Writing The Xeper Litany (see prior post) was in fact a pretty big Xeper moment for me. It wouldn't have been possible without all the input on this thread from experienced Setians. I thank you all for that.
Maybe this thread is one of those that might get bumped now and then. I suppose I flatter myself to think so, but truth be told, what is more fundamental on a Setianism board than an ongoing discussion of Xeper?
I'm not one who cares about pantheons or myths. I know many of you care deeply about such things and I love to watch you indulge your passion in this regard. I admire that passion, even though I don't share it. I'm always looking for the structural paradigm of a system and once I find it, I tend to discard everything else and just focus on that structural paradigm. In Odinism, the structural paradigm is the oft quoted but almost never fully appreciated axiom, knowledge is power, with Odin the archetypal personification of that axiom. In Setianism as I currently understand it, the structural paradigm is this axiom, All is Xeper and Xeper can be made to obey.
The first part of that, All is Xeper, challenges a root assumption of the Western mind, an assumption so ingrained that I, for one, wasn't aware of it in the least. That assumption is, "The default state of matter is stasis." This is expressed in magisterial fashion by Newton's first law of motion, sometimes called the law of inertia, which states, "An object at rest stays at rest and an object in motion stays in motion with the same speed and in the same direction unless acted upon by an unbalanced force." No doubt this law is true. Stand a coffee cup on a table and that cup will remain there unless and until something causes it to do otherwise. But here's the thing: something will cause it to do otherwise. It's not a question of if, but when. That cup will move, because the immanent transcendence is not Being, but Becoming. Because All is Xeper, that cup will move.
Until now, I was never satisfied with neo-Darwinism as an explanation for the origin of species. Oh, I had no doubt that mutation happens and natural selection happens. But something nagged at me. I felt there needed to be a third force, or principle, or agent. Yet I couldn't bring myself to believe in Intelligent Design, because my intuition has always been that our universe is fundamentally free, and Intelligent Design would contradict that. But now I have my third force, or principle, or agent, or what I now call the immanent transcendence. Xeper! The defailt state of matter is metamorphosis over time. That changes everything. Now meaningful mutation has a systematic reason for "constantly" happening as the Earth measures constancy. Not in a directed fashion. Not with any sort of intelligent design. But driven by a mandate nonetheless. Become!
The second part of Setianism's structural paradigm as I perceive it, Xeper can be made to obey, justifies and explains a great deal of magic as practiced in any system. "Let X become other than X" is a perfect summary of so many magical incantations ever vocalized. It succeeds, when it does, because our universe's immanent transcendence is relentlessly pushing for precisely this, that every X become other than X.
This structural paradigm contradicts another one, which has sometimes been put forward as the structural paradigm of Hinduism. Brahma: Creation. Vishnu: Preservation. Shiva: Destruction. (This is a gross over-simplification of the pantheon and its attendant myths, but people like me don't care much about that.) The Western mind likes that trinity of creation-preservation-destruction. It fits how we perceive reality. The Western magician, accordingly, can be counted on to cast spells of creation, or preservation, or destruction, those three. Yet Setianism's structural paradigm would repudiate that. Creation? No such thing! Preservation? No such thing! Destruction? No such thing! There is only Becoming, and Becoming, and Becoming, world without end, Amen.
Per the foregoing, creation spells, preservation spells, and destruction spells are wrong-headed. Cast metamorphosis spells! Do that, and you will align yourself with what the universe "wants" to do and is already doing and will persist at doing whether you cast a spell or not. Xeper will happen, with or without you. Even within your very self, Xeper will happen, with or without your permission and with or without your guidance. But Xeper can be made to obey. That is the Sorcerer's Secret.