Lt Col Michael Aquino, the Temple of Set,organized pedo rings,mind control

I was going to post this in another thread,Beelzebubba brought up something that I have always wanted to bring up, Lt Col Micahel Aquino.

Originally posted by Beelzebubba

But, occultic leanings of many in the military is widely known. Some of these people have even gone on to start their own religions.

His first Psyop paper to which the former,posted above was in response to.

www.skilluminati.com...

I have never been a Satanist or a Setian, but I feel I must come to Dr. Aquino's defense on this one. On a personal note, I corresponded with Aquino briefly years ago concerning various points of doctrine and practice in occult theory. While we disagreed on several key aspects, I found him to be both a scholar and a gentleman.

The links posted vilifying Aquino contain much misinformation. For example, he was not "processed" out the Army due to a pedophile scandal, but retired with honors after having served his country bravely and heroically for many years, including combat in Vietnam.

There was never any serious question concerning Aquino's innocence in the pedophile charges against him. These were brought against him by conspiracy theorists who hated him not because of criminal activities, but because of his religious beliefs. Neither Aquino nor his wife have ever been convicted of any crime whatsoever, not even jaywalking.

They became popular with the media during the so-called "Satanic Panic" in the 1980's, when they appeared on a myriad of TV talk shows to defend their beliefs against paranoid hysteria. They then became targets for the zealots.

I recommend anyone interested in Aquino to read his excellent online book "The Church of Satan". In it, Aquino describes how he first came into contact with Satanism in the late 1960's, joined the Church of Satan, was eventually promoted to top leadership, and the story of how and why he resigned in 1975 in order to form the Temple of Set. The book is not only informative but entertaining. Included in it is the story where Aquino presented Sammy Davis, Jr. an honorary membership in the Church of Satan onstage at a Sammy show in Las Vegas. The book contains many photos, several with Aquino, Anton Szandor LaVey, and Davis hobnobbing together.

The book can be read here

ML, I have no doubt that he seemed quite normal during your correspondence. And yes there was Satanic Panic.
But I must counter with a story of my own. My former ex is a long-time, well-known Pagan who also helped to start the Pagan movement back in the '60's. As such, he knows most anyone who has any kind of profile in the Pagan community. He knew Michael Aquino quite well. Aquino tried to destroy my ex's reputation by spreading lies about him. He also did alot of negative Magick towards him and tried to kill his cat. For years, my ex has kept track of him, if only for self-protection. He considers Aquino to be a slime ball of the first degree.

Now, you may or may not believe this story, but I would invite you to read his essay about Psy-Ops, in the above link. His thoughts about Psy-Ops should tell you all you need to know. This is not a nice man.

reply to post by forestlady

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ForestLady,

No offense to you, but no, I don't believe your ex's story. I do not believe that a war hero who holds a doctorate in political science, and who has taught as an associate professor for many years in universities around the country, tried to kill your ex-boyfriend's cat.

As for PSY-OPs, that paper is available on the link I posted above as well, which includes more modern commentaries by Aquino. As Aquino speaks about in those commentaries, his ideas about PSY-OPs came from his experience in the Vietnam War. He realized that the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese were winning the war of propaganda. PSY-OPs was intended as a propaganda war, a method of ending a shooting war.

It is interesting to note that in the commentaries, Aquino also warns against the abuse of PSY-OPs, and points out as an example that George W. Bush and his administration used PSY-OPs against the American people repeatedly during the beginning of the Iraq war.



[edit on 25-1-2008 by Masonic Light]

ML: Sorry, I've heard and read too many ugly things about him. Did you know that he was also a part of the MKULTRA project? He tried to see if he could create a multiple personality in someone.
The military protected him because he was a valuable CIA asset.

I have also heard some ugly stories about him when he was running Temple of Set, which is/was another very dysfunctional group. I've known too many people who have had bad personal experiences with him.

Dr. Aquino never participated in any part in the MKULTRA project, nor has he ever been associated with CIA. I too have read many ugly things about him, none of which are true.

To make a long story short, Aquino is an occultist, and does not try to hide it. This made him many enemies within both the US Army command, as well as the US government. Aquino's story is one of continuous harrassment throughout his career by the powers that be to humiliate him, and force him to either renounce the occult or leave his career. Since Aquino did neither and stood up for his rights, a smear campaign was launched.



I actually know a lot of Setians, none of whom I would describe as dysfunctional. I realize that the Church of Satan has launched a lot of anti-Setian material, but once again, consider the source.

Just a note: ToS has changed ALOT since Aquino, IMHO. No offense to the folks presently there.

On another note: does anyone know where he is now or what he's doing?

As I posted before in another thread in regards to this quote, I have to take exception to the use of the word 'many' in the context used here.

I believe that 'many' implies a far greater number than reality would indicate. Much like the general population, I'm reasonably certain that religions will break down to percentages, and that the percentage of military members with 'occult leanings' will be minor.

Not taking away from the argument - the rest of which is certainly worth looking into and discussion - but I do have to disagree the quote, and believe that it unfairly portrays the military in an unsubstantiated light.

Your pal,
Meat.

Both Aquino and his wife of many years, Lilith, remain actively involved in the Temple of Set's administration, although Aquino no longer serves as High Priest.

He continues to write, both fiction and non-fiction, and he and Lilith are both animal rights activists.

Here is a recent photo of the Aquinos taken at a Temple of Set function:


external image

That was a quote from another poster, that caused me to look into this, the word being unfair or slanted is not the real issue, as it was a direct quotation from another poster and not my choice of word usage.

