Church of Satan & Temple of Set – Research Compilation

Status: COMPLETE (compiled 2026-02-20)

NOTE ON SCOPE

This document covers the Church of Satan (1966-present), the Temple of Set (1975-present), and the schism between them. It does NOT cover The Satanic Temple (TST, 2012-present), which is addressed in separate research. These are three distinct organizations that despise each other. The public’s inability to tell them apart is itself a form of trolling – unintentional, but structurally perfect.

This material feeds primarily into Chapter 19 (The Satanic Temple – as essential background/contrast), but also connects to Chapter 16 (Crowley – Aquino’s explicit modeling on Crowley), Chapter 15 (Golden Dawn schism pattern), Chapter 17 (joke religions / sincere parody), and Chapter 18 (chaos magick – LaVey’s “belief as tool” precursor).

TOPIC 1: ANTON SZANDOR LaVEY (1930-1997) – THE MAN WHO INVENTED HIMSELF

The Name Change as Self-Creation

Born Howard Stanton Levey on April 11, 1930, in Chicago, Illinois (Wikipedia). Parents: Michael Joseph Levey (1903-1992) and Gertrude Augusta Coultron. Family had Russian, French, Alsatian, Romanian, and German ancestry.

The transformation from “Howard Levey” to “Anton Szandor LaVey” is itself a miniature case study in the book’s argument. The man who would found a religion based on rejecting hypocrisy began by fabricating his own identity. “Anton” suggests Eastern European aristocracy. “Szandor” – Hungarian, exotic. “LaVey” – French-inflected, a few vowels away from “Levey” but a universe away in connotation. He didn’t just change his name; he composed it, the way a writer names a character.

FOR THE BOOK’S ARGUMENT: Every religion requires a founder whose biography is more mythic than factual. Moses in the bulrushes. Jesus’s virgin birth. Muhammad’s night journey. LaVey understood this mechanism – perhaps the only founder in religious history who fabricated his own legend deliberately and knowingly, rather than having it fabricated by later followers. He didn’t wait for hagiography. He wrote his own, in advance. That’s not just trolling; it’s trolling the process by which religions are made.

The Fabricated Biography

LaVey’s authorized biography, The Secret Life of a Satanist (1990, by Blanche Barton), presented an elaborate backstory that has been substantially debunked, primarily by journalist Lawrence Wright and later by biographer Doug Brod (Born with a Tail: The Devilish Life and Wicked Times of Anton Szandor LaVey, 2024) (Wikipedia).

Claims made by LaVey vs. reality:

The Church of Satan’s official position (under Peter Gilmore’s current administration) has gradually pivoted from defending the biography to characterizing LaVey as “a born showman, a charismatic speaker, a talented organist, and a wildly creative thinker, a man with no inhibitions when it came to embellishing his life story and fabricating his own mythos.”

The ironic detail that makes this perfect: LaVey founded a religion that explicitly values honesty over hypocrisy – the Nine Satanic Sins include both “Self-Deceit” and “Pretentiousness” – while himself constructing one of the more elaborate personal mythologies in American religious history. Critics call this hypocrisy. But there’s a stronger reading: LaVey was demonstrating, through his own example, that ALL religious founders create mythology. He was just the first to do it in plain sight, daring anyone to notice.

The Black House: 6114 California Street, San Francisco

The Church of Satan’s headquarters was LaVey’s personal residence – a Victorian home at 6114 California Street in San Francisco’s Richmond District, painted entirely black.

Physical details: Moderately sized single-family home. 2,205 square feet. Constructed in 1905 (Wikipedia). Despite later mythologizing, it was not a mansion. It was a house in a residential neighborhood, painted black.

History: LaVey lived there from the early 1950s. It served as the site of his Magic Circle gatherings (pre-1966), the founding of the Church of Satan (1966), all major rituals, celebrity visits, and media events for three decades. For the next 30 years, the Black House became the site of various Satanic rituals, a Satanic wedding (1967), a Satanic baptism (1967), and hundreds of media appearances. LaVey conducted Satanic seminars and rituals there.

Demolition: LaVey lost ownership in 1991 during a settlement with former partner Diane Hegarty. He was allowed to remain as a tenant until his death in 1997. After his death, the friend’s sons who controlled the property evicted the remaining LaVey family. The Church of Satan attempted to raise funds to repurchase the house but failed. It was demolished on October 17, 2001 (Wikipedia). Condominiums were built on the site.

FOR THE BOOK’S ARGUMENT: The Black House was a stage set. A 2,205-square-foot house in a residential neighborhood, painted black, that generated more media coverage than some cathedrals. The paint job was the entire trick. LaVey understood something the Golden Dawn members (Chapter 15) never quite grasped: the ritual space doesn’t need to be impressive. It needs to be photographable.

The “Magic Circle” Gatherings (Pre-1966)

Between 1957 and 1960, LaVey began hosting Friday night lectures at his home on topics including: freaks, extra-sensory perception, Spiritualism, cannibalism, vampirism, and historical methods of torture.

Notable attendees of the Magic Circle included:

• Carin de Plessin (“the Baroness”), who had grown up in the Danish royal palace
• Michael Harner, anthropologist (later famous for neo-shamanism)
• Chester A. Arthur III, grandson of U.S. President Chester Arthur
• Forrest J. Ackerman, publisher of Famous Monsters of Filmland
• Fritz Leiber, science fiction and fantasy author
• Dr. Cecil E. Nixon, creator of the musical automaton “Isis”
• Kenneth Anger, underground filmmaker (Scorpio Rising, Lucifer Rising)

A member of the Magic Circle suggested that LaVey “had the basis for a new religion.” LaVey agreed.

FOR THE BOOK’S ARGUMENT: The Magic Circle is structurally identical to the salon culture that preceded every major esoteric organization – the same dynamic that produced the Golden Dawn, the OTO, and, four centuries earlier, Ficino’s Platonic Academy in Florence. A charismatic figure hosts readings and discussions. The discussions become ritualized. The rituals become an institution. The institution becomes a religion. The Magic Circle shows this process happening in real time, in a San Francisco living room, in the 1960s.

Founding the Church of Satan – Walpurgisnacht, April 30, 1966

On the night of April 30, 1966 – Walpurgisnacht, the traditional German “Witches’ Night” and the eve of May Day – LaVey ritualistically shaved his head (“in the tradition of ancient executioners”) and declared the founding of the Church of Satan. He proclaimed 1966 as “Year One, Anno Satanas” – the first year of the “Age of Satan.” (Wikipedia)

The choice of date: Walpurgisnacht was already loaded with occult associations – the night witches were supposed to gather on the Brocken mountain in German folklore. Crowley had used it. Goethe had dramatized it in Faust. By choosing it, LaVey positioned the Church of Satan as inheriting a European occult tradition while simultaneously sending a deliberate provocation to Christians, for whom April 30 had long been a date of anxiety.

The calendar reset: Declaring “Year One, Anno Satanas” directly parallels Crowley’s declaration of the “Aeon of Horus” in 1904 and the French Revolution’s “Year One” of the Republican Calendar (1792). Every revolution – religious, political, or occult – begins by resetting the clock.

The Satanic Bible (1969)

Published by Avon Books in 1969 (OpenLibrary). Has sold over one million copies and has never gone out of print. It remains the most widely read text in the history of religious Satanism.

