ON THE LEFT HAND OF RELIGION
Tapio Kotkavuori
Originally published in The Scroll of Set, Sep-Oct, 1999 CE

In our own writings there are often mentions about the Temple of Set as "a religion". What do we exactly mean by this? Clearly, if we are a religion, we are not one in the common sense of the word. This short article aims to focus on the issues of what is religion and how the Temple of Set can be viewed as a "religious organization". The article is not meant to be any final word on the issue, of course, but I rather intend to express what I think about the issue currently. By so doing I intend to give some points to further the discussion about the subject in the Temple of Set.

What is "religion"?

Scholars of comparative religious studies have not arrived at a consensus on the question of what religion is during the discipline´s 150 years of academic history. Such classic scholars as Otto, Eliade, James, Durkheim, Douglas, Söderblom and several others seem to have something substantially in common in the focus of their work but still their definitions of religion vary considerably.

Etymologically, in the Roman-Catholic culture´s sphere the word "religion" is derived from the latin word "religio". In other members of the Indo-European language family there was not a word to signify religion before Christianity´s influence. Same can be said about Finno-Ugrian languages. Thus the word and category of religion has a very limited cultural sphere of etymological and contextual origin which brings certain difficulties in trying to use it in other cultural contexts and their "religious" aspects.

There are two different etymological views on the word "religio". Some scholars of Indo-European languages have suggested, based on Cicero´s work De natura deorum that the word derives from verb "legere" which means "to collect". According to that view, religio means actions that are used to re-collect (re-legere) everything that is needed in order to worship gods. On the other hand, Christian author Lactantius based his views on the verb "ligare" which means "to bind". He thought that religio means "bond" which re-binds (re-ligare) people to divinity. The ways in which the word "religio" has been used since Classical Antiquity till today are complex and contradictory. Meanings of the word "religio" have varied in the course of history according to several contexts in which the word has been used.

Historically, it is noteworthy to know that the concept of "religion", in the sense we generally understand it today, didn´t exist before the 18th century of common era. There were, of course, "religions" thoughout the world before the 18th century of common era, but the way they were approached was very different from the way we in the western world are used to thinking of "religions" in our 20th century of common era. The concept "religion" was formed in 18th century common era as a part of a great social and epistemological changes in European culture. Before that, human kind didn´t have in its cultures and languages a special category of "religion" - as a category that could be conceptually separated from the rest of the culture and considered from comparative, scientific, non-religious perspective.

From this perspective, the category of "religion" is a result of development of language. The "birth" of that category in the world of enlightment was based on a social and cultural need to create general concept to describe and to differentiate Christian and non-Christian traditions, practices and experiences of a "religious" nature. Thus "religion" is a concept that is bound to the general western cultural system of categories of existence. This culturally-bound system of categories of existence is the conceptual cultural base which is still used to categorize things like "new religious movements". This cultural background is good to remember when we consider what generally is thought to be "religious" in the western world and to what kind of context the word is historically bound. There are several definitions on what religion is among the scholars of comparative religious studies. Here are just some of them:

(A) Definition via supernatural

According to Edward Burnett Tylor it is simply best to consider belief in spiritual beings as the minimum definition of religion.

Sir James Frazer understood by religion appeasing of and arbitration with higher powers than man. He thought that those powers are believed to direct and to control the course of nature and the life of man. In Frazer´s definition religion is formed from two components, theoretical and practical. These are belief in powers that are higher than man and the efforts to appease and to please them.

Anthony Wallace sees that religion is a group of rituals that are rationalized by myths, and which are used to mobilize supernatural powers to bring or to prevent changes in the world of man or in nature.

Roland Robertson defines relion as a group of beliefs and symbols (and values that are derived from those) that deal with the separation between the empirical and the non-empirical, transcendent reality, in which empirical issues are subordinated to non-empirical issues.

Melford Spiro understands religion as an institution which consists of culturally conditioned interaction with culturally expressed supernatural beings.

Rodney Stark and William S. Bainbridge consider that in religions there are some kind of ideas about supernatural being, world, or power in religions and an idea that this supernatural is active and that it effects activities and situations here on earth.

(B) Definition via sacred vs. profane - separation

William James understood by religion the emotions, actions and experiences of individuals in their solitude, as they understand themselves in relation to something that they consider the divine.

Emile Durkheim defined religion as a solidary system of sacred things, that is special and forbidden, - a system of beliefs and customs that unites all of those who believe in them as a moral unit that is called a church.

Nathan Söderblom simply holds that religious people are such that hold something as sacred.

