Wikipedia

Michael A. Aquino

Michael A. Aquino
Undated photo of Aquino
TitleHigh Priest
Personal life
BornMichael A. Aquino Jr.
(1946-10-16)October 16, 1946
San Francisco, California, U.S.
DiedSeptember 1, 2019(2019-09-01) (aged 72)
SpouseLilith Aquino
Known forTemple of Set
Religious life
ReligionTheistic Satanism
DenominationTemple of Set

Michael A. Aquino Jr. (October 16, 1946 – September 1, 2019) was an American political scientist, military officer and Satanist. He was the founder and high priest of the Temple of Set. Aquino was also a specialist in psychological warfare for military intelligence and an officer in the U.S. Army.

Early life and education

[edit]

Michael A. Aquino Jr.[1] was born on October 16, 1946.[2] His parents were Michael A. Aquino Sr. and Betty Ford.[1] He was an Eagle Scout graduate of Santa Barbara High School (later serving as a national commander of the Eagle Scout Honor Society)[2] in 1964 before enrolling at the nearby University of California, Santa Barbara,[3] where he received a bachelor's degree in political science[4] as an ROTC United States Army Distinguished Military Graduate (conferring a then-elite Regular Army commission) in 1968. He returned to the institution after transitioning to United States Army Reserve service, earning an M.A. in political science in 1976 and a Ph.D.[2][5]

Career

[edit]

Following his commissioning in the Army, Aquino served as a psychological warfare specialist and was deployed in the Vietnam War.[6][7] He served with the Green Berets and in the 1970s and early 1980s he was a part-time NATO liaison officer in several European countries. While off-duty on one of these tours, he visited Wewelsburg Castle, which was used by the SS and Heinrich Himmler, and performed a Satanic ritual there.[8][9][10] Aquino stated that his interest in Nazism was academic and denied that he was racist. The journalist Linda Goldston quoted him as saying: "I'm fascinated by the lessons to be learned from the Nazi experience but not blinded by their excesses", and "There was a small group of brutal and desperate men who governed a country through despotism and tyranny. They were quite brilliant in some respects, yet utterly savage in others."[9][11]

Upon receiving his doctorate in 1980, Aquino returned to his native San Francisco, where he served for the next six years as an Active Guard Reserve officer at the Presidio of San Francisco. He also taught at Golden Gate University until 1986.[7] In 1981, Aquino was a reserve attaché at the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), and a year later he was a student at the Foreign Service Institute, sponsored by the United States Department of State. As an intelligence officer, he thus gained access to top-secret documents. He later worked as a program analyst at the US Army's Reserve Personnel Center in St. Louis, Missouri, where he was responsible for human resources issues. Prior to entering his doctoral program, he briefly worked at Merrill Lynch and obtained a license to trade securities on the New York Stock Exchange.[8][9] In 1994, Aquino retired from active duty in the army, was honorably transferred to the reserves and awarded the Meritorious Service Medal.

Satanism

[edit]
Aquino with then-wife Lilith, at 1999 Los Angeles Conclave

In 1969, he joined the Church of Satan, led by Anton LaVey, and quickly rose through the ranks of the group. By 1971, Aquino had been appointed Magister Caverns of the IV degree within the church hierarchy, was the editor of the publication The Cloven Hoof and sat on the governing council of the nine.[12] His career in Satanism was paused when he went on to work in the military.[4] He met LaVey at a screening of Rosemary's Baby, where LaVey gave him his business card.[13] They grew to be very close.[14] However, conflicts arose over time between LaVey and Aquino regarding the direction of the group. The latter rejected LaVey's atheism and materialism.[12][15][4] When he started selling positions in the Church of Satan for money, Aquino finally left the group in 1975.[16][17] His history of the Church of Satan, entitled The Church of Satan, has had several editions and has been an important source for academics, though how reliable Aquino is has been questioned.[18] He has since extensively criticized LaVey and has, according to scholars, "gone out of his way to make public court documents that reflect negatively on LaVey’s personal life".[14][18]

After he left the Church of Satan, he started a ritual in which he asked Satan for advice on what to do next.[19] According to him, Satan appeared to him in the summer of 1975 and revealed to him that he wanted to be called Set, a name that his worshippers in ancient Egypt are said to have used. Aquino produced a religious text, The Book of Coming Forth by Night, which he claimed was revealed to him by Set in a process of automatic writing. The book proclaimed Aquino Magus of the new eon of Set, and heir to LaVey's “infernal mandate”. On this basis, he founded the Temple of Set, which is dedicated to the worship of Set. In contrast to LaVey's approach, this group has an occult and hermetic orientation. Aquino's orientation was strongly influenced by the work of the British occultist Aleister Crowley.[20][15] In 1975, the Temple of Set was registered as a non-profit church in California and received state and federal recognition and tax exemption that same year.[21]

Child molestation allegations

[edit]

As part of the Satanic panic,[22][4] in November 1986, the San Francisco Police began investigating allegations of sexual abuse in connection with the Army's Child Development Center at the Presidio of San Francisco. A girl came forward in August 1987 and identified Aquino as the culprit. At least 58 out of 100 children who had attended the daycare center showed physical and mental signs of sexual abuse, leading to a lawsuit by the parents for $60 million in damages.[8][9][14] An investigation against Aquino was launched, but it was closed after insufficient evidence was found.[23][14][4] Despite this Aquino has become a fixture in some corners of conspiracy theorist communities.[12]