Structure: Four books, named after the “Four Crown Princes of Hell”:

1. The Book of Satan – The “infernal diatribe.” Challenges the Ten Commandments, the Golden Rule, and Christian morality.
2. The Book of Lucifer – The philosophical core. Twelve chapters covering indulgence, love, hate, sex, psychic vampirism, and the nature of magic.
3. The Book of Belial – Theory of magic, the “intellectual decompression chamber,” and ritual practice.
4. The Book of Leviathan – Nineteen Enochian Keys adapted from John Dee (via Crowley/Golden Dawn), provided in both Enochian and English.

Sources – what LaVey actually wrote vs. what he borrowed/plagiarized:

The Satanic Bible is a composite text. LaVey’s own voice is strongest in the Book of Lucifer (the philosophical essays). The rest is assembled from sources:

The first edition contained a dedication to: “Ragnar Redbeard, whose might is right.” The Church of Satan’s defense is that Might Is Right had lapsed into the public domain before 1969, making the borrowing legal if not scholarly. Additionally, the Church’s official position is that LaVey never claimed sole authorship of every idea, citing his reading list of influences.

LaVey’s own characterization: “My religion is just Ayn Rand’s philosophy, with ceremony and ritual added.” (Cited in Bill Ellis, Raising the Devil: Satanism, New Religions and the Media, 2000, p. 180. (Univ. Press of Kentucky))

FOR THE BOOK’S ARGUMENT: The Satanic Bible is another fake ancient text – or rather, a fake original text. LaVey compiled Rand’s individualism + Nietzsche’s anti-Christianity + Redbeard’s Social Darwinism + Dee’s Enochian system, wrapped it in a single provocative cover, and presented it as a coherent new philosophy. This is exactly what the Hermeticists did with Greco-Egyptian philosophy (Chapter 2), what Moses de Leon did with Kabbalah in the Zohar (Chapter 4), and what the Rosicrucian manifestos did with alchemical ideas (Chapter 11). The mechanism is identical: synthesize existing ideas, present them as new revelation, and let the packaging do the work.

The “Greater Magic” and “Lesser Magic” Concept

LaVey divided his magical system into two categories:

Greater Magic: Ritual performed in an “intellectual decompression chamber” – a formalized space where skepticism is deliberately suspended. LaVey’s quote: the ritual chamber is “especially important to the intellectual, as he especially requires the ‘decompression chamber’ effect of the chants, bells, candles, and other trappings, before he can put his pure and wilful desires to work for himself.”

Greater Magic is structured around three psycho-emotive themes:

• Compassion (love)
• Destruction (hate)
• Sex (lust)

LaVey defined magic as “the change in situations or events in accordance with one’s will, which would, using normally accepted methods, be unchangeable.” He stated the goal was “to isolate the otherwise dissipated adrenal and other emotionally induced energy, and to convert it into a dynamically transmittable force.”

This is explicitly atheistic. LaVey described his Satanism as “a secular philosophy of rationalism and self-preservation (natural law, animal state), giftwrapping these ideas in religious trappings to add to their appeal.” Greater Magic is psychodrama – theater performed for the benefit of the performer, not for any supernatural audience.

Lesser Magic: “Wile and guile obtained through various devices and contrived situations, which when utilized, can create change in accordance with one’s will.” This is the practice of manipulation through applied psychology. LaVey detailed this extensively in The Satanic Witch (originally The Compleat Witch, 1971), which is essentially a manual of interpersonal manipulation, seduction, and strategic self-presentation.

FOR THE BOOK’S ARGUMENT: The “intellectual decompression chamber” concept is one of the most sophisticated things LaVey wrote, and it connects directly to the book’s argument about ritual as structured trolling. LaVey explicitly acknowledged that the ritual is psychodrama – theater for the benefit of the performer’s psychology. This is the same insight the Golden Dawn members arrived at through their “immersive theater” (Chapter 15), and the same principle chaos magicians would later formalize as “belief as a tool” (Chapter 18). LaVey’s contribution was the carnival barker’s instinct: tell the audience it’s a trick, and they’ll still love it.

Celebrity Connections

Jayne Mansfield: The highest-profile celebrity connection. Mansfield began visiting the Black House in the mid-1960s and developed a genuine friendship with LaVey. She was photographed participating in Church events and was given the title of “High Priestess.” In 1966, Mansfield was involved in a relationship with her divorce attorney Sam Brody. During a visit to the Black House, Brody flippantly lit a forbidden candle on LaVey’s altar. LaVey was reportedly furious and told Mansfield that Brody’s irreverence had invoked a curse that would kill him in a car crash within a year.

On June 29, 1967, Mansfield, Brody, driver Ronnie Harrison, three of Mansfield’s children, and several dogs were traveling on US Route 90 near Slidell, Louisiana, after Mansfield performed at a nightclub in Biloxi, Mississippi. Their 1966 Buick Electra struck the rear of a tractor-trailer that had slowed for a mosquito-spraying truck. Mansfield, Brody, and Harrison were killed. The three children, sleeping in the back seat, survived.

LaVey’s reported response – essentially “I warned her about Brody” – generated enormous media coverage and cemented the Church of Satan’s public image as genuinely dangerous. The story circulated for decades, amplified by a persistent myth that Mansfield was decapitated (she was not – her blonde wig was thrown from the car, creating the illusion in photographs).

Sammy Davis Jr.: Davis maintained a two-decade-long relationship with LaVey and the Church of Satan. The connection began after Davis filmed Poor Devil (1972/1973), an NBC comedy pilot in which Davis played a hapless minor demon trying to prove himself to Lucifer. When Michael Aquino (then still in the CoS) saw the pilot, he wrote to LaVey calling it “a magnificent commercial for the church.” LaVey and the Church offered Davis an honorary second-degree membership (Warlock), which Davis accepted by letter (Rolling Stone).

Davis began appearing in public with a painted fingernail (a nod to LaVey). When Davis performed in the San Francisco Bay Area, he reserved front-row seats for LaVey’s entourage and “flashed them the Sign of the Horns during the show” (Rolling Stone, 2023). Their friendship lasted until the late stages of Davis’s life.

FOR THE BOOK’S ARGUMENT: LaVey’s celebrity strategy was pure carnival showmanship – the same instinct that led P.T. Barnum to display “Feejee Mermaids” and “Egress” signs. Every celebrity association was free advertising. The Mansfield “curse” story was so perfect it hardly mattered whether it was true: the narrative – a Satanic priest warns that a curse will kill, and then the cursed person dies exactly as predicted – was irresistible to media. LaVey understood something that would later be articulated by chaos magicians and media theorists: the story doesn’t need to be true to have real effects.

The Hollywood/Media Strategy

LaVey’s genius for media manipulation is perhaps his most enduring contribution:

Key media events:

• The Satanic Wedding (February 1, 1967): Journalist John Raymond married socialite Judith Case in a ceremony conducted by LaVey. Coverage was so massive that police had to cordon off the area. Famed photographer Joe Rosenthal (who took the iconic Iwo Jima flag-raising photo) was sent by the San Francisco Chronicle. The Los Angeles Times ran the photo across four columns at the top of the front page. LaVey had to repeat the ceremony five times to accommodate all the photographers. The event generated coverage in the LA Times, San Francisco Chronicle, and newspapers from California to Europe.
• The Satanic Baptism (May 23, 1967): Three-year-old Zeena LaVey had “the first and most highly publicized Satanic baptism in history.” This generated worldwide publicity, followed by a reenactment recorded for The Satanic Mass LP.
• Magazine coverage: LaVey became the subject of articles in Look, McCall’s, Newsweek, Time, Life, and Cosmopolitan. Early stories ran in men’s magazines (due to nude female altars), but mainstream outlets rapidly followed. LaVey’s team engaged professional PR representative Claire Harrison for press management.

