Story of a dog named Set

The biggest influence onto Satan, as stated earlier, was Set. What was this God, and what was seen as being particularly evil about him? Originally, in earliest times, Set was known to both the Upper and Lower regions of Egypt. Archaeological evidence tells us that though he was known in Lower Egypt, he was the patron deity of Upper (South) Egypt. To the Lower (North) Egyptians, Set was a representation of the fierce storms of the desert, whom the Lower Egyptians sought to appease. To the Upper (South) regions, Set was a patron deity that signaled the rising of the Sun, the flood of the Nile, and the northern storms. Basically, whether you were a Northern or a Southern Egyptian, (or more accurately, a Northern or Southern city, as there was no real unification yet), Set would most accurately be described as the God of Chaos.

Now, before getting into this, the details go into two of my least favorite categories in religion; namely Egyptian mythology and astronomy/astrology. Why do I hate Egyptian mythology? With perhaps the singular exception of the Christians, no group outside of the Egyptians was more prone to use mythology as a means of exacting revenge and establishing ideological wars. No other group was so willing to ruthlessly eradicate their own culture and history for the sake of an idea. Even Christians did not destroy their own writings, such as that we know have the arguments of Celsus preserved by Origen. (Though many Christian reports on foreign countries which did not totally malign them were mutilated.) Also, despite many who believe so, I do not believe that Egypt was really as unified as it is made out. Even though the Pharoah may have been the ruler, there was still a very obvious pull to local and historical traditions not rooted in the Pharoah. As such, Egyptologists who are honest will now admit that we really don't know as much about Egyptian mythology as we once believed. Beneath layers of false traditions, pseudopigraphies, mutilated texts, converted icons, who the heck can figure out what they really believed? If you can figure out the difficulty in finding out what they believed, you can bet it's even harder to find out why they believed it.

My opinion of astrology/astronomy is a little different. It seems to me that most people who study it are quacks. That is to say that they are almost always pre-occupied with proving some idiotic eschatological theory, or else proving that aliens exist on Earth. It reminds me a bit of reading a book by Barbara Walker. At some points, you nod your head and say, "yes, yes", while at others, you want to throw the book into a big furnace and scream "NOOO!!!!"

In the origins of Set, we find that his brother, known as Heru-Ur, or "Horus the Elder", is the patron deity of Upper (Southern) Egypt from the earliest times; initially, viewed as the twin brother of Set (the patron of Lower Egypt), but he became the conqueror of Set c. 3100 B.C.E. when Upper Egypt conquered Lower Egypt and formed the unified kingdom of Egypt. (Knight, "Summaries of Notable Egyptian Gods").

Horus and Nekhbet, the vulture goddess of Nekhb (El Kab), came to represent Upper Egypt. In Lower Egypt, Set and Wadjet, the cobra goddess of Per-Wadjet, were worshiped. In later Egyptian history, the vulture and cobra were united in the royal diadem, to represent dominion over both lands. So when Nekhem became the most powerful town, Horus became the god par excellence. The rulers started to identify themselves as the living embodiment of the hawk god.

Narmer (who some believe to also be King Scorpion, though his tomb has been found by Gunter Dreyer of the German Archaeological Institute, so there is now more evidence than just his macehead) managed to take over the state of Lower Egypt, by force according to decorated palettes and maceheads. The famous Narmer palette shows him on one side wearing the white crown of Upper Egypt, and the other shows him wearing the red crown of Lower Egypt. It can't be coincidental that Set was thought to have red hair, which was associated with the Southern Desert. It also shows the hawk emblem of Horus, the Upper Egyptian god of Nekhem, dominating the Lower Egypt personified papyrus marsh. Narmer is holding the head of his enemy, what we assume to be a Lower Egyptian King, in his hand and threatening it with a mace. From this, Narmer is believed to have unified Egypt.

Gradually over time, Horus usurped the position that Set once held, and Set started losing his powers. Set didn't just lose his powers to Horus, but also to another God primarily, that being Thoth. However, this didn't take place immediately, it was over a place of centuries that the favor of the God fell out. This fact is important for later discussion. Let's also take a peak at a map of Upper/Lower Egypt so we can get an idea of what we are talking about:

The role of both Horus and Set, and what they represented, constantly changed. Horus was the king's god. Although the name was applied to various forms throughout the centuries, Horus is usually revered as the falcon-headed god of the sky who protected the king.

The Temple of Set on the history of Set say that:

"In ancient Egyptian culture Set went through periods of immense popularity alternating with total denunciation. Set in the Predynastic and Archaic periods was an essentially positive deity introduced from the east as a god of the extension of existence. He is therefore god of expanding borders and radical changes of being - particularly birth, circumcision/initiation, death in battle, and rebirth through the Opening of the Mouth ceremony.

Popular among easterners - his first cult site being Pelusium in the eastern Nile Delta - Set's worship quickly spread to border areas, where he was identified with local gods of initiation. Two examples of such cult sites are Kharga in the south, which has always been primarily a Nilotic culture area, and the Libyan settlement of Ombos, wherein Set was identified with the local god Ash in the II Dynasty.

Set's original worship as a circumpolar/stellar deity suffered a decline with the rise of solar worship in the IV Dynasty. The Great Pyramid of Giza is one of the last early monuments connected with the idea of a Setian afterlife as well as a solar one. The Great Pyramid had a special air shaft for the king's akh to fly to the star Alpha Draconis, which is the star of Set in the Constellation of the Thigh (today's "Big Dipper").

During the Middle Kingdom Set was reduced to a symbol of Upper Egypt and apparently seen only during the Setian festival of heb-sed ("tying together"). It was during this time that Set was first blamed for the murder of Osiris, a Semitic corn god who had arrived in the III Dynasty. Previously Osiris had died of drowning."

Pelusium wasn't very important in and of itself, but it was a major trading place, particularly with Palestine and other Eastern areas. Here's a small map of it:

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. He 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.

As the opponent of Seth (who, though initially an Upper Egyptian deity himself, later came to represent not only Lower Egypt but the desert surrounding Egypt), Horus is alternately a brother vying for the throne and unification of Egypt (Horus the Elder), or a royal heir come to reclaim his inheritance (Horus the Younger). Horus can be seen at the top of the serekh of early kings, though in very rare cases his place was usurped by Set (Peribsen, Dynasty 2) or even shared with him (Khasekhemwy, Dynasty 2). One of those plaques is this:

In the ancient myth of Horus, he has two eyes, those being the moon and the Sun respectively. During the New moon at night, when Horus can't "see" anything, he is referred to by the name Mekhenty-er-irty, "He who has no eyes". When he recovers them, he becomes Khenty-irty, "He who has eyes". In another version, we find this:

It's a picture of Set crowning the Egyptian Pharoah, with Heru beside him. The solar disk of Ra is above them. The first artifact of Set is a carved ivory comb, which is an Amratian artifact. Interestingly, like the scorpion king, (yes, the same one from the Mummy series), he has the Scorpion macehead. He was apparently a great God until the Third Intermediate Period, where he became evil. At about this time, a thing which happened when early Christians had repeated itself in earlier events, namely that the statues of Set were recarved so that they would know be statues of other Gods. About this time, it was also said that Horus had beaten Set. (Also the famous King Tut had this happen. His symbols of Amen, the only God, were found on all the tombs, but were reconverted to the polytheistic Aten cult signs.)

In the original myth of the fight between Set and Horus, the Egyptians believed that the two Gods would fight until the end of time, at which chaos would prevail, and the waters of Nun would swallow up the World. Interestingly, with Set as the deity of Chaos, this seems to imply that he prevails. However, after Set's villification, the Egyptians rewrote the story so that Horus won the battle, and triumphed over Set.

Far from being an overnight sensation, however, the change of Set's persona was one that gradually emerged, with the decline of the Hyksos being one of the final blows to the worship of Set. However, prior to that, Set still had some authority and good deeds left in him.

"Homage to thee, O divine Ladder! Homage to thee O Ladder of Set! Stand thou upright, O divine Ladder! Stand thou upright, O Ladder of Set! Stand thou upright, O Ladder of Horus, whereby Osiris came forth into heaven."

Pyramid Texts of Pepi I

In the Pyramid Texts, Set was believed to be a friend to the dead, and he helped Osiris ascend to heaven on a ladder. On one of Seti I's reliefs, it shows Set and Horus offering the symbol of life to the pharaoh, with Set saying "I establish the crown upon thy head, even like the Disk on the head of Amen-Ra, and I will give thee all life, strength and health." Thothmose III had a scene showing Set teaching him the use of the bow, while Horus taught him yet another weapon.

As for his role as a friend of the dead, it was believed that "Horus purifies and Set strengthens, and Set purifies and Horus strengthens" the deceased while the backbone of the deceased becomes the backbone of Set and Set has "joined together my neck and my back strongly, and they are even as they were in the time that is past; may nothing happen to break them apart." In the later texts, Set was no longer a friend of the dead, and instead, he prowled around for the souls of those whom had died.

