THE SHRINE OF
SET


Originally, in earliest times, Set was the patron deity of Lower (North) Egypt, and represented the fierce storms of the desert whom the Lower Egyptians sought to appease. However, when Upper Egypt conquered Lower Egypt and ushered in the First Dynasty, Set became known as the evil enemy of Horus (Upper Egypt's dynastic god). Set was the brother of Osiris, Isis, and Nephthys, and husband of the latter; according to some versions of the myths he is also father of Anubis. Set is best known for murdering his brother and attempting to kill his nephew Horus; Horus, however, managed to survive and grew up to avenge his father's death by establishing his rule over all Egypt and casting Set out into the lonely desert for all time. In the 19th Dynasty there began a resurgence of respect for Set, and he was seen as a great god once more, the god who benevolently restrained the forces of the desert; but this was short-lived and by around Dynasty 20 or 21 Set became once more dreaded as the god of evil. The God Set in the Heliopolitan pantheon is the God of Strength, Chaos, Storms, Drunkeness, and the Desert. He is a God of the margins of civilization, as necessary as the center to the maintenance of the whole. Set is the brother of Isis and Osiris, one of the five children of Nut who were born during the Intercalary days. Set can be likened to the spirit of Fire, wild, uncontrollable, and hard to tame to mankind's benefit. He was not seen as the spirit of Evil by the ancient Egyptians, but as a necessary contrast to the forces of order. Indeed, after his betrayal of Osiris and defeat by Horus the Younger, Ra asked Set to join him in the Boat of a Million Years. Set became one of Ra's primary defenders from the great serpent, Apep, which sought to eat the Sun each night and prevent the new day from dawning. Set's stories are initimately intertwined with those of his brothers and sisters, where he is often presented as a catalyst for change. He married his sister, Nephthys, Isis' dark twin, but was sterile (as is the desert). Twelve thousand years ago and more, Set was honored as the God of Chaos: the God of the Beautiful Patterns, the God of the Edges. It was recognized by some even then that Life grew better on the margins, when stressed, so he was also called the God of Tests. It was he who prepared us for death; what else but his ability to shift the meaning of things would allow us to leave this world where those we loved were? In this way, he was very much a god of Death, for in what seemed cruelty, he could help prepare us for the next step. His domain was that of turbulence, of the unexpected and unplanned. Upon his form physical creation itself depended, for it was He whose body was the substance of what was physical. (Ptah was the god of Form, of the template; Set was the substance of form itself.) His was the transformation by which what was supernally conscious and numinous became the crystallized forms of physical expression. He was the Lord of Shock, of surprise and trauma, so that he was often called upon by the more learned priest-healers of the time. It was he who knew the ways of infection, illness, debilitation and deterioration, and because of this at least, He was hidden in the dark. There were yet too many who would use this knowledge for short-sighted harm, and to increase the unbalance of the world. But, when called upon, He knew best the ways which illness followed, and so the best ways to work free of illness itself. It took genuine strength of self to do this, and an utter clarity of integrity. This integrity and strength was learned in the deepest temple training, but very few could be true priests of Set. It was, indeed, several of the failed priests who felt that destruction was power, instead of part of the normal balance. It was they who distorted Set into the blind, thoughtless adversary of all that was good, and light, and pure. Yes, there was real rage when the floods came, and the climate of Egypt changed in a lifetime from lush and forgiving to a desert which depended on the water in the Nile. Isis did not abandon Egypt but, rather than blame Her, many blamed Set. By the time the Hyksos came, and claimed Set as their premier expression of the divine, Set had become little more than a repository for hatred, rage, harm, and revilement. Originally, Set not only withstood these negative emotions: He transformed them. But by the time of the Hyksos, he had become only an object of fear and lust. There were those who fought against Set's revilement. The best-known story of Osiris' dismemberment was originally a tale of deep philosophy, the story of the human soul. Lured into the prison of form, the soul forgot itself, and was lost to itself and the One who loved it. Even after being found, the soul was broken into the pieces of expression within "past" lives. Again it was searched for, and found in a tree that became a pillar in a king's house. The Goddess, Isis, confronted with the illusions that we hold about ourselves, becomes our handmaiden, our simple maid, all the while knowing the treasure we have inside of who we think we are. It is Isis who provides the missing spark of life, the link between the unmanifest and the manifest, which we lost, so confused with our dismemberment of self. The crab, eating the scraps and leavings of the living, picking the tiny things, and menacing larger things with bluff and pain, is the human negative ego, the part of us that resists what is whole. Isis gives us the means to be born anew, even if we are on the edge of sickness for a long time. The battle of Set and Horus showed that it is the healed soul that renders the negative ego truly impotent, instead of merely infertile. The only caution is that we do not, in our zeal to "win" against the ego, kill the Goddess too. (Alas, this is what has occurred, the patriarchy and the distorted male paradigm, throwing the Goddess out with the fear.) It was when Set became associated, and then equated, with that negative ego, that he became the God of Evil, the capricious adversary who knew nothing of balance, or temperance. He, given all that was bad, became to blame for all that was bad, and so he, in his own way, was sealed in a crafted coffin. But Set is the God of mathematical chaos, of turbulence, of the Mandelbrot and Juliet sets, where the infinite is hidden in the finite. It is He who is our fascination for the experience of physical living, encompassing obsession and seduction, as well as intense pleasure and abandon. His wife's son, Anpu (Anubis), is the most trustworthy of all of the Gods. Set is the brother of Isis, Osiris, Nephthys, and Horus, and he was so needed in human experience that he was one of the five gods whom Nut bore. Our mistake has been to see only the duality: Set and Osiris, forgetting the other children of Nut.) He has thus been limited to being only an adversary, only a dualistic opposite, instead of a step in the rolling sequences of life, growth, and change. Set may be considered the God of the Mathematical Chaos, from which order is born, and to which Order transforms. He is the God of the tidal margins, and the courage to create strength from weakness, ability from disability. For the Egyptians, Apep was the only true evil, for that snake in the darkness wanted to eat the Sun, the source of life. Apep was anti-life. Set was only a tester. Set fought the beast, because he knew that there must always be a limit to destruction, in order for life to thrive. But he, more than any, knew that the universe would stop dead if it is nothing but perfect, static order. In this, He can be seen as one of the gods of creativity: haptic, unexpected, fortuitous, and even gracious. He can be seen as the God of Coincidence and Serendipity, Chance and Synchronicity. Not following any previous patterns, he is both the individualist and the generalist, the one outside of the box of human expectations. He is best seen in the context of balance. When the old priests of Set, the ones who started emphasizing his eminence over the others, began considering him as so fundamentally Other, so opposed to the whole as to be outside of it, they brought Set down to the level of Apep, anti-life. Set and his sister Nephthys, used to have treasures in the dark. Nephthys repudiated him for Osiris' murder in part because She was called to help in the search-the divine search for the human soul. Nephthys still has treasures: she conceived Anpu when Osiris was still alive, when the human soul remembered its true nature. Thus, the unconscious self of humankind keeps us for us, and we are considered the most loving of beings.