LaVey’s media strategy can be reduced to a simple formula: Do something outrageous. Let reporters come to you. Never break character. This is the same strategy Crowley used with the British tabloids (Chapter 16), and the same strategy TST would later refine into legal practice (Chapter 19).

Declining Years and Death (1980s-1997)

The Satanic Panic backlash (1980s): When the Satanic Panic erupted, driven by Michelle Remembers (1980, see Satanic Panic) and the ensuing moral panic, the Church of Satan was suddenly treated not as an oddity but as a genuine threat. Bricks and bottles were thrown through the windows of the Black House. LaVey put up barbed wire. In a telling detail, LaVey painted the Black House beige to reduce attention and “largely retired from public life.”

FBI Contact: According to documents released in 2020, LaVey told FBI agents who interviewed him on October 31, 1980 that he “had lost interest in the Church.”

Zeena as spokesperson (1985-1990): LaVey sent his daughter Zeena to represent the Church on television, including The Phil Donahue Show, Nightline with Ted Koppel, Entertainment Tonight, The Late Show, and the Sally Jesse Raphael Show. She both educated about the Church and debunked Satanic ritual abuse claims. She resigned in 1990 and severed ties with her father, later joining and then leaving the Temple of Set.

Financial collapse: LaVey lost the Black House in 1991 as part of a palimony settlement with former partner Diane Hegarty. He sold the house to a friend to cover legal debts but was permitted to continue living there. The legal fight “almost killed him,” according to associates.

Death: LaVey died on October 29, 1997, at St. Mary’s Medical Center in San Francisco, of pulmonary edema related to long-standing cardiac arrhythmias and rheumatic heart disease. His death certificate officially lists the date as October 31, 1997 – Halloween – which appears to have been a deliberate adjustment by someone (Barton has been circumspect on this point) (Wikipedia). He was 67.

The fabricated “last words”: A persistent urban legend claims LaVey’s dying words were “Oh my, what have I done” – implying a deathbed recantation. Peter H. Gilmore, current High Priest, has called this “utterly fictional.” Blanche Barton, who was present, confirmed LaVey said nothing – he lost consciousness and never regained it. The fabricated quote emerged sometime after his death, likely originating in evangelical circles.

FOR THE BOOK’S ARGUMENT: The fabricated deathbed quote is a perfect coda. Even in death, LaVey was trolled by the same Christians he spent his life trolling. The quote follows an old pattern – the “deathbed conversion” narrative that Christians have attached to famous nonbelievers from Voltaire to Darwin. LaVey would probably have appreciated the irony: the establishment responded to his lifetime of provocation with one final piece of mythology as fabricated as anything LaVey ever wrote about himself.

Succession Crisis

LaVey left no clear succession plan. The aftermath:

1. Blanche Barton (LaVey’s partner and mother of his son Xerxes) claimed the role of High Priestess.
2. Karla LaVey (LaVey’s daughter) contested this, claiming she had not abdicated her role as High Priestess.
3. Probate settlement: LaVey’s belongings, intellectual property, and royalties were split among his three children (Karla, Zeena, and Xerxes). Barton received the “corporation known as Church of Satan.”
4. Karla LaVey founded the First Satanic Church on October 31, 1999 – claiming to continue her father’s original work.
5. Barton served as High Priestess until April 30, 2002 (Walpurgisnacht – the symmetry is deliberate), when she ceded the position to Peter H. Gilmore, who has served as High Priest ever since.
6. Peggy Nadramia was appointed High Priestess. Church headquarters moved from San Francisco to Hell’s Kitchen, Manhattan.

Zeena’s trajectory: Zeena LaVey (later Zeena Schreck) left the Church of Satan in 1990, joined the Temple of Set, rose to become its High Priestess in 2002, then resigned after disputes with senior officials over theology and ethics. She and her partner Nikolas Schreck founded their own organization, “The Storm.” LaVey’s own daughter traversed the full spectrum of organized Satanism – CoS, ToS, and independent splinter – demonstrating the fractiousness of the movement from within the founder’s own bloodline.

TOPIC 2: THE CHURCH OF SATAN’S THEOLOGY AND PRACTICE

The Nine Satanic Statements (from The Satanic Bible, 1969)

1. Satan represents indulgence instead of abstinence.
2. Satan represents vital existence instead of spiritual pipe dreams.
3. Satan represents undefiled wisdom instead of hypocritical self-deceit.
4. Satan represents kindness to those who deserve it instead of love wasted on ingrates.
5. Satan represents vengeance instead of turning the other cheek.
6. Satan represents responsibility to the responsible instead of concern for psychic vampires.
7. Satan represents man as just another animal, sometimes better, more often worse than those that walk on all-fours, who, because of his “divine spiritual and intellectual development,” has become the most vicious animal of all.
8. Satan represents all of the so-called sins, as they all lead to physical, mental, or emotional gratification.
9. Satan has been the best friend the Church has ever had, as He has kept it in business all these years.

The Ayn Rand connection: Scholars have noted that the Nine Satanic Statements closely parallel themes from John Galt’s speech in Atlas Shrugged. LaVey did not deny this. He confirmed the lineage explicitly and repeatedly.

The Eleven Satanic Rules of the Earth (written 1967, published later)

1. Do not give opinions or advice unless you are asked.
2. Do not tell your troubles to others unless you are sure they want to hear them.
3. When in another’s lair, show him respect or else do not go there.
4. If a guest in your lair annoys you, treat him cruelly and without mercy.
5. Do not make sexual advances unless you are given the mating signal.
6. Do not take that which does not belong to you unless it is a burden to the other person and they cry out to be relieved.
7. Acknowledge the power of magic if you have employed it successfully to obtain your desires. If you deny the power of magic after having called upon it with success, you will lose all you have obtained.
8. Do not complain about anything to which you need not subject yourself.
9. Do not harm little children.
10. Do not kill non-human animals unless you are attacked or for your food.
11. When walking in open territory, bother no one. If someone bothers you, ask him to stop. If he does not stop, destroy him.

FOR THE BOOK’S ARGUMENT: Read the rules. Most are common courtesy. Rules 5, 9, and 10 are explicitly more ethical than many positions held by mainstream religious organizations at the time (and since). Rule 5 – “do not make sexual advances unless you are given the mating signal” – is a consent standard. Rule 9 – “do not harm little children” – seems obvious until you remember the Church published this while the Catholic Church was covering up institutional child abuse. The trolling works because the “Satanic” rules are more humane than what the establishment was actually practicing.

