The Egyptin God Set and his correspondences with Satan

Symbols and allegories.
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obnoxion
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The Egyptin God Set and his correspondences with Satan

Post by obnoxion »

I suppose most here are familiar with some correspondences between The Egyptin god Set and Satan. I'd like to open with an excerpt from a little book called "The book of the Mysteries of the Heaven and the Earth". It is an Ethiophian text of magical Christianity, where the name of the dark angel seems to be a combination of Set and Satan - "Setna" or "Setnael". The extract is from the Ibis Press paperback (2004; p. 17), and it is a description of Satan's form. I've slightly edited the text to make it more readable:

The person of Setnael was thus: His height was seventeen hundred cubits, according to the angel cubit. His head was as large as a great mountain. His mouth was forty cubits long. His eye-brows were a journey of three days in length, and when he wished to cover the daughter of his eye (i.e. the pupil) he was only able to do so after a laborious struggle of seven days. His hand was seventy cubits long, his feet were seven thousand cubits of in length, his face was a day's journey in length, and his phallus was one hundred cubits in length.


I find this to a very interesting but puzzling description. It must be profoundly symbolic. For example, his eye-brows are a journey of three days in length, while his face is only a day's journey on length...
One day of Brahma has 14 Indras; his life has 54 000 Indras. One day of Vishnu is the lifetime of Brahma. The lifetime of Vishnu is one day of Shiva.
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Nefastos
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Re: The Egyptin God Set and his correspondences with Satan

Post by Nefastos »

Without the context, I can only present some associative ideas.

This being, Satan, brings to mind the tragedic titans from Dante's "Well of Giants" (somewhat dealt in Argarizim's Puteus Gigantum chapter). We have an entity that is so immense that its own powerful bulk has become cumbersome in an unbearable degree. This is something that is very easy for me to join with the idea of tragic Satan. Like just discussed in the active "involuntary celibacy" thread, accumulating (basically sacred & positive) power can become like a horrible prison & torment. A Satan who is so immense that he can barely cover his own eye with a time-consuming gesture is a very good depiction of this kind of titanic suffering.

The code also seems to depict how the proportions of these Satanic measures may be understood. Two eyes is a familiar symbol from, e.g., the Gospel of Matthew. I discussed a little of this symbolism in Fosforos' Cista Mystica. To be able to "get from one eye to the other" takes likewise an immense struggle because of the size (that is, power) of the titanic entity. It is indeed easier to get a view of its face (overall countenance, the idea of its being) than actually traverse the distance between the poles of manasic & buddhic in it. This "distance between the poles of manasic & buddhic" is one very characteristic in Satan. He has both, but they are of seeming disharmony, mismatched, hard to unite.
Faust: "Lo contempla. / Ei muove in tortuosa spire / e s'avvicina lento alla nostra volta. / Oh! se non erro, / orme di foco imprime al suol!"
obnoxion
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Re: The Egyptin God Set and his correspondences with Satan

Post by obnoxion »

Your interpretation of the tragic, titanic magnificense of Setnael sounds very fitting.

These sort of hierarchical proportions bring to mind the coventions of perspective in Egyptin art. And also the manner in which unimaginable apparitions are meticilously described in the visionary episodes of the Bible (for example, the chariot in the first chapter of Ezekiel).
One day of Brahma has 14 Indras; his life has 54 000 Indras. One day of Vishnu is the lifetime of Brahma. The lifetime of Vishnu is one day of Shiva.
obnoxion
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Re: The Egyptin God Set and his correspondences with Satan

Post by obnoxion »

This is another marginal thought, but I think it could enrich possible further speculation. It is from Denis D. Hughe's "Human Sacrifice in Ancient Greece" (Routledge, 1991; p. 8 - 9):

...Herodotus described several ritual killings which he does not appear to have regarded as "sacrificial", i.e. as equivalent or comparable to Greek animals sacrifices. The Egyptians, he asserts, practice no human human sacrifice whatsoever... But at Papremis they perform a ritual during which a group of men armed with Clubs attemptets to wheel an image of "Ares" (Set) into the temple, while another armed band opposes them; and many men, Herodotus asserts, are killed in the conflict, although Egyptians themselves deny this... If men were in fact killed during the ceremony, we would certainly call this a ritual killing of some kind (or at least a ritual combat resulting in death), but not a "Sacrifice".


This quotation does connect Set, "The Red One", to those difficult Tuesday's energies.
One day of Brahma has 14 Indras; his life has 54 000 Indras. One day of Vishnu is the lifetime of Brahma. The lifetime of Vishnu is one day of Shiva.
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Nefastos
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Re: The Egyptin God Set and his correspondences with Satan

Post by Nefastos »

That once again brings Satan closer to its Red interpretation as Samael & Azazel, the Martian spirits presenting the problem of victimization from different angles.

About the indirect human sacrifice, the last night I was just speaking about the extremely ill-advised Christian martyrism, likening it to the legend of Jaganatha Shiva i.e. the Juggernaut, under whose idol the worshippers were said to have thrown themselves in order to be crushed to death. Such an act of worship is unholy. It is said the Christian Church is built upon the blood of the martyrs, and that might be just the case. The spirit of fanaticism breeds mindless intolerance & unsophisticated doctrines, where love is totally lost in mindless emotion. Seeking martyrdom is familiar nowadays from Jihadic thoughts of sacred violence: such a mindless zeal is understandable in situation where one is under unendurable inner stress. Yet it is clearly wrong conviction, anti-spiritual religious idealism, a tenet of Hell.

It is not characteristical for me to identify with the Martian executioner's identity, but when commenting this ending chapter of the Gospel of Mark: --
He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned. And these signs shall follow them that believe; In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover. (16:16-18)


-- it was easy for me to think of myself as a Roman executioner, who would only execute Christians by poison. In that way, no one could have been said to be a righteous martyr.
Faust: "Lo contempla. / Ei muove in tortuosa spire / e s'avvicina lento alla nostra volta. / Oh! se non erro, / orme di foco imprime al suol!"
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