My Neopantheistic Adventure: The Thelemic Heptad

The Thelemic Heptad paradigm weaves together three important elements of my personal mythology: Thelema, a pre-Heliopolitan Egyptian pantheon, and modern cosmology. I have practiced Thelemic philosophy and magick for over fifteen years, so I chose to use Crowley’s The Book of the Law as inspiration for a new Thelemic pantheon.

The Thelemic Heptad consists of seven primary Egyptian deities loosely derived from The Book of the Law:

Nuit: Revealed in Chapter One.

Horus (Ra-Hoor-Khuit): Revealed in Chapter Three; the god of the third Aeon.

Set: Hadit manifests not as a god (AL II:23) but as the spark of divine individuality dwelling within each of us. The Temple of Set has reestablished Set as the deity that governs the development of that individual consciousness.

Maat: Identified as the goddess of the fourth Aeon (AL III:34).

Osiris: Mentioned in Chapter One (AL I:49); also the god of the second Aeon.

Isis: Mentioned in Chapter One (AL: I:22, 49); also the goddess of the first Aeon.

Thoth: Chapter Two includes a feast for Tahuti (AL: II:39) as one of the Thelemic feast days.

The Thelemic Heptad: Nuit, Set, Horus, Maat, Osiris, Isis, and Thoth.

In working with each of these deities in the past, I realized that the popular Heliopolitan myth puts them in a context that does not reflect my personal experiences. I prefer to draw from Predynastic and Old Kingdom mythology, which presents more realistic and balanced relationships between the deities. Most importantly, it restores Set and Horus to equal status within the Egyptian pantheon by disregarding the demonized Set and the awkward birth of Horus the Child.

Next: cosmological correlations.