The Nine Satanic Sins

1. Stupidity – the top of the list, and the sin LaVey considered most unforgivable
2. Pretentiousness – empty posturing without substance
3. Solipsism – failing to account for other people’s perspectives and needs
4. Self-Deceit – believing your own propaganda
5. Herd Conformity – following the crowd rather than thinking independently
6. Lack of Perspective – inability to see the larger picture
7. Forgetfulness of Past Orthodoxies – failing to learn from history
8. Counterproductive Pride – pride that hurts your own interests
9. Lack of Aesthetics – inattention to beauty and form

“Satan” as Symbol

The Church of Satan’s position, consistently maintained across all administrations:

• Satan is not a literal being. The Church is atheistic.
• “Satan” derives from the Hebrew root meaning “adversary” or “opposer.”
• Satan represents the rejection of herd conformity, blind faith, and submission to authority.
• Current High Priest Peter Gilmore describes CoS members as “skeptical atheists.”
• Gilmore explicitly rejects the legitimacy of theistic Satanists, who believe Satan to be a supernatural being, calling them “devil worshipers.”

Core doctrine: “Indulgence, NOT compulsion.” The Church advocates pursuing pleasures that bring genuine satisfaction while opposing addiction, compulsion, and any behavior driven by external pressure rather than authentic desire.

The Degree System

Key features: Only Registered Membership is open to request. Degrees II through V “are not open to application or to request.” They are granted by the Church leadership based on demonstrated achievement – importantly, achievement in the outside world, not merely within the Church. “Degrees are not reflective of simple book learning and esoteric knowledge, but the actual application of Satanic principles towards personal advancement.”

The selling controversy: LaVey was accused by Aquino and others of selling higher degrees for money – offering degree advancement in exchange for financial contributions to the Church. This accusation was one of the catalysts for the 1975 schism. The Church’s official position is that LaVey “was determined that the status of Church members should reflect their standing in the world outside of the organization” and that “the Church would honor values given to it in kind with degree recognition as would be deemed appropriate by Dr. LaVey.”

How the CoS Positioned Itself

The Church of Satan consistently maintained that it was:

• NOT worship of evil – but celebration of carnality, individualism, and anti-hypocrisy
• NOT theistic – Satan is symbol, not deity
• Apolitical – “Political issues are the province of each member.” Members span the political spectrum.
• Individualist – but pro-stratification. LaVey endorsed social stratification and opposed egalitarianism, calling for the end of “the myth of ’equality’” which “only supports the weak at the expense of the strong.”
• Anti-populist – LaVey encouraged materialism, egoism, carnality, atheism, social stratification, and Social Darwinism

TOPIC 3: MICHAEL AQUINO (1946-2019) – THE SATANIC INTELLIGENCE OFFICER

Biographical Overview

Born October 16, 1946. Died September 1, 2019, at age 72, after a long illness (Wikipedia).

Education:

• Eagle Scout
• Santa Barbara High School (graduated 1964)
• University of California, Santa Barbara: B.A. in Political Science, ROTC Distinguished Military Graduate (1968), which conferred a Regular Army commission (at the time considered an elite distinction)
• Ph.D., University of California, Santa Barbara (1980)

Military Career

Aquino served in the U.S. Army for over 25 years, specializing in psychological operations (PSYOP) and military intelligence:

• 1968-1969: Fort Bragg, 82nd Airborne Division, then PSYOP/Special Forces officer at the JFK Special Warfare Center
• 1969-1970: Vietnam, 6th Psychological Operations Battalion. Based in the village of Lai Khe, directing PSYOP teams for the 1st Infantry Division
• Vietnam detail: Aquino brought a copy of John Milton’s Paradise Lost when returning to active duty in Vietnam in June 1969. His PSYOP work included “experiments to disorient Vietcong and North Vietnamese soldiers by using amplified sounds – sometimes complete with ‘demonic screams’ – blaring from helicopters flying over their heads.”
• 1970s-1980s: NATO liaison officer in several European countries (part-time)
• 1980: PSYOP Research & Analysis Team Leader, 7th Psychological Operations Group. Co-authored “From PSYOP to MindWar” with Colonel Paul E. Vallely.
• 1981: Reserve attachee at the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA)
• 1982: Student at the Foreign Service Institute, sponsored by the Department of State
• 1984-1986: Industrial College of the Armed Forces, Washington, D.C.
• 1990: Continuation board ended Aquino’s full-time Active Guard Reserve contract (aftermath of Presidio controversy)
• 1994: Retired from military as Lieutenant Colonel. Awarded the Meritorious Service Medal. Honorably transferred to the reserves.

FOR THE BOOK’S ARGUMENT: Read that career trajectory again. An openly Satanic officer, founder and High Priest of the Temple of Set, simultaneously maintained top security clearances and served in military intelligence, psychological operations, and the Defense Intelligence Agency. As early as April 1978, the U.S. Army’s Handbook for Chaplains listed both the Church of Satan and the Temple of Set among tolerated religions. When the San Francisco Chronicle asked about Aquino’s clearances, an Army spokesman said: “The question is whether he is trustworthy or can do the job. There is nothing that would indicate in this case that there is any problem we should be concerned about.” The most powerful military establishment in human history officially shrugged at having a Satanic High Priest in its intelligence apparatus. Aquino trolled the military not by infiltrating it, but by being completely transparent – and then daring them to object.

The “From PSYOP to MindWar” Paper (1980)

Authors: Colonel Paul E. Vallely (Commander, 7th Psychological Operations Group) and Major Michael A. Aquino (PSYOP Research & Analysis Team Leader)

Origin: In 1980, Vallely asked Aquino to draft a paper to “encourage some future thought within the PSYOP community.” The result was a seven-page internal “talking paper” – not an article for publication, but a discussion document circulated to “various governmental offices, agencies, commands, and publications involved or interested in PSYOP.” (Internet Archive)

Core argument: The paper proposes a radical expansion of psychological operations. Traditional PSYOP operates within the theater of war against enemy combatants. “MindWar” would expand this to encompass “the deliberate, aggressive convincing of all participants in a war that we will win that war” – meaning not just enemy soldiers, but entire populations, including potentially domestic ones.

Key quotes from the paper:

On the scope of MindWar: MindWar must reach out globally through “the electronic media – television and radio” rather than traditional battlefield leaflets.

On psychophysical techniques: “MindWar should take full advantage of such phenomena as atmospheric electromagnetic activity, air ionization, and extremely low frequency waves.”

On ELF waves: “ELF waves up to 100 Hz are naturally occurring, but they can also be produced artificially… ELF-waves are not normally noticed by the unaided senses, yet their resonant effect upon the human body has been connected to both physiological disorders and emotional distortion.”

On air ionization: “An abundance of negative condensation nuclei (‘air ions’) in ingested air enhances alertness and exhilaration, while an excess of positive ions enhances drowsiness and depression.”

The afterlife of the paper: The MindWar paper was an internal military document that was never classified. With the rise of the internet in the 1990s, it “received an entirely unexpected – and somewhat comic – resurrection” as it became a central document in conspiracy theories about government mind control. Aquino himself described the paper’s internet reception as “comic.”

FOR THE BOOK’S ARGUMENT: The MindWar paper is possibly the most perfectly constructed accidental troll in this entire book. Consider: a military intelligence officer who is also, simultaneously and publicly, the High Priest of an organization called the Temple of Set, writes an official military paper proposing psychological manipulation of populations using electromagnetic frequencies and subliminal messaging. Every element of this was true and above-board – it was an internal military policy paper, Aquino’s Satanic affiliation was publicly known and officially tolerated, and the document was never classified. But the combination of these facts was so improbable, so perfectly calibrated to trigger paranoid interpretation, that it generated decades of conspiracy theories. Aquino didn’t have to troll anyone. His CV trolled them for him.

