Episode 180:  An hundred and fourscore 

Michael A. Aquino is an American born occultist, satanist, and author of:  The Book of Coming Forth By Night.  He is also known as the 13th Baron of Rachane (Clan of Campbell) in Scotland, UK.  A former Lt. Colonel in the United States Army, Aquino had been a specialist in psychological warfare operations during the Vietnam War, but is perhaps best known as a High Priest of the Church of Satan (CoS) founded by Anton Szandor LaVey in 1966, and as the founder and High Priest of the Temple of Set (ToS) in 1975, which today is one of the largest “neo-satanic” Churches in the USA.

Aquino was born in San Francisco on the 16th October 1946.  His father, Michael Aquino Sr. had been a Sergeant in Patton’s 3rd Army during World War II, and serving with distinction was decorated with a Purple Heart for wounds received during combat.  His mother Marian Dorothy Elisabeth Ford (affectionately known as Betty Ford) was a child prodigy, after only three years of early formal education and at the age of just fourteen years, she was enrolled as one of the youngest students ever admitted into Stanford University.  Three years later she completed a B.A. (Hon) degree in English, the youngest ever to receive such an honour at that time. 

The Temple of Set is a left-hand initiatory occult Order founded by Michael A. Aquino and incorporated as a non-profit religious organization in the State of California in 1975.  Initiates and members of the Order are known as “Setian’s.”

Aquino had been a lead figure and High Priest in the Church of Satan (CoS) founded by Anton Szandor LaVey earlier in 1966, but after administrative and philosophical disagreements with LaVey in 1972, and together with other disillusioned members that same year Aquino resigned.  Later through ritual invocation and meditation Aquino sought a new mandate from the “Prince of Darkness” in the guise of “Set,” the Egyptian god of death and the underworld who inspired him to write the book:  “The Book of Coming Forth by Night,” and to found a new Church in his name as the “Temple of Set”.