounced thanks to texts from Ptolemaic Egypt. See Hans Dieter Betz's _The Greek Magical Papyri in Translation, Including the Demotic Spells_, published 1997 by the University of Chicago Press, ISBN 0226044475. Three times the name CHPHYRIS appears in these papyri, which were found in Thebes, and in all three cases Betz adds a footnote that this is the scarab Khepri. Such phonetic transcriptions using the Greek _phi_ are not uncommon: Plutarch and other Greeks writers apparently heard (and we moderns still use) "kyphi" as the name for an Egyptian incense whose hieroglypic name is "kpt".
"Hamo-Semitic" is a term that is strongly depreciated (see "Hamitic Myth" under Hamitic). The term used by academics is "Afro-Asiatic" (see http://www.ethnologue.com/ as well as Afro-Asiatic languages). Given that and the lack of any citation for the "Egyptologists and experts in ancient Hamo/Semitic languages" claim, as well as the evidence from Betz, the edit seems weak, and I'd agree with Willmcw that it should be removed. OwarePlayer 13:35, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
--> Revision as of 08:57, 23 January 2006, added: The term came about in 1975, when Aquino made the claim that the Egyptian god Set 'communicated' the word Xeper to him, during a working of high black magic, as it is termed within TOS.
Not quite -- the term predated Michael Aquino's use by several thousand years. However, the specific use by the Temple as a directive or incentive very possibly does not match the common uses in ancient Egypt. There should be a better way to phrase the addition to state this.
Of course, I thought everyone knew that.
The paragraph explains the TOS interpretation of the term, then states that the word in TOS context was orignally transmitted to M.Aquino by Set himself. Though of course, D.Webb all reinterpreted the term as well. I suppose the relevence of post-modernism to the interpretation of such terms, would be beyond the scope of the article?
The contributer wrote "as it is termed within TOS". Yet search of Aquino's on-line draft memoirs as well as the Temple of Set web site yields no reference to "high black magic". There are, however, Setian references to this founding 'revelation' as the "Santa Barbara Working" or the "North Solstice X Working" (PDF; see also references to the "North Solstice" in quotes from the Setian Crystal Tablet floating around the Internet). I've edited the passage to use the latter term, since the Crystal Tablet quotes imply it is more-or-less standard usage. I've further replaced the link to Webb's "Xeper" essay (being on the organization's web site, it presumably mirrors recent Setian thought on the matter?) and added a pointer to Aquino's memoirs on his "Xeper" experience. -- OwarePlayer 04:22, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
Just a short idea to this theme: I'm german. In the german language the
word "Kaefer" means "beetle". So maybe - especially because of the
archeological work of the "Deutsche Orient-Gesellschaft" (DOG) :-) who discovered for
example the Nofretete-bust - the Xeper-symbol was named simply after the animal it
showed: the beetle. So I think, it might be spelled as " K h e f f e r ".
Anonymus, 5.11.2006
[edit] NPOV-Violating Language
I've amended some phrases in this article to fall in line with NPOV. Most are minor adjustments such as changing "The Temple of Set was founded in 1975 by Michael Aquino who was charged with child molestation, and a group of other members who left the Church of Satan organization because of disagreements with its administration and philosophy." to the more accurate "The Temple of Set was founded in 1975 by Michael Aquino (who was charged with child molestation though the charges were dropped), and a group of other members who left the Church of Satan organization because of disagreements with its administration and philosophy." Other changes are visible in the page's history. - Reason. 25 October 2005
Jan 2005: Recent edit added the clause, "... though [it] is largly an American based organisation." Question: How does one determine whether an oragnization is largely a [whatever geographic] based organization? The majority of Setians are Americans, but the majority of Catholics are South American -- does that make the Roman Catholic Church largely South American? Or because its offices are in Rome, does that make it a largely Italian organization? Members of the Board of Directors have served from Europe, conclaves (conventions) have been held in Europe, gatherings on at least four continents. Assuming (for the sake of this question) that the Temple of Set either is or someday will be an international organization, at what point does one stop trying to claim "though [it] is largly an American based organisation"? Balanone 03:04, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
Put simply, the majority of individuals whom join TOS are Americian, therefore TOS membership is largley made up of Americans. Maybe, in the future this statement should be changed, though in the present, the majority of members live in or are of american descent.
I have replaced 'more than half' to 'mostly' within the USA, as 'more than half' is missleading and evasive. One might conclude that every third year, it takes place outside of the USA, which is simply not the case.
Response: Our hope has been to hold a Conclave outside the USA approximately every 3rd year, and we've come close to meeting that goal, with multiple Conclaves held so far in England (London) and Germany (Munich and Berlin). We unfortunately had to cancel two additional scheduled Conclaves (one in Germany and one in Sweden), and that is why we haven't hit our 1/3 non-US goal.Balanone 05:43, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
Again, maybe in the future it should change, though as far as I know the 'yearly' conclave has only taken place outside of the USA two or three times in the last decade. While hopes and good intentions are well intended, as within politics, they should not be used as an excuse to distort information.
I would also bring it to your attention, that the accuracy of your information may be taken more seriously as a representative of TOS, if the information on your website was accurate. According to that, D.Webb is still high priest? 3rd March 2006
17th August 2006: Removed the Balanone homepage link, as is badly out of date and does not seem to have been updated for a number of years.
Removed two links that are avalible through the link to TOS main website; the addition of links to members homepages and information that can be found from the main link, is not relevent to information on TOS and seems to be self promotion by TOS members.
[edit] Volunteers
In my edit last weekend, I added the statement, "All officers and workers within the Temple of Set are volunteers. All officers are selected from within the Priesthood." A contributor from 86.142.15.240 added ", though recieve some payment", which is very false. As is appropriate in volunteer and non-profit organizations, the volunteers will receive reimbursement for expenses encurred in service to the organization, but no volunteer within the Temple of Set receives any payment in excess of those expenses. Any member of the Priesthood has full access to the Temple's books, on request, and can verify this (as has been verified to me personally). I am therefore reverting that addition.
[edit] History
I note that someone deleted the statement that Dr. Michael Aquino is not an officer of the organization. I added it back in, since he is not an officer. I see that the Wikipedia page on him suggests he is current High Priest. He is not; his latest term of office in that position ended a while ago. This can be verified if needed by the Executive Director.Balanone 06:29, 23 August 2006 (UTC)