The Presidio Allegations (1986-1988)

In November 1986, the SFPD, FBI, and Army Criminal Investigation Division Command (CID) began investigating allegations that Gary Hambright, an employee at the Child Development Center at the Presidio Army base, had sexually molested children in his care.

On August 12, 1987, Army Captain Larry Adams-Thompson reported that his three-year-old daughter, who had attended the center, became “visibly frightened” upon seeing Aquino and his wife Lilith at the post exchange.

Investigation and outcome:

• The SFPD discontinued its investigation of the Aquinos in September 1988 for lack of sufficient evidence.
• The CID continued and in August 1989 issued a report including the Aquinos in the “title block” but concluded investigation was closed because remaining leads involved uncooperative adults, and the applicable three-year statute of limitations had expired.
• Neither Aquino nor his wife was ever charged with any crime (Wikipedia).
• Investigators confirmed that Aquino was in Washington, D.C., attending the Industrial College of the Armed Forces from 1984 to 1986, overlapping with the period of the alleged incidents.

Aquino later published Extreme Prejudice: The Presidio “Satanic Abuse” Scam (2014), his account of the allegations and investigation, arguing the accusations were a product of the Satanic Panic.

FOR THE BOOK’S ARGUMENT: The Presidio case is the Satanic Panic (Satanic Panic) made personal. Here was a man who was genuinely a Satanic priest, genuinely involved in military intelligence, and genuinely present at an Army base where abuse was alleged – and the investigation found nothing connecting him to any crime. He was, in a sense, the perfect target for the Panic: everything about his public profile confirmed the paranoid narrative. And yet the system, when it actually investigated rather than panicked, cleared him. The Presidio case demonstrates the fundamental failure of the Satanic Panic: it could not distinguish between “person who publicly identifies as a Satanist” and “person who commits crimes.”

TOPIC 4: THE SCHISM – THE NORTH SOLSTICE X WORKING AND THE FOUNDING OF THE TEMPLE OF SET

Background to the Schism

By the early 1970s, tensions were building within the Church of Satan:

1. Organizational decay: In 1972, LaVey ended weekly public rituals at the Black House and directed regional chapters (“grottoes”) to carry them out. In 1974, he discontinued regional organizations entirely, requiring members and grottoes to report directly to the Central Grotto in San Francisco – what he called “Phase IV of his master plan.”
2. The degree-selling controversy: LaVey was accused of offering degree advancement in exchange for financial contributions. Aquino and others saw this as a betrayal of the Church’s meritocratic principles.
3. Intellectual stagnation: Members who had risen through the ranks felt the organization was becoming increasingly focused on LaVey’s personal celebrity and decreasingly focused on magical and philosophical development.

Aquino had joined the Church of Satan in 1969, during his Vietnam service, and rose rapidly through the ranks to the Priesthood (III degree). He edited the Church’s newsletter, The Cloven Hoof.

The North Solstice X Working (June 21, 1975)

On the eve of the North Solstice (June 21), 1975, in Year X Anno Satanas (the tenth year of the Church of Satan’s calendar), Aquino performed what he described as a “Greater Black Magical Working of Communication.”

What Aquino claims happened: During this ritual, a being identified as Set – the ancient Egyptian deity of storms, the desert, disorder, violence, and foreigners – manifested and dictated a text to Aquino through a process of automatic writing. The being declared:

• That it wanted to be known by its “true name” – Set – rather than the “Moorish” name “Satan”
• That the “Aeon of Set” was hereby proclaimed
• That Aquino was raised to the rank of Magus V of the new Aeon
• That LaVey’s “infernal mandate” – the divine authority by which LaVey had founded the Church – was hereby withdrawn from LaVey and transferred to Aquino

The text produced was titled “The Book of Coming Forth by Night” – a deliberate inversion of the Book of Coming Forth by Day (the Egyptian Book of the Dead).

Key passage: “Michael Aquino, you are become Magus V of the Aeon of Set. I, Set, am come again to my friends among mankind.”

The text also referenced Aleister Crowley’s Book of the Law, presenting it as a genuine spiritual text but declaring that Crowley had misunderstood both its origin and message.

The Break

On June 10, 1975, Aquino formally resigned from the Church of Satan, “taking the liberty of telling Anton that the church’s ‘infernal mandate’ was hereby withdrawn.”

Who followed: The numbers are disputed. The Temple of Set reportedly claimed more than 500 members at its founding. LaVey claimed only 29 people left. Academic sources suggest approximately 20 members who were in contact with Aquino and similarly inclined toward a belief in supernatural entities resigned. What is clear is that a large portion of the Church’s leadership departed, including the Nineveh Grotto in New Jersey – the Church’s largest branch.

The Temple of Set was registered as a non-profit church in California in 1975 and received state and federal recognition and tax exemption that same year (Wikipedia).

The Theological Divide

FOR THE BOOK’S ARGUMENT: This schism is the book’s structural argument in miniature. It mirrors every esoteric schism in the preceding chapters:

• Crowley vs. Mathers in the Golden Dawn (Chapter 15): A charismatic founder challenged by a younger member claiming superior magical authority. Mathers claimed contact with “Secret Chiefs”; Aquino claimed direct contact with Set. Same mechanism. Same result.
• Gardner vs. Sanders in Wicca: Gerald Gardner founded Gardnerian Wicca; Alex Sanders founded Alexandrian Wicca, claiming a “more authentic” lineage. Same pattern.
• Crowley vs. Yeats: The fistfight on the temple steps (referenced in Book 1 Afterword) was an earlier iteration of this same dynamic.

In every case: charismatic founder establishes an organization based on claimed authority. A member rises through the ranks, acquires their own claimed authority, and splits. The breakaway faction claims to be the “true” continuation. The original faction claims the breakaway is a fraud. Both factions spend more energy attacking each other than attacking the establishment they were supposedly opposing.

The schism itself trolls the idea that “Satanism” is a unified threat – these people couldn’t even agree with EACH OTHER about what Satan is. The entity that mainstream Christianity feared as a monolithic conspiracy was, in practice, two organizations that spent decades writing hostile essays about each other.

TOPIC 5: THE TEMPLE OF SET

Xeper – The Core Concept

Xeper (pronounced approximately “Khefer”) is an English-language coinage from the ancient Egyptian verb kheper (hpr), written as a stylized scarab beetle hieroglyph. It means “I Have Come Into Being,” “to come into existence,” “to become,” “to transform,” or “to emerge.”

The concept draws on the Egyptian god Khepri (also transliterated Khepera, Kheper, Khepra, Chepri) – the scarab-faced deity who represents the rising or morning sun. As the dung beetle rolls its ball of dung across the ground (symbolizing the sun’s journey across the sky), Khepri represented creation, transformation, and the emergence of life from death.

In Setian theology, Xeper is “the Word of the Aeon of Set” – the fundamental principle of the current cosmic era. It represents the process of deliberate self-transformation: becoming more than you are through conscious effort and magical work. Where LaVey’s Church of Satan emphasized indulgence (enjoying what you already are), Aquino’s Temple of Set emphasized becoming (transforming into something greater).

Degree System

Structure note: The degree names deliberately parallel both the Golden Dawn degree system and Crowley’s A.:.A.:. (Argenteum Astrum), reinforcing the Temple’s self-positioning within the Western ceremonial magic tradition. Aquino explicitly acknowledged these lineages.

