When I was 14 years old, I had an experience that convinced me the Egyptian god Set is real. That was the moment I first became a Setian. But over the years, I would experience several crises of faith. I alternated between thinking Set is actually real and thinking I am just imagining things.
It didn’t help that there were people in my life who were obsessed with “proving me wrong” about my beliefs. The Christians I knew were most obvious, assaulting me with their apologetics and their conversion tactics. I never minded them that much, because none of their arguments were ever based on logic. They were rooted instead in emotions (“Don’t you want to go to heaven with the rest of your family?”), and they all hinged on biblical scriptures. These people didn’t understand that the Bible has no bearing on my life at all. It’s like trying to convince a Star Trek fan they are “wrong” by quoting Star Wars at them; it’s just NOT going to work.
But the people who really succeeded in shaking my faith at times were the militant atheists I knew. They would laugh at me for believing in Egyptian gods, claiming this is somehow “even sillier” than being a Christian. They constantly asked me things like, “What proof do you have for your beliefs? Why should I believe any of this?” Few of them understood that I am not interested in “proving” my beliefs to other people; nor am I interested in “converting” anyone. But they all seemed to take great relish in putting me on the spot, embarrassing me, and making me feel humiliated.
Whenever I started to think that maybe the atheists were right and maybe I really was just imagining things, it made me terribly depressed. My walk with Set is the one thing that truly helped me determine myself in my life, and to think that it might simply be a “delusion” was very upsetting to me indeed. There were other experiences that contributed to such crises of faith, as well, including a suicidal depression in high school and some truly terrible experiences I had while meeting up with other esotericists during my twenties. Such experiences were cited as “proof” by my tormentors that my spiritual interests were simply a recipe for madness, saying I should “get wise” and resign myself to atheism.
In 2007, I made a pilgrimage to Malvern, Pennsylvania, which is where I was living when Set first exploded into my life back in 1997. I needed to see my old stomping grounds and visit all the woodsy areas I used to frequent. There is one area in the woods by Malvern where I always used to pray and worship back in the early days. This area is called Duffy’s Cut, and much to my surprise, they uncovered a mass grave of Irish railroad workers there at some point after I moved to Texas. So when I returned to Malvern and visited Duffy’s Cut, I thanked the ancestors who had been buried there for letting me use their place of rest for my rituals.
Just being there, in that place where Set and I first met, re-awakened something truly powerful in me. And when I returned from that pilgrimage to Duffy’s Cut, I no longer cared what my atheist colleagues said to me. None of their attacks on my faith bothered me anymore. They were completely missing the point, and they had succeeded in making me miss the point as well. But no more.
The point is that it really doesn’t matter if Set (or any other god) is actually “real” or not. Even if the atheists are right and it IS all just make-believe, this still would not negate the efficacy of my spiritual work. Just believing in Set and working to emulate Him throughout my life has saved me from self-annihilation time and time again. Even if Set is just a fictional character, praying to Him and making offerings to Him has had a profoundly positive impact on my life. This does not “prove” that He is real by any means; but it does indicate that He is real enough, and that Setianism is a powerful tool regardless of whether “the supernatural” actually exists or not.
And no one has any business busting my chops for utilizing a tool that helps me to improve myself (especially if THEY are in need of some serious self-improvement, themselves!).
I have not had any crises of faith since I made this realization in 2007. This is not to say that everything has been all peaches and cream. There are times when I actually don’t find this stuff very useful, and I have to put it away and take a break for a while. This has nothing to do with losing faith; it is simply a matter of needing to rest my brain or focus on something else for the time being. Setianism does not work like Christianity, where there is all this pressure to absolutely “buy into” the belief system all the time. This stuff is always here when we need it, and we can also put it away whenever we don’t.
Furthermore, Setians should never feel guilty about needing to take breaks from their quests. Set does not expect any of us to be Terminators. He doesn’t expect us to put Him before ourselves all the time. He also doesn’t judge or condemn anyone for lapsing in their faith or their practice. Set wants His children to be fully autonomous and self-determined, and sometimes this means doing things without Him if you need to for any reason. He is not bothered by this at all; nor does He consider it any kind of “sin” or “offense.” He understands these issues better than most any other deity, and He is always there waiting for us when we need Him again.
