of the Nevada desert. Indeed a local visitor to Bill’s house would have noticed nothing
unremarkable about its Norman Rockwell-homespun decor - unless he happened to be invited
into the basement, where the Twilight Zone prevailed: the ED office, a bewildering workshop of
implements and artifacts from the mundane to the Lovecraftian, and a ritual chamber with the
greatest and wildest assortment of electronic and mechanical special effects I have ever seen. If
Priest Beauclerk of Carpathia (Bill’s magical persona) needed the clash of a gong or a lightning-
flash outside the [artificial] window, the flick of a hidden solenoid switch beneath the arm of his
throne sufficed.
By day Bill was a welfare investigator for the State of Nevada, crisscrossing the desert,
scattered small towns, and Indian reservations in his bright yellow Volkswagen “Thing” (a
recreation of the World War II Wehrmacht Kübelwagen). Unsurprisingly his visits were not
always welcome; he was regularly shot at, as was his house. In time-honored Nevada tradition, I
gather that the aim was always deliberately high so as not to actually hurt anyone. As previously
mentioned, Winnemucca’s principal landmark and major claim to fame remained a plaque in
front of its sole bank proudly commemorating that Butch Cassidy and his Wild Bunch had
robbed it in 1900.
Priest Robert “Jzamon” DeCecco was a cheerful Italian living in Boston, Massachusetts,
whose Amon Pylon became the focus of Setian activity in New England as had its Satanic
predecessor the Cavern of Amon. Warm, hospitable, and dashing, Jzamon would go on to an
enduring presence throughout the Temple as a later Master and member of the Council of Nine.
- 62 -
Dayton, Ohio was home to Priest Thomas and Priestess Colleen Huddleston, also Church
veterans, and well-known throughout the Temple for Tom’s experiments with unusual and
remarkable musical instruments such as the thermion and the moog. Colleen was a talented
painter, whose Setian portraits, composites, and Tarot cards quickly became legendary, and the
two of them collaborated in magnificent illuminated calligraphy as well, which they brought to
bear upon various ritual working documents and records.
Priestess Jinni Bast of New Jersey and Priest Tom Bari of Pennsylvania were both alumni of
New York’s old Lilith Grotto. They went on to introduce the Temple of Set in their respective
locales, and Jinni served several years as a member of the Council of Nine.
But easily the most dramatic, charismatic, and creative of the original Priests of Set was
Ronald K. Barrett, who a short time before the 1975 disintegration of the Church of Satan had
moved from New York City, where he had been a principal personality in the Lilith Grotto, to
San Francisco. There he founded his own [aptly-named, as it turned out, being the final Grotto of
the Church] Twilight Grotto, which in 1975 became the Anubis Pylon of the Temple of Set.
Ron, or “Anubis” as everyone came to call him, looked as though he had stepped right out of a
Frank Frazetta poster: lean, muscular, with a Mephistophelian face that could instantly switch
between horror-movie glower and friendly laughter. If the LaVeys had feared Bill Murray for his
roughshod-overrunning of communications barriers, they disliked Barrett - particularly once he
arrived in San Francisco - for possibly another reason: he was easily as personable, dramatic,
and artistically talented a Satanist as Anton himself.
In the new environment of the Temple of Set, Anubis established an early reputation as one
of the most serious and dedicated scholars of Egyptian initiation. Introduced to Isha Schwaller
de Lubicz’ Her-Bak by two of his Adepts, Lindajean Parrinello (later Reynolds) and Alexandra
Sarris, he quickly became focused upon Isha’s and her husband Rene’s “symbolism” approach as
the most accurate and effective key to Egyptology, and delved into its study with the same energy
that characterized all of his passions.
Most original Setians, as in their Church of Satan past, “didn’t give up their day jobs” while
pursuing their initiation. We had all become accustomed to, experienced in, and admittedly
resigned to balancing dual identities as ordinary “working stiffs” in conventional society and as
Initiates among our fellows behind the closed doors of the sanctuary. Not so Ronald K. Barrett:
His journey was complete, uncompromised, and all-consuming. If that meant that he lived in
isolation and near-poverty, so be it. Perhaps no occultist since Aleister Crowley’s teacher and
Buddhist monk Allan Bennett has exuded such a singular, pure, and driven dedication to
achieving his divinity. And, ultimately, he almost did it.
In this the Temple of Set both aided and impeded him. It opened unlimited vistas before him
and encouraged him to ravish himself within them; simultaneously it frustrated his desire to
take others with him into what was necessarily a unique and personal experience. A Black
Magician par excellence he was; a herder of cats he discovered he was not.