Ramesses II, as did his father Seti I, both had red hair and so aligned themselves with the god of chaos. It was Seth who stood in the front of the solar barque to defended the sun god Ra from his most dangerous foe, the serpent Apep. At this time, he seems to have had no conflicts with the cults of Isis or Osiris. In fact, he was part of the same family of gods, and married to his twin sister, Nephthys. Set was later on made to ridicule Re, where eventually, Re kicks him out. Even though Set was supposed to be the only one who could defeat Apep, some traditions have Thoth as the guardian of the solar journey. Even more confusing, some late traditions even identify Set as Apep.

Now, we come here to an interesting discussion. Was the usurption of Set a deliberate one, sort of like the priestly cults and the renegade Pharoah Amenhotep, or was it something much slower and unconscious, like the evolution of demons?

One of the ancient Greek travellers in Egypt wrote about odd customs in places where Seth was the main god. Village battles seemed normal during the feasts, and these battles were extremely violent. For the Egyptians believing in an afterlife life or death was perhaps not that important, so what?

In Egypt it became like a custom. On the Narmer palette and the ivory plate of Horus Den we see the same ritual gestures as in mega-format on some temple ports and walls. They thought the pharaoh to be "the Great Bull defender of the two countries". Every pharaoh with pride had to follow the custom and then as always men are following the leader. That was a demand for every pharaoh to expand the empire. It seems that Baal-zephon was considered identical with Set or Sutekh by Pharaoh Nehesy. [Cardona 1997a: 93] (Baal was a general title meaning Lord, and fully translated, it means "Lord of the North"). His epithet in the cuneiform texts is known as 'he who rides on the clouds', relating thereby to the Mesopotamian thunder-god Adad and in Egypt to the god Set. Ramesses II in his almost fatal struggle against the Hittite confederation at the battle of Kadesh is called 'Seth great of strength and Baal himself'. The war cry of Ramesses III is like Baal in the sky, i.e. Baal's voice (the thunder) which makes the mountains shake. He dwelt on Mount Sapan (hence Ball-Zaphon). The terror of identifying Set with Syria is told by an Egyptian scribe tells us of Syria that: "Shuddering seizes thee, thy hair stands no ends, they soul lies in they hand. The ravine is on one side of thee while the mountain is on the other."

"Nearly every god of the earliest part of Egyptian history was visualized in the form of an animal, bird, or even an inanimate object. Thus Bastet, the local goddess of the town Bast (modern Tell Basta) in the eastern Delta, became associated with a lioness, the god Thoth of Khemenu (Hermopolic Magna, modern El-Ashmunein) with an ibis, Khnum of the first cataract region with a ram, the goddess Hathor, whose worship was known from several places, with a cow, and the god Sobek with a crocodile. The precise reasons for such associations are not clear, but natural logic seems to have influenced the choice. Thus, the cults of the bull were popular in the cattle-grazing area of the Delta, a crocodile cult was known from the marshy Faiiyum, etc. The god could adopt the form of an animal in order to become manifest, but this did not mean the animal itself was regarded as a deity."

"We can conjecture that each of the larger chiefdoms at the end of the Predynastic Period [5000/4500-2925 BC] was connected with a cult-center and a shrine or temple of the local deity. The fortunes of Egyptian gods waxed and waned with those of their home districts, and the development of relationships among deities went side by side with the creation of one state. The king of the unified Egypt identified himself with the god Horus of Nekhen, but the appearance of Seth of Nagada as well as the god Horus in the names of two kings of the late Second Dynasty [circa 2600-2658 BC] need not be a reflection of civil strife, because the relationship between politics and religion cannot be reduced to a simple equation. Almost all of the deities of later times were known during the earliest dynasties, usually in the forms of animals, birds, or fetishes."

One of the peculiarities of Egyptian thinking was the notion of dualism, i.e., a totality consisting of two elements in harmonious opposition. The concept was founded in Egyptian geography as well as early history. The country lends itself to such an approach easily: the known world = The Black Land (Kemet) + The Red Land (Deshret, the desert); Egypt = the valley (Upper Egypt) + the Delta (Lower Egypt). Historically, the earliest towns in Upper Egypt, where the idea would have developed, were Nekhen and Nubt, the homes of the rival gods Horus and Seth."

Jaromir Malek, In the Shadow of the Pyramids

In the Egyptian magical tradition the primeval state is chaos, and the great ocean is not the sea, but space. Frequently this chaos is characterized as a dragon. In the Egyptian mythologies it was Apepi or Apophis, the great primordial serpent whom lived in the waters of the celestial Nile, or what we know today as the Milky Way. In general, Apepi is considered the dragon of chaos and destruction. However, in essence, Apepi is an early form of a light god who resided within the abyss before the creation of the worlds. For many years Ra (a star) fought in battle against Apepi; and would always be victorious. Later however, during one such struggle, Ra became wounded and did not have the strength to hold back the forces of destruction against the world. In desperation, he searched the gods to find warrior to assist him.

The only god that Ra was able to find of suitable strength and courage was the jackal-god Suti. Today Suti is more widely known as Seth. Esoterically Set is spirit and the dry hot desert, as well as the night. At this point it may be worth to consider that Ra (the Supreme God) required the assistance of Seth (Satan) to battle against an even older adversary. Thus the jackal-god and Ra both fought together against the might of Apepi, to hold at bay the forces of destruction. As said by Seth:

"It was I who stood in the prow of the solar barque and vanquished all the enemies of Ra and cast them back into the abyss."

In the good days of Set, he was identified with Ash, the God of the Western Desert (Sahara) including the fertile oases, and of 'Tehenu' or Libya, first attested on sealings from the Early Dynastic Period. Ash controlled the produce of the oases, which the pharaoh's apparently enjoyed. The identification between the two Gods was made as early as Dynasty II. The identification was even more intense when Ash was realized as one of the original god's of Ombos in Upper Egypt, hence an epithet of Ash being 'nebuty' or 'he of Nebut(Ombos)'.

We're not exactly sure why it was in the later revised stories that Seth became evil. It's speculated that though Ra, (who was often confused with Horus and eventually the two of them just fused together for the sake of ease), and Set fought together to ensure the triumph of good over evil, Set eventually became jealous because he was infertile, (except some traditions which have him as the father of Anupis), and the relationship between Osiris and Seth.

During the first change, it appears the followers of Seth may have resisted the followers of Horus/Osiris, and the First Dynasty pharaoh, Menes, when he united Upper and Lower Egypt. This struggle for control of Egypt seems to be reflected in the mythology. At this point, Seth is portrayed as questioning the authority of his brother, Osiris. The Osiris cults took this opportunity to discredit the followers of Seth; he was now considered to be Osiris' evil brother. Since Seth was thought to have ripped himself from his mother's womb through her sides, he must have been an evil God. (Compare the Aztec God of War's story where he rips himself out his mother's womb and slaughters all of his siblings.)

What was Set?

When we look at Set, we realize he is the Dark Serpent aspect of the God. He is God of the drought and storm, Lord of the Red Land (the desert, and remember what the desert has to do with being evil?), and God of War. It may be significant that the word "set" is also defined as "queen" or "princess" in Egyptian, probably accounting for Set's bisexuality. "Au Set", which came to be known as "Isis" by the Greeks, is defined as "exceeding queen". In the myth of the combat, Seth tries to mate sexually with Horus; this is usually interpreted as being an insult.

If we go further back, we will have to trace a little timeline to see what all this is talking about. The earliest incarceration of Set is the serpent of darkness known as "Zet". This God came to be known by the Classical Greek writers as "Typhon", the serpent of the goddess Gaia. Zet may have once been female, or symbolic of the Goddess religion. This could be related to the Goddess "Au Zit", the "Great Serpent", who was the Cobra Goddess of Neolithic times.

"The predynastic Egyptians worshipped the feminine principle, the great mother goddess [Tuart] represented by the seven stars of Ursa Major and her child Sirius the dog star, or Set. Sirius was also represented by the same symbol as his mother, whom he is supposed to have fecundated."

Peter Tompkins, The Magic of Obelisks

The last way to look at this is by going to the battle between Set and Horus. We know that Horus was a Solar Diety. We then look at Isis as being the "Full Moon" (because she is the Goddess of Magick). If we connect from the earlier assumptions that Set was Zet/Zit, and originally a female, then add it to the story of Set trying to mate with Horus, and then taking his eye, this could be the story of a Solar Eclipse. Set and Isis seem to be intimately connected, as Set was the "Left" eye, the Moon, as was Isis, and both were represented by the star Sirius. (Later on, Thoth became the "left eye" of Horus.)

In addition, in the Lamentations of Isis and Nephthys (a fourth century BCE papyrus), Isis tells us that she is Sothis, who will follow Osiris in his manifestation as Orion in heaven. In the Late Period, the cult of Isis-Sothis results in less autonomy for the star-goddess and Hellenistic interpretations of this dual-deity, mainly that being such iconography like a goddess riding upon the back of a dog.