The Temple is governed by a High Priest or High Priestess and a wider Council of Nine.

Orders Within the Temple

The Orders function like departments within a university – specialized sub-groups focused on particular areas of study and magical practice. An Adept II or above can join one or more Orders based on interest.

Notable Orders include:

The Order of the Trapezoid: Aquino reconstituted this Order (originally a governing body within the Church of Satan) under the Temple of Set’s authority. It is described as “a chivalric order of knights characterized by strict personal honor and faithfulness to the quest for the Grail.” Members call themselves Knights and Dames.

The Wewelsburg Connection: In October 1982, Aquino performed a solitary rite – the “Wewelsburg Working” – at Walhalla, the subterranean ceremonial space beneath Wewelsburg Castle in Germany. This castle was used by Himmler’s SS as a ceremonial center and is associated with Nazi occultism. Aquino reconstituted the Order of the Trapezoid at this location. He has expressed interest in Nazi occultism as an intellectual and aesthetic interest, while stating skepticism about the “mumbo-jumbo” of most “occult Nazism” claims.

The Order of the Vampyre: Focused on “the exploration of things Vampyric” as an avenue for Setian development. Members “develop in all ways, but do so under the auspices of a Vampyric specialty.”

Other Orders have included the Order of Shuti, the Order of Leviathan, and others, with various Orders being founded and dissolved over the Temple’s history.

Emphasis on Intellectualism vs. Spectacle

The Temple of Set deliberately positioned itself as the intellectual alternative to the Church of Satan’s showmanship:

• Where LaVey used media stunts, Aquino emphasized academic study
• Where the Church of Satan published mass-market paperbacks, the Temple produced scholarly monographs
• Where LaVey rewarded “real-world achievement” (wealth, fame, influence), the Temple rewarded magical and philosophical development
• The Temple’s structure was explicitly modeled on late 19th-century ceremonial magical orders (the Golden Dawn, the OTO), emphasizing graduated study and demonstrated competence

FOR THE BOOK’S ARGUMENT: The CoS/ToS split mirrors the eternal tension in every esoteric organization between the popularizers and the purists. In the Golden Dawn, this was Mathers (spectacle, claimed Secret Chief contact) vs. the more studious London members. In Thelema, it was Crowley the tabloid showman vs. Crowley the rigorous magical theorist (the conflict was internal to the same person). LaVey was the carnival barker; Aquino was the professor. Both approached the same tradition but optimized for different audiences.

Aquino’s Controversial Connections

Beyond the Presidio allegations and MindWar:

• The Wewelsburg Working (1982) and association with Order of the Trapezoid generated accusations of Nazi sympathies
• Aquino counted Nazi occultism as one of his chief interests and the heraldry and symbolism of the SS as “one of his favorite topics of discussion”
• His academic and military credentials coexisted with his occult leadership in a way that made him a persistent target for conspiracy theories
• The Temple’s intellectual elitism and relatively small membership (never more than a few hundred at any time) created an aura of exclusivity that fed speculation

Post-Aquino Era

• 2004: Aquino stepped down as High Priest. Replaced by Patricia Hardy as High Priestess.
• 2019: Aquino died September 1, 2019.
• The Temple continues to operate under the Council of Nine governance structure
• Aquino remained its most visible spokesperson even after stepping down as High Priest

TOPIC 6: THE “MINDWAR” PAPER – DEEP DIVE

Context and Creation

The paper emerged from a specific moment in military PSYOP history:

• 1980: Colonel Paul E. Vallely commanded the 7th Psychological Operations Group
• He asked Major Michael A. Aquino, his PSYOP Research & Analysis Team Leader, to draft a discussion paper about the future of psychological operations
• The result was a seven-page “talking paper” titled “From PSYOP to MindWar: The Psychology of Victory”
• Vallely sent copies to various governmental offices, agencies, and commands – intending it as a conversation starter, not a publication

The Document’s Argument (Summary)

1. Traditional PSYOP is too limited: Leaflets, loudspeakers, and targeted messaging to enemy combatants is narrow and reactive.
2. MindWar should be comprehensive: “The deliberate, aggressive convincing of all participants in a war that we will win that war.” Participants means everyone – not just enemy soldiers, but civilians, allies, and potentially domestic populations.
3. Use all available media: “The electronic media – television and radio” rather than battlefield propaganda. This was 1980, before the internet. The paper was anticipating the information warfare paradigm three decades early.
4. Exploit psychophysical phenomena: The paper’s most controversial section recommends exploiting:
   • Atmospheric electromagnetic activity
   • Air ionization (negative ions enhance alertness; positive ions enhance drowsiness)
   • Extremely Low Frequency (ELF) waves – naturally occurring but producible artificially, with documented effects on human physiology and emotion
5. MindWar is morally preferable to conventional war: The paper argues, with a certain cold logic, that convincing an enemy to surrender through psychological manipulation is more humane than killing him with bullets

The Conspiracy Theory Ecosystem

The MindWar paper became a central document in conspiracy culture:

• It was never classified, so when it became available online in the 1990s, anyone could read it
• The combination of its content (psychological manipulation of populations using electromagnetic frequencies) with its authorship (a military intelligence officer who was simultaneously a Satanic High Priest) was perfectly calibrated to generate paranoid interpretation
• It has been cited in conspiracy theories about: government mind control, HAARP, chemtrails, MKUltra continuation, and various New World Order narratives
• Aquino described the paper’s internet reception as “somewhat comic”

The Intersection of Military and Occult

Aquino saw no contradiction between his military career and his occult leadership. The connective tissue was psychological operations – the art of using perception, belief, and emotional manipulation to achieve strategic objectives. In Aquino’s framework:

• Military PSYOP uses propaganda to affect enemy behavior
• Setian magic uses ritual to affect personal transformation
• Both operate on the principle that consciousness can be deliberately shaped

The Vietnam connection: During his PSYOP service in Vietnam (1969-1970), Aquino directed operations that included blaring “demonic screams” from helicopter-mounted speakers over enemy positions. This was part of Operation Wandering Soul – a broader PSYOP campaign that used recordings of ghostly voices, supposedly the restless dead, to demoralize Viet Cong soldiers by exploiting Vietnamese cultural beliefs about unburied spirits. A Satanic priest using simulated demons as a weapon of psychological warfare in a Buddhist country. The layers of trolling are recursive.

TOPIC 7: THE TROLLING MECHANISMS

LaVey’s Trolling

Strategy: Adopt Christianity’s own bogeyman and demonstrate that “Satan” – as LaVey defined him – was more ethical (or at least more honest) than Christianity as practiced.

Specific mechanisms:

1. The name itself: “Church of Satan.” The name guarantees maximum outrage and maximum media coverage. It is impossible to ignore. Every news story about the CoS functions as free advertising.
2. The fabricated biography: LaVey created a mythology as deliberately as any religious founder. He demonstrated, in real time, the mechanism by which religious myths are constructed. His lie proved his point: all religious biographies are constructed narratives.
3. The Satanic Bible as mirror: By calling basic Randian individualism and Nietzschean anti-moralism “Satanism,” LaVey forced people to confront the question: if these ideas are “Satanic,” what does that say about the ideas you’ve been calling “Christian”?
4. The Rules of the Earth: Publishing rules like “do not harm little children” and “do not make sexual advances unless given the mating signal” under the banner of Satan forced the comparison: which organization actually follows these rules – the Church of Satan or the Catholic Church?
5. The media stunts: Satanic weddings, baptisms, celebrity associations – each one calculated to provoke maximum coverage with minimum expense. LaVey understood that attention is the only scarce resource.