Still there are strange goings on with this guy.On the plus side he writes well.

Not really. Compared to other famous modern occultists (Crowley, Mathers, Gardner, etc.) he's actually pretty normal.

I find him interesting because he introduced some very unique concepts into modern occultism. In the early to mid 20th century, most occultists were either theologically pantheists or panentheists. As Aquino describes in his book "The Church of Satan", he originally was influenced by Anton LaVey's theories of occultism, which are atheistic. However, he became more and more convinced of an intelligence behind the mystery of existence.

He eventually came to the conclusion that this intelligence was a "real" thing, and that it could be identified with Set, an ancient Egyptian deity. Aquino points out that all other Egyptian gods were depicted as being part animal, thus indicating pantheism and nature worship. Set was the only one who was depicted with the head of a creature not found in the natural world, indicating that the Setian intelligence is found outside of the cycle of nature.

Set was the chief god of Egypt during the Hebrew exodus (Aquino believes the Hebrews were actually expelled from Egypt, and that the Moses story is just propaganda). Since Egypt was the political enemy of the Hebrews, the Egyptians' god became an enemy too, whereby the hebrews caricatured Set into Satan.



[edit on 25-1-2008 by Masonic Light]

That's interesting. I have heard that theory before, but I wasn't aware that it was associated with Aquino. Personally, I believe the explanation which is given in Wikipedia's etymology entry for "Satan" (en.wikipedia.org...), but I suppose anything is possible.

Also, we Jewish people have a totally different concept of Satan than Christians. The modern "Satan" (red dude with a pitchfork who has independent powers on earth) is a Christian idea, so I think that further invalidates Aquino's theory.

Sigh... Semantics...

What I was saying in the post that you so strongly object to is that a number, many more than would be expected are immersed in religious beliefs that fall outside of the main-stream. Just as in the population of the world there are many who are followers of occult traditions, but they remain a small percentage overall.

Why would it portray the military unfairly? It is a fact that is certainly not "unsubstantiated."

You really are quite the petty person aren't you?

My apologies to the OP.



[edit on 25/1/2008 by Beelzebubba]

reply to post by Masonic Light

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Geez. And that is when the guy loses all the credit with me. Anyone who thinks George Bush - our GWB - is personally capable of orchestrating "psy ops" should not be taken all that seriously. He can't even walk and talk at the same time.

I do find this sort of thing interesting though. The re-emergence of religion (yes, I know some will call it a "philosophy" - but I am calling it a religion) like satanism, temple of set, and even some neopaganism seems to be more of a response against the influence and structure of organized religion over anything else. I hope that is something I can write an article or two on when I start my PhD in the fall. Not sure how one would empirically study it though, I'd need to survey some members of the religions - hmmm....

[edit on 25-1-2008 by LightinDarkness]

I believe that this conclusion is drawn from the works of Flavius Josephus who states that the Jewish people were exiled.

Doesn't Aquino believe himself to be Crowley's heir due to his decoding of a cryptogram in The Book of the Law?

[edit on 27/1/2008 by Beelzebubba]

Yes. Liber AL states that another Magus will issue a new Aeonic Logos which will in turn initiate an evolution in the Thelemic magical formula. Aquino believes the Logos / Word is "Xeper", which he interprets as "Becoming". His commenatries to Crowley's Liber AL explain this in a bit more detail, but it references his earlier work, "The Diabolicon", written when he was still a member of the Church of Satan. This little book shows his emerging ideas that God=Nature in a pantheistic sense, and that only things "outside of nature" can be imnmortal. The "Xeper" or "Becoming" is supposed to illustrate a process of evolution wherein humans can become more than they actually are due to the presence of intellect, which Setians believe is of divine origin.

This doctrine is further illustrated on the home page of the Temple of Set's website, where there is a monolith. This symbol was taken from the film "2001: A Space Odyssey", where it is shown that while biological evolution was a natural process, the human intellect was a gift given by higher intelligence (represented in the film by the monolith).

I don't necessarily disagree with Aquino and the Setians on this point of doctrine, but I interpret the divine intelligence in a different manner than they.

Aquino, to the best of my memory, did not accuse GWB personally of pulling it off. He himself may not even be aware of it, and in fact, some at the Pentagon may have used it on *him*.



I would agree in regards to Satanism, which is fundamentally a reaction against Christianity. Its whole purpose seemed to be to spoof Christianity through theatrical satire.

Aquino notes this as well in his book "The Church of Satan". Some of the more serious members, he writes, began to feel confined within very strict limits, as their was obviously no room for spiritual growth in a religion composed of atheists whose sole purpose was to mock Christianity.

The Temple of Set, on the other hand, has its own unique doctrines, religious formula, and forms of worship. Unlike Satanism, I do not consider Sewtianism reactionary. Aquino's claim is that he pretty much accidentally stumbled over what would become Setianism, and considers it a pure philosophical religion.

As for neo-paganism, I would have to concur that much of it (and perhaps even most) is reactionary, although I'm sure there are some branches that are progressive.

Wandering around ATS and just now stumbled into this interesting little thread ...

I might mention that a selection of my written material is available for free download [in .pdf format] here, including _The Church of Satan_ and the to-date version of its still-in-progress companion _The Temple of Set_.

I am a fairly infrequent visitor to ATS, so may or may not be back here with any degree of certainty.

Enjoy your personal adventures into the Mysteries,



[edit on 3/27/2008 by maquino]