Setne Khamuast wun 'wy nw(t) pet per m kerh r irt merr(t) -f nbt tp-ta m-m 'nkaw
[Set-is-Beautiful, a Power manifests in Thebes, who opens the doors of the sky, shall come forth by Night to do all he wishes upon the world among the living.]

The Order of Setne Khamuast is an Order of the Temple of Set dedicated to the reviving of the great Tradition through a mixture of scholarship and magical practice for the purpose of Xeper, or willed self-development. It is open to members of the II°+ members of the Temple of Set who have been Recognized to the Degree of Adept.

Setne Khamuast was the fourth son of Ramesses II. As a soldier he distinguished himself in the campaigns in Israel and the Sudan. He is perhaps the author of the famed lost papyrus, "Scroll of Producing Terror and Respect" mentioned in the story of Ramesses III. As an Egyptologist he began a careful series of diggings to claim back from the sand the monuments that were lost, and more importantly he created a magical library, the Ramesseum, to serve as the mortuary chapel of his father. The gathering of scrolls in a centralized place for study was a first and changed Egyptian and eventually world magical practice. Because of his interest in magical literature, the Greeks called him "King of the Magicians" and a story circulated about him a thousand years after his death as to how he had found the "Book of Thoth."

Order members will perform a twofold function. They will discover the treasures of antiquity, and they will be able to present them to the Temple not as interesting curiosities of mankind's past, but as Working formulae adapted not only to the present, but crafted to producing a stronger more powerful Temple of the future. There is a threefold process by which this may be accomplished:

First begin with the best, hardest, most recent scholarship you can find. The OSK doesn't grow from semi-digested old sources. And above all beware of the many occultnik glosses of ancient practices. For too long the tradition of the South has been the home of idiots.

Second when you find among those good sources that mysterious thing that calls to you -- study it well, begin with the objective facts first, and then re-enact as appropriate for your life. Try until you get results! Then turn your eyes inward and see how it has effected your Initiation. If you see a positive effect on your Xeper, then you are ready for the third phase.

Third communicate what you have learned. I'm not talking about a long dry article full of Egyptian and Greek terms (although scholarly publication -- particularly outside of the Temple -- is encouraged), but the task of communicating personal Initiation to other Initiates. Extract the processes of the ancient formulas and present them to the Temple, for learning to teach something is the first step to its mastery.

Although the Order's studies will primarily focus on the Egyptian practice, others interested in the South are welcome in the hopes that other Orders will grow from this Order just as OSK grows from my own pilgrimage to the Land of Eternal Day in the Order of the Trapezoid. In addition to the study of classical Egypt some areas of interest will be:

1. The magic and philosophy of Greco-Roman Egypt.
2. Greek, Semitic, Mesopotamian, Phoenician, African, Latin magical traditions and practice.
3. The use of Egyptian motifs in European magical traditions.

The Order will have an Outer Court and an Inner Court. Outer Court affiliation will be very informal, consisting of a simple desire to examine the Order, attend its Workings, or joining a Phyle while pursuing a particular Initiation in another Order. The Inner Court consists of formal obligation to the Order. Entering the Inner Court will both require and cause a change in the Initiate's relationship to the Objective Universe, which will effect not only the Seeker but will remanifest throughout all of the Temple and finally the world.

Groups may form from time to time to pursue specific activities. They will be called Phyles, a Greek word for "za," the Egyptian name for a crew of craftsmen based on ancient Upper Egyptian social organization. Phyles are to be headed by Inner Court members, and may pursue any topic of interest. They may last for a week or be as the sand of time, and they may have non-OSK members. There is no planned newsletter yet, but if should such a thing be desired, it will be called the _Dj' Elmet Setne_ (The Magical Word Gathering of Setne)

There is no desire to return to the past among the members of the Order, instead Order members look for those eternal valid methods of Self-shaping in the past and seek to use those patterns as a way of shaping the clay of the future.

~Grandmaster-Emeritus Don Webb, VI°