Aquino’s Trolling

Strategy: Multiple simultaneous trolls operating on different targets:

1. Trolled LaVey: By claiming a “more authentic” Satanic revelation – direct communication with Set – Aquino out-Sataned the founder of Satanism. He used the same mechanism (claimed supernatural authority) that LaVey had explicitly rejected.
2. Trolled the military: By being an openly Satanic officer who maintained top security clearances, served in intelligence, and retired honorably. He didn’t infiltrate; he was transparent. The military’s tolerance of him was more subversive than any covert operation would have been.
3. Trolled conspiracy theorists: By combining real elements (military intelligence + Satanic leadership + a paper on psychological manipulation) in a configuration so improbable that it looked like it had to be conspiratorial. It wasn’t. But it looked exactly like what a conspiracy would look like if it were real, which was worse.
4. Trolled everyone by insisting this was all perfectly normal: Aquino never expressed any sense that his dual career as military officer and Satanic priest was unusual. He treated it as a straightforward exercise of religious freedom. The normality of his affect was the most unsettling thing about him.

The Schism as Troll

The CoS/ToS schism trolls the concept of Satanism as a unified threat:

• Christianity warned for centuries about “Satanic conspiracy” – a unified, organized assault on God
• The actual Satanists couldn’t agree on whether Satan existed
• They split over theology, then spent decades writing hostile essays about each other
• The Church of Satan’s website still contains a page titled “Pretenders to the Throne: Regarding the Temple of Set”
• Every esoteric schism in this book follows this pattern: the “threatening” organization schisms into factions that spend more energy fighting each other than fighting the establishment

The Pattern

This is the universal dynamic of esoteric organizations:

1. Charismatic founder establishes organization based on claimed authority
2. Organization attracts talented members who bring their own ideas
3. Members seek advancement; founder becomes defensive about authority
4. A member claims an authority that supersedes the founder’s
5. Schism: two organizations now exist where one did
6. Both factions claim to be the “true” continuation
7. Both factions spend more energy attacking each other than the establishment
8. The establishment watches, bemused, as its supposed enemies tear each other apart

Examples across this book: Golden Dawn (Mathers/Crowley), Wicca (Gardner/Sanders), OTO (multiple schisms), Church of Satan/Temple of Set, and within the Temple of Set itself (Zeena Schreck’s eventual departure).

TOPIC 8: DISTINCTION FROM THE SATANIC TEMPLE (TST)

The Three Organizations

Mutual Hostility

All three organizations despise each other:

• CoS on TST: The Church of Satan’s website contains a “Satanic Temple Fact Sheet” dismissing TST. CoS “expresses vehement opposition to the campaigns and activities of The Satanic Temple, asserting themselves as the only ’true’ arbiters of Satanism.”
• TST on CoS: TST dismisses the Church of Satan as “irrelevant and inactive.”
• CoS on ToS: The “Pretenders to the Throne” page on the CoS website.
• ToS on CoS: Aquino wrote extensively about LaVey’s failings and the Church’s decline.

Public Confusion

The general public routinely confuses all three organizations, which irritates all three. News stories about TST actions are frequently misattributed to the “Church of Satan.” The Church of Satan regularly issues corrections on social media. TST has published its own comparison page distinguishing itself from the CoS.

FOR THE BOOK’S ARGUMENT: The public’s confusion is itself a form of trolling – unintentional but structurally elegant. Christianity’s great fear was a unified Satanic conspiracy. What actually exists are three (at minimum) organizations that can’t agree on what Satan is, whether he exists, what his followers should do, or whether they should be called “Satanists” at all. The very word “Satanism” has been so thoroughly fragmented that it refers to three mutually hostile philosophies that share only a single piece of branding. This is the ultimate failure of the Christian paranoid narrative: the enemy they feared was never unified, was never a conspiracy, and was never even coherent. It was, and remains, a collection of people in different cities arguing about symbolism.

ACADEMIC SOURCES AND BIBLIOGRAPHY

Primary Academic Sources

Ruben van Luijk, Children of Lucifer: The Origins of Modern Religious Satanism (Oxford University Press, 2016) (Internet Archive) (OUP)

• Winner, Best First Book, History of Religions, 2017 American Academy of Religion Book Awards
• Traces the development of Satanism from a concept invented by the Christian church to demonize competitors into a positive (anti-)religious identity
• Van Luijk asks: “How did it come about that individuals and groups in modern Western society came to venerate a former symbol of evil?”
• Covers Romantic poets, radical anarchists, eccentric esotericists, Decadent writers, and schismatic exorcists, culminating in the Church of Satan
• PhD research conducted at Tilburg University and Radboud University

Per Faxneld, Satanic Feminism: Lucifer as the Liberator of Woman in Nineteenth-Century Culture (Oxford University Press, 2017) (OUP)

• Part of the Oxford Studies in Western Esotericism series
• Faxneld’s thesis: In the 19th century, Satan was reconceptualized as a feminist liberator of womankind, and Eve became a heroine. “They were satanists sensu lato (in the broad sense); they used Satan as a symbol to critique Christianity, its accompanying conservative social mores, and patriarchy.”
• Faxneld is based at Stockholm University; visiting scholar at Cambridge (2015)
• Published more than 30 peer-reviewed articles on Western esotericism

Jesper Aagaard Petersen, Contemporary Religious Satanism: A Critical Anthology (Ashgate/Routledge, 2009) (Routledge)

• Petersen (NTNU, Norway) specializes in modern Satanism and alternative currents
• The anthology brings together international scholars to analyze the variety of Satanist communities, beliefs, attitudes, and practices
• Also authored “The Seeds of Satan: Conceptions of Magic in Contemporary Satanism” (Aries, 2012) (DOI)
• Co-authored The Invention of Satanism (Oxford University Press) with Asbjorn Dyrendal and James R. Lewis – examining Satanism as “a contemporary movement in continuous dialogue with popular culture” (OUP)

Other Academic Sources:

• James R. Lewis, ed., The Oxford Handbook of New Religious Movements (multiple editions) (OUP)
• Asbjorn Dyrendal, James R. Lewis, and Jesper Aagaard Petersen, The Invention of Satanism (Oxford University Press) (OUP)
• Bill Ellis, Raising the Devil: Satanism, New Religions and the Media (University Press of Kentucky, 2000) – source of the LaVey “Ayn Rand with ceremony” quote (p. 180) (Univ. Press of Kentucky)
• Kennet Granholm, researcher on the Temple of Set and left-hand path traditions
• Gabriel Andrade, “Anton LaVey’s Satanic Philosophy: An Analysis” (academic paper, Utah State University Digital Commons) (USU Digital Commons)
• An Organizational Analysis of the Schismatic Church of Satan, published in Review of Religious Research (Springer, 2021) (DOI)