In order to understand how a God could lose his high position, we have to understand things going back as far as the Persians. One of the best ancient forms of demonology, in terms of its easy and unique structure, was the Persian demonologies, which are found in the Avesta, the sacred book of the religion of Zoroaster. Zoroastrianism failed as an ideology for the same reason that Judaism has, mainly because it revolves too much on national heritage than on religious doctrine. The mythological system was based on the Persian worship of the ahuras, good deities eternally at war with the evil daevas. Ahriman, somewhat the Persian equivalent of Satan, albeit a stronger version, is served by many demons whose names have been adopted later by the Jews: Azazel, Lilith, Rahab, Leviathan. The names of the Jewish angels are also taken from Persian mythology.

Acharya S says tells us that:

"What few people realize is that the principal God/Devil of the Old Testament are also derived in this way from older traditions, specifically the Egyptian, Indian and Zoroastrian. In fact, the God/Devil construct comes in part from derivation of the Dual God of Persia, Ahura-Mazda/Ahriman, or the Egyptian Horus/Set. Set and Horus, for example, were the Dark and Light aspects of the one God. These were the first elements out of the Void, as even the Hebraic bible claims. Set, or "Darkness," was the primary god in a number of very ancient cultures along the Nile River. It is of the Temples of Set, in fact, that we have possibly the oldest identified ruins on earth. Set eventually came to be the God of the South, where his peoples resided. At that time, Horus was only a vague entity somewhere to the North. As the peoples migrated towards the North, Set, as symbolized by the South Pole Star, began to become less and less visible, and it came to be believed that Set was descending into the underworld to become God there.

Sooner or later, as the people continued to migrate north and became more focused on the Lord of the North Pole Star, Horus, they began to view Set as less important and Horus of greater significance. No doubt this led to conflicts. Set continued to be worshipped along the Nile, but it became clear that factions arose who desired to make Horus supreme. This ploy would be, once again, for political and material reasons. The movements of the astral bodies that corresponded with and symbolized these entities, such as the Pole Stars, and the Moon and Sun, were crucial to life along the Nile. These heavenly bodies were closely charted and calendared. Such movements provided a semblance of order in what would ordinarily seem like a chaotic and unkind world full of yearly flooding, terrific sandstorms and unbearable heat. By measuring the movements of such planetary bodies, those who later became regarded as priests of these bodies could determine when would be the most auspicious time for planting, reaping and harvesting. This was intrinsic to life along the Nile, and without it there was no life.

If, as happens frequently in history, some sort of natural calamity or disaster were to strike a particular culture, group or people, the priests would look towards the displeasure of the god behind any one of the various planetary bodies or elemental forces such as wind (which was represented by the Egyptian "Shu"). The priests would then determine that such deity needed to be propitiated so that order would return to the world. The priests would sometimes battle as to which god would be appeased, and during difficult transition times - for example, the movement north when Horus came to usurp Set in importance - these conflicts could become ugly and violent. Indeed, the priests would resort to all sorts of name-calling and propaganda to make sure their particular interpretation was set in stone, so to speak. In the case of Horus and Set, Set - who was once considered an equal of his twin brother Horus - became viewed as something bad or evil. Set, as "Prince of Darkness" and "Lord of the Underworld," came to be seen as an enemy of the people. This characterization also came about because of the fear of the dark and the insecurities felt throughout the night. But, as can be evidenced by the later story of the Greek god Hades, the Lord of the Underworld was not always, and did not continue to be, viewed by all peoples as evil. Hades was, in fact, simply another god doing his job. It was a certain bias that eventually led to the establishment of the Prince of Darkness and Lord of the Underworld as an evil and sinister character.

It's a hard link though, to maintain that Horus and Set were personifications of the stars. It does make some sense though, because if you observe the sky from the Earth's northern hemisphere, the North Celestial Pole is located northwards, and the stars (apparently) rotate about it counter-clockwise. If you are on the southern hemisphere, you can see the South Celestial Pole in southern direction, and the stars (apparently) rotate about it clockwise. Another interesting point though was that this mythos was actually found in the writings of a Christian writer on the origins of the Pole Star.

"The Gospel in the Stars" by Joseph A. Seiss, p. 127:

"It is part of the promise of the text that the seed of faith is to 'possess the gate of his enemies'--that is, to take the house or possession of the foe -- and thenceforward to hold what the enemy previously held. Now, at the time these constellations were formed, and for a long time afterward, the Pole-Star was the Dragon Star, Alpha Draconis (Thuban). Thus this central gate, or hinge, or governing-point of the earth's motion, was then in the enemy's possession. But that the Dragon star is now far away from the Pole, and cannot again get back to it for ages on ages, whilst the Lesser and higher sheepfold has come into its place: so that the main star of Arcas is now the Pole-Star. The seed of faith thus gets the enemy's gate. And understanding Ursa Minor of the Church of the first born in heaven, instated in the government of the earth, we have in it a striking picture of the old prophecy fulfilled, when once Satan is cast down and the saints reign with their Lord in glory everlasting.

It is also an interesting fact that no traces of these Greek Bears are to be found in the Egyptian, the Persian, or the Indian planispheres, but only what is thoroughly agreeable to the idea that we are here to see the assembly of God's flocks in their heavenly glory, authority, and dominion, as over against the Serpent and the whole serpent dominion."

In past ages, whichever star held the position of Pole Star was worshipped as the star of that age. For instance, as told by a pious Muslim, "The pole-star is a symbol of 'Horus' or our Holy Prophet." (Abdul Haque, Muhammad in World Scriptures, Vol. 1, p. 418)

If we connect Set to the worship of the Dragon, Set/Satan becomes the one from mythology, with the movement of the North Pole star signifying a new era. The next movement of the pole star was to the constellation Bootes.

In, "The Sirius Mystery", by Robert Temple, (one of those kooky alien books, but with at least some relevant portions), we find this:

"Sirius was the most important star in the sky to the ancient Egyptians. The ancient Egyptian calendar was based on the rising of Sirius. It is established for certain that Sirius was sometimes identified by the ancient Egyptians with their chief goddess Isis.

The companion of Isis was Osiris, the chief Egyptian god. The 'companion' of the constellation of the Great Dog (which includes Sirius) was the constellation of Orion. Since Isis is equated with Sirius, the companion of Isis must be equated, equally, with the companion of Sirius. Osiris is thus equated on occasion with the constellation Orion....

'The oldest and simplest form of the name' of Osiris, we are told, is a hieroglyph of a throne and an eye. The 'eye' aspect of Osiris is thus fundamental. The Bozo tribe of Mali, related to the Dogon, call Sirius B 'the eye star'. Since Osiris is represented by an eye and is sometimes considered 'the companion of Sirius', this is equivalent to saying that Osiris is 'the eye star', provided only that one grants the premise that the existence of Sirius B really was known to the ancient Egyptians and that 'the companion of Sirius' therefore could ultimately refer to it.

The meanings of the Egyptian hieroglyphs and names for Isis and Osiris were unknown to the earliest dynastic Egyptians themselves, and the names and signs appear to have a pre-dynastic origin -- which means around or before 3200 B.C., in other words 5,000 years ago at least. There has been no living traditional explanation for the meanings of the names and signs for Isis and Osiris since at least 2800 B.C. at the very latest.

'The Dog Star' is a common designation of Sirius throughout known history. The ancient god Anubis was a 'dog god', that is, he had a man's body and a dog's head."

How this relates to astronomy and psychology is rather interesting. Vladimir V. Rubtsov states:

"It is well known that the most common (though not the only) name for Sirius in the ancient world was "The Dog" (with the variants: the wolf, the fox, the jackal). The ancient Egyptians called it, in particular, the Starry Dog and identified the star with Anubis, the jackal -- or dog-headed god of the dead. The North American Indian Cherokee tribe believed that this Dog awaited the souls of the dead on the Milky Way; the Blackfeet Indians named the star "Dog-face". The oldest Hindu name for Sirius was Sarama, "one of the Twin Watch-dogs of the Milky Way" [7, p. 119]. The Chinese knew this star as the Heavenly Wolf, and the Greeks as the Dog of Orion, or more specifically, as the dog Orthrus, a son of the monster Typhon. The Romans saw in it the Southern Cerberus, a watch-dog of their hell. As for the fennec Ogo, it is the smallest wild animal in the dog family (which hints probably at the small size of Sirius B).

What is more, Sirius represented not a decent house dog, but a terrible beast, monstrous and dangerous for everyone. It was related to death, hell and disaster. Orphrus' father Typhon was identified with the Egyptian evil god Seth (who, incidentally, was sometimes portrayed as a dog-headed creature) and was regarded as one of the monstrous adversaries of Zeus. The latter fought with Typhon and defeated him with much difficulty. Finally, Ogo himself is, as we know, a very harmful character in the Dogon mythology.

