Xepera, the Self-Created God, never seems to have had much of a cult in Egypt. There are very few shrines dedicated to him, one exception being a wayside shrine of Ramses III, which depicted Ramses III as Xepera, and had carved on its back the formula for felling Apep, which begins "Xepera Xeper Xeperu."

     However the Self-Created God had an important part in Egyptian afterlife processes. The Mind, which the Egyptians called the ib, resided in the heart. Their big fear was that the Mind would betray them before the judges of the afterlife, so they put in a substitute — an image of Xepera, usually inscribed with a spell for keeping the Mind from telling the Judges what had really gone on.

     Now this is a lot more than a pretty picture for us. Why did the ancient Egyptians choose the "Self-Created God" as an image of the Mind? Why did they think the Mind would tell too much about the Self after Death? Does this have any meaning for us?

     The answer to all these things is found in the near-death experience.      Many people, myself among them, have had the interesting feature of their "life passing before their eyes" in a near-death experience. This rapid, deep and surprising experience shows the value many events have had on shaping you. It clarifies many things. It also shows things that not only you would rather forget, but that indeed you had forgotten. It is the record of how you have Come Into Being. Some people think that Xeper is a process that happens only inside the Temple of Set. No, everyone Xepers. Most however don't Come Into Being as anything other than a idiot shop clerk that mistreats his kids and bowls badly. If they are confronted by the same kind of death experience, their rather small souls will suffer at having done so little. "Gee, you mean at any time I could have done something about my wretched little life? Why didn't someone tell me?"

     The Temple strives to be — and by that I mean by the Good individual actions of its members — the Temple strives to be a place where one's life Becomes clear — without the stimulus of a near-death experience. Then it is up to Initiates to use that Knowledge as Power. We assume that the nature of people's lives is by and large Unknown to them and beyond their control when they begin their Initiation, at some point in time they have the realization that they are Xepera, the Self-Created God. Then things are both harder and easier for them. Harder because they have the real struggle to overcome their shortcomings, to challenge lies with Truth, to decide what they truly wish to Become. Easier because that change in their subjective universe of truly Knowing of their own Self-Creation causes them to attract greater opportunities to themselves than they have ever had. The earlier the change — if coupled with a true heroic willingness to face the internal hardships involved — makes for the possibility of men and women acting as much like gods as is possible in the world.