(Ken Silva, Headline USA) The FBI and other investigators referred to U.S. Army Colonel Michael Aquino’s church, the Temple of Set, as a “sadomasochistic devil-worshipping sect” possibly linked to the ritualistic abuse of children.
Apparently, Aquino was upset by this description, according to records released by the FBI earlier this month.
The recently released FBI records from its 1980s-era investigation include letters from Aquino, complaining that his Satanic church was mischaracterized. Aquino said the negative stigma of Satanism led to unfounded allegations that he was engaging in ritualistic child abuse.
Aquino, the founder of the Temple of Set—an offshoot of the Church of Satan—was accused in the 1980s of widespread sexual abuse of children at the Child Development Center, run by the U.S. Army in San Francisco. He has also been linked by at least one victim to the Franklin Scandal, a 1980s-era pedophile ring that catered to prominent Washington DC politicians.
The allegations stemming from these cases are beyond grotesque.
“[Children] told of being forced to play ‘poopoo baseball’ and the ‘googoo’ game—‘games’ that involved the children being forced to ingest urine and feces,” wrote David McGowan in Programmed to Kill: The Politics of Serial Murder.
“Many of the children also spoke of having guns pointed at them and of being told that they and/or their parents and siblings would be killed if they told anyone what had been done to them.”
Despite there being dozens of victims and undeniable evidence that many of them were abused, Aquino was never charged.
The Satanic colonel points to the lack of criminal charges as evidence of his innocence, but researchers have put forth evidence suggesting that the colonel was a protected intelligence asset—with his purported activities being a mixture of MKUltra-like child experimentation and a Jeffrey Epstein-like sexual blackmail op.
Multiple fires at and adjacent to the Child Development Center destroyed records related to the case, and the late great investigative journalist Gary Webb discovered that the U.S. Attorney handling Aquino’s case was involved in the Iran-Contra cocaine smuggling operation.
Aquino sued the Army in 1988 to have his record cleared, but he lost.
“In denying Aquino’s motion, the court concluded ‘there was a probable cause to title Aquino with offenses of indecent acts with a child, sodomy, conspiracy, kidnapping and false swearing,’” McGowan wrote.
The recently released and heavily redacted FBI records show other attempts by Aquino to protect his—and Satan’s—reputation.
According to the records, Aquino wrote to the FBI in August 1987, complaining that the negative stigma associated with his Satanic church is what led to the sex-abuse accusations.
“It would be naive of me not to suppose that my religious office in the Temple of Set was of concern to you when making your assessment of the situation. After all, the Temple is an avowedly Satanist institution, and Satanists are popularly assumed to be bad people,” he said to a special agent, whose name is redacted.
“The irony of all this is that the Temple of Set has worked very hard since its founding in 1975 to be a decent, constructive, and responsible organization.”
In another letter, written in September 1987 to the San Francisco Police Department, Aquino demanded that the agency stop associating the words “Satanic” and “Satanism” with crime.
“These are terms particular to a bona-fide and officially recognized religion in the United States which is not in any sense a criminal activity,” he said.
Almost four years later, Aqunio wrote to the U.S. Army Intelligence and Security Command on May 3, 1991, complaining that his Temple of Set was being characterized as a “sadomasochistic devil-worshipping sect.”
“This is completely false,” Aqunio griped, pointing to the Temple of Set’s tax-exempt status.
In response to this letter, Aquino was told that his complaints will be added to his file “so any future reader of this material will have the benefit of your comments and observations.”
The dark mystery surrounding Aquino continues to this day.
It seems as though someone or something is attempting to suppress information about the Satanic Army colonel. When researching for this article, Headline USA found that Aquino’s Wikipedia page has been wiped.
“This submission’s references do not show that the subject qualifies for a Wikipedia article,” his page states, explaining why recent article submissions about him have been denied.
Ken Silva is a staff writer at Headline USA. Follow him at twitter.com/jd_cashless.
