Draft:Michael A. Aquino

Dr. Michael Angelo Aquino (October 16, 1946—September 1, 2019), Baron of Rachane, FSA Scot, was an American Army officer, academic and occultist. Aquino was a career officer with the US Army specializing in psychological warfare, having previously served in the Vietnam War where he became a lieutenant colonel.

Upon returning from Vietnam, Aquino became a priest within the Church of Satan, but eventually became disenchanted with the leadership of Anton LaVey, and in 1975 split from the Church of Satan and established a church of his own, known as the Temple of Set.

Life
Michael Aquino was born on October 16, 1946, in San Francisco, California. He graduated from the University of California Santa Barbara in 1968 with a B.A. in political science. Following his deployment in Vietnam he earned an M.A. in 1976, a Ph.D in political science in 1980 from the University of California, and a Master of Public Administration degree in 1987, from George Washington University.

He served in the United States Army from February 23, 1962, to March 1, 1963, and earned the rank of lieutenant colonel. As a young officer, Aquino served two years in Vietnam, rising from platoon leader to troop commander. While in Vietnam, Aquino served in the 6th Psychological Operations Battalion between 1969 and 1970.

During his service in Vietnam, Aquino corresponded with Anton LaVey, and became a priest of his Church Of Satan upon his return to the United States. In 1975, Aquino split with LeVey, dissatisfied with LaVey's selling of church degrees, and formed the Temple of Set.

In 1980, Aquino, then a Major, serving as Research and Analysis team leader at 7th PSYOP Group in San Francisco with then-PSYOP analyst Paul E. Vallely, co-authored a paper concerning the use of psychological operations entitled "From PSYOP to MindWar: The Psychology of Victory", which focused on the application of 4th generation of warfare to an enemy population.

From 1980 to 1986 Aquino worked as an adjunct professor of political science at Golden Gate University. In 1994, Aquino retired from the army. In 1996, he turned over over the operations of the Temple of Set to Don Webb, and lived in semi-retirement until his death on 1 September, 2019. Aquino's cause of death is unknown, though the obituary published on the Temple of Set website notes that he had been "experiencing declining health for several years".

Controversies
Aquino was accused of involvement in the Presidio child abuse case in 1986, accusations that he denied throughout the rest of his life, framing the day-care child abuse cases of the 80s as "witch hunts". At the height of the "Satanic Panic" in 1988, Aquino made an appearance on The Oprah Winfrey Show.

No charges were ultimately laid against Aquino by the U.S. Army, and the SFPD discontinued their investigation into Michael and his wife Lilith Aquino (in regards to the Presidio case) in 1988, stating that the evidence was insufficient to prosecute the pair. In 1991 Aquino filed a suit against United States Secretary of the Army Michael P.W. Stone to compel the army to amend the investigative report in order to strike both his and his wife's names from the record. While the United States Army Criminal Investigation Command deleted Mrs. Aquino's name entirely, on the ground that the identifications of her by the children interviewed were inadequate, it did not delete LTC Aquino's name, and all the child-abuse charges remained, because "the evidence of alibi offered by LTC Aquino [was] not persuasive."

In 1994, Aquino and his wife filed a libel suit against Linda Blood—a former member of the Temple of Set—for claims made in her book The New Satanists. The Aquinos alleged that the book attempted to implicate them in a "satanic plot to ritually abuse children."

In 1997, Aquino filed a lawsuit against ElectriCiti Inc., an internet service provider based in San Diego, claiming that the company "breached its duty to the [plantiffs] and to other Internet users" for not revoking internet access to a poster who accused the Aquinos of ritual abuse against children.