"Temple of Set Reading List:
Category 18 - Life and Death" (3/1/86CE)
Reprinted from: _The Crystal Tablet of Set_
(c) Temple of Set 1989 CE
Weirdbase file version by TS permission

by Michael A. Aquino, Ipsissimus VI* Temple of Set
Electronic mail: MCI-Mail 278-4041
 
To the profane, life and death are automatic, inevitable, and unalterable. 
Hence they take the influence of the life/death continuum on human affairs 
for granted. To the magician, life and death can be influenced and 
eventually controlled altogether. The Victor Frankenstein of yesterday 
becomes the genetic engineer of tomorrow. New forms and mutations of life 
will become possible, death may cease save through accident, and the Self 
may evolve into a Self-contained state of existence unhampered by a physical 
shell chained to the entropy of the objective universe. Xeper.

18A. _The Immortalist_ by Alan Harrington. NY: Avon Books #380-00201-125, 
1969 [recently revised and updated]. (TS-3) MA: "In this brilliant book 
Harrington argues that the presence and the fear of death are root causes 
for much if not all of human behavioral characteristics. Non-human animals 
cannot conceptualize and anticipate death, hence are not governed by it. 
Harrington then catalogues the surprising number of ways in which death-
awareness grips human philosophy, presents data on efforts to arrest death, 
and finally ventures hypotheses concerning a non-death-obsessed environment. 
A scientific rejection of the Osirian ethic. I originally reviewed #18A in 
the Church of Satan's newsletter _The Cloven Hoof_ #V-1: 'The Secrets of 
Life and Death', reprinted as Appendix 71 in #6N."

18B. _The Immortality Factor_ by Osborn Segerberg, Jr. NY: Bantam Books 
#553-08183-195, 1974. (TS-4) MA: "This is a somewhat more technical approach 
to the questions addressed in #18A, with emphasis on the physiological aging 
and regeneration processes [see also #17F's discussion of this], the 
creation of life, and the ecological considerations of a controlled 
life/death environment [shades of _Logan's Run_]. Well-researched and 
carefully-argued."

18C. _The Book of Opening the Mouth_ by E.A. Wallis Budge (Trans.). NY: 
Benjamin Blom, 1972. (TS-5) MA: "The Spell for Life Unbounded by Time, 
caricatured as the 'Scroll of Thoth' in the classic Boris Karloff film _The 
Mummy_ and also by Bram Stoker in _The Jewel of Seven Stars_ (basis of the 
motion picture _The Awakening_). As with other TS-5 codes, this text is not 
to be read or used casually or irresponsibly. The motion picture 
_Deathdream_ (Quadrant/Impact Films, 1972) can give you a good idea of what 
can happen when you tinker with necromancy without appreciating the 
consequences of 'success'."

18D. _Our Eternity_ by Maurice Maeterlinck. NY: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1914. (TS-
4) MA: "A revision and expansion of Maeterlinck's 1911 essay 'Death'. The 
highest form of inductive logic directed towards the major issues of 
existence and survival of the egocentric consciousness after material death. 
Key to the effectiveness of #18C. [Maeterlinck is also the author of #2I.]"

18E. _The Mysteries of Life and Death: An Illustrated Investigation into the 
Incredible World of Death_ by Professor Keith Simpson, OBE, FRCP, FC Path, 
et al. NY: Crown (Crescent Books, 1980). (TS-3) MA: "At first glance this 
appears to be a rather morbid 'coffee-table' book, but it soon becomes 
apparent that it is quite a bit more. For one thing, the contributing 
authors are among the most respectable and distinguished in their fields, 
which range from philosophy and criminal psychiatry to pathology and 
forsenics. Here is the entire concept of death for you to examine: 
mythology, physiological aspects, psychological considerations, and cultural 
legacy. There are chapters on assassination, disease, the soul, strange & 
bizarre funeral & entombment practices, suicide, artistic influences, war, 
etc. After you get over feeling queasy [the photographs & illustrations pull 
no punches], you will be fascinated to discover just how little you actually 
knew about the phenomenon of death [hence life], and just what the limits of 
human knowledge concerning it happen to be."

18F. _The Savage God: A Study of Suicide_ by A. Alvarez. NY: Random House, 
1972. (TS-3) MA: "An incisive, objective, and empathetic investigation into 
the psychology of suicide, accompanied by a survey of suicide themes in 
historical literature. Said the _New York Times_ of this book: 'To write a 
book about suicide - to transform the subject into something beautiful - 
this is the forbidding task that Alvarez has set for himself; he has 
succeeded!'"