Within a year after the Temple’s founding, Barrett decided that the “arid wilderness of steel
and stone” that was San Francisco was woefully inadequate for the initiatory environment he
deemed essential for himself and his students. He and his companion Adept Ricco Zappitelli
looked around for a suitably sacred site and found it atop a wild mountain near the northern
California town of Potter Valley. XemSet he named the small plot of land they bought there, and
over the next several years, and with the added arms, backs, and perspiration of visiting/
volunteering Setians, gradually began to carve it into a magical sanctuary. There was a small
cabin for themselves and visitors; there were outdoor meditation areas; there was a winding path
up the hill to a hidden ceremonial court suitable for nighttime pageants and magical workings
under the stars. Far away from the lights of any city, enveloped by the utter silence of the
backwoods, XemSet was indeed a beautiful and magical place, wherein very little of humancraft
- 63 -
was either needed or wanted. Nevertheless the tireless Barrett continued to accent it with
thrones, standards, portals, and altars, all hand wrought and exquisitely painted.
Barrett devoted no less attention to his personal ceremonial and religious attire, which again
was all handcrafted to the admiration of other Setians. And at least once with slapstick results:
After being Recognized as a Master of the Temple in August 1977, he proudly arrived at a
Priesthood dinner in San Jose wearing the blue clerical collar insert to which he was now
entitled. Except that he had accented it with blue glitter. Bill Murray glanced at the sparkling
item, swished over to him, shook his hand limply, and in his best drag-queen-caricature lisp
gushed, “Ron - it’s just you!” The meeting exploded in laughter, and so, after first going beet-
red, did the new Master of the Temple.
New Setians continued to enter the Temple in a steady stream, and predominantly these were
now individuals who were not long-term Church of Satan alumni. They were on the whole not
interested in that organization or in Satanism per se; they were attracted purely to the message
and invitation of the Temple of Set, which they saw as a darker, more glamorous and serious
; alternative to the numerous fluffy-bunny occultisms that had proliferated in the New Age
atmosphere of the 1970s. These newcomers didn’t arrive with blank, gullible minds; they were
already hardened philosophers who had put conventional wisdom to the test and found it
inadequate to deal with the greater realities of existence they had come to confront.
This “second generation” of Setians took the Temple of Set not on its terms, and not on the
coattails of any lingering Church of Satan momentum, but on a pragmatic basis. If it proved to
indeed facilitate their personal adventure into the Mysteries, they would stay with it. If not, they
would continue their search elsewhere.
This rationale was respected, indeed cultivated by the Temple itself, which gradually
configured its I° entry degree into what Her-Bak termed a “peristyle” or “courtyard” of mutual
acquaintance and evaluation. New Setians I° were given a maximum of two years to qualify for
Recognition as Adepts II°; if they did not meet this deadline, their affiliation was discontinued.
Two years was not only plenty of time for a reasonably-intelligent individual to develop basic
Black Magical skills (which II° Recognition signified); it was also amply sufficient for nonSetians
to realize that they were in an incomprehensible or otherwise unsatisfactory environment and
thus leave on their own. [This is a policy which the Temple has continued to the present day,
generally with mutual benefit.]
In contemplating this memoir I have wondered how best to remember and illustrate the
intellectual, initiatory, and organizational contributions and influence of those Setians in our
early years who shaped the Temple’s design, outlook, and overall flavor. I could cite personal
memories and anecdotes, of course, but this would be necessarily subjective and selective. What
I have decided to do instead is to append a selection of representative articles from the Temple’s
Scroll of Set newsletter. These will appear as appendices, and are grouped therein corresponding
to the chapter(s) of this memoir to which they align in time. See from these founding years
Appendices #14-46.
During these same four years I myself was driven by two primary interests where the Temple
was concerned: first to design and shape it into the most interesting, efficient, and above all
authentic Temple of Set I could envision; and second to complete the Utterance of my Word
Xeper. By 1979 I felt that I had accomplished both. The Temple had its Articles of Incorporation,
By-Laws, and federal & California state recognitions as a religious institution. The other
founding members, most essentially the Magistry and the Priesthood, understood how to
operate this machinery smoothly and cooperatively; everyone was enjoying the Temple and
initiatorily profiting from exposure to it.
Where Xeper was concerned, I felt that from my research into both its ancient Egyptian
meaning and its modern evolutionary implications, I had indeed explained it both to myself and
- 64 -
to others. In my personal case this culminated in my Ipsissimus initiation as recounted in the
previous chapter. In the case of other Setians, the influence of Xeper was wonderfully apparent
in the strength and diversity of the talent and genius the Temple was clearly awakening in them
[of which the aforementioned Scroll articles are just one example].
One of my core concerns was that the Temple of Set establish and maintain its organizational
identity beyond any individual; it was not to become a “personality cult” of myself or anyone
else. Further, its focus necessarily needed to be on each initiate’s experience, not on the
institution itself. Hence my often-invoked metaphor of the Temple of Set as “merely a toolbox”
whose tools were available to each Setian to assist in his own, unique initiatory adventure.
