Sat-An

[Zephonith Serpent Woman]

 

"Set, or Sutekh, the eighth member of the company of the Gods of Xemennu,

was the son of Seb and Nut,

and the husband of his sister Nebt-Het.

The worship of this god is exceedingly old, and in the pyramid texts we find that he is often mentioned with Horus and the other gods of the Heliopolitan company in terms of reverence...

...He is also believed to perform friendly offices for the deceased, and to be a god of the Sekhet-Aaru, or abode of the blessed dead...

...about the 22nd dynasty, however, it became the fashion to regard the god as the origin of all evil and his images and statues were so effectively destroyed that only a few which escaped by accident or design have come down to us....

...In the early dynasties he was a beneficent god;

and one whose favour was sought after by the living and the dead

and so, as late as the 19th dynasty,

kings delighted to call themselves

 'Beloved of Set'...

...Originally, Set, or Sut,

represented the natural night and was the opposite of Horus; that Horus and Set

were opposite forms or aspects of the same god is proved by the figure given by

Lanzone(...), where we see the head of Set and the head of Horus

upon the same body....

...The natural opposition of the day and night was at an early period confounded with the battle which took place between Horus, the son of Isis, and Set, wherein Isis intervened,

and it seems the moral idea of the battle of right and wrong became attached to the latter combat, which was undertaken by Horus to avenge his father's murder by Set."

~ EA Wallace-Budge, The Egyptian Book of the Dead

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The Ancient Egyptian Family Tree begins with Nun;  The Great Goddess.

 Nun is Chaos, The Dark Goddess of the formless Dark Energies, the Aether of the greater universe, the Abyss from which all creation originates, the Crone Goddess unto whose Cauldron, or Lake of Fire, all things return at the natural conclusion of the life cycle to be purified, rejuvenated and reborn into a new form.

Names of Nun include Tiamat, Eurynome, Gaia and Tao

In the image above it becomes clear that the worship of the Great Mother precedes any other.

The Goddess is depicted in the centre of the image.

Horus and Set,  in the form of Sacred Beasts sit on either side of the Goddess and represent the God in twin aspects of Death and Love, Night and Day, Winter and Summer, negative and positive, Yin and Yang. This imagery and symbolism is common to the Tree of Life, The Diagram of the Supreme Ultimate and the Caduceus.

 The symbolism of the Great Goddess of infinite Names and Forms and Her twin Lions or sacredbeasts is widespread throughout ancient, or so-called prehistoric cultures from around the world. The Lions represent Time; Past and Present Future. As the symbol of the God of Nature, the Lion is the King of Beasts and is naturally the support and protector of the Great Goddess, Queen of Heaven and the Underworld.

The Ancestors knew that our survival  depends on the type of relationship we have with our environment -  the Elements, causes and forces of Nature.

The inner harmony which is achieved through finding the balance of female and male energies within as without, and rediscovering the balance between ourselves and our environment is of the Great Mother, the Tao and Great Spirit.

This balance was so important to our Ancestors, that they  repeated the same common symbolism in art and imagery wherever they happened to live, throughout the ages.

Set is the brother of Osiris, Isis and Nephthys. Set loves Isis, yet Isis loves Osiris, Nephthys also loves Osiris, and their son is Anubis. Nephthys, the Dark Goddess, the inseparable twin sister of Isis and sister of Osiris and Set, is wed to Set as the God of the Night, of Water and of Death; while Nephthys, the Lady of the House, is the helpful Goddess, always works together with Isis, and is the Crone Goddess, the power behind the throne. Set kills his brother Osiris, whose body is scattered and then by magick, put together again. Confusing?

The legends of Ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia and from all over the world are very confusing and ultimately contradictory to the reckoning of the uninitiated, where superficial and subjective moral judgements are applied to what is essentially a very special and beautiful human way of beginning to understand the infinitely complex and interconnected nature of the Divine, manifest in Nature and within and without of every being.

The Ancestors were more in touch with Nature, and all of the powers and potential inherent in the natural world. So, what may seem like incest, murder and vengeance for moral wrongs; is in fact an intricate cosmic allegory of the natural cycles and seasons of an ever changing, dynamic universe; and to the worthy, a gateway to a higher overstanding of themselves and thus, the Divine.

Art thou ready to Know Thyself?

 

'The greatest adventure of a lifetime, is the Mystery'

-Albert Einstein

Sutekh and Heru are one God, which is the many.

When God sits down He is known as Set; when God stands, He is Horus.

The very Names Set (sit, rest, potential) and Heru (Upright, hero, activity) define the relationship between the two polar opposite Gods. It is of the Yin and Yang; Potential/Action; Night/Day - and is thus complementary; and displays synergy, as it is in Nature.

In the natural world nothing is above anything else, and there is balance.