Mircea Eliade considered that religion can still be a useful term if we remember that it does not necessarily imply belief in god, gods or spirits, but refers to the experience of the sacred and is thus related to the ideas of being, meaning and truth.

According to Roy Rappaport the term religion refers to public discourse that includes at least one sacred proposition and those conventional social functions that are done according to the discourse. Sacred is a quality of unquestionable truth that believers give to a proposition that can't be verified.

(C) Definition via "perennial concern"

Paul Tillich sees that religion is a state of mind where one has a sense of perennial concern, a concern that sets all other concerns subordinate to it and which itself includes an answer to the question about the meaning of life.

Robert Bellah considers the concept of religion to refer to the most general common mechanism that integrates the meaning and motivation in the system of culture.

Clifford Geertz has formulated, that religion is (1) a system of symbols that functions to (2) bring forth powerful, broad and long-duration moods and motivations in human beings (3) by forming ideas about the general order of existence and (4) by giving those ideas such reliable nature (5) that those moods and motivations seem specially realistic.

According to Jacques Waardenburg´s view religion is one specific system of orientation to existence. He sees that system of orientation helps a human being to find his way in his life and in the world with certain context that gives meaning to it and which helps one to orientate in it.

While all of the above definitions are interesting perspectives to the phenomenon of religion as such, some better than the others, I think they do not quite hit "the ultimate source" of the issue from the Setian point of view. While the theory of, let´s say, Durkheim (religion is utterly social and collective) can generally explain quite well "the world´s religions" (the most popular religions) and Right Hand Path religions and approaches to existence in general (be they called religions, philosophies or ideologies etc.), it doesn´t apply that well to the Left Hand Path approach to existence nor it´s notions of "sacred" and other "religious" issues. In order to go a bit deeper into the "left hand of religion" I now consider what generally makes human being "religious" in the first place, or rather what is categorically a needed condition for a human being to be a "homo religiosus". What makes a human being "religious"?

Whether one can be defined to be a religious or unreligious person is a matter of perspective and is greatly dependent on the social context of which traditions of thought and world of context one has been grown up into and learnt to use. Meanings of words and concepts are not completely independent of time and society - like language in general, also those meanings vary to some degree in relation to changes in other areas of culture and society. To conceptually define "religious" and "unreligious" is a philosophical and scientific problem. In everyday life that problem is of course solved rather easily - religious person says she is such and unreligious person says she is not such. If religions are based on human beings innate tendency to create meaning and order to one´s existence, we can ask what qualities in human beings make some of us religious and some of us not. From the point of comparative religious studies it can be said that the same things that create culture and humanity create religion.

If we think about conditions in which religiosity would be impossible, we should think about human being who could not be conscious of a difference between "I" and "others", who would not be conscious about her own coming physical death, who would not be able to create visions of the future world and of that which would Come Into Being.

Accordingly, a condition where religiosity would be impossible would also be impossible for the existence of culture - and that condition would be nature, where a human being would not be a conscious subject who consciously recognizes borders in her existence and can manipulate the Universe via different symbolic systems (languages). In other words, we would be animals in that kind of condition, beings that have a rather direct instinctive response to all external stimulus.

There are religions because humans are more or less self-conscious beings who are able to use symbolic systems to conceptualize existence and to communicate it from a perspective that is separate from the nature - and as such we are beings who create values and meanings. We do not have only mind but we also have consciousness, we do not have only natural needs but also values and non-natural Needs. We do not just act but we also have ideas about "right" and "wrong" action, we do not only have past but we also have history and future. We not only see but we also recognize if something is beautiful.

I see that "religious" experience is in very general terms a common human experience of "there´s more to life than what there superficially seems to be". It is generally an experience that there is some higher meaning in existence and that one´s self is more than mere flesh and blood and culturally conditioned persona. In his classic work Das Heilige (the Idea of the Holy) philosopher of religion and theologian Rudolf Otto called religious experience as "numinous" (from Latin "numen", meaning "dynamic, spirit-filled transhuman energy or force"). He described this experience as "mysterium tremendum" - experience of "something wholly other"; of profound awe, majesty, energy and urgency that at the same time fascinates and terrifies. I see that this experience has its roots in one´s more or less conscious experience of one´s separate self.