The worship of a dangerous dog was widespread in the ancient world, and this is rather strange: the dog was in fact the "first friend" of ancient man and played a very important part in his everyday life. Nonetheless, the fact remains: dogs (as well as wolves and jackals, which seems much more natural) were regarded as chthonian animals, guardians of the underworld. The "Inmost Story" of the Mongols contains a motif of monstrous metal dogs who feed on human flesh. The terrible dog Yarchuk, from Slavic mythology, had a wolf tooth in his mouth and two vipers under his lower lip. According to a Russian belief, a Solar eclipse happens when the heavenly wolf swallows the Sun (this idea was not unfamiliar to many other peoples)....

What is even more important, the solution suggested by R. Ceragioli does not provide the answer to the main question: why the ancients attached so great "negative" importance to Sirius? Egyptian priests watched this star closely at its heliacal risings, believing that its bright and white color presaged abundance, and its redness betokened war. The inhabitants of the Greek island of Ceos, when expecting Sirius' rising "prayed for the north winds to cool the 'Dog's' heat, which in their myths had once threatened to burn the world"

The Romans saw seven oxen/bull in these stars. The proximity of these stars to the North Celestial Pole gave the impression that they were wheeling around this point, pulling perhaps a plough behind them, tilling the heavenly fields and driven on by Bootes the Bear Driver; who chases or herds the Bears around the Pole Star, Polaris. Another version of this story has it that the oxen were tied to the polar axis and were driven on by Bootes, assisted by his two dogs Canes Venatici, in order that the rotations of the heavens should never cease. ("Starnames, Their Lore and Meaning", Richard Allen)

In Egyptian tradition, it was merely a Bull's Thigh and is mentioned in inscriptions at the Ramesseum at Thebes and the Book of the Dead and alluded to as the constellation of the Thigh in the Northern Sky; "the foreleg of the bull" their explanation being that Horus, after the striking of the celestial bull, had chopped off one leg of the bull and transferred it to another part of the sky where it could be properly guarded and prevented from ever again running amok. Amongst the precautions they envisaged was chaining of the severed leg to a mooring post (the Pole Star) situated close to the feet of the hippopotamus (Ursa Minor). The ancient Egyptian name Mesxet, suggests some connection with the deity Set (this connection may relate to the constellation Ursa Minor or both of these constellations, which is said to have been known as a dog, with the Egyptians calling it the Jackal, or three-headed Anubis, of Set). In late Egyptian times the star group became the boat or chariot of Osiris. ("Burnhams Celestial Handbook" by Robert Burnham Jr.) Speaking of Sirius, he says: "It was the object of wonder and veneration to all ancient peoples." However, like most aspects, Sirius had a dual aspect to it. The poet, Virgil, writing in the first century BCE, in The Aeneid, states: "the Dog Star, that burning constellation, whe he brings drought and disease to sickly mortals, rises and saddens the sky with inauspicious light." From this, we might begin to understand the Ancient Egyptian duality of Set.

It was said that the Herdsman was the national sign of ancient Egypt, and that the myth of the dismemberment of Osiris had its origins in the successive settings of its stars in Orion; and that there it was called Bacchus, or Sabazius, the ancient name for Bacchus and Noah; and that Kircher's planisphere showed a Vine instead of the customary figure. The Greeks identified Noah's drunkeness and cultivating the first wine, (Biblically), as him being a follower of Bacchus.

Its risings and settings were frequently observed and made much of in all classical days, Hesiod says: "When in the rosy morn Arcturus shines, Then pluck the cluster's from the parent vines" and again, but for a different season of the year: "When from the Tropic, or the winter's 'Sun, Thrice twenty days and night's their course have run; And when Arcturus leave's the main, to rise; a star bright shining in the evening 'skies; Then prune the vine". Roman writers and others have similar references to Bootes, or to Arcturus, as indicating the proper seasons for various farm work, as in the 1st Georgic: "Setting Bootes will afford the signs not obscure".

According to E.W. Bullinger: "the ancient Egyptians called Bootes Smat, which means one who rules, subdues, and governs. They also called him Bau, which means also the Coming One". Volney, building on the Solar Myth theory of Dupuis, found that the entire drama of the creation and fall of man could be traced among the constellations of the heavens. This fall of man also relates to evil zodiac characters.

"In fact," he says, "Take a celestial sphere painted after the manner of the ancients, divide it by the circle of the horizon into two halves; The upper one, the heaven of summer, light, heat, abundance, kingdom of Osiris, god of all good; the other half shall be the inferior heaven, INFURNUS, the heaven of winter, the seat of darkness, of privations, of sufferings, the kingdom of Typhon, god of all evil.

"To the west and towards the autumnal Equinox the scene offers a constellation" (Bootes), "represented by a man holding a sickle, a laborer who, every evening, descends lower and lower in the inferior heaven and seems to be expelled from the heaven of light. After him comes a woman, the constellation VIRGO, holding a branch of fruit pleasant to the eyes and good for food. She also descends every evening and seems to push on the man and cause his fall. Under them is the great serpent, OPHIUCUS, a constellation characteristic of the mud of winter, the Phython of the Greeks, the Ahriman of the Persians, whose epithet in Hebrew is AROUM. Not far from them is the ship, the constellation ARGO NAVIS, attributed at one time to ISIS, at another, to JASON, to NOAH, etc. And at one side is PERSEUS, a winged genius holding a flaming sword in his hand as if to threaten. Here are all of the characters in the drama of Adam and Eve common to the Egyptians, Chaldeans and Persians, but which was modified according to times and circumstances.

"Among the Egyptians this woman, the Virgin of the Zodiac, was ISIS, mother of the little HORUS, that is the Sun of Winter which, weak and languishing like a child, spends six months in the inferior sphere to reappear at the Vernal Equinox (the beginning of Spring), vanquisher of Typhon and his giants."

(Volney's New Researches in Ancient History, pages 165–166, Boston, 1874. See also, the Plate: Astrological Heaven of the Ancients, in the Appendix to Volney's Ruins of Empires, New York, 1926).

There seems to be some ideas which connect this. Anpu, or Anubis, the Egyptian dog/jackal-headed deity, was the Lord of the UnderWorld, until Osiris replaced him. In Heliopolis, during the later dynasties, he was interestingly identified with Horus, for he was often regarded as the son of Osiris and Isis. (Though more often of Osiris and Nephthys (Neith). Plutarch writes:

"By Anubis they understand the horizontal circle, which divides the invisible part of the world, which they call Nephthys, from the visible, to which they give the name of Isis; and as this circle equally touches upon the confines of both light and darkness, it may be looked upon as common to them both . . . Others again are of opinion that by Anubis is meant Time . ."

Now for clarification purposes, Set is identified as two things. According to a scholar of the third century CE named Censorinus, the Egyptian solar calendar begins very early in the 4th millenium BCE. However, assuming that the Egyptian calendar started out corresponding with the seasons, minus the leap year, a more plausible starting date is around 2773 BCE. At this time, the Egyptian calendar was not solar but riverine. When Set had a high position, he was appeased because of the significance of the flooding of the Nile, but Isis later on assumed this role.

In Set's domain, the "Kgdom of Se", placed in the northern sky, his abode was one of the stars which formed the constellation of Khepesh, or the "Thigh". These have been identified with the Great Bear, and it was from this region that he made use of his baleful influence to thwart the beneficent designs of Osiris, whose abode was Sah or Orion, and of Isis, whose home was Sept, or Sothis.

A little observational skills will quickly show that the northern sky was the natural domain of Set, when viewed from the standpoint of an Egyptian in Upper Egypt. The north was considered to be the place of darkness, cold, mist, and rain, each of which was a later attribute of Set. We may note in passing that the Hebrews called the region of darkness, or the winter hemisphere, Sephon, a name which appears to be connected beyond a doubt with Saphon, or "North." The chief opponent of Set was the hippopotamus goddess Reret, who was believed to keep this power of darkness securely fettered by a chain; this goddess is usually represented with the arms and hands of a woman which are attached to the body of a hippopotamus, and in each she holds a knife. Her temple was called Het-Khaat. The duty of the goddess was to keep in restraint the evil influence of Set and to make clear a way in the sky of the birth of Heru-sma-taui, whom Dr. Brugsch identified with the spring sun. The texts, however, make it clear that Reret was nothing but a form of Isis.

Very, Very, Brief history of Egypt:

It seems that the turning of Seth into something evil was not a single draconian change, as has been hypothesized by some, but rather, a slow change influenced by a whole multitude of events. We don't really know what happened in most places dating before 3000 BCE, the archaeological evidence is rather scarce. In the first pre-dynastic period of Egypt, we have the Chalcolithic period, also called the "Primitive" Predynastic. The southern cultures, particularly that of the Badarian, were almost completely agrarian, but their northern counterparts were mostly oasis dwellers, who still had a heavy reliance upon hunting and fishing for the majority of their diet.