The veneration of Set as the benevolent God of Death and the Night, of Desert and Winter; and the God of Storms as Typhon Set, far precedes any patriarchal confusions with a devil of punishment.

There was never any Devil before the advent of the male-dominated religions, only the taking on of full responsibility for one's own actions.

The ongoing battles and struggles between Set, the King of Night, Winter and decrease - The Holly King; and Horus, The Oak King; the King of the Day, Summer and increase, are refereed

by Queen Isis.

Night, Day and Balance

 

The Goddess is the Tao and the Central Pillar of Moderation which balances the pillars of Yin and Yang as the natural struggles and friction between equal and opposite, yet complementary, forces of Yin and Yang continue year after year, season upon season. This natural friction is what produces life in all abundance.

In the legends, the rivalry between Set and Horus ends at a Heavenly Tribunal in a stalemate. Set was initially to be given the throne with the support of Ra, as he was the more experienced ruler. The final decision was made by Neith, though, and Horus succeeded Ra on the throne of Egypt. As compensation, Set was to receive substantial property and two new wives.These wives are the Goddess Anat and Goddess Astarte. It is remarkable that El is also the consort of Anat; that Solomon is wed to Asherah; and that Set was also venerated by many Semitic peoples.

Set was petitioned to protect farmers and the people against the adverse effects of unstable weather; Seth is the Lord of Storms. 

Set as well as other Gods and Goddesses are adept at working with the forces of Nature and also personify these.

In this image, Heru is petitioned by a farmer, to increase his harvest and to protect the crops from natural disasters such as drought, irregular flooding, or insect pests

Ra in the form of the sacred Crocodile and Set, in the image of the Chthonic Serpent represent the primal forces of Nature on land and in water respectively.

Heru, son of Ra and Azar confers with Set, and having agreed to reward this farmer for his hard work, Sutekh proceeds with the channelling of the natural energies of the Earth, the Chthonic serpent Apep - so as to lower production costs and overheads, whilst maximising the harvest potential and rewards and minimizing the risks.

To Be Continued...

 

 

[Zephonith Serpent Woman]

Set and Horus, portrayed here as flanking the central figure of the Goddess and representing the two currents of Life and Death, Day and Night, Summer and Winter..

[Zephonith Serpent Woman]

[Zephonith Serpent Woman]

Within Serpent Worshipping traditions, Set is the Serpent God of the Underworld, and either manifests as Apophis, the Cosmic Serpent, or is portrayed as being a central figure on the Nun Boat of the Gods, directing the primal energies of the Cosmic Serpent which propels the Nun Boat across the celestial heavens with his Magickal Dragon Staff...

We shall discuss these aspects of the Dark God at a later stage.

The sacred colours of Set  are Red and Blue, and His sacred animals are the Chthonic Aardvark, the Python , the Crocodile and Hippopotamus. 

Set is the God corresponding to the Holly King in Celtic Legend, as Horus, His equal and opposite other half, is represented by the Oak King.

Set is the late Fall and Winter, and is an ancient agricultural Divinity associated with the annual decline and death of vegetation. He is succeeded by Horus every Spring, and regains ascendancy every Winter.

[1yrns4vean19o]

Excellent discussion! Very astute connection between the ardvark and the possible animal on which set's head is based. 

[Zephonith Serpent Woman]

[Zephonith Serpent Woman]

Thank you, Phenomenon. 

I mentioned that Set manifests as a wild boar and was always associated with the vegetation mystery of Egypt. Now, the colloquial Afrikaans name Aardvark means literally, Earth Pig, and this is where the synchronicities become even more apparent.

The Pig has been venerated since the Stone Age and is connected with the vegetation mysteries of many ancient cultures.

The sow is the Crone Goddess of Death, and the boar represents the God of Fertility. Before the plough was invented, pigs were an integral part of neolithic agriculture and were closely associated with ritual from the beginnings.. 

Women would wear the mask of a pig to symbolise the Goddess, and indeed, the tusks of a Boar are the porcine equivalent of horns.

The Greeks venerated the pig as sacred, believing that to drink the blood of the pig was to develop oracular gifts and to eat the flesh was be charged with the essence of the Divine Feminine.The flesh of the boar would be consumed by the Egyptians once a year, at full moon, to symbolise the partaking of the essence of the Divinity, and in Crete, women and men would flagellate themselves and others with sprays of strongly scented trees and shrubs to purify themselves in a spiritual sense and anoint themselves with the blood of the pig, as it is believed to be a potent antidote to evil .

The Aardvark, being a subterranean, nocturnal animal, feeds on White Ants, also called termites in Africa. The white ants live within concentrated colonies and  construct large mounds of compacted earth called termite mounds. The colony acts as one individual and can be said to be a single body made up of myriad interconnected individuals. The Aardvark breaks open the mound and devours tens of thousands of ants in a single sitting, flicking out it's long serpentine tongue and inhaling hundreds of ants in this way.