In keeping with this, I felt that it was important for the High Priesthood of Set to be
established as an office to be held by whichever Setian seemed to be most attuned to it at any
particular time. It should not be a lifetime enshrining of any person, as for instance the Roman
Catholic Papacy or Anton LaVey’s Satanic High Priesthood.
Thus in 1979 the time appeared right to commence this tradition, and it seemed to me that
the appropriate combination of dedication, energy, vision, and responsibility was most
conspicuously coalescent in Ronald K. Barrett, as is apparent from a biographical profile of him
in the May 1979 issue of the Scroll of Set (Appendix #46). Just as importantly, his own initiation
had taken the momentous step of transition from Magister Templi IV° to Magus V°.
On June 22, XII/1977 then-Priest Barrett had performed a GBM working atop his
mountaintop retreat which resulted in his awareness of and subsequent focus upon the Egyptian
hieroglyphic term Xem (the Xem Working: Appendix #47). In a 11/22/78 letter to the Priesthood
of Set I said:
In III°-65 I mentioned, among other things, that I had some further thinking to do about the
ritual held in San Francisco this past spring. At that ritual Magister Ronald K. Barrett formally
proposed a new concept embraced by the word Xem, roughly as follows:
Xem historically has been associated with the ancient Egyptians’ identification of their
geographical territory, in much the same way as we use the terms “England”, “France”, etc. Barrett
suggests that this use of Xem is erroneous - that in fact it encompasses a far more complex
phenomenon. Xem as understood by Barrett refers to the collective initiatory environment of the
ancient priesthoods - sort of a “boundary of higher consciousness” rather than a political/
geographical border in the profane sense. Xem may have come into vulgar usage as a political/
geographic term, of course, and that would account for its subsequent translation by
archæologists.
But, continues Barrett, Xem possesses additional significance. It is subject to another
translation: “the Coming Into Being of the gods”. In this sense it refers to “gods” in the precise
sense as “Forms” - derived not from the governing principles of the mechanical cosmos, but from
“expansions” and “specializations”, one might say, of the primal non-natural Form of Set.
This, suggests Barrett, would account for the actual origin of the ancient Egyptian gods other
than Set [and perhaps other than HarWer, and other than corrupted, imported gods such as
Osiris]. It is not so such that the earliest initiates of the Set-cult “fell away” from that cult to
worship natural-animal-headed conventional gods, but rather that certain initiates were able to
use their conceptual powers to create other Forms emphasizing certain characteristics. [This
would explain the somewhat mystifying statement in the Book of Coming Forth by Night that “all
other gods have been created by men”.]
The perfected magician, then, actualizes his or her perfection by the magical act of
creating a god or goddess. Presumably there are various ways in which this may be
undertaken. The act of creation may be metaphorical (i.e. the definition or introduction of an
evolutionary principle) or it may be actual (i.e. the magical genesis of a “higher self” possessing
the will and the characteristics of the god/goddess ... for example Aiwass, Aleister Crowley’s
“higher self”/ �
��Holy Guardian Angel”).
Magister Barrett had been considering aspects of this theory for some time prior to the spring
conclave in San Francisco. I can recall his discussing the basic concept with me during some of my
- 65 -
first visits to the Anubis Pylon headquarters in S.F. after the crisis events of 1975 had brought a
new focus upon and interest in the “gods of Egypt”. What happened at the spring 1978 conclave
was actually twofold: First Barrett felt that the hypothesis had been sufficiently developed to merit
its being formally enunciated as a comprehensive theory, and secondly the magical workings of
the conclave ritual seemed to substantiate, if not altogether confirm the theory.
A west coast III°+ meeting was scheduled for 11/11-12 in San Francisco and Oakland. A few
days prior to the meeting, Barrett inquired if he could meet with me in Santa Barbara to discuss
an urgent matter. He was, as it turned out, “obsessed” with the theory, feeling a consuming need
to explain it and promulgate it. He asked my interpretation of this obsession and my advice
concerning it.
I suggested to him that the elements of his theory, the dynamic essence of his Utterance of the
Word Xem, and his compulsion to implement that Word were characteristics of a Magus V°.
Consider the following quote from Aleister Crowley’s Magick:
The essential characteristic of the Grade is that its possessor utters a Creative Magical
Word, which transforms the planet on which he lives by the installation of new officers to
preside over its initiation. This can take place only at an “Equinox of the Gods” at the end
of an “Æon”; that is, when the secret formula which expresses the Law of its action
becomes outworn and useless to its further development ...
This does not mean that only one man can attain this Grade in any one Æon, so far as
the Order is concerned. A man can make personal progress equivalent to that of a “Word of
an Æon”; but he will identify himself with the current word and exert his will to establish
it, lest he conflict with the work of the Magus who uttered the Word of the Æon in which
he is living.
The Magus is preeminently the Master of Magick, that is, his will is entirely free from
The Temple of Set I Page 11