The third stage of the Predynastic period is dated to around 4000 BCE and is labeled the Gerzean period or Naqada II. In this time period, we see the Northern Egyptians greatly influencing the Southern ones, creating a mixed culture. Two groups are here, the Amratian and Gerzean. Though mostly identical, there were some marked differences in the pottery. The Amratian period, or Omari A in Lower Egypt, was a continuation from the Badrian period, shown only in the Souther/Upper Egypt area. By the Late Predynastic, or Naqada III, most cultural differences seemed to have faded, and there appears to have been attempts by various local rulers to unite Egypt. In the period just before that, Naqada II, there's clearly a conflict building up between localities and between larger cities, which is probably what inspired the coup.

The biggest difference we can see between the two periods is the pottery. The early pottery, (Amratian), tended to be functional, while the Gerzean pottery had geometric motifs, depictions of animals, people, etc. Unusual animals such as ostriches and ibexes give clues to a possibility that the Gerzeans hunted in the sub-desert, as such animals were not to be found near the Nile. Also found on this pottery are representations of the Gods, almost always riding in boats. They carried around the symbols which later represented the various provinces of Egypt.

We aren't exactly sure how the Predynatic/Dynastic switch occured. Previously, it was thought that it was a result of a brutal series of wars, which was the result of advances in metallurgy. However, others have suggested that it was instead from the increased technology brought over to Egypt from Mesopotamia. The traditional date for the Unification of Egypt is right about 3150 and 3110 BCE.

The earliest known communities in ancient Egypt were villages established over 5,000 years ago. In time, the villages became part of two kingdoms. One of these kingdoms controlled the villages that lay on the Nile Delta, and the other controlled the villages south of the delta. The delta area was known as Lower Egypt. The southern region was called Upper Egypt. According to Linda D. Lau, Egypt: Chapter 1A. Historical Setting. Countries of the World:

"Archaeological findings show that primitive man lived along the Nile River long before the dynastic history of the pharaohs began. By 6000 B.C. the Nile Valley was the scene of a Neolithic, or New Stone Age, culture marked by characteristic elements of settled village life, such as pottery, agriculture, and domestic animals. By 3500 B.C. the many tribes living in the Nile Valley had coalesced into the kingdoms of Upper and Lower Egypt, ruled by predynastic kings; some scholars, however, have postulated that there was a union for a time under one rule at Heliopolis. Others have disputed this, maintaining the long-accepted division into two lands.

In about 3100 B.C. Upper and Lower Egypt were united under a ruler known historically as Mena, or Menes, as recorded in the fifth century B.C. by Herodotus. Mena has been identified as a king of Upper Egypt, whose seat was at Neklen, or Hierakonpolis. After bringing the northern kingdom under his control, Mena ruled from Memphis, where the capital remained throughout the Old Kingdom period. Political union of the Nile Valley north of the First Cataract (just south of Aswan) was of particular significance, since it brought the use and management of the river under one authority. Mena's rule initiated the thirty pharaonic dynasties into which Egyptian recorded history is usually divided."

As discussed earlier, the evolution of Set wasn't all at once, but there was one time period which ultimately made Set the embodiement of evil. A group known as the "Hyksos" came into being. The ancient Jewish historian Josephus thought that Hyksos was from the words "hyk" or king, and "sos", or Shephard. Thus the traditional name assigned to the Hyksos were "the shephard kings". However, with our advances in translation of Egyptian texts, we know know that 'Hyksos' is derived from the Egyptian words 'hekau' - 'rulers' and 'khaswt' - 'foreign hill-countries'.

These new rulers came in during a disorganized time in Egypt's history, whenever foreign people would come and go during times of famine into Egypt's fertile land. The Hyksos were particularly barbarious:

"Male burials with weapons show a warrior strain in the new-comers. Especially at the beginning, they posses very original features; some of them, indeed, look rather barbarous."

M. Bietak, Avaris and Piramesse: Archaeological Explorations of the Eastern Nile Delta, p. 244

Manetho informs us that the Hyksos 'treated all the natives with a cruel hostility, massacring some and leading into slavery the wives and children of others'. Archaeology has revealed that the stratum F warriors were accompanied by their servants into the next world. The graves at Tell ed-Daba, containing sacrificial burials of young females, provide us with further indications of the brutality of the early Hyksos invaders."

"The invaders settled at sites such as Avaris in the eastern delta and drove the native Egyptian pharaohs back to their capital at Itj-Tawy in Upper Egypt."

David M. Rohl, A Test of Time: The Bible from Myth to History, p. 288, 289

The Hyksos killed all male Egyptians they found, the rest fled. The new rulers then instituted slavery, which was previously unknown in Egypt. These people were whom the connection between Apophis and Set was made. The foreigners, like Egyptian pharoah's, had noticed the similiarities between their Baal and Set. They thus worshipped Set in Egypt. They probably also started to embody all of the notions that Egyptians found evil, for psychological terror as much as anything.

Apophis, (the last remaining Hyksos king) took to him Sutekh [Seth] for lord and served not any god that was in the whole land save only Sutekh [Seth]."

Papyrus Sallier, I, I, 2-3

"Here it may be assumed that Seth stands for the Syrian god 'Baal', because of all foreign deities Baal alone is designated in later Egyptian texts by Seth's animal (its species cannot be determined with certainly)."

Siegfried Morenz, Egyptian Religion

Following that, the Egyptians drove them back to Canaan/Israel, and enforced heavy taxes upon all of the nations there. They started taking the Hyksos survivers as their own slaves, forcing them to work in turqouise mines, which were extremely dangerous. They destroyed anything which the Hyksos had brought to their country, wiped them out of their records, and now the assocation between Set and the Hyksos was firm, Set had to be rooted out as well.

This is, at least, the best theory I can come up with. In, "The Death of the Gods in Ancient Egypt", by Jane B. Sellers, she says that:

"I will propose that certain phenomena present during a total eclipse of the sun profoundly influenced their myths and that a unique period of awareness and happenstance led to the union of the two mysteries. I believe that the accounts of the ‘eighty years of contending’ between Horus and Seth for the vacated office of Osiris".

The fact that the evolution of Set was slower than most people think is confirmed by the fact that several Egyptian pharaohs over the centuries called themselves "Seti." The pharaoh was considered the living embodiment of deity, to rule in the earthly place of the entity, whether it was Ra, Horus, Osiris, or Set.

Archaic Egypt: Set generally occupies a secondary role to his enemy Horus, champion of the people of the North (except in the 2nd dynasty when one pharaoh took a "Set" name rather than a Horus name.) Set is intimately connected with teaching astronomy, the methods of agriculture, medicine, and above all magic. He is said to have opened the mouth of the other gods, and is the patron of the sem ritual. His cult titles include "Great of Magic" and "Eternal". There is indeed evidence that Set is set apart from other gods to die (Bonnet's commentaries on the Pyramid texts).

The astronomical cult, which placed the afterlife in the region of the Northern heavens -- particularly in and around the constellation of the Great Bear, was replaced in the Fourth dynasty by a growing sun cult centering on Re and Horus. The great stellar monument that Imhotep designed were replaced by the solar pyramids of the Fourth and Fifth dynasty's. (Notably Cheops took no chances in the great Pyramid's design, although outwardly a solar monument he had a hole bored through, so that the stones aligned with the position of Alpha Draconis (a star in the Great Bear called Thuban = "the Subtle One", a possible Set cult title,) just in case that was where his ka was heading.

During the next few dynasties (4 - 17), Set is generally ignored. His functions are absorbed into other gods. Thoth picks up the attributes of magic, Osiris picks up the attributes of Mysterious time "djet" as opposed to exoteric time "neheh". Set keeps his attributes as a storm and stellar god, and gradually comes to be associated with all night fears. (Remember the demons and night?) He gets attributed with nightmares, desert fiends; in addition to the "bad animals" such as the Hippopotamus, and the jaguar of the South. He is mentioned in a famous 12th dynasty writing called "The Discourse of a man with his ba" in which his solar aspect "IAA" is referred to. Bikka Reed has a great translations of this text.

In the 18th dynasty a remarkable Pharoah Hatshepsut reintroduced the worship of Set, by building a Temple dedicated to him, and Horus the Elder at Ombos. This marked a strong interest in Set's eternal nature. For example, in Hatshepsut, is the prophecy (which she had placed in her tomb at Der el-Medina) that "She will not only enjoy the days of Horus, but the days of Set will be added to her span."

She was also interested in the antinomian nature of the Set cult. In fact, she performed one of the most scandalous acts available to a woman, she acted as a man. This early feminist clearly found Set, a great archetype to Work with, (also noting that Set may have originally been a female, as all "Gods" were originally "Goddesses".) Set was popular among her family until the Kingship of Akhenaton.

