The Order Of Xnum
Overall Purpose and Structure of the Order The Order of Xnum is an initiatory school within the Temple of Set. Membership is therefore restricted to II°+ initiates of the Temple of Set. The aesthetic of the Order of Xnum is Greco-Egyptian, as are the bulk of the traditions from which it draws its theoretical and practical disciplines. The telos of the Order of Xnum is Xeper and its Remanifestation along the initiatory path. The initiatory path taught and practiced within the Order of Xnum is one of ascent from the sensual (=realm of five senses and four dimensions) to the intelligible (=realm of abstract knowledge and ageless intelligence - nous theos), each initiate's daimon acting as personal guide and informant along the way. This path of ascent is the common thread which unifies the diverse cultural streams and is the foundation of Order teaching. This teaching is imparted mouth to ear from the Grand Master to a select body of students, truth seekers who are predisposed to hear the Word. Some students in turn become teachers (didaskalos) who make use of the therapy of the Word, which includes (operative) incantations, spells, as well as (illustrative) theological and philosophical discourse. It is because of this that the Order of Xnum can be said to be a true Hermetic Order, in the spirit of those magicians of the first four centuries CE who referred to their spirituality as "the religion of the Mind." The Left-Hand Path of ascent is the path of initiatory rebirth in the pursuit of wisdom, Sophia as a goddess and personification of Mysterion, Greek translation of the Word Rûna. Information concerning and guidance toward the apprehension of Sophia is facilitated by each initiate's idios daimon - that part of the psyche capable of communication with the divine. The themes implicit in these initiatory relations are made explicit in Order practices which can be divided into two levels: 1) Philosophos - The Greek term coined by Pythagoras and meaning "lover of wisdom" is the epithet taken on by initiates of the Order of Xnum. This epithet spans the breadth and depth of Order teachings and practices. Like initiation, wisdom itself can never be fully attained. The most one should claim is the desire for and the pursuit of wisdom. 2) Didaskalos - Once a philosophos has enacted theory to the point of having achieved a unique synthesis, he will have engendered a teaching (doxa) that will need to be passed on. By this and in accord with the theoretical understanding and practical application of the Mysterion, he will have assimilated himself to the essence of a daimon. As the Order continues to grow and expand the need for addtional Teachers and Masters (didaskalos) will also grow. While all didaskalos are first and foremost philosophos, not all philosophos should seek to become didaskalos. The aesthetic of the Order of Xnum is Black Classicism, a phrase coined by then-Magister Stephen Flowers while Grand Master of the Order of the Trapezoid. In contrast to the Dionysian/Romantic approach of the Order of the Trapezoid, which underlies its commitment to the indwelling divinity of each of its initiates as enacted through their formal quests, the Order of Xnum approaches this mystery from an Apollonian/Classic perspective. In an article entitled The Satanic Heritage of the Order published in Runes Vol. VI., No. 2 (March XXIII S), Dr. Flowers wrote:
Black Classicism is comprised of a set of aesthetic principles emphasizing the quest for perfection, the refinement of that which is and the perpetual Remanifestation of approximations to ideal Forms (eidos) or standards. This adds to traditional Classicism a forward-looking or futuristic orientation which is implicit in the descriptive term "Black." The focus of Black Classicism is form and discipline characterized by emotional restraint, beauty through proportion, harmony, respect for tradition, future orienation, and unity of design and purpose. As is stated above, in order to maintain a dynamic balance this predominantly Apollonian approach must be tempered by an appreciation of and willful Indulgence in the Dionysian.  Cultural Streams Informing the Order
The shamanic communion trance as practiced in prehistory among groups of hunters/gatherers is the root experience (i.e., Xeper) from which all stellar religions developed and is therefore the definitive prototype of the Left-Hand Path in its most primal form. This is the common thread binding the diverse cultural streams that serve as the basis of Order teaching (doxa). The cult of the khu - in Predynastic Egypt this stellar religion was exemplified by the cults of Set and Xnum, whose ritual practices of birth, death and rebirth resulted in a trance state known as sexenu, a word also used to describe Set's violent birth as he tore himself from the womb of his mother Nuit. Xnum's role in this is to fashion the physical form (khat) and the ka in the womb and his authority was invoked when one Dynasty replaced another to legitimize claims to the throne. As Ba-neb-Tett he defended Set's claim to the throne over that of his rival Horus (vide The Chester Beatty Papyrus). In these ancient times the shaman-king called pharaoh was the only initiate and at his death the ba would unite with the ka as he was reborn as an akh - an imperishable star in the northern/circumpolar heavens. The Earth's axis and the axis of Xnum's potter's wheel are thus one and the same, these being among the earliest examples of Polar Mysteries. The Pythagorean Brotherhood - whose founder coined the term philosophos ("lover of wisdom") and was the first person to refer to himself as such. This school of thought is also significant because it traces its origins to the mystery cult of Orpheus and its initiatory symbol was the inverse pentagram. Pythagoras taught that numbers were fundamental to an understanding