"History of the Temple
While the Temple of Set as an organization was formally incorporated in 1975 CE, its magical and philosophical roots are prehistoric, originating in mankind’s first apprehension that there is “something different” about the human race - a sense of self-consciousness that places humanity apart from and above all other known forms of life.

Ancient religions - of which those of Egypt are generally acknowledged the eldest - either exalted or feared this self-consciousness. Those which exalted it took the position that the human psyche is capable of opposition to and domination of the forces of nature. Those fearing it warned man that such a presumption of independence would be sinful and dangerous. Therefore, they said, such “will to power” should be concealed, sublimated - and if necessary punished and exterminated - that mankind might return to an Eden-like “state of nature” untroubled by the burdens of having to take responsibility for decisions, judgments, and actions based upon an essentially personal determination of “good” and “evil”.

The psyche-worshipping religions were more intellectually demanding than their nature-worshipping counterparts, since it is more difficult to reason a path through one’s span of conscious existence than it is to be swept along by a current of semi-rational stimulus and response. The reasoning religions - or schools of initiatory philosophy - attained levels of abstract knowledge that made them mysterious to the masses. In a few societies, such as Egypt and Greece, such groups were respected and admired. More often, however, their exclusive elitism and “supernatural” activities made them objects of resentment and persecution.

While all philosophical schools embraced the psychecentric consciousness to some degree, there were a very few that made it avowedly and explicitly the focus of their attention. The divine personifications (“gods”) of such schools have come down to us as symbols of what most Western religions, worshippers of non-consciousness, consider the supreme “evil”: the Prince of Darkness in his many forms. . . "

* Certain ones in power think they are the real "rebels" and "enlightened ones" who will lead humanity - it is their reason d'etre - through all their oppression and willfull destruction they can always rationalize it and cast themselves as revolutionaries of the human spirit.