The very militaristic pharaohs of the Nineteenth dynasty, who were probably descended form a family of Set priests at Tanis, delighted in Set both in his militaristic role, and as God of Foreign places. Ramses II, for example, called himself the Son of Set. The Set cult too was very popular with foreigners coming to live in Egypt. His worship has always been connected with the outsider.

The Twentieth Dynasty began by looking very favorably on this god, as is shown in the name of its founder Setnakt, "Set is Mighty." There is also considerable evidence that the set cult was favored among artisans of the time. By the end of the Twentieth Dynasty, as the funerary cult of Osiris became the dominate force in popular Egyptian religion, Set's role changed to become that of the murderer of Osiris, and Set became the Evil One. In fact by the Twenty Sixth dynasty it was a common practice to disfigure any representations of Set.

Margaret Murray explains:

“The idea of dividing the Power Beyond into two, one good and one evil, belongs to an advanced and sophisticated religion. In the more primitive cults the deity is in himself the author of all, whether good or bad. The monotheism of early religions is very marked, each little settlement or group of settlements having its one deity, male or female, whose power was co-terminous with that of its worshippers. Polytheism appears to have arisen with the amalgamation of tribes, each with its own deity. When a tribe whose deity was male coalesced with a tribe whose deity was female, the union of the peoples was symbolized by the marriage of their gods. When by peaceful infiltration a new god ousted an old one, he was said to be the son of his predecessor. But when the invasion was warlike the conquering deity was invested with all good attributes while the god of the vanquished took a lower place and was regarded by the conquerors as the producer of evil, and was consequently often more feared than their own legitimate deity. In ancient Egypt the fall from the position of a high god to that of a "devil" is well exemplified in the god Setekh [Seth or Set], who in early times was as much a giver of all good as Osiris, but later was so execrated that, except in the city of his special cult, his name and image were rigorously destroyed.”

T E Velde's interpretation in "Seth: God of Confusion", only notes one thing. He's confused. I don't blame him, I am as well. There doesn't appear to be any real etymological connection for what Set means. Velde notes that in the Coffin Texts of the Middle Kingdom, the sign for the Set-Animal, might meant 'to seperate'. Velde believes that though the sign fell out of use rather quickly, but the meaning of Set as 'the god set apart' or 'the god who separates' was carried on. Plutarch offers 'the overmastering' or 'overpowering', and then indicates that in many cases the name may mean 'turning back' or 'overpassing'.

On p. 24:

"The Seth-animal functions as a determinative for words indicating concepts divergent from the normal order, which to the egyptian mind was given by gods and is guarded by them, and it has a negative meaning."

The DEVIL MADE ME DO IT!

Another very good deity vilified by the Christians was the Hindu "Devi", the Great Goddess.

Acharya S says that:

"The word "devil" comes from the Sanskrit/Hindi word "deva," which refers to the good angels of the Hindu pantheon. The root of both "devil" and "deva" means "divine." It was only after Zoroaster and the Persians conquered Hindu territory that they felt compelled to make the Hindu gods into devils! Thus, the Hindu devas became the Persians devils. As Rev. George Cox says, in Mythology of the Aryan Nations (Longmans, 1870, pp. 355, 363):

"The Devas of the [Hindu] Veda are the bright gods who fight on the side of Indra; in the [Zoroastrian] Avesta the word has come to mean an evil spirit, and the Zoroastrian was bound to declare that he ceased to be a worshipper of the daevas...

"...the word devil passed into an immense number of forms, the Gothic tieval, diuval, diufal, the Icelandic djofull, Swedish djevful, all of them, together with the Italian, French, and Spanish forms carrying back the word diaboloV [diabolos] to the same root which furnished the Latin Divus, Djovis, and the Sanskrit deva."

(Note here to Europeans, {I get this a lot}, language has been updated and changed quite a bit from the thousand years ago this word was changed, so the words will not still have the same renderings.)

The literal translation of "Devi" is just "Goddess", but it actually refers to the Great Goddess, of which the other three chief Goddesses are incarcerations. The actual "Devi" is thought to assume many forms, much like Lord Vishnu and various other incarcerations of the Brahma, (Creator, which I always confuse with the Brahman). The Devi can be seen as "Ma", the gentle and approachable mother. Als as "Jaganmata", or "Mother of the universe". In this form, she assumes cosmic proportions, destroying evil, and addressing herself to the creation and dissolution of the worlds. She is worshiped by thousands of names that often reflect local customs and legends. She is one and she is many. There are many songs and poems reflecting her worship throughout the area.

Devas, in Hinduism and Buddhism, are exalted beings of various types. The term 'deva' in Sanskrit means "shining one." Hinduism recognizes three types of devas: mortals living on a higher realm than other mortals, enlightened people who have realized God, and Brahman in the form of a personal God.

The Hindu "deva" or "devata" is a spiritual being, or a being that has spiritual qualities. Among the older sects, when you spoke of an individual human characteristic above the astral, you called it a deva or devata. The devas or devatas existed in a variety of grades and degrees of ethereality, or spirituality, and there were many different types. Therefore, a "deva" can further be used as a a generalized term to denote any spiritual or quasi-spiritual being.

Even Bible commentators don't know exactly where the word "devil" came from:

The word "devil" comes from two Greek words in the Scriptures.

It is not properly a translation of either of them, and its adoption by the translators of the Authorized Version to represent two words which are of different meaning, is quite confusing. It would have been better had the two words been transferred, or even if one of them had been represented by "devil" and the other transferred, so as to put the English reader on his guard and enable him to make a proper distinction.

The Persians were the main people responsible for the later on changes in what the Jews/Greeks/Christians thought of demons. Richard Frye's, "Heritage of Persia", pages 113-114:

"The first matter to be discussed is the so-called trilingual Daiva inscription of King Xerxes carved on stone tablets from Perspolis. The passage of importance to us (lines 35-41) reads:

"Among these countries (submitted to Xerxes) was (one) where previously daivas were worshipped. Then, by the favour of Ahura Mazda, I destroyed that daiva place, and I had proclaimed that daivas shall not be worshipped. Where previously daivas were worshipped, there I worshipped Ahura Mazda properly with the Law (arta)".

It is generally agreed that daiva worshippers were not Babylonians or Egyptians, rather Iranians, or at least Aryans..... The indentity of daivas has been much disputed, but it would seem that we can turn to only two sources, as usual, to ancient India or to later Iran. For the fFormer, the devas, the Indian cognate of the Iranian daivas, were the Aryan gods, including the troublesome one for our problem, Mithra....

If the god Mithra was considered a daiva, he should have been chased from Iran, but apparently he was strong enough or popular enough to win royal approval under Artaxerxes II (404-359 BCE)....."

Dr. Michael Magee writes of it as:

"Proof that the Persians were not tolerant in general is their treatment of their near neighbours, the friendly Elamites, non-Iranians who eventually were attacked for not worshipping Ahuramazda, and were punished severely for "hostility." The Persians doubtless reached a point where they questioned the Elamites adherance to daeva gods, the people having been closely linked for a long time, but whatever the cause it shows that Persians were interested in other people taking up the worship of Ahuramazda.

A further example that Persians had no excessive respect for other people's religions is given by Xerxes, who took over the kingdom when his father died in 486 BC. He had been satrap of Babylonia for ten years but, on accession, had to put down rebellions in Egypt, then one in his former satrapy of Babylonia. He put them down with ruthlessness and no religious niceties. In Babylonia he destroyed the temple at Esagila that Cyrus had endowed, and even destroyed the statue of Marduk! It had been the centre of the official religion and therefore of religious and state ceremonial, so it was a punishing blow."

Mary Boyce says:

"It would have been impossible for the Persians to have imposed their own religion on the numerous and diverse peoples of the ancient lands they now ruled."

What happened was an assimilation of Gods. Like the Jewish faith, there are actually several "gods" present, only they are now lesser Gods, or angels. (Outside of semantics, very little difference.) Which Gods become the angels of the Persians? The ones which are most popular, which people refuse to stop submitting too. Gods which were kept only in more local senses were relegated to the realm of being demons. The demons of Zoroastrianism are referred to as daevas, which exist in opposition to 'angelic' forces that are referred to as ahuras. In the ancient Hinduism of the Vedas, however, we find demons referred to as asuras, existing in opposition to 'divine' forces known as devas. The antagonism isn't very hard to detect. On this note, the Catholic Encyclopedia says:

"Another source of this strange worship may be found in the fact that in the early days each nation had its own natural gods; hence racial rivalry and hatred sometimes led one nation to regard the protecting divinities of its enemies as evil demons. In this way many who merely worshipped gods whom they themselves regarded as good beings would be called devil worshippers by men of other nations. Such may be the case with the Daeva-worshippers in the Avesta. In the same way the Greeks and Romans may have worshipped their divinities, fondly believing them to be good. But the Christian Scriptures declare that all the gods of the Gentiles are demons."

This belief carried over into Judaism, as Waterhouse writes:

There are so many things shared between the theologies of Persia and Israel that they cannot be assigned to general community of ideas.

