Draft:Michael A. Aquino

• Comment: Could be notable. Curbon7 (talk) 14:01, 14 September 2022 (UTC)

• Comment: This really needs a couple more reliable sources. The one interview with Aquino (footnote 1) is a good start, but it is a fairly small journal. If he appeared on Oprah, there would be some newspaper coverage confirming that. Incidentally, it would help a lot if the footnotes used the proper cite web or cite news templates - then we could easily see what is persuasive. Final point: I see this article is create-protected after having been deleted twice before. It would be a good idea to talk to an administrator about having that changed before resubmitting. Doric Loon (talk) 08:03, 13 September 2022 (UTC)

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For the Filipino intelligence officer, see Michael Ray Aquino.

Lieutenant Colonel Michael A. Aquino Ph.D.
Lieutenant Colonel Aquino in military uniform
Title	Ipsissimus
Personal
Born	Michael Angelo Aquino, Jr. (1946-10-16)October 16, 1946 San Francisco, California
Died	November 1, 2019(2019-11-01) (aged 73)
Cause of death	unknown
Religion	Temple of Set
Nationality	American
Home town	San Francisco, California
Spouse	Lilith Sinclair
Parents	Michael Aquino, Sr. (father) Marian (Betty) Ford (mother)
Alma mater	University of California Santa Barbara
Known for	Military officer, Author, Founder of the Temple of Set
Other names	Ra-En-Set
Military service
Rank	Lieutenant Colonel
Military career
Allegiance	United States
Branch	PSYOP
Service years	1968–2006
Unit	1st SFC(A) (USMACV), 4th POG(A), 360th Civil Affairs Brigade, 489th Civil Affairs Battalion
Conflict	Vietnam War Phoenix Program Project DELTA Operation Wandering Soul
Awards	List of awards Bronze Star Meritorious Service Medal Air Medal Army Commendation Medal (3) National Defense Service Medal (2) Vietnam Service Medal (3 campaigns) Army Overseas Service Ribbon Armed Forces Reserve Medal (2) Army Reserve Components Achievement Medal (2) Army Service Ribbon Army Reserve Components Overseas Training Ribbon Parachutist Badge Special Forces Tab Air Force Space and Missile Badge Republic of Vietnam Cross of Gallantry Republic of Vietnam Psychological Warfare Medal, First Class Republic of Vietnam Air Service Medal
Senior posting
Teacher	Temple of Set
Period in office	1975–1979 1982–1996 2002–2004
Successor	James Fitzsimmons (2013)
Students Don Webb Zeena Schreck Nikolas Schreck Edred Thorsson
Post	Ipsissimus (6th degree)
Website	xeper.org

Dr. Michael Angelo Aquino (born October 16, 1946) Baron of Rachane, FSA Scot, is a retired American Army officer, academic and occultist. Aquino was a career officer with the US army specializing in psychological warfare, serving in the Vietnam War where he came to the rank of Lieutenant colonel.

When he returned from Vietnam the army stationed him in Kentucky and there he became a priest within the Church of Satan, but eventually became disenchanted with the leadership of Anton LaVey, and in 1975 he split from the Church of Satan and established a church of his own known as the Temple of Set.

Background

Michael Aquino was born to affluent parents in San Francisco, California. He attended high school Santa Barbara and graduated from the University of California Santa Barbara in 1968 with a B.A. in political science. Following his deployment in Vietnam he earned his M.A. in 1976, and in 1980 Aquino was awarded a Ph.D. in political science.

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. In 1980 Aquino, then 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 the 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. The various scandals surrounding him and his career became too much of a burden and in the 2000s he retired from public life and turned over the operations of the Temple of Set to Don Webb, and he lived in semi-retirement until his death in 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

He has been implicated in the Presidio child abuse case of the 1980s and the Franklin scandal; accusations that he fervently 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" Aquino became the preeminent spokesperson for modern-day satanism, and made several controversial appearances on daytime talkshows such as Oprah! and The Arsenio Hall Show.

No charges were ultimately laid against Aquino by the U.S. Army, and the SFPD discontinued their investigation into Michael and Lilith Aquino (in regard to the Presidio case) in 1988. 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."