"Religion" and the Temple of Set

Religions are usually certain kind of symbolic systems that are shared by their practitioners and that try to act as a means between different supposed realms of existence, providing some kind of profound meaning, order, moral and general perspective to it. Religions can generally be seen as a diffent kind of unconscious and distorted outer reflections of the inherent non-nature of one´s conscious self. Right Hand Path religions can be quite harmless and also useful for society at large at best in that, but they can also be truly horrible in it at worst. If we compare the way that the source of all religions - the conscious, separate self - are approached in Right Hand Path religions to that of the Temple of Set´s approach to the same thing, we can´t but note that if we are a religion, we are completely different from most, if not all, of the other religions that have existed and that exist in the world. If we are talking about religion in the layman´s sense of the word, then the Temple of Set is not really a religion. We are anyway, first of all, an Initiatory School (also called "Tool" by many). Likewise, we have a "Setian philosophy" instead of a "Setian religion" as a methodological base in our pursuit of Xeper. One might very well have "religious tones" in one´s Xeper, but f.ex. a mere sense of the "sacred" as such is not the focus of the Temple, instead it is clearly and more precisely an individual Xeper.

Magister Whitaker wrote once so well about the subject of "religious Setianism" on Setian-l that I will quote him at length here:


I think it is vital to distinguish religious Setians - such as myself, Balanone, Magister Kelly, and others - as particular aspects of the process of Self improvement and individual growth we call XEPER. It was as a result of MY Xeper that I became a religious Setian, that is where MY Work led me. However, what constitutes the elements which manifest as this "religious understanding" for me may very well not work for anyone else, nor ideally should it (except for those wondrous cases of synchronicity). There is no single Path, and no sure destination of where that path may lead you. The important considerations: Are you Xepering? Do you continue to grow?

Now, you can Xeper and not be a religious Setian, but you can't be a true religious Setian without Xeper - if the term is to have any substantive meaning. Each of us follows a path of our own making; where this path inevitably leads the individual is indeed a grand mystery, one which constitutes the wonder, beauty and Artistry of the LHP.

As Adepts and First Degree Setians, it becomes important to understand that the religious Setians do not have any expectation nor desire for you to join them. It is something which will, or will not happen as a result of your Work, study and magic. It has no bearing on how far you will Xeper, for there is no organizational privilege attached to crossing over into religious Setianism. It is something each must decide for themselves based upon their experience in the active process of Xeper.


As Setians we are first of all focused on Xeper, that is an individual process of Coming Into Being, and to that end we are applying rational inquiry, logic, Initiatory philosophy and magic - not prayers nor unquestionable beliefs nor dogma, nor ready-made moral codes, nor plain sense of the "sacred". We differ from manifestations of the Right Hand Path by placing an individual Being and her Becoming to the focus of her existence and by stressing her responsibility for her actions from that perspective. We do not pray for our Patron but instead we seek individually to practise our Patron´s Gift of self-consciousness and by so doing to honor both Him and Ourselves.

The Temple of Set is officially registered as a "church" which implies a "religious" organization. It is meaningful in general terms for us as an organizational manifestation of the Black Flame of self-consciousness and a School for its cultivation in the western world of today. If we look at the question of religiosity more closely, the picture is of course more complicated.

The concept of "religion" is, if not exclusively, at least very much a Right Hand Path-saturated concept for a general human experience of "there´s more to life than what there superficially seems to be" all the way from the "birth" of the concepts modern meaning. General answers to this human experience are given in abundancy in a various Right Hand Path forms, in which the general position and value of individual human Being is seen as subordinate to some more higher and powerful being(s) of some sort and its (or their) authority, aims and will. With this general background to the concept of "religion", the "left hand of religion" is easily a confusing concept.

My understanding is that a Setian "religious" experience refers to an Initiate´s conscious experience of her separate Self, of being aware of one´s conscious existence, its Idea, of the borders and Potential of one´s Being via one´s pursuit of Xeper. The experience has a specific sense of Truth, Good, Right, Beauty, Nobility, Sacredness, Majesty, Mystery, Power, and a metaphysical sense of Meaning and Purpose attached to it. Members of the Priesthood have their individual experiences of Set, their individual interactions with that entity as an essential part of the experience. Thus, I see that Setian "religiosity" is first of all defined and experienced via individual experience of Xeper, not so much via such things as "supernatural", "profane vs. sacred" - relation, nor "perennial concern".

If we take the above as a definition and description of Setian "religious" experience, I think we can safely say that Setian philosophy can also be "religious" in its Initiatory focus and that we indeed are a "religion". I would, however, as a "religious" Setian myself, be interested in finding a better, more precise and less tainted concept than the Right Hand Path saturated "religion" to describe the experience from the Left Hand Path, Setian point of view - that of Xeper.

Written as a small Reflection on the Heart of Being on the Year of the Essential.

For further reading

Religious Studies - the making of a discipline
by Walter H. Capps

Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things - What categories reveal about the mind by George Lakoff


The opinions expressed are those of the author alone and do not necessarily represent the official views of the Temple of Set. Copyright © Temple of Set. All rights reserved.

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