Michael A. Aquino

Aquino

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.

Quotes

The Book of Coming Forth by Night (1975)

• The Equinox has succumbed to my Solstice, and I, Set, am revealed in my Majesty.
• I am the ageless Intelligence of this Universe. I created HarWer that I might define my Self. All other gods of all other times and nations have been created by men. This you know from the first Part of my Word, and from my manifest semblance, which alone is not of Earth.
• Reconsecrate my Temple and my Order in the true name of Set. No longer will I accept the bastard title of a Hebrew fiend.
• Affix now my image as it was given to you, so that all who read of these matters may now look upon the likeness of Set. The Word of the Aeon of Set is XEPER— Become.

From PSYOP to MindWar (1980)

With Paul Valley. Pages from 2003 edition.

• On the other hand, we lost the war - not because we were out-fought, but because we were out-PSYOPed. Our national will to victory was attacked more effectively than we attacked that of the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong, and perception of this fact encouraged the enemy to hang on until the United States finally broke and ran for home. So our PSYOP failed. It failed not because its principles were unsound, but rather because it was outmatched by the PSYOP of the enemy.
  • p. 4
• So let us begin with a simple name change. We shall rid ourselves of the self- conscious, almost "embarrassed" concept of "psychological operations". In its place we shall create MindWar. The term is harsh and fear-inspiring, and so it should be: It is a term of attack and victory - not one of the rationalization and coaxing and conciliation. The enemy may be offended by it; that is quite all right as long as he is defeated by it. A definition is offered: MindWar is the deliberate, aggressive convincing of all participants in a war that we will win that war.
  • p. 5
  • bolding in original
• For the mind to believe in its own decisions, it must feel that it made those decisions without coercion. Coercive measures used by the operative, consequently, must not be detectable by ordinary means. There is no need to resort to mind-weakening drugs such as those explored by the CIA; in fact the exposure of a single such method would do unacceptable damage to MindWar’s reputation for truth.
  • p. 9

The Church of Satan (1983)

Pages from 6th edition.

• Satanists participating in rituals of Black Magic quickly became aware of an "interest" or "influence" in the atmosphere of the chamber that felt somehow alien to their own personalities. The pageantry and the oratory would fade into the background, and the participants would find themselves gripped in a sensory empathy so piercing, so powerful that it would leave them exhausted, drained, and shaken at the conclusion of the rite. It was not a chance occurrence, but an inevitable, recurring one. After such experiences participants were subdued, introspective, and disinclined to exchange comments on their feelings. There was perhaps even a slight feeling of embarrassment, as though one had somehow "slipped" from being a proper psychodramatic atheist.
  • pp. 39–40
• According to Satanic criteria, the importance of Nazi Germany is that it succeeded in touching the very core of human behavioral motivation factors. In short, Adolf Hitler knew what really makes people tick, and he formed a political party designed to make those desires legitimate and respectable in German society. As you know from the Satanic Bible, people are motivated basically by crude and bestial emotions - greed, lust, hatred, envy of others’ success, desire for power, desire for recognition, etc. Civilization has repressed such anarchic emotions in order that people may live together with a certain amount of peace. When one deliberately unleashes those emotions,consequently, there is going to be a bit of unpleasantness - war, domestic purges, or the like.
  • p. 379, originally a letter in 1974
• Mein Kampf is a political Satanic Bible. For control of mass movements of human beings, it is far more important than anything ever written by Jefferson, Locke, Marx, Lenin, or Kissinger.
  • p. 379, originally a letter in 1974
• I reaffirm my degree as Magister Templi, and I reaffirm the degrees of all those who have won them and honored them according to the standards Satan himself has upheld since the dawn of human civilization. Since you—Satan's High Priest and High Priestess—have presumed to destroy these standards and replace the true Church of Satan with a "Church of Anton," the Infernal Mandate is hereby withdrawn from the organization known as the "Church of Satan, Inc." and you are no longer empowered to execute your offices. The degrees you scorn are no longer yours to administer, but shall be safeguarded according to the Will of Satan.
  • His farewell to the Church of Satan and Anton LaVey, 1975; included in The Church of Satan, p. 848
• Whatever else may be said of him, no one can accuse Anton Szandor LaVey of being uninteresting.
  • p. 894

Quotes about

• While LaVey simply saw Satan as a symbol of man's egoism, Aquino believed in the objective reality of the devil. The theurgic rituals of the Temple of Set invoked the Prince of Darkness as a sinister supernatural power.
  • Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke, Black Sun (2002), p. 215

• LaVey constructed an "audience cult" for sympathizers, an anti-organization designed to let each act in the carnival of life while giving credit to a symbolic Satan, represented by LaVey as ringmaster. Aquino constructed an esoteric order for students of the occult, designed to school new generations of "isolate intelligences" to emulate Set and survive the body. One is an expressive carnival for this life, the other a college for this life—and another.
  • Asbjørn Dyrendal and James R. Lewis and Jesper Aagaard Petersen, The Invention of Satanism, p. 70