Going even further, L H Mills states:

It is an obvious and pressing fact that much exilic matter is present in many places in our present so-called pre-exilic texts. We might indeed be imperatively forced to doubt the uninfluenced existence of any pre-exilic texts at all.

Aleister Crowley developed a theory about the Devil which most Satanists agree with, though it has the striking chord of resonance with a Luciferian belief, though Crowley later goes on to say that the Devil is the imagination of the Great Black Brotherhood, for a devil that had unity would be a God. Quoting Crowley:

"The exalted "Devil" (also the "other" secret Eye) by the formula of the Initiation of Horus elsewhere described in detail. This "Devil" is called Satan or Shaitan, and regarded with horror by people who are ignorant of his formula, and, imagining themselves to be evil, accuse Nature herself of their own phantasmal crime. Satan is Saturn, Set, Abrasax, Adad, Adonis, Attis, Adam, Adonai, etc. The most serious charge against him is that he is the Sun in the South. The Ancient Initiates, dwelling as they did in lands whose blood was the water of the Nile or the Euphrates, connected the South with life-withering heat, and cursed that quarter where the solar darts were deadliest.

Even in the legend of Hiram, it is at high noon that he is stricken down and slain. Capricornus is moreover the sign which the sun enters when he reaches his extreme Southern declination at the Winter Solstice, the season of the death of vegetation, for the folk of the Northern hemisphere. This gave them a second cause for cursing the south. A third; the tyranny of hot, dry, poisonous winds; the menace of deserts or oceans dreadful because mysterious and impassable; these also were connected in their minds with the South. But to us, aware of astronomical facts, this antagonism to the South is a silly superstition which the accidents of their local conditions suggested to our animistic ancestors. We see no enmity between Right and Left, Up and Down, and similar pairs of opposites. These antitheses are real only as a statement of relation; they are the conventions of an arbitrary device for representing our ideas in a pluralistic symbolism based on duality. 'Good' must be defined in terms of human ideals and instincts. 'East' has no meaning except with reference to the earth's internal affairs; as an absolute direction in space it changes a degree every four minutes. 'Up' is the same for no two men, unless one chance to be in the line joining the other with the centre of the earth. 'Hard' is the private opinion of our muscles.

'True' is an utterly unintelligible epithet which has proved refractory to the analysis of our ablest philosophers. We have therefore no scruple in restoring the 'devil-worship' of such ideas as those which the laws of sound, and the phenomena of speech and hearing, compel us to connect with the group of 'Gods' whose names are based upon Sht, or D, vocalized by the free breath A. For these Names imply the qualities of courage, frankness, energy, pride, power and triumph; they are the words which express the creative and paternal will.

Thus 'the Devil' is Capricornus, the Goat who leaps upon the loftiest mountains, the Godhead which, if it become manifest in man, makes him Aegipan, the All.

The Sun enters this sign when he turns to renew the year in the North. He is also the vowel O, proper to roar, to boom, and to command, being a forcible breath controlled by the firm circle of the mouth.

He is the Open Eye of the exalted Sun, before whom all shadows flee away: also that Secret Eye which makes an image of its God, the Light, and gives it power to utter oracles, enlightening the mind.

Thus, he is Man made God, exalted, eager; he has come consciously to his full stature, and so is ready to set out on his journey to redeem the world."

Aleister Crowley, "Magick in Theory and Practice," Chapter V.]

The Scapegoat Mentality

We have now seen a pattern which repeats itself throughout time, something becomes villified by another group in a later period. One thing which will be addressed in the section on morality is that the vast majority of criminals do NOT suffer from low self-esteem, they suffer from exceptionally high, but very brittle, self-esteem.

In the mental art of "scapegoating", feelings of guilt, aggression, blame, and suffering; are transferred away from a person or group, so as to fulfill an unconscious drive to resolve or avoid such bad feelings. It's a ego-defensive rationale vehicle, used to "shield" the person scapegoating. This is done by the displacement of responsibility and blame to another person, group, or in this case, "thing", who serves as a target for blame both for the scapegoater and his supporters. The scapegoating process can be understood as an example of the Drama Triangle concept.

Likewise, activists such as Leonard Zeskind consider all conspiracy theories: "essentially theologically constructed views of events. Conspiracy theories are renderings of a metaphysical devil which is transhistorical, omnipotent, and destructive of God's will on earth. This is true even for conspiracy theories in which there is not an explicit religious target."

Prejudice (the negative attitude) often preceeds discrimination (the negative act), but not always. Persons can discriminate without prejudice and be prejudiced without discriminating. McLemore, Racial and Etnic Relations, pp. 107-159. Scapegoating is the exact opposite to solving a problem. What it does is provide a simple explanation, no matter how wrong, for a complex problem, and then promises the people involved that they will have a simple and quick solution to that problem. Scapegoating is a binary macro-analytic model--good versus evil, us versus them. Blaming and attacking the scapegoat is much easier, and also more psychologically gratifying, than actually addressing what is a complex problem.

"The Encyclopedia of the Paranormal", ed. by Gordon Stein tells us that much of the malignment of people in Satanism has been the result of this:

"The twentieth-century demonology of satanism is recognized by anthropologists as a standard legend-type of the sort that becomes credible during times of social stress, that identifies causes of social problems, whether real or imagined, and that justifies social action against the people perceived as responsible. It thus serves the well-known cathartic and explantory functions of scapegoating, which is found among all peoples and among some higher primates as well."

The conception of such beings doubtless stems from man's instinctive fear of the unknown, the strange and horrific. It is significant that belief in evil spirits or Devils can exist without the idea of the Devil, i.e. the personification of the principle of evil in a single being (Brandon, 1970, p. 229).

Roman historian Polybius, the the masses can be unruly, so "they must be filled with fears to keep them in order. The ancients did well, therefore, to invent gods and the belief in punishment after death." He was seconded in his opinion by Hypatia of Alexandria, who said:

To rule by fettering the mind through fear of punishment in another world is just as base as to use force.... Men will fight for superstition as quickly as for the living truth – even more so, since superstition is intangible, you can't get at it to refute it, but truth is a point of view, and so is changeable.”

Within the drama triangle, there are three sides, just like that of a triangle. It has the aggressor on one side, the victim on another, and the third-party on the third side. The third-party has commonly been called the "rescuer", but that's erroneous because this person doesn't always help. This person will either encourage the aggressor by passive behaviour, or even unconsciously engaging in negative reinforcement of the behaviour. At other times, this person can be a rescuer because they get help from outside parties and call attention to the problem.

The perpetrator's drive to displace and transfer responsibility away from him/herself may not be experienced with full consciousness, the key figure in this equation is their own self-deception and denial. Another important aspect of this is to find an "enemy", someone has to be the bad guy, and it surely won't be the perpetrator. In his/her own mind, they are the victims! In the book, "Manhunter", by one of the U.S. Marshall's top manhunters, he relates that when he was tracking down Nazi war-criminals, he'd talk to relatives, friends, or even just strangers about that person. These people would defend someone who was a cold-blooded mass murderer, and then say that he was the victim!

In so far as the process is unconscious, it is more likely to be denied by the perpetrator. In such cases, any bad feelings, such as the perpetrator's own shame and guilt, are also likely to be denied. Scapegoating frees the perpetrator from some self-dissatisfaction and provides some narcissistic gratification to him/her. It enables the self-righteous discharge of aggression. Scapegoaters tend to have extra-punitive characteristics, such as the man who spends hours at church and donates all his money and time to the Church, yet has little time for his own wife and kids. This tends to build his self-hate, and make him more likely to do things which are punitive to himself, and others.

Scapegoating also serves as a defense mechanism for emotions that are unwanted, guilt, fear, hostility, frustration, etc. In this case, scapegoating can be seen as a means of projective identification, with the overall idea being that the good and bad must be seperated from each other. Despite the realities of a conflict, the attributes of the scapegoated group are falsely described to enhance its evil status, and accomplish the objectification and demonization of its members. Allport, in his book Prejudice, p. 255, speaks of scapegoating as having "a large region where the conflict is fanciful and unrealistic, animated by borrowed emotion, distorted by rash judgment and intensified by stereotype." According to Carter, scapegoaters tend to be insecure people, who are driven to raise their own status by lowering the feelings of their target.

To understand all these key psychodynamic processes, we must consider how we identify and perceive our enemies. A first step is marginalization, the processes whereby targeted individuals or groups are pictured (in the sense of being framed) as outside the circle of wholesome mainstream society. They are no longer as part of the "Acceptable group", but are now the "outsiders" the "loners". The next step is objectification or dehumanization, the process of negatively labeling a person or group of people so they become perceived more as objects rather than real people. Dehumanization often is associated with the belief that a particular group of people are inferior or threatening. The final step is demonization, the person or group is seen as totally malevolent, sinful, and evil. It is easier to rationalize stereotyping, prejudice, discrimination, and even violence against those who are dehumanized or demonized. (The US has done this trick for a few hundred years in all our war time efforts. That's why racial slurs get so popular during wars.)

