The Origins of My path
05 February 2018
My path to the Temple of Set could be summed up as: Teenage metalhead in the Deep South discovers Satanism, and imagines his favorite bands are really in league with the Prince of Darkness. Later finds out that for 99.99% of them it’s just a marketing gimmick, but thinks there might be something to this Satan thing anyway. Eventually discovers the truth is much deeper and stranger than he ever imagined.
Like many others, I first heard of the Temple because of the Aquinos’ appearance on the Oprah Satanism exposé in 1988 (I was 14 at the time). I had recently read an excerpt from The Truth About Witchcraft Today, recounting Hans Holzer’s encounter with the Church of Satan. I was fascinated by the description of Satanism as something more viable and honorable than the caricature which was prevalent then.
So when I saw this very logical and sincere sounding man with odd eyebrows on TV (along with his captivating and equally grounded wife), I had already been introduced to the idea of Satanism as a noble pursuit and was able to absorb what they were saying, while observing how they ripped apart the nonsense that was being presented by others as fact. While I remembered seeing these people take a stand for the truth, I didn’t actually remember the name “Temple of Set” and it was years later before I realized that was who I had seen.
In my college years, after exploring and rejecting various forms of paganism and purely philosophical approaches, and coming to see Satanism as a metaphysical dead end, in the early days of the World Wide Web I read about the Temple on a website comparing various Satanic organizations. Of all the organizations I read about there, the Temple’s material seemed the least ludicrous and made the most sense.
In my college years, after exploring and rejecting various forms of paganism and purely philosophical approaches, and coming to see Satanism as a metaphysical dead end, I read about the Temple on a website in the early days of the World Wide Web. Of all the organizations I read about there, the Temple’s material seemed the least ludicrous and made the most sense.
While it would be another three or four years before I joined, my exposure to the Temple then framed a lot of my explorations during that interlude as I learned how to make myself into someone who could actually benefit from being a part of the Temple, even though actually joining it was not initially my goal.