of cosmogony and cosmology and that they possessed qualitative as well as quantitave significance. This is the root of the Setian Nine Angles cosmology, Ipsissimus Aquino having been inspired by Pythagorean number mysticism during his conception of it. The Platonic Academy - whose founder was the student of Socrates, a man who practiced the art of midwifery and whose practice was therefore congruent with those ancient midwives who cut the umbilical chord with the forked tail of Set and who opened the mouths of the deceased. Plato did not formulate a philosophical system. His Dialogues are a more or less effective demonstration of the Socratic method. Philosophy is an activity, i.e., a deliberate/Willed act (magic?), not a systematic presentation of an individual's thought. This is so because the philosopher may claim to love wisdom, he does not claim to possess it. He knows that it is (the informing principle or Form) and that it is worth pursuing (the guiding principle). He does not claim to know what it is apart from his individual apprehension of it. Its existence is what allows for further refinement as one continually and repeatedly pursues approximations to its ultimate truth. It is the touchstone of truth, the philosopher's stone, knowledge of which transforms the object of knowing as well as the knower. The Sethian Gnostics - a mystery cult, a portion of whose writings are available in The Nag Hammadi Library. An early contender with Christianity, this sect of the knowledgeable identified Seth the son of Adam with the ancient Egyptian god Set. We know this because Seth was portrayed with the head of a donkey and the magical names of Seth-Typhon written at his feet. Their practice of ascension was very much like our own as it consisted of a shamanic journey to a place where mysteries were revealed and then upon their return they were empowered by that revelation. The Three Steles Of Seth provide an excellent written account of this type of Gnostic ascension rite. The Hermetic Tradition - which flourished during the first four centuries CE and brought together various cultural traditions of spirituality, magic and mysticism, attempting to synthesize them into a more or less coherent whole. The magicians who worked in this tradition were professional translators and realized, like those who buried the scrolls at Nag Hammadi, that institutionalized Christianity was becoming increasingly powerful and intolerant. They therefore thought to bury their literature in order to preserve it for future generations. This has since come down to us as The Greek Magical Papyri In Translation and The Corpus Hermeticum; the operative and illustrative branches of that sublime initiatory literature, responsible for the Renaissance and the Fourth blooming of Set. Xnum as an Organizing Principle for Setian Initiation By the Hellenistic period the cult of Xnum had been absorbed into the cult of the agathodaimon, as Xnum was known to be the "fashioner of everybody, guide of each man." When the Greeks identified the Egyptian Decan Xnm as an overlay and composite of their constellations Leo and Hydra, the previously ram-headed demiurge became the lion-headed serpent of late antiquity. Thus has come down to us that familiar symbol of the living Æon. Concerning the cult of Xnum, an initiatory interpretation of the historical/scholarly data yields the following seven points: 1) Xnum was originally a ram-headed demiurge (=creator deity) portrayed as ovis longipes, the first type of ram domesticated in Egypt. Xnum's strong association with the Nile flood and the subsequent deposits of black silt would later contribute to his role as a potter-god and god of fertility. In light of this it is interesting to note that the name of the black land, Xem, is also associated with the firing of pottery. 2) As controller of the inundation Xnum must be a force outside the natural order. This becomes apparent from the pun on the Egyptian word neheh, which means both "a flood of water" and "the eternal future." In this Xnum is cognate with the fate deities of other ascension cults, e.g. Shai (a form of Set as destiny), and Mithras to name a couple. The iconography of Eliphas Levi's Baphomet portrays a nice synthesis of these Polar Mysteries. 3) Xnum is an ideal role-model for those who would become akh, the effective dead who shape the future, "Lords of the Spiral Force." 4) As shaper of mankind on his potter's wheel and with his consort Heqet as bestower of the breath of life, Xnum is an ideal model of the perpetual Remanifestation of the self. 5) As the agathodaimon Xnum guides and informs the self that is yet-to-be, facilitating its transformation into the Self that Is-To-Be. 6) As the living Æon Xnum provides the proper tools to the craftsman who is ready, willing and able to initiate and complete the Great Work. 7) As the principle of virility and fecundity Xnum is an ideal agent for the restoration of Set's bloodline; the embodiment of divine progenitorship aiming towards full realization of the Gift of Set and its perpetual Remanifestation within the material cosmos. Summary and Summons
The Order of Xnum is for those Setians whose pursuit of Xeper begins with a sense of the mysterious. The Setian mind hungers for knowledge - the most essential knowledge being that of the Self. Setian epistemology can therefore be said to be rooted in ontology - or as one Setian Magus expressed it: "The only truth is that of being!" The Setian philosophy, as summarized in the Word Xeper, advocates the principles of life, dynamism and self-awareness, as much as it opposes death, stasis and self-delusion. These are mirrored within and beyond the Setian, as he struggles to perform the alchemy of transforming the self that is yet-to-be into the Self that Is-To Be! "Let the one who aspires to my knowledge be
called by the name Setian." |