Who observes that our notions of the enemy "in our everyday life world," is that the "enemy's presence in our midst is a pathology of the social organism serious enough to require the most far-reaching remedies: quarantine, political excision, or, to use a particularly revealing, expression, liquidation and expulsion." A scapegoat is thus created by the irrational nature of its construction as the embodiment of evil, not by its relative participation in actual activities that create conflict. (David Norman Smith; "The Social Construction of Enemies: Jews and the Representation of Evil," Sociological Theory, 14:3, Nov. 1996, pp. 203-240). By grasping the above fully, throughly, and completely, we may be able to accomplish the Nietzsche dream of annhiliation of false values, leading us to embrace the real values that our society should be looking towards.

"When we observe nature we see what we want to see, according to what we believe we know about it at the time. Nature is disordered, powerful and chaotic, and through fear of the chaos we impose system on it. We abhor complexity, and seek to simplify things whenever we can be whatever means we have at hand."

James Burke, The Day the Universe Changed, p. 11

(For a good overview, see "The Nature of Prejudice", by Gordon Allport, detailing the stages of progession within bias and scapegoating.)

Finally, if any of this seems confusing, I'll put Robert Price's summary of the evolution of Satan up:

"As to a source book on these matters, I would recommend the recent encyclopedic work from Brill called Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible. It traces out the roots of every entitiy you can imagine... the concept of Satan has evolved, and we can trace a number of influences.

In the Old Testament, and indeed even on most of the New, Satan (= "the Adversary," implying God's prosecuting attorney and security chief in charge of sting operations and loyalty tests) or "the devil" (Greek diabolos, the "thrower," i,e,. caster of aspersions, mud'slinger, again, accuser) is not the enemy of God but the servant of God and enemy of God's enemies.

Here and there in the NT, Satan seems to be the enemy of God, but this is a later mixture that may well have come from Persian Zoroastrianism, to which the exile Temple hierarchy would have been exposed in the sixth century BC. Zoroastrianism had an evil anti-god called Ahriman or Angra Mainyu, the co-equalm counterpart to Ahura Mazda. Ahriman had created snakes, scorpions, etc., while Ahura Mazda created everything else. Judasim appears to have borrowed this notion, plus the elaborate angelology anmd demonology, as well as ther notionf a virgin-born Savior who would at the end time raise the dead for thew final judgment from Zoroastrianism. In fact the Jewish sect closest to Zoroastrian beliefs, the Pharisees, as T.W. Manson theorized, may originally have received their name as a sarcastic cat-call. Pharisee may be a variant on "Parsee," synonym for Zoroastrian.

Babylonian and Canaanite "influence" is probably a question-begging misnomer, as it implies Israelite faith first existed as a separate entity from them, as it did vis a vis Zoroastrianism. But Israelites simply were Canaanites, like all ther neighboring kingsdoms (Ammonites, Amorites, Jebusites, Midianites, Edomites, etc.), as the Bible itself knows since it links all these groups genealogically in Abraham, Lot, Esau, Ishmael, etc. Their religions are local variations of ther same thing, like Mewthodists and Presbyterians. Israel had the storm god Yahve, while Syria had Baal-Hadad. Yahve was the young warrior who supplanted his father El Elyon after killing the dragons Leviathan and Rahab, just like Marduk took over from Anu after destroying Tiamat and Apsu. Ditto for Zeus, Kronos, etc. Yahve was eventually amalgamated with his father El Elyon. El wa also the name of the corresponding high god of Canaan, El, father of Baal.

The Genesis One 7 day creation account bears some resemblances to the seven stages of creation in the Babylonian Enuma Elish, but is even more like the cosmological speculations of Thales in Asia Minor, a contemporary of the Priestly author of Genesis One. The Eden mysth of Genesis 2, on the other hand, has a number of partallels to Greek myths (esp. Prometheus) and Babylonian (Adam's creation and (sexual) enlightenment parallels averbatim taht of Enkidu, created by Aruru as her champion against Gilgamesh.)

Beelzebul represents the conflation of two old Sumerian gods, Baal-Mul-lil, lord of the demons, and Bel Ea, the Lord of the World. He became a prince of demons who might be invoked to cast out his subordinates. Beelzebub, on the other hand ("Lord of the Flies" whose buzzing was believed to carry the secrets overheard by the desert spirits, jinn) was the oracle god of Philistine Ekron, mentuioned in 2 Kings 1.

The idea of the devil as the warden of Hell is actually post-biblical, but is probably based on the conflation of Satan with Belial, understood as Lord of the Abyss.

Satan as leader of fallen angels represernts the admixture of Satan with the intertestamental figures Mastema and Semjaza, ring-leaders of the fallen angels.

The idea of the horned devil, goatish-looking, is medieval, and seems to come from a demonization by Christians of Pan (or Cerunnos, a Celtic counterpart)."

(Sources:

Kohut, Angelologie uwd Ddmonologie in ihrer Abhdngigkeit vom Parsiamus, in Abhandlungen fiir die Kunde des Morpenlandes, iv., 1866;

Smith, Rol. of Sem., pp. 119-120;

J. Wellhausen, Heiden^ tum, pp. 151 sqq.;

A Dictionary of Angels, by Gustav Davidson,

New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge, Vol. III: Chamier - Draendorf

William Tozier: "Demonology"

Julie Alvarex Professor Spaeth, "Ancient Daemonology and the Question of Evil"

Anshen, R. N. 1972. "Anatomy of Evil" Mt. Kisco, N.Y.

Brenk, F. 1986. "In the Light of the Moon: Demonology in the Early Imperial Period,"

Brown, P. 1972. "Religion and Society in the Age of St. Augustine". London.

Carus, P. 1900. "The History of the Devil and the Idea of Evil: From the Earliest Times to the Present Day" London.

Forsyth, N. 1987. "The Old Enemy: Satan and the Combat Myth." Princeton.

Luck, G. 1985. "Arcana Mundi: Magic and the Occult in the Greek and Roman Worlds." Baltimore and London.

Neusner, J., Frerichs, E.S., and Flesher, P.V. 1989. "Religion, Science, and Magic: In Concert and In Conflict. New York and Oxford."

Pagels, E. 1995. "The Origin of Satan" New York.

Papini, G. 1954. "The Devil" New York.

Rudwin, M. 1959. "The Devil in Legend and Literature". La Salle, I.L.

Russell, J. B. 1977. "The Devil: Perceptions of Evil from Antiquity to Primitive Christianity" Ithaca, N.Y.

- - -. 1984. Lucifer: "The Devil in the Middle Ages" Ithaca, N.Y.

- - -. 1986. Mephistopheles: "The Devil in the Modern World" Ithaca, N.Y.

- - -. 1988. "The Prince of Darkness: Radical Evil and the Power of Good in History" Ithaca, N.Y.

Saggs, H.W.F. 1962. "The Greatness That Was Babylon" London.

Smith, J.Z. 1978. "Towards Interpreting Demonic Powers in Hellenistic and Roman Antiquity," ANRW 2.16.1: 425-39.

"The Anchor Bible Dictionary" Vol. 4 DoubleDay 1992

Cross, RM 1973 "Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic" Harvard University Press:

Cambridge, Massachusettes and London, England

Paul Haupt, "Der Name Jahweh," OLZ (1909), cols. 211-214

Albright, W.F. 1990 "Yahweh and the gods of Canaan," Winona Lake, Indiana: Eisenbrauns

Emerton, J.A. (1958) "The Origin of the Son of Man Imagery," JThS.9

Gray, John "The Canaanites" Fredrick A. Praeger Publishers New York & Washington 1964)

Enos Benset's essay

"The God Set" by Setnakt

e Velde's "Set, God of Confusion" Brill 1977.

George Hart: "A Dictionary of Egyptian Gods and Goddesses", Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1986.

Carter, C. A: Kenneth Burke and the Scapegoat Process. Norman, USA, 1996.

Collins, S: Step-parents and Their Children. London, 1988. p134+

Colman, A.D: Up from Scapegoating. Illinois, USA, 1995.

Douglas, T: Scapegoats: Transferring Blame. London 1995

Engle, P: Mimesis and the Scapegoat

Frazer, J.G: The Golden Bough [vol. 5]. London, 1913

Girard, R: The Scapegoat. USA, 1986

Karpman, S.B: Fairy Tales and Script Drama Analysis. In: Transactional Analysis Bulletin VII no.26, 1968. p39-43.

Kraupl-Taylor, F & Rey, T. H: The Scapegoat Motif [etc]. Int. J. Psychoanalysis 34, 1953. p253-264.

Lewis, D: Loving and Loathing. London, 1985. p23+

Perera, S.B: The Scapegoat Complex. Toronto, 1986

Scheidlinger, S: On Scapegoating [etc]. Int J. Group Psychotherapy. 32, 1982. p131-142.