The ants may then disperse and several new colonies are formed as an indirect result of the breaking up of the original nested colony by the Aardvark, who lives under the earth, and is privy to the deepest secrets which dwell within; just as Set (Death) dissected the body of Osiris. And everywhere that a piece of Azar's body fell, a shrine was erected, all along the celestial Nile river, propitiating the worship of the God of Nature.These separate pieces were collected up by Isis, and through Her Magick, reassembled again to enable the perpetuation of new life in a reborn form.

Blessed Be

[1yrns4vean19o]

Extremely fascinating Zep! You've drawn some very meaningful symbolic connections. 

[Zephonith Serpent Woman]

My pleasure, Phenomenon.
I also wish to add that regarding the consumption of pork or any other animal traditionally regarded as sacred, there are three different schools of thought.
The first is, that the blood and flesh of the animal is held to be charged with the essence of the divinity , and is consumed as a sacrament, much as Christians will drink of the blood and feast on the flesh of their God or a devout Hindu devotee of Shiva may choose to become a Siddhi and drink the blood of the dead outside of cemetaries to the same effect.
The second view, which is far more popular amongst contemporary Pagans, is to avoid the eating of the animals for reasons of their sacredness, and that as vegetarians and conscious defenders of Mother Nature in these times, we don't ever wish to harm any animals especially not sacred ones(my own personal view).
The third view is that of the Jewish Religion, where the eating of pork is only forbidden and avoided with vigour because their Pagan ancestors had the Boar as a Totem.
Likewise within the Muslim beliefs, a dog is seen as an unclean animal.
(I was tempted there but let's just leave it at that so people can feel free to draw their own conclusions and guess what i was about to say )

[Zephonith Serpent Woman]

" "de Bourberg hints that the chiefs of the name of Votan, the Quetzo-Cohuatl, or serpent deity of the Mexicans, are the decendants of Ham and Canaan.

"I am Hivim" they say. 'being a Hivim,I am of the great race of the Dragon (snake)

I am a snake myself,for I am a Hivim."

And Des Moussaux, rejoicing because he believes himself fairly on the serpent's, or rather, devil's tail, hurries to explain :" According to the most learned commentators of our sacred books, the Chivim or Hivim, or Hevites, descend from Heth, son of Canaan, son of Ham...the accursed."

" But, suppose the decendants of these Canaanites, "the accursed" were to resent for once the unmerited outrage? It would be an easy matter for them to reverse the tables, and answer to this fling, based on a fable, by a fact proved by archaeologists and symbologists -

namely, that Seth, Adams' third son, and father of all Israel, the ancestor of Noah, and the progenitor of the Jewish people, is none other but Hermes, the god of wisdom, also called Thoth, Tat, Seth, Set, and Sat-an; and that he was, furthermore, when viewed in another aspect, Typhon, the Late Dynasty Egyptian Satan, who was also Set."

~HPBlavatsky

"Isis unveiled: a master-key to the mysteries of ancient and modern science and theology"(1887)ISBN 0-911500-03-0", p554."Serpent worship of Israel"; 

[1yrns4vean19o]

Isis Unveiled is on my "to read" list. I have heard so many good things about it and can't believe I haven't had  a chance to read yet. Interesting how everything always goes back to Thoth. 

And of course that would resonate with the idea of set being the Ardvark because the Egyptians depicted Thoth as an Ibus which also digs in the earth for its nutritional needs. 

[Zephonith Serpent Woman]

It's a magickal tome consisting of two volumes, well worth reading. 

Personally i don't necessarily agree with everything in the books and times have changed since it was written, but my feeling is that every avenue is worth exploring and Madame Blavatsky was certainly the pre-eminent Isian Priestess of her times.It is a compilation of esoteric knowledge that is like a treasure trove for the sincere seeker after Truth.

Traditionally in magickal ceremonies , the one assuming the role of the God would either don a horned mask or one with a long curved beak.

As you say, Phenomenon, there are just so many synchronicities between the various aspects of the Horned God of Nature ~ Light and Dark, manifesting in many forms and by many Names.

When Yuletide and the Lunar weekend is over, i'll be adding to the discussion and will look at posting an article in honour of Thoth, the God of Wisdom.

Of course Thoth, also known as Hermes, is associated with the Emerald Tablets of prophecy.

Thanks , Phenomenon

Blessed Be

[Zephonith Serpent Woman]

Great picture, Janet:)

Thanks so much ~ that Magickal staff is an Ophite Staff with the Dragons' head and the tail as an Omega symbol. And though Set is feared by many who associate Death and Darkness with moral concepts of evil; as being the Night and the barren Desert, if there wasn't Death there could be no life.

Blessings, sister