Concerning Divine Inspiration
By Don Webb
As High Priest I get a few documents mailed to me every year that claim to be Inspired (either by Set or someone else). These mainly come from people seeking admission to the Temple at some high degree, some even want my job to start with. Very few people believe that everyone enters the Temple as I°. Now my standard response to these missives is read them and either toss them away or sell them to the local used bookstore if they are perfect bound.
The reason I don’t keep these amusing little tracks is that I don’t want them in the inventory of my books when I die—as that would lend an eerie legitimacy to these books.
The question arises of how can I judge that these books aren’t divinely Inspired?
In fact, I think some of them may partially be—just as my TV sort of picks up the home shopping network from the cable to which it is not installed. The message that Set sends the Cosmos is as much a part of its background noise as is the infrared from the big bang. But most instruments can’t get it very well. Even when we do get it—it is still filtered through history, biology, culture, and accident of learning—you name it.
Now what would be the characteristics of an Inspired text?
It would have a mandate for action. It comes from the daimonic realm to start something here—something that can ONLY happen here.
It would have instant and eternal mandates for action. When the daimonic realm touches ours it is both timeless and instantaneous.
It would have a strangeness of poesy. It wouldn’t look like a well written poem, but like something of great meaning straining at the language it is cast in.
The receiver of the text, would feel the need to explain the circumstances of its reception. Even in the most egotistic of channels—let’s use Crowley for example—it is important to set aside these Words as separate to the many others penned by the person.
It has an effect on people that hear it, even if they are dubious.
It comes at a time of great, maybe even catastrophic, change in the life of the recipient—at such moments we are nearer the divine realm. This illustrates the important point that surviving great difficulties is the sign of divine potential. Only when you have walked away from the overturned car do you begin to sense the Powers you might have.
Its philosophical principles are cast in poetic language. This means the mind must seek to understand them—and thereby rise into a higher state of awareness. This usually means the recipient has something he or she must Do in their life in order to Understand the text. (In the texts that are mailed to me, the philosophical part is usually written out in a manner that might gain a “B” in a first year philosophy student—and that part of the text is presented as the Deity explaining his/her cosmology)
It will have a few mysterious phrases or figures. These will not detract or hide the meaning of the text, but provide an additional meaning when their nature is discovered. For example the Seal of Set that ends the Book of Coming Forth By Night had a phrase from the Tale of the Two Brothers spoken by Set (Bata), however this significance remained hidden until I stumbled across it. Knowing the origin of the phrase, “Let then my Nobles be brought to me” makes the works more significant, but not knowing it does lessen the meaning of the effect of the words.
Other people hearing of the text greatly desire it; although they know not why. This is because in many there is the yearning for Light and Life—but not the Strength to understand that the Light is Black and Life is Red. They yearn, reach and suffer—yet since they can not hold what they reach for often devote their lives to harming those who can.
One must not base one’s life on inspired texts. It is not enough to look up some scripture for the answer to your questions. These texts are good in that they tell the psyche of the Source of itself and something about itself. This knowledge can help the psyche-mind-body complex to find those places where it might train for a better, stronger life. But the training comes in the Do-ing and reflecting on what has been wrought. The meaning found there is more potent than any text, and the meaning released by the psyche into the world is the actual Transforming agent that Set uses to remake and restore the world and the potentials of the mankind.