Primary Sources / Documents

• Anton Szandor LaVey, The Satanic Bible (Avon Books, 1969)
• Anton Szandor LaVey, The Satanic Witch (originally The Compleat Witch, Dodd Mead, 1971; reissued Feral House, 1989)
• Anton Szandor LaVey, The Satanic Rituals (Avon Books, 1972)
• Blanche Barton, The Secret Life of a Satanist: The Authorized Biography of Anton Szandor LaVey (Feral House, 1990)
• Blanche Barton, We Are Satanists: The History and Future of the Church of Satan (Aperient Press, 2021)
• Michael A. Aquino, The Book of Coming Forth by Night (1975)
• Michael A. Aquino, The Temple of Set (self-published, multiple editions/drafts)
• Michael A. Aquino, The Church of Satan I (self-published, 2013)
• Michael A. Aquino, Extreme Prejudice: The Presidio “Satanic Abuse” Scam (self-published, 2014)
• Michael A. Aquino and Paul E. Vallely, “From PSYOP to MindWar: The Psychology of Victory” (internal military paper, 1980; available on Internet Archive) (Internet Archive)
• Doug Brod, Born with a Tail: The Devilish Life and Wicked Times of Anton Szandor LaVey (2024) (Hachette)

Web Sources Consulted

• Church of Satan official website: churchofsatan.com (history, hierarchy, FAQ pages)
• Temple of Set resources: xeper.org, xeper.info
• Wikipedia articles on Anton LaVey, Church of Satan, Temple of Set, Michael Aquino, The Satanic Bible, Greater and Lesser Magic, LaVeyan Satanism (all cross-referenced with academic sources)
• Rolling Stone, “Sammy Davis Jr.’s Secret Satanic Past and Friendship with Anton LaVey” (2023)
• Mitch Horowitz, “The Long, Strange Trip of Michael Aquino” (Medium, Substack)
• KQED, “How the Church of Satan Was Born in San Francisco”
• KQED, “Excavating the Truth of Anton LaVey’s Devilish Life”
• Interview Magazine, “The Secret History of Jayne Mansfield’s Bizarre Connection to the Church of Satan”
• Hoodline, “The Spooky History of 6114 California Street, The Black House”
• Internet Archive: Full text of “From PSYOP to MindWar”
• Justia: Aquino v. Stone, 957 F.2d 139 (4th Cir. 1992)

CONNECTING THREADS FOR THE BOOK’S ARGUMENT

Thread 1: The Fabricated Text Lineage

The Corpus Hermeticum (Chapter 2) –> The Zohar (Chapter 4) –> The Rosicrucian Manifestos (Chapter 11) –> The Satanic Bible (Chapter 19 background)

All are composite/fabricated texts that had real effects. The mechanism is consistent across four millennia: synthesize existing ideas, present them as new or ancient, let the packaging do the work.

Thread 2: The Schism Pattern

Golden Dawn (Mathers vs. Crowley/Yeats) –> OTO factions –> Wicca (Gardner vs. Sanders) –> CoS vs. ToS –> ToS internal (Zeena Schreck’s departure)

Every esoteric organization eventually schisms. The pattern is: charismatic authority –> challenge to authority –> claimed superior revelation –> split –> mutual hostility –> both factions spending more energy fighting each other than the establishment. This pattern is so consistent it may be structural – inherent to organizations built on claimed spiritual authority.

Thread 3: The Media Strategy Evolution

LaVey (1960s-70s): Use print media and television. Stage events for photographers. Never break character. –> Crowley (early 20th century): Use tabloid outrage as free advertising. –> TST (2010s-present): Use legal filings and social media as performance. The medium changes; the strategy is constant: do something outrageous, let the establishment react, and let the reaction prove your point.

Thread 4: The Military-Occult Intersection

John Dee serving Elizabeth I –> Crowley’s alleged intelligence work in WWI/WWII –> Jack Parsons at JPL/Caltech (see Jack Parsons) –> Michael Aquino in PSYOP/DIA

The intersection of the esoteric and the military is not an aberration; it is a recurring pattern. Intelligence work and occult practice share a structural similarity: both involve the manipulation of perception, belief, and information to achieve strategic objectives. Aquino made this explicit. Dee would have understood it perfectly.

Thread 5: Trolling the Concept of Evil

The Church of Satan’s most devastating troll: adopting the name of absolute evil, then publishing rules that are more ethical than many Christian institutions. The Eleven Satanic Rules of the Earth include consent standards, protection of children, and animal welfare. The “Church of Satan” has a better ethical track record on child abuse than the Catholic Church. This irony is the nuclear core of LaVey’s entire project. It is so pointed that most people cannot look at it directly.

IRONIC, ABSURD, AND TELLING DETAILS (FOR BOOK TONE)

1. LaVey claimed to have played calliope in a circus. He almost certainly did not. His daughter later ran away to join a different circus – the Temple of Set. (Zeena LaVey’s trajectory from CoS to ToS to The Storm.)

2. The Satanic Bible’s most plagiarized source, Might Is Right, was published under the pseudonym “Ragnar Redbeard.” LaVey, who published under his own pseudonym, plagiarized a pseudonymous author. It’s pseudonyms all the way down.

3. The Black House – the headquarters of the Church of Satan – was 2,205 square feet. A mid-century San Francisco family home painted black. It generated more media coverage than Vatican City’s press office.

4. LaVey’s actual death certificate lists October 31, 1997 – Halloween – as his date of death. He actually died on October 29. Someone adjusted the date for narrative purposes. Even his death certificate was mythologized.

5. Sammy Davis Jr., who was Jewish, Black, and one of the most famous entertainers in America, joined the Church of Satan because he saw a TV pilot where he played a demon. He then appeared in public with a painted fingernail and threw devil horns at LaVey from the stage.

6. Michael Aquino – a military intelligence officer, psychological operations specialist, and Satanic High Priest – wrote an official U.S. Army paper proposing the use of electromagnetic frequencies to manipulate population psychology. The paper was never classified. It just sat there, on the public record, generating conspiracy theories for decades. The most unsettling thing about it wasn’t the content. It was that nobody tried to hide it.

7. The Book of Coming Forth by Night – the Temple of Set’s foundational text – was produced by a man with a Ph.D. in political science from UC Santa Barbara, a Lieutenant Colonel’s commission, and top security clearances. He claimed an Egyptian god dictated it to him through automatic writing. He saw no contradiction in any of this.

8. When the Satanic Panic hit, LaVey – the most famous Satanist in America, a man who had spent twenty years courting media attention – painted his black house beige and stopped going outside. The carnival barker discovered that some audiences throw things.

9. The Church of Satan charges $200 for a red membership card. The Temple of Set requires extensive study and demonstrated transformation. The Satanic Temple lets you join for free. The three Satanic organizations can’t even agree on a business model.

10. Three different organizations all claim the word “Satan” (or its Egyptian equivalent). One says Satan doesn’t exist but is a useful symbol. One says Set is a real cosmic entity. One says Satan is a literary metaphor for human dignity. They all hate each other. The public confuses them constantly. The confusion makes all three angrier. Christianity needed only ONE of its schisms (Catholic/Orthodox, Catholic/Protestant) to generate centuries of warfare. Satanism managed three mutually hostile factions in fifty years, and none of them have more than a few hundred thousand members combined. The devil’s greatest trick wasn’t convincing the world he didn’t exist. It was convincing three different organizations they each had the exclusive franchise.

Source URLs

• Church of Satan — Wikipedia
• Temple of Set — Wikipedia
• Anton LaVey, The Satanic Bible (1969)
• Michael Aquino — Wikipedia
• Per Faxneld, Satanic Feminism (2017)