Writer and publisher Mitch Horowitz said that investigators found that in the weeks of the claimed incident the Aquinos were not residing in San Francisco but instead in Washington, D.C., where Aquino was enrolled in a graduate public administration program under the auspices of the Industrial College of the Armed Forces. Although no charges were filed, a continuation board ended Aquino's full-time Active Guard Reserve contract in 1990; while Aquino said that he continued to serve as a decorated (by virtue of his Meritorious Service Medal) part-time space activities officer until his required superannuation under the U.S. Army's up-or-out statutes in 1994, this decision essentially forestalled any subsequent promotion or advancement of his military career. "The Aquinos", Horowitz wrote, "unsuccessfully attempted legal action against the girl's chaplain father and an Army psychiatrist who stoked the false claims. But the couple faced the barrier of gravitating between civilian and military law". Horowitz further wrote that Aquino and wife settled legal actions against two accusatory books out of court.[24]

Aquino sued as the result of two books that implied he was guilty in the case: Painted Black by Carl Raschke and The New Satanists by Linda Blood. The case was settled out of court.[17]

Death

[edit]

After a long illness, Aquino died on September 1, 2019 at 72 years of age.[25]

Publications

[edit]

Michael Aquino wrote many books, some of which have only been published posthumously:

Psychological warfare

[edit]
  • From PSYOP to MindWar (1980, with Paul Valley)
  • The Neutron Bomb (1983)
  • Mind War (2013)
  • Mindstar (2015)
  • Findfar (2017)

Satanism

[edit]
  • The Book of Coming Forth by Night (1975)
  • The Wewelsburg Working (1982)
  • The Church of Satan (1983; has several editions up to 2009)
  • The Crystal Tablet of Set (1985)
  • Black Magic (2010)
  • The Church of Satan I (2015)
  • The Church of Satan II (2015)
  • The Temple of Set I (2016)
  • The Temple of Set II (2016)
  • IlluminAnX: Rosicrucianism Reawakened (2017)
  • The Satanic Bible: 50th Anniversary ReVision (2018)
  • Ghost Rides (2018, with Stanton LaVey, Diane LaVey)

Various

[edit]
  • FireForce: A Star Wars Parody (2016)
  • Ode to Esme: Memoirs of Captain Nemo (2017)

Documentaries

[edit]
  • The Occult Experience (1985)
  • Devil Worship: Exposing Satan’s Underground (1988)
  • The Cook Report: The Devil's Work (1989)
  • The Devil Made Me Do It (1990)

References

[edit]
  1. ^ a b "10 Area Men Get Army Commissions". Santa Barbara News-Press. No. 28. 1968-06-16. p. A-12. Retrieved 2025-10-11 – via Newspapers.com.
  2. ^ a b c Flowers, Stephen E. (2012-06-15). Lords of the Left-Hand Path: Forbidden Practices and Spiritual Heresies. Simon and Schuster. ISBN 978-1-59477-692-2.
  3. ^ Introvigne 2016, p. 311.
  4. ^ a b c d e Melton, J. Gordon. "Aquino, Michael A. (1946-)". Encyclopedia of Occultism and Parapsychology. Retrieved 2025-09-15 – via Encyclopedia.com.
  5. ^ Dyrendal 2012, p. 379.
  6. ^ Introvigne 2016, p. 317.
  7. ^ a b Gardell 2003, p. 389.
  8. ^ a b c Lempinen, Edward W.; Popp, Robert (1987-10-30). "New Twist In Presidio Molestings". San Francisco Chronicle. No. 246. pp. A1, A4. ISSN 1932-8672. Retrieved 2025-10-10.
  9. ^ a b c d "Satanist accused of molesting girl; Soldier calls probe a witch hunt". San Jose Mercury News. 1987-11-08. ISSN 0747-2099.
  10. ^ Gardell 2003, p. 292, 322.
  11. ^ Gardell 2003, p. 322.
  12. ^ a b c Gardell 2003, p. 290.
  13. ^ Introvigne 2016, pp. 311, 314.
  14. ^ a b c d Gardell 2003, p. 390.
  15. ^ a b Introvigne 2016, p. 314.
  16. ^ Granholm, Kennet (2014-07-03). Dark Enlightenment: The Historical, Sociological, and Discursive Contexts of Contemporary Esoteric Magic. BRILL. ISBN 978-90-04-27487-7.
  17. ^ a b Medway 2001, p. 203.
  18. ^ a b Introvigne 2016, pp. 299, 314.
  19. ^ Dyrendal 2012.
  20. ^ Dyrendal 2012, p. 387.
  21. ^ Harvey, Graham (October 1995). "Satanism in Britain today". Journal of Contemporary Religion. 10 (3): 283–296. doi:10.1080/13537909508580747. ISSN 1353-7903.
  22. ^ Gardell 2003, pp. 290, 389–390.
  23. ^ "The State". Los Angeles Times. August 4, 1988. Retrieved 2024-09-10.
  24. ^ Horowitz 2023, pp. 380–381.
  25. ^ Horowitz 2023, p. 381.

Works cited

[edit]

Further reading

[edit]
[edit]
Wikiquote has quotations related